Image above by Roger's Eye <(r)>

My reflections, 9 months on …

My friends and family naturally ask me how and what I am doing, now that I have the time and inclination to pursue my ‘passions’. Back in August I was telling everyone that I was doing bugger all. Which was sort of true and sort of not. I wasn’t spending a lot of time on any one thing, but I was spending time on lots of things.

Good friend Peter asks me about my ‘masterpieces’. He’s coming to visit soon. My family are due here for a special birthday event in a week or so. I will update them on my progress. This post is also an update on progress in the past few months, and a reflection on the interconnections between the many and different things that are fascinating me at the moment.

Diversification, that’s what it is.

Another blogger I read talked about too many fingers in too many pies. But he said it was good—it was ‘diversification’. I tend to agree, mainly because the more I do, the more I get ideas. And those ideas inform each other.

My website work brings me into contact with the imagery of others, which …
inspires collections of images, which …
resonates (thematically) with my painted images, and ideas for digital images.

My knitting inspires colour, textural and technical exploration, which …
helps me to understand the importance of technical mastery, which …
feeds the same desire with paint, pen, pencil and pixel.

Cooking speaks to my desire for a world that is aesthetic, wholesome and sustainable, which …
makes me rant even more about the ugly and unjust in the world, which …
will in time, motivate themes in my work.

Playing Sims 3 has had an astounding impact on my aspirations (not only within the game), which …
encourages me to paint, draw, knit, garden, cook and keep fit, which …
motivates the diversification of interests, and reveals the interconnections!

I will post some more details about these projects in other posts, but here is a summary update:

Dancing Capital

My Dancing Capital website has undergone a complete rebuild with an update to Joomla 2.5 and a new template (Lifestyle from Joomlabamboo). I’ve also more than tripled the content and now have Violet’s blog up and running.

A couple more tweaks and it will go live again. I hope it was worth the wait!

Other blogs

I have 3 other blogs going:

• Master crafting will track my progress from beginner to master in craft-related pursuits (starting with knitting).
• Static capital is Chris’s photo blog.
• Food Promise is a documentation of how I feel about food. It chronicles how and what we eat—both day to day and on special occasions (not quite ready to go live yet).

Everybody knows that it takes time to develop content for a blog. With each of these blogs I have to make stuff (real or digital), document (e.g. photography), then organise into something that is instructive or interesting. I love it, but it takes time. There is also inspiration that comes from doing this. I have started a garden and am growing some edible plants to support my food blog. My knitting is also inspiring some of my art making.

Art making

My studio: October 2012

Lots of explorations in the studio. I am working on quite a few things at once. Some are beginning to work to some sort of a resolution.

‘waste paint’

I have lots of ‘left-over’ paint. I experiment with the left-overs by smudging, scraping and scratching, then painting over. These are a bit of fun, but also helping me to understand colour, layer and texture and how to manipulate these.

‘conundrums’

I am working on a series of ‘seals’ or ‘monograms’ which are visual puns or conundrums. The grab above is a work titled ‘Watercrest’. I’m layering paint, pen and pencil in these works. I want to explore transparent glazes. The spheres are the basis for these works.

paintings

I have a stock pile of canvases now so am working on a few a once. I’m still working on water, bubbles and fish (technical exercises). This grab is of a painting with working title ‘Lava’—which has resulted from the ‘waste paint’ explorations. Many more layers to come I think with this one.

knitfish

No images to share quite yet, but suffice to say, these are works about fishing, and about knitting. I am very excited about these! I will share soon!

Sims 3

Last, but not least, an update on playing Sims 3. Fran, my latest Sim, lives in Twinbrook and is an Architectural Designer. I am documenting her home renovation and some of her design projects for clients. You can see above that at the beginning she starts in one room on a swampy, misty lot. In this grab she has started to build some platforms out over the swamp which will form the foundations for her extension. Her lifetime wish is 100 top reviews from clients. By all accounts no Sim has ever achieved this, so I am persevering.

So, there’s the update. So much to do, so much to share, so little time!