Florence

We traveled to Campbell Town to see this excellent production that was performed by Louise Moyes from Newfoundland, Canada. Louise is well known for the one-woman shows she creates, working with the rhythms of voice, language and accent as a musical score. This piece was performed in English and French using music, video and dance. She recreated the life of the lively and funny storyteller, musician and dancer Florence Leprieur, as documented at age 94. It was a celebration of Florence's creative spirit!

Floating

This terrific production from Anglesey, Wales was performed by Hugh Hughes and Sioned Rowlands. It was a comic and beautiful tale of the island that floated away ... across the Atlantic, to the Arctic and beyond

Ethel

Ethel from Manhattan, USA was the first '10 days on the Island' event that Noel and I attended.
They performed some of Ethel's greatest hits at the iconic Albert Hall here in Launceston.
I thought that they were brilliant and came home with 2 of their CDs.

Ethel is Cornelius Dufallo (violin), Ralph Ferris (viola), Dorothy Lawson (cello0 and Mary Rowell (violin)

Vale Dan Seals

Dan Seals who emerged as a country music star after performing as one half England Dan & John Ford Coley, died this evening from complications of lymphoma.

Seals, 61, was born in West Texas but moved to Dallas as a teenager. He and John Ford Coley became the toast of 1976 when their single, I'd really Love to See You Tonight and their Album, Nights are Forever, became gold records selling more than 500,000 copies. The duo also recorded an album titled Dowdy Ferry Road that was named after a thoroughfare in their neighbourhood of Pleasant Grove.

Dan's brother Jim was part of the multi-platinum-selling duo, Seals and Crofts.

As a solo artist, dan Seals recorded 16 studio albums with more than 20 singles in the country charts. They included Everything that Glitters(is not Gold), Bop and Meet me in Montana (with Marie Osmond.

Dan Seals was a Baha'i. His manager since 1979, Tony Gottlieb has said that if we want to honour Dan we should oppose bigotry, intolerance and prejudice.

Reference: Michael Granberry, The Dallas Morning News

Seeking Layli at Waterhouse Conservation Area

Today we met with a group of friends for a Seeking Layli Devotional. The Waterhouse Conservation Area was the site selected for today. It is a very beautiful area. We spent time exploring a small part of the rocky shoreline and we were captivated by the rich diversity of the rock pool populations as well as the rock formations.

The Waterhouse Conservation Area in Tasmania's north-east contains many wetland communities, including three major permanent deep-water lagoons - Blackmans Lagoon and Big Waterhouse and Little Waterhouse lakes.

Little Waterhouse Lake is listed under the Ramsar Convention as an internationally significant wetland. It is a very productive lake, supporting a high diversity of species, including species of particular conservation significance such as the rare Wolfia australis, the smallest flowering plant in the world.

Extensive, relict dune systems formed during the Ice Age can be seen in the north of the reserve extending from Croppies Points through to Tomahawk Beach.

The Waterhouse Conservation Area encompasses a diverse range of vegetation communities, including one of the largest areas of heathland on the north-east coast, a vegetation community which has been greatly reduced in extent since European settlement.

These diverse habitats support a rich fauna. Nine threatened species of bird and at least three, and possibly four, of Tasmania’s six species of threatened mammals are found in the reserve, as is a rare freshwater fish - the dwarf galaxias - and the vulnerable green and golden frog. Blackmans Lagoon and its feeder creeks constitute probably the single most important site in the State for the green and golden frog.

maggie and millie and molly and may

maggie and milly and molly and may
went down to the beach (to play one day)

and maggie discovered a shell that sang
so sweetly she couldn’t remember her troubles,and

milly befriended a stranded star
whose rays five languid fingers were;

and molly was chased by a horrible thing
which raced sideways while blowing bubbles:and

may came home with a smooth round stone
as small as a world and as large as alone.

For whatever we lose(like a you or a me)
it’s always ourselves we find in the sea

ee cummings

Painting the front steps

Our weather is currently perfect for outdoor painting, so, during the past 3 days we have been painting the front fence, the front stairs and the house foundations. This morning I began painting the actual steps that lead to our front door. We have dramatically changed the colour of the stairs and house foundations from brown to Truly Teal.

Flowers

Naked Lady Amaryllis belladonna in the back garden

Sunflower in the Keenoo garden

Thousand-Hand Guan Yin

Original postcards in the post ...

I belong to a wonderful internet group: UK Paper Arts which is based in the UK. There are members from many countries and we have developed a very supportive and encouraging online community of folk involved in many art forms. From time to time we have swaps of our art work. Recently our listmother, Patty, organised a swap of original postcards. This morning my package arrived and it was very exciting to unwrap the parcel and find the colourful cards representing such a terrific range of styles and media. Thank you to everyone who participated! The cards are great!

Silk dye workshop at George Town

Today, Noel and I travelled to George Town, where we conducted a workshop at the home of a good friend, Chris Price. There were twelve participants and each of them completed two silk scarves. We used Landscape acid milling dyes on the silk scarves. We used a resist technique to achieve the patterns on the scarves. Each of the participants tied their silk scarves to an empty straight sided bottle with strong thread, before applying the dyes. The scarves were then steamed for 15 minutes to fix the dyes into the silk fibres. They were all amazed by the very diverse results, even though they had used the same basic techniques and colours.

Exhibition opening in Hobart

This is my contribution to the show.

Today I travelled to Hobart to attend the opening of an exhibition which is part of the Ten Days on the Island Festival. I was one of a large number of artists, writers, musicians, chefs and dancers from Australia and around the world, who were invited to submit a piece to be included in the exhibition. The artists were asked to create a 2 dimensional, paper based visual response to a section of a map of Tasmania. Tasmania 1:100,000. The curators are Diane Perndt and Penny Carey-Wells.