songs of light

poetryandcloth.com

So . . . thanks to MYOB I have myself a new website. Hooray! It's been a long time coming but worth the wait. I will be working on more designs today and looking out the window and sighing with happiness at it all. Take a look and let me know what you think x x

fleeting

Morning flows across the land, watched only by me and a lone magpie.

Suddenly the whole world is gold and blue and green . . . and the clouds, when did I last see such clouds?

These days I can feel autumn slipping away, but I am not ready for her to go.

Please stay a little longer,

let the magpie finish his song, while at the window I stand with my heart open, listening.

May it always be so.

children's portraits

I hope to get a website up and running soon for my portrait work but in the mean time . . . I am currently doing sessions at half price. Sessions are usually $200.00 but I am currently charging only $100.00. I will spend at least an hour photographing your little one, and you will receive a cd of high resolution images all individually edited in colour and black and white.

* For those of you who usually read this blog the above post may be at the top of the blog for a little while, so check under it for new posts please!

shameless plug

I'm working on some new designs for clothing, which I am excited about. I'm excited because they are all going to be made with organic cotton and nothing makes a greenie like me happier than helping the planet! The new designs are yet to be put onto screens, so I have begun with old designs on organic T- shirts made by the brand Earth Positive.

Available now on felt.

the perfection problem

I watched an interesting program about Andris Apse today. He is a very well known New Zealand landscape photographer. Generations to come will owe him a debt of gratitude for recording these sacred places before they disappear. (Oh please may they never disappear.)

Andris walks into the wild places of this country, often for weeks at a time, looking for that magic image. It is not uncommon for him to go away for a week and not take a single picture. If he can't find exactly what he wants he won't get his camera out.

He talked about how he would like to make a book of 100 perfect images of New Zealand's wild places. But then he smiled as he said that would probably take him another twenty years, because he is so hard to please. Twenty or thirty images in he'd take a picture that was better than the others, and he'd want to start over.

And I thought about how whenever I take a photo, even a good one, I measure it against every other photo I have ever seen. Isn't it odd that we don't see anything as standing alone? Everything we see we silently judge. We've seen better, we've seen worse. But how can we really judge anything when each thing is unique and each heart and each pair of eyes sees something different in it? Maybe whatever we make, whether it is a building or a paper plane, is simply what it is. No more, no less. Just it's own beautiful self. I think there is something quite lovely in that idea.

autumn leaves and Mary Oliver . . . of course

There's something about this time of year, melancholy, yet invigorating all at once. I love the smell of woodsmoke on the wind, the faded colours and the low lying fog. Mary Oliver always says it best -

"As for life, 
I'm humbled, 
I'm without words
sufficient to say

how it has been hard as flint, 
and soft as a spring pond, 
both of these
and over and over, 

and long pale afternoons besides, 
and so many mysteries
beautiful as eggs in a nest, 
still unhatched

though warm and watched over
by something I have never seen— 
a tree angel, perhaps,
or a ghost of holiness."

Sigh . . . exactly.

magic

So strange how the words you need right now, seem to rise out of the page you're working on, without you even knowing that it's happening. And then you stop, and read it back to yourself, and it slowly sinks in. Huh. Where does this message come from? Yourself? The Universe? No matter, it is here. Gotta love that blackout art.

 

attention

"I don't know exactly what a prayer is. I do know how to pay attention, how to fall down into the grass, how to kneel in the grass, how to be idle and blessed, how to stroll through the fields, which is what I have been doing all day. Tell me, what else should I have done?"

- Mary Oliver

* Images of my parent's organic walnut orchard, where the nuts are slowly beginning to fall.

morning comes . . .

Morning comes before I'm ready, and with it a holy light that pours itself between the trees outside my window.

Suddenly the grasses are on fire and so am I as I run to grab my camera, pulling on shoes and praying all the while, "Please wait, please wait, I'm coming."

Running through the paddock I see the light leave the grasses I am heading towards. I stop and sigh, "Too late."

But then as I turn to go I see more beauty light up, here, and here, and here. And I remember, nothing is ever taken away without a new gift given in it's place.

the fabulous Lotta Jansdotter . . .

I've been wanting this book for ages, so I was super excited to find it on etsy for $6.00! Of course the postage all the way to NZ made it a bit more expensive, but still it was  a bargain, and I love me a bargain! I love Lotta because her designs are so simple that you feel like maybe you could do it too.

I love how her designs are so peaceful and calm. They remind me a little of children's drawings and I mean that as a compliment. They are not trying to be anything but what they are.

Of course reading this lovely book inspired me to make my own stencil.

I was so happy with the print I made with my stencil. I actually like it best on the wrong side of the fabric, with just the faint shape showing through like it is here in the photo. I think I'm going to make it into a little drawstring bag. And all those drawings of Lotta's made me feel free enough to sit at the old blue kitchen table and draw and draw and draw. Without judgement. What? I know!!!! Miraculous! And I even came up with a new screen print design. Bless that Lotta Jansdotter :)