silly silly

I just realised that someone who bought one of my hairbands from Etsy never actually paid me for it. I stupidly got so excited about someone buying it that I went and posted it straight away (and even left feedback) without double checking that the payment actually came through. Silly silly me.

Anyway, I've sent them an email hoping that my opinion that everyone on Etsy are kind wonderful souls will not be swayed.

But lets just say I've learnt my lesson. I was very silly, and am thankful it was a small item, not a painting or something.

umm

You can probably tell, but I'm really lost for things to say at the moment. I've been busy working on this website, and that's about it really. Oh, apart from pining for a cat. It's the strangest thing. I've never really wanted one before. I've never owned one before. I'm more of a dog person (if someone was to ask), but this week I'm desperate to get a cat. Maybe it has something to do with finding the baby last week, having a small but potent taste of taking care of someone, I want more. I guess you could say I'm clucky, but for fur, more purry I suppose.

It all started with an article from the Cat Protection Society in the paper about Casey, a friendly confident cat who needs a new home. Then I went to the website to look at others. There was Precious who's previous owner had Alzheimer's and was unable to care for him. Jinx’s family had a new baby and got rid of him. Louie’s humans moved into a unit where cats were not permitted. Maggie’s owners were moving overseas and could not take her with them. Sebastian was being harassed by the children in his home. Star came to CPS as a stray with kittens. Oooo, it was all too much.

Now I'm worried of I go there I'll come home with all of them.

In the meantime we've kind of adopted an imaginary Casey. As I sit down on the couch with a cup of tea I call out for Casey to come sit with me. When I go out to the back garden I hold the door open a little longer to give fake-Casey time to get through. When I hear a noise I call out "Casey is that you?"

Mr You is a cat person. Infact I've often wondered if he is the king of the cat people; when we go for a walk ALL the neighbourhood cats come running to him, kneel at his feet, and roll around for a smooch. So he has been silently beaming this week since I've seemingly come around to the idea of having one. As we sit on the couch with our cup of tea watching fake-Casey stretch, we've been chatting. I 've been asking a billion questions: I know you can't punish cats and teach them like dogs, but what happens if they start walking all over the kitchen bench? Can you teach them not to claw at the sides of the lounge? Will we need to leave a window open all the time so they can go to the toilet outside, or do you have kitty-litter inside? If we get an older cat will they miss their old owner too much and poo on our furinture to show us that they don't like us as much? How can we stop them wanting to eat the parrots in the garden?

Anyway, as the questions keep coming, I'm going to wait it out for a week, just to make sure this urge is not just a fleeting hormonal phase. Then I think we plan to go talk to the real-estate agent to see if the line about "no pets" in the lease contract is set in concrete.

Now, if you please excuse me, I think fake-Casey is hungry for some breakfast. Do cats like museli?

shadow chasing

I found a baby! It was hours ago, on my walk this-morning, but for some reason I’m still thinking about it.

I came around a corner and there was a baby. He was about, ooo at a guess I’d say 14 months: only just walking, not yet talking. He was high-tailing it along the footpath of a very busy road without an adult anywhere to be seen.

I wasn’t sure what to do, but I was sure I wasn’t going to leave him next to a busy road on his own, that’s for sure! It’s funny, all sorts of things went through my head…

My first instinct was to pick him up, but I didn’t as I feared the mother would appear at that very moment and scream out that I was kidnapping him. I was also very cautious about touching him for the same reason. I just started asking him where his mummy was and if he could show me where his house was (in my best playschool voice) while stepping in the direction he kept trying to go, to keep him in the same spot. But he just kept pointing to his shadow, which he was now starting to chase. I didn’t have my phone on me, and all I could think of was taking him to the primary school I could see nearby and asking them to phone the police.

But again I thought I was best just keeping him where he was, as I was sure it wouldn’t be long till his mummy came looking. As soon as I made up my mind to do that he started dashing down the path. I grabbed his soft chubby little hand and started walking him back. Not sure of which direction he came from I took a punt and decide to start knocking on doors (although I didn’t like the idea in case a weirdo claimed him). Just then a woman (wearing the facial expression of a mother who has just realised her baby is gone) came running up over the hill towards me. I knew from her expression immediately it was his mummy, and the ordeal was all over. She asked me where I found him, swooped him up in her arms and thanked-me swiftly and all in a panic. Then they were gone. I saw them go back home which was only about 3 houses away, but still that’s a long way from home for a baby, and even though the whole thing only lasted 5 minutes, it seemed like a very long time.

