Our own unique artistic way of living in Hill End- Open Studio Day 5th October 2014 Come along!

HILL END ARTS COUNCIL: OPEN STUDIO DAY 2014

HILL END ARTS COUNCIL: OPEN STUDIO DAY 2014

I'm over chopping firewood

Every year we say we are going to get organize on the subject of firewood. But as soon as the cold comes in all plans go to the chilly wind and it becomes a day to day effort. The romance of splitting timber and making sure the corduroy snakes are up against the door wears off in your first year very quickly.

Let me tell you it's a mission that is relentless and we are up and down constantly keeping a vigilance on the fire. Decisions of will we light one fire or two in the front cottage. To gee that fire works well tonight or we need to pump up that fire to I'm fucking freezing and a waterbottle between my legs.

From understanding what is  good wood to burn to what will take 10 packets of firelighters to kick off. Which let me tell you is no fun when the kindling and firewood is saturated from a weeks worth of rain. We end up cooking them up on top of the combustion fire to dry them out before we put them into the fire. But understanding the right type of  firewood doesn't help split the timber in preparation for the season of fire.

Instead of cicadas in the air we hear chainsaws going around the surrounding properties.

Once in our 10 year time here I have split a whole load of firewood, it was really hard work and took me all afternoon to do it, I felt organized and satisfied, to just go to our wood box at night and have a selection of dry timber. But because it was all split it felt like a lolly shop and I think we went through more timber that time. Oh to be this disciplined with each timber load, but I'd rather do other things to be honest. I really really want a magic elf to come and do it for us and totally understand why they had so many kids in the past to keep the fires going. The cottages we live in they had 9 children and four fires to keep going.

My uncle growing up on his farm at the back of Canberra was given an axe at the age of five, this was normal (no soften playgrounds here) and it was a great pride to him and his brother to be given this responsibility with never hurting themselves either. They both constantly chopped firewood for the home as kids, that was part of their chores. One day they saw this object in the sky and didn't know what it was and they hid their axes under the wood pile in fear they would be taken by this strange object, it was the very first time they saw a plane fly over and their priority was the axes. They knew at a very young age how important that wood pile was to their family.

So with all this explained I can't tell you how we are so so very pleased we put underfloor heating in our printmaking studio, you can imagine how much we love this. After googling up what they do in Canada for insulation, Bill did the same, friends thought it was over doing it, but we wrapped the studio in a big warm cardigan under the slab, sides and over the roof. 

Oh my goodness it's bliss on our mental psyche and productivity and down the future we will put in a  better combustion stove in our lounge room something with a force fan I think.

Tea eggs for easter

I ' m (we're)  p o o p   d e   d o o p e d ! 

Basically because we have been so very busy of late, our tin type, photogravure and letterpress workshops are taking off  and in between all of this came Easter, so this is a late entry but that's ok.

I'm a wee bit tired but fully content.

New routines are to be had with the workshops and a tiny re tuning.

A nice place to be.

(Yes I do recall at the beginning of the year I stated that we are going to work extra harder this year, I'm eating my words already)

Today I'm just going to re centre in my garden, plant the new hedge for the large circle in the middle of the paddock. The plan that one day we can spend our frolicking lunches in the middle of the circle of snake bark maples and hedging plants, it will be our own little private space inside a larger private space.

Does this make sense?

Probably not because there I go working again, planting Versailles in the front paddock. Actually I'm having another go at it, the last effort we had huge amounts of rain and the maples little feet were waterlogged and drowned, so a change of design for a more robust hedge.

I want it like a hedgerow, all messy and lots of different varieties of plants, rambling romantic.

Today I don't mind if it doesn't make sense because its our first day off in 4 weeks and my mind is feeling like a circle within a circle.

Here's what we ate for Easter and it was the best best Easter this year, friends and family came to stay and the tea eggs that was my specialty for the Easter table was a a crowd pleaser and topped it off with Pukara Estate truffle olive oil. 

D i v i n e   d i v i n e   d  i v i n e .

Tea eggs from the beautiful blog and totally relate to this goddess moving to the country side site
mimithorisson.com/‎ 

Cumquats and aluminium office sliding doors

I made this cumquat jam from 30 year old trees that were planted when my twins sons were born.

It's still warm, no sign of any Autumn chill at all, the hedging roses are even showing a puff of  pink bloom and the cumquat trees are fruiting.

The paddocks are so green for this time of the year. 

V e r y   s t r a n g e   i n d e e d y .

what can I write about?

 We have been sitting up in bed for years having our cups of tea first thing in the morning in the same mugs and toast with jam. This is how we have always started the morning, you know how we all have rituals, well this is ours, especially here in Hill End when the winter frosts come in. 

B u t   a l a s   w e   a r e   c h a n g i n g   a l l   t h i s !

Why are we changing this?

Well it's called vanity and things are speeding up around Hill End Press.

The workshops are booking up.

We've got lots to do.

Our tummies are becoming a little too big for our liking as well, so now we have just tea, black tea and still in bed, up at seven with Bill jogging and me walking with Tango the wonder dog.

We've become so crazily virtuous.

Working in the countryside is very different to city life. You have a very expanded timetable that doesn't really have any demarcation of when to stop, so we tend to just keep working from the morning to late at night, but that goes with the territory of having your own business anyway right.

I said to Bill the other day that I'm going to build an office in the middle of the paddock, aluminum sliding doors, nylon curtains and swivel chairs, so people will really believe we are working.

Country life always has the appearance that we are frolicking, oh how I wish.

Having a home office has its pluses and minuses.

The plus is we have no peak hour traffic and our own pace and timetable and this incredible landscape, the minus is that it can get lonely sometimes you can miss the different personalities and distractions filtering in and out of say a city office environment.

W h y   d i d   w e   c h o o s e   H i l l   E n d   t o   l i v e ?

 All the artists that make the arts residency pilgrimage flow through each year always makes for very inspiring company, the landscape and the expanded nature.

Do I miss the city? Not really, although I must say except my children and theatre, I miss them at times. I find now when I go to the city that I miss that sense of distance that I have in Hill End, the views. The difference in me is that I would have lived on the town clock if possible when I was younger but now.

Hill End always delivers some moment that can be timeless or fleeting, challenging or difficult but either way it always alters ones way of thinking in a good way  and approach to the world, I think its that it makes one think in ways that you would never have thought.

To be honest I've learnt so much since moving here.
Which was nine years ago.
I think it's really about being diverse and open to what is presented each day, not to worry about the what ifs. 

I've learnt this very big time.

Country driving and what if I break down, dusk driving with roos, which timber is best on the fire, chilly drafts and lengths of masking tape along the windows, isolation, having a kitchen in a separate building, the distinct seasons, living and working together, making a business work in a remote place.

They've all been challenges that at times have been big hurdles and I'm glad that we are out the other side, we get it now and understand how it works.

The funny thing is that it did always work ok it was just how I viewed and prepared for it.

It's brought a strength out in us both that we never knew was there.