September 7, 2008

Collecting Treasure

We collected as we drove. Little souvenirs for our dashboard, reminding us of each special place we visited.
It made me smile to have these items framing our windscreen, the sunlight changing the shadows throughout the day.
I've photographed them on our dash, to share.

A tumble stick.
Our first beach stop. We ran and snuggled in the dunes. We peeled and ate oranges from Bindoon.

A seaside creature.
From this same beach. Amongst the seaweed we found odd creatures that combined flora and fauna and mineral.

Our totem's feather.
The wedge tail eagle made many appearances on our journey. He circled above us, he flew alongside us. We found one dead by the road and plucked this feather.

Quartz.
Is it? Or is it granite? I collected this from the ground of a derelict farm. We had entered against permission to track down some indigenous rock art. The farmers gave us the correct directions and we found ancient drawings on a hill of rocks.

Red Seedpod.
Almost in Broome. The sun shone through these pods lighting them up a rich red. We pulled over to pick one off its branch. It was surprisingly soft. We let it dry and curl on the dash.

Flowery fossil.
On Cable Beach. Morning jog. On the expansive sand we found this washed up little treasure. Prettier than any handcrafted ceramic.

Spiral Shell.
Out at Barred Creek we slept on a mattress under the stars for two nights. Alone. Wild wind. Recently burnt bush. This shell was next to the van when we parked.

Boab Nut
On a 6.30am walk through Broome with the dog. I sat on a groin and read some Eckhart Tolle. On the way home I opened my eyes to find this nut lying on the ground. It jingles when you shake it.

Ridged Shell
On a beach stop off for cold lamb kebabs and salad. We took a freezing dip in the ocean and chatted to a fisherman and his partially deaf wife.

Tooth Shells
On our third stop outside of Perth. We parked near a beach with mangroves and line fishermen. I found these teeth like shells and collected some for my ear.

The tooth in my ear

[current mood] Hippy music in the carpark at Cable Beach & Aspro Clear

Posted by nat at 9:35 PM | Comments (0)

September 5, 2008

Culinary Cures

An insight into my culinary cure for the blues this week...

Starting my day with pink grapefruit
Each swelling juicy segment fished out with a teaspoon, and the remained juice scooped up with another dip in. I stand at the bench near the window and work my way around the circumference, sometimes skipping segments to make patterns. I eat until my tongue is spiked with tang.

Finishing my day with chocolate dipped strawberries
Big plump freshly washed berries, dried then dipped into a pot of gently melted 70% cocoa Lindt chocolate.
They tasted even better when shared with a good friend I hadn't seen in months in the afternoon's dwindling sunlight.

[current mood] Fruit & Pranayama (yoga breathing)

Posted by nat at 4:33 PM | Comments (1)

September 4, 2008

The Love Heart

A love heart.
It looks juicy. It's full to its brim, flowing with love for it's lover.

On a break up, or a break or a lie or inflicted hurt... the heart's fullness begins to recede.
The love lessens, over any length of time. It lessens.
If nothing changes, it continues to recede, smaller and smaller and smaller. Until it is just a notch in the side of the heart.
The heart has a memory.

But this recession makes room for a new lover. This new love can fill up the heart slowly with new colour, new flavour.

This is what my heart currently looks like.

[current mood] Stevie Wonder & Crab Taglierini

Posted by nat at 5:51 PM | Comments (1)

September 2, 2008

Talking in the Garden of Curiosities

We talk crossed legged on the grass and our fingers play with the texture of leaves, twigs, weeds and petals. The subconscious creation of garden curiosities takes places as we dissect dreams and disappointments.
Anita is my precious garden gnome.
She's that rare kind that listens, doesn't judge. Just like a gnome, but with a lot more personality.

[current mood] Chocolate dipped Strawberries & The Australian Chamber Orchestra

Posted by nat at 3:04 PM | Comments (1)

August 31, 2008

How to be Australian

This is a short film I just edited together based on footage I shot last year with friends. Some of it will be used as part of a documentary I am making with a friend called 'UnAustralian' - an exploration of Australia's identity crisis.

I'm just getting into editing and filming and I've learned a lot since I did this, but it is important to complete things as you go along otherwise you leave a series of unfinished ideas in your wake, which doesn't do much for your confidence. So I am pleased that I pulled this together and can cross it off my list. Now I can edit the big doco!

[current mood] Disco!! & Mushies on Toast

Posted by nat at 3:10 PM | Comments (0)

August 29, 2008

Have my design and eat it too.

I like my designs being turned into cake.

[current mood] Arrested Development & Tuna on Crackers

Posted by nat at 9:41 PM | Comments (0)

August 23, 2008

Scrabble in The Kimberley

I've been travelling the coast of Western Australia for the past 2 weeks in this mustard van that is falling apart all around us. Most of it is now gaffa taped together. And we have to lock the back door using a screw driver...
But it goes. And that is all that matters.

Whilst travelling down an orange Kimberley dirt road towards a Barred Creek campsite we noticed something fly from the car. So we pulled over to investigate. What we found embedded in the road were 4 Scrabble tile holders and a green bag of letters.
Then I remembered seeing the Scrabble box on top of the car 30 kms back in town. Accidentally forgotten.... it had travelled a long way, until now.