She looked like a nice mummy; a mummy who hadn’t slept well in over a year. And when I saw the business man carrying a folder at her front gate I pieced together a story about the real estate agent who came to visit, left the gate open and distracted the mummy long enough for the baby (with the enthusiasm of a every baby who’s just conquered the walking thing) to escape.
I crossed the road and continued walking. She smiled and waved at me from across the street while still being talked to by the business man. I got the impression that as soon as he left she would go inside, hug her baby tight, and have a good cry; a cry of exhaustion, fear, love and relief.

The weird thing was that I wasn’t supposed to walk that way this-morning, I was going to pick up my friend and drive to a park. But she cancelled and I walked around my own neighbourhood instead. At least 4 times I was about to turn back, but didn’t, and kept on going. I found the baby right near the end of my walk.


The baby didn’t even notice anything was amiss. I felt such a strong protective instinct for him in those few moments, and it was all over so quickly, that I’ve been wondering about him and missing him all day.

He was so cute and was wearing a tiny striped t-shirt. Good-night baby, sleep tight. .xx.

more on illustration as art

Thanks friendly’s for the great comments (with great passion I might add) on my previous post. I agree completely. The links were great, thank-you! But just to clarify, I didn't feel at all inferior to the "artists" the other night. I would just like to have the ability to open a line of intelligent conversation about illustration in an art language that they would understand, try to increase awareness. (Hence needing to do some research).

I actually feel more in tune with current culture than I feel they are sometimes. I sometimes feel as though they are all bubbled up in the world of art: the lifestyle and the scene, but I believe art should be about the real world, everyday life; a documentation of our slice of lifetime. So I DO absolutely believe that illustration is art, and I spend a great deal of time thinking about how this new movement fits in. I personally think it has something to do with the amount of catastrophic doom we are met with on the front pages of the papers each morning (global climate crisis, war, terrorism, massive natural disasters, etc), the feeling of people power no longer existing, being governed by politicians who have learnt to play the game, rather than taking responsibility for reality...

I think illustrators aren’t just responding to a brief (because in most cases they’re not at the moment, they are creating their own works), they are undergoing exactly the same process as "artists" and responding to what's going on around us. Consciously or not, they are currently taking the aesthetic back to an innocent childlike nature, with idealistic landscapes and Disney like critters (check out all those deer’s and birds), but with a dark twist. Perhaps all to give us some respite, but also get in tune with that childlike emotional state; innocence combined with hope, optimism, surrealism and things not quite making sense. That feeling like we're not yet big enough to have an impact, the state I for one feel everyday because the problems seem too big to fix.

A singular figure, with the proportions of a child, alone in a strange environment. How are they going to get out of this one?

If anyone has seen Pan’s Labyrinth yet, I think it's like that. Living in a world gone wrong, and retreating to a fantasy place that somehow helps us cope.

Anyways, that’s kinda what I’m thinking. Am I off track? What do you think?

(p.s. illo is a very old one, but I dug it up 'cause it kinda suited the ramble)

is there a line, and where is it drawn?

Hope everyone had a suitably sweet Valentines Day. I am freakishly busy at the moment, so again won't have a chance to do Illustration Friday this week, or much else really. I long to get back to sewing and making more brooches with all those new vintage buttons I've acquired, but they'll all have to sit tight and wait a while.

I did get to escape for a while last night and go to an exhibition opening at an art gallery. We bumped into a stack of people there that we haven't seen in years. All people I went to uni with. One is an artist who is pretty successful these days who has a residency in LA for half the year and then comes back for a residency at a studio in Sydney for half the year. Another is an artist who is also pretty successful these days and has a residency in Germany, and is currently on a 2 week residency in Sydney. Another... well you get the gist, it went on.

I used to hate going to exhibition openings for that very reason, it's all so sceney, and I'd always bump into someone I no longer had anything in common with. But last night it was fun, I felt good catching up. Still, when I mentioned illustration they took it as a profession rather than an art form.

