Archives for posts with tag: photos

I thought I would finish this week with a generic feel good photograph I took this morning in the garden. It is a glorious day out there. Monday is a public holiday, courtesy of the Queen. It’s her birthday  (as an aside for all those people who are not living in the Commonwealth – or is it Common Wealth? Ah no, impossible!).

I have a lot of stuff lined up I want to continue on. The dede puppets had some news this week, but they are still pondering whether it is a blessing or a curse, so they are not making a statement just yet…

Recently the Dedes and I had an outing to meet some senior citizens. A friend of mine runs a social morning and we were invited to come along. The puppets were in fine form and behaved themselves (as long as I had them under control). Some of them became a bit cheeky when they mingled with the folks. They are brilliant performers and were quite a hit. I thoroughly enjoy watching people engage with them.

I have to set a record straight: Chance is not Lady Fortune. Chance is a dear friend of mine, but I am not acquainted to Lady Fortune. Apologies… this is not entirely correct: I knew her way back at school, when she still was Miss Fortune. I haven’t kept in touch with her. Why should I, I couldn’t stand her then and I wasn’t the only one wary of her, nobody liked her.  She, on the other hand, was attracted to a few of us and followed us around like a bad smell. We just couldn’t shake her off. Only when we left school our path parted.

Thinking back now, she must have been very lonely. She was an only child and inherited the title and a lot of money when her father died. Devil says he meets her from time to time at the pokies, and the punters there, really love to see her. It’s a bit sad, isn’t it? But I won’t go there.

At the greengrocer’s I bumped into Detail and her daughter Minor. These two never fail to amaze me. Detail is such a petite thing, always neatly dressed and every strand of hair in the right place. She looks like she just stepped out of a fashion magazine, even if she only pops down the driveway to the letterbox. Minor on the other hand is a little cloddish, with her worn out sneakers and baggy jumpers. I thought she is only fourteen, but Detail corrected me, Minor is three month short of seventeen. She is much larger and taller than her mother and even though she stoops, her mother still has to look up to her.

Of course Detail wanted to know what Devil said to me the other day. It felt like I was at the inquisition. The three of us were standing in the middle of the aisle at the busiest time at the grocery shop. Don’t you hate these people? I felt very awkward, but she insisted on hearing the entire story and just wouldn’t let me go. I would have liked to side with Minor on that one: “Wha’ ever”

No need to ask Detail for her opinion on anything, she always wants to have more info before she can make up her mind.

Last night Devil paid me a visit. He wanted to talk to me as the spokesperson of the dede puppets. They are all very concerned. I didn’t know the dede puppets had a spokesperson. Honestly I don’t think he was voted in. But he obviously thinks he is the Patron Saint of the dede puppets, as he is the oldest. (Patron Saint… it’s a bit rich isn’t it?)

Anyway, he said they are all concerned about where the dede puppet blog is going. He reminded me I had promised to set it up for the dedes as a forum. He, Devil,  now accuses me of hijacking it for my other artwork. He actually said, “What’s so beautiful about a Giant Weta, all  the dede puppets have nicer eyes…” He quoted the one post where I said it is all about eyes at the moment.

Okay, point taken. Devil himself has gorgeous eyes… I still think (and I am not being defensive here) there should be a place for other photographs on the blog.

So, we had this long and heated discussion about whether I should be allowed to put other artwork up. In the end I had this feeling he was mainly miffed with me because the film features Pirate and Mouse. He insisted it was him who broke the news of the book to Mouse, so he should have been in the film. I promised him he will be in the next one. (We are moving towards winter and I will have more time to do this kind of stuff). I basically made this promise to get him off my back. It was past midnight when he finally disappeared.

It took more than an hour to get the smell of sulpher out of the house. This is the reason, why I normally like to catch up with Devil at the pub.

I think I will canvas the other dede puppets about what they think on the subject. I am still not sure whether he made a mountain out of a mole hill.

Here is something that looked at me from my washing, when I picked it from the line. It is the biggest insect we have in New Zealand, a Giant Weta. At the first glance, one couldn’t call it a pretty creature (needless to say, I dropped the towel, but the Weta held onto it). Looking at it in a photograph so close up, I find it absolutely amazing and it is totally harmless. It’s always worth having a second look.

Staying with images of eyes, with this photograph I always had my difficulties. It is a straight shot, not manipulated in any way. The image made me realise that our cat is blind, not clumsy. The vet later confirmed, there are no clumsy cats. She tricked us for a very long time. It was amazing how she still found her way around the house, though she didn’t want to go into the garden any more. It was a dangerous world for her.

At the moment I feel like my Nosy Neighbour puppet. In this image by Sonya Roussina he looks pretty depressed. Everything seems to have come to a halt, even though I have so many things nearly finished… My dede puppet film is done, but I can’t put it up on Youtube before I have one more thing sorted on our Web page. I was so sure I will publish both this weekend, but now this weekend is gone and it still isn’t up. Ah well… Such is life. I still haven’t started on my Procrastinator puppet either.

 

 

With this post, my self-imposed seclusion is coming to an end. I am back to writing my blog as part of my daily routine. I had a very, very strong urge to remain silent for a while. I was surprised though, how much I missed writing, even though I am only doing it for a bit over two months. The artworks I have created last week are as private as my thoughts and won’t make it onto the blog.

Another one of my tree eye series.  It is called “Tears from the depth of some divine despair”. Which in turn is the second line of a beautiful poem by Alfred Lord Tennyson called Tears, idle tears. My current tears are not idle: Good bye, mum.