However with just tiles and no board... our time enjoying Scrabble championships were suddenly over and disappointment set in. Luckily we had just bought 'Mastermind' which would tide us over.

The next day we couldn't help looking left and right down the long stretch home, just in case we found the board.

And there, 20 km along, was a board, and even the booklet of instructions.

Something lost, when found provided joy that we couldn't have had if it hadn't been lost at all.

[current mood] Fruit Crush from Broome Markets & The Sound of Silence

Posted by nat at 2:14 PM | Comments (1)

August 7, 2008

I Have Laser Vision

I've been short sighted for 20 years. Ever since that day in year 5 when I cheerfully claimed I couldn't see the blackboard, I have been issued with spectacles of stronger and stronger prescription. The cute pink ones evolved into coke bottle thickness over the years. My eyeballs finally ceased their degradation at a focus range of 10cm - 20cm from my eyeballs.

It was the fateful years of 7 and 8 (& my choice of big round plastic glasses patterned in purple, black and silver spots) that caused my delegation to the 'dag group' and thus creating a lifetime of social insecurity.

In year 9 I changed to contact lenses which was a brilliant move but never managed to move the indent made by those purple spectacles. It is as though those big glasses have forever since sat upon my nose.

So I wore my contacts every day and this was fine for about ten years.
However in the last five years the contacts started getting scratchy, dry and causing excess blinking. Often people would ask me why I was pulling such strange faces (and I'm sure many others wondered). "Oh, that's just my contacts" I'd say. "I have to keep rolling my eyes around to avoid them sticking to my eyelids when I blink."

So laser eye surgery was my next step to social acceptance and lighter travel.

I started to dream of a life without contact solution bottles filling my bathroom shelves and the irritation of having to take my lenses out and put them in every single day.

So I weighed up the cost. $6000. That's equal to 9 years of blindness. ($4500 on contacts, $700 glasses and $800 solution.)

Not a bad long term investment.
It means that if I live til 70 then I will save $20,000.

I shrugged off the fear of staring into laser beams slicing at my eyeball but then there was that fear... what if something went horribly wrong... What on earth could I be without vision?

But with millions of procedures having taken place, what were those chances?
I made up my mind that the minute risk was worth taking.

I went to visit a surgeon and was astonished by his arrogance. So I went to another surgeon at Perth Laser Vision Centre and realised that they are clearly a breed of their own. No bedside manner at all. I don't think the man actually saw me as a person, instead as a walking set of eyeballs - to see, not be heard.
He even scoffed when I dared ask a question.
But with little other choice here, I handed over my precious organs for his operation.
Even if he rubbed me the wrong way, he was surely good at rubbing down corneal flaps... he's probably spent more time with them.

So here I am merely a week after surgery. I'm bouncing around with 20/20 vision. It certainly was freaky and something out of a science fiction future. But here we are! Living this amazing scientific reality.

As my dear surgeon said as he finished the 20 minute ($6000) procedure...
"There. You're Cured Now".

[current mood] Frangelico, Lemon and Ice & Not Snoring!

Posted by nat at 11:01 PM | Comments (8)

July 23, 2008

Printing in Kenwick

I took on the job of screenprinting 65 tshirts in 24 hours.
I had the tees, I had the screens but I was awake all night fretting about my ability to do the printing. So I googled and found John.
My lepricorn.
An elderly ferret-loving, boxercising printer with a most chirpy disposition.
He saved my day (or my butt) by dropping his other work to get the job done on time.

We spent this morning screenprinting at his home in Kenwick.
We were fed toasties with lemon cake and Irish tea for lunch.
I learned so much in 4 hours about screenprinting, about being in Vietnam at age 18 as a 'scout', about having a wife with terminal cancer, having a daughter die unexpectedly at 13 years of age... all whilst we screened and heated and folded tshirts.

They got delivered ahead of schedule.

He retires in a month and has already sold his equipment, so I know I'll probably never again cross paths with this man of stories and although I wanted to grab him and hug him and tell him how much I was affected by him, I just held out a hand and said thanks before driving away. That's all you can really do.
Everyone is a teacher, if you listen.

Tshirts I designed for FORM's photography workshops in Port Hedland.

[current mood] Little Creatures Pilsner & Lamb Rogan Josh

Posted by nat at 5:27 PM | Comments (0)

July 18, 2008

Abbe May Album

Do you relate to this?
I'm sitting here at my computer working and note that there is a sense of excitement in me. A feeling like something to look forward to yet I can't immediately recall what it is, but then... I remember. I still have one more square of Lindt chocolate left! Yes! I managed to forget about it consciously in order to delay its consumption but retained the good feeling about it existing.

And now that I'm conscious, I must enjoy it's dark milky splendour!

The same experience applies to remembering a new CD you haven't opened yet. I finally un-shrinkwrapped Abbe's May's new Album... Howl & Moan.

It is my most recent CD design. I also shot the cover and hand drew the type.
The shoot was in the Fly By Nightclub during the day. Abbe stood in front of some black curtain that was catching a shaft of window light.

[current mood] Surely God Was A Lover & Fresh Pistachios

Posted by nat at 5:40 PM | Comments (2)