So my question is this: Has anyone read any good articles about the resurgence of illustration, and how it fits into the world of art? Or indeed where the line is drawn between the two? I tend to believe the line is really starting to blur, and I often think about the art of French poster illustrators (Toulouse-Lautrec, etc), and how they are now considered art. I have read a little about what they've called this new "lowbrow" art movement, which encompasses Mark Ryden. And I am aware of at least one gallery in Sydney that seems to see the world the way I do these days (Outre Gallery), but I'm really keen to find out more about how this whole phenomenon. So if anyone has any good resources, I'd love to hear about them. Thanks.

stitches and craft show

On Thursday Mum and I went to the Stitches and Craft show. It's a convention filled with craft supply stalls mostly. This year the scrapbooking army seems to have subsided a little, making a bit more room for beautiful quilting fabrics (yes I got some, you know I can't resist), beads and buttons (among loads of other things).

I accosted a poor girl who was wearing the most amazing felted necklace/scarf kind of thing. Seriously we were on an escalator, she had no where to go! She made it herself, and turns out it was JD the "felt girl" from Craftster. She was nice. She has a similar (but not quite the same) felted necklace thingo in her Etsy store, it's well worth a look!

Anyway, I came home with beads, and fabrics, and notebooks and stuff, inspired and excited! So I got stuck in and made 2 necklaces (both now available in my Etsy store). I love them both so much!

I’ve also finally loaded up some hairbands and 3 little paintings. I did them a few weeks ago, they are of ladies wearing period French costume. Not the grandiose Marie Antoinette kind, these are provincial costumes: more conservative, but no less quirky.

They come from a dusty, but lovely old book I have…


So you can check out my renditions in my store:
www.flossyparticles.etsy.com

sprout

My Illustration Friday attempt for "sprout".

She had hoped to sprout wings and fly away...

feel the love

All of the beautiful works are pouring through to Susan's Lovely Hearts exhibition. There are LOADs of them, now all for sale online too (in case, like me, you're too far away from New Hampshire to make it to the exhibition). There's such a great variety of creations, all under $100, and at least half of all of the purchase costs goes to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.
Buzz and Whalesong Serenade (originals) are now both available to buy!

Oh, and remember I have a real-life name, so don't click the link if you don't want to know it. ;)
(although both works are signed flossy-p)

15 things

eeeeee-heheheheheheheheheheheheheheeeee


Sorry I’ve got the giggles. Why? My sweet friend Rania over at GoshDarnit has just tagged me with the “5 Things” meme. (hehehehe). This boomerang just keeps on coming back at me, so I’m now up to “15 things”. Can you bear it? Can you cope learning even more trivial tid-bits about lil-ol’me? I just can’t say no. So without any further a due, here’s my (what’s quickly becoming a weekly column) 5 things:

1) I am what people refer to as a “short-ass”. I don’t only have a short ass, I have a whole short body. It only goes up as far as 5 feet and 1 inch.

2) Mr You is 6 foot 2, so there’s more than a foot of height difference between us. We were once at a waterfall lookout and turned around to catch a family of Scottish tourists pointing at us behind our backs and making hand gestures about the difference in our heights. They blushed as red as their hair when they saw that we had seen them. I’m pretty sure I blushed too.

3) I also have tiny feet. I spent all of my uni years with masking tape around my ankles to stop my socks from sliding off my feet. I’ve since discovered children’s socks, so my sock drawer is now filled with puppy dogs and teddy bears and pokemon. Luckily I wear boots to hide them in Winter.

4) My foot is the same length as Mr You’s hand, and my middle finger is the same length as Mr You’s big toe.

5) When I was a child and my mum told me she was pregnant I remember her asking me if I would prefer a little brother or a little sister. I asked if she could please have a big sister for me. I had a sister, and despite the 5 year age difference it didn’t take long for her to become taller than me, so I got my wish after all.


Now, if I haven’t tagged you already, and you haven’t already done this one, consider yourself tagged by me. (Let me know so I can claim the credit – hehehe)

Rules are:
1. someone tags you,
2. you post five things about yourself that you haven’t already mentioned on your blog,
3. you tag people you’d like to know more about.