A room of ones own stuff

Yesterday I took great delight in nestling into my studio, just that feeling of making it me.

There is still stuff everywhere, OMG which really does my head in, I just want it organized in a flash. (mind you I'm perfectly ok with my studio full of stuff) The fact that our home had been washed over with stuff from the move didn't help either. So a big throw out is on its way, like living on a boat, one thing comes in, one thing goes out. Or whatever you keep is only known to be beautiful or useful
( depending upon ones definition of useful, that can be a broad evaluation).

At the moment it looks like a sea of misplaced thoughts, well not quite, you can see it has some direction but I'm just trying to be in the moment and one step in front of each other.

Mindfullness.

The elms in the avenue are just perfect at the moment and I have used them as floral arrangements through our home.

My Remedy for chaos: Just a jug of flowers in our home gives me a spring in my step.

Bill's built the mezzanine level for storage of all the artworks and now is onto the darkroom and that will be built by next week, which will enable us to get all the wedding stationery samples ready for photography and develop the new website. Meanwhile we are sorting out new invoicing do it all finance systems, anyone out there have an idea, apparently Myob is a good option. We have always done it manually before but we are ready now for some sophistication.

Fine tuning for the wedding stationery launch, which I am so itching to launch...itching itching itching with excitement and a few nerves.

Our Gordon Platen press is together, it made my heart ache to see it all in pieces on the floor, so that's been a relief and back on track feeling. All the presses are put back together.

Big bonus is that Bill's toe is now a beautiful pink colour and the doctors are happy how the operation went, so all is well there.

We had Open house day today, a lot of the heritage homes open their doors every year here in Hill End  and ours included.

We have conserved her rather than restore her. Our home didn't need a personality change just propping up again and a bouquet of flowers, re instating the garden, she was happy being a grand old lady.

It was the thought of cleaning up that was daunting with our move, but the spare back room has more stuff crammed into it and our home came up like a dream, some window dressing came in handy.

The vacuum cleaner went into overdrive and three goes of emptying it into the paddock next to us, Tango's dog hair forming its own carpet. I'm really not into cleaning at all it takes me away from my creativity, but when it's done, I feel really centered and calm.

 I decided to cruise today, no high performance tours, just chill and chatted to a few people, most were just directed through.

It's always really rewarding to do this, just reminds you how far you have come, I can tell you we have come a long way. Our home was a romantic ruin and the visitors encouragement makes it all worthwhile.

We are getting there, it's all very close.

Oh! do not attack me with your watch.
A watch is either to fast or slow.
I cannot be dictated by a watch
Jane Austen

Genevieve X
hillendpress.com.au

You begin with a laugh but end up just wanting to be cosmos blowing in the wind

We have started to move into our studio all the printmaking equipment.

The presses are cumbersome, large and very heavy, one walks around pondering how this is going to turn out, goes without saying, anxieties levels are high. One to just get them out of the door of our old studio to the new location about one kilometer down the road, all going in a box trailor.

Bill decided to dismantle the Gordon platen press, its top heavy and sitting on an insecure floor made of timber, this has to be well thought about, the navigation of this one out the door, it's our baby and our business. I can't bare this stage, wish I could wave a magic wand and it was all assembled in its new environment.

But it's not the case.

So here we go, 6 friends and a heave ho, only for me to catch my hand between the press and the door, doctors and bandage, I'm ok but just very sore, and lucky not more damage to my hand was done.

The platen all in pieces arrives at our new space happy and settled.

No 2, the etching press.

Six friends again lifting it off the stand it was on, fine, shunting it out the door takes many angles and enquires, but it's through, now onto the trailor, one big heave ho and its shunted onto Bill's foot causing incredible pain.

Bill keeps going with the move only to find the next day that he has shattered the big toe bones and the wound is open.

Two days later, our new studio lies dormant, we ended up going to Hospital for two days, Bill having his big toe operated on, all the bones are shattered and there is a gaping wound down the side of his toe.

An open fracture.

We both look at this as a forced rest, we have being going flat chat on the buildings works for six months now and even though its been an exciting process its has been demanding on us juggling everything else that goes on in our daily lives as well.

So I get stuck into my reading, finishing off books that have been piled high beside the bed and Bill dreams his on an island with a blue cap on.

It worked, we feel relaxed by just changing our thinking. Mindfullness. 

We return home with Bill now wearing a boot that would be very fashionable in Japan and vowing never again to move the presses.

At the moment it could be nice being cosmos blowing in the wind.

hillendpress.com.au

Tabi or not tabi

Steady on, forward....

The studio is really coming on now, last week saw us lining the ceiling with ply board, insulation and its big silver blanket to keep us warm.

This week was the serious task of putting the iron up on the roof, so much for my humor Bill got out his Tabi shoes that we got in Japan. In Japan this is their normal workwear for building sites, or so we were told, I'm a bit dubious, maybe a hundred years ago, but maybe not.

They are perfect for the roofing as they are flexible on the ladders and roof and the big toe has a large advantage of clinging on like a monkey. So instead of using them as a fashion statement as Bill usually does he has put them into action in their right place.

Anyway so far they have been a big success and Bill is thrilled to be using them for what they were designed for. Building sites in Japan used bamboo poles as scaffolding, these shoes made men's feet sprightly spring around from one pole to the next.  Nothing like looking cool on a building site.

You must remember to buy the socks when you purchase a pair.

inky spinky spatty day

 

All the grapes are coming on now, there's plenty for the parrots and us.

Studio raising

Nothing like raising the roof and seeing your vision.

Well our temple to art and printmaking is up, (or the cult we thought we may start) well the framework anyway, after a week of Bill welding the pieces of steel and friends coming in and helping with the final parts, then it went up. .
It went up a lot quicker than we thought and a few beers with a plate of pickled onions, goats cheese and biscuits spurred it on.

We are both absolutely exhausted today, after yesterday of getting at a very reasonable price, 15 bales of insulation, a new fridge given to us by Bill's son, ours is ok, if you can live with collapsing shelves and a freezer that hasn't heard about climate change, it looks like Antartica. So that was exciting.
 I want to spray it a hip colour now. Olive Green maybe.

Plus onboard we had 30 sheets of ply on the roof of the car and in between hiking up to Wyong, an hour and a bit drive from Sydney we collected all the items we needed for the next building stage.

I bought Tango a dog harness on the way, this was my confidence level of getting every hardware item back to Hill End in our 350 thousand on the clock kms car and trailor.

The worse part is the semi trailors hurtling down the express way and we could only do 60 - 70 kms with every rear view mirror being spoilt for lookouts of flying insulation.

Thank goodness for grey ducktape.

So we had to drive up there and then come back down into Sydney afternoon traffic and head out again across the ranges.

But we made it I am happy to say, starting off at 9.00am in the morning from Sydney and getting home by 10.oo pm  such a long day with anxiety levels  creeping in and crappy take away food, I'm so organic now with my eating I reel back at anything else, well not exactly but it concerns me.

Bill is up the back at the building site preparing work benches for when we climb the roof to put all the hardware on, I've put flowers in the Hill End pub this morning and this afternoon I was going to get into my art.

 
The best thing is that we are so thrilled with the pitch of the roof, we were a bit hesitant at first with this as it was quite a bit of extra work for Bill to get this as the other option would be to buy a shed kit  and it wouldn't have had what this has which is very special with the wow factor.

So its always that thing of determination and trusting your gut instinct, which was Bill. I was concerned with the time and cost, but actually going this way has been cheaper and we are on target with our budget, so you can't complain about that. 

So tomorrow, back to printing at Holtermanns and yoga in the morning, because very soon I will be scaling that roof.