To See a World in a Grain of Sand

Lilac dawn on Pohara Beach

I often talk about my early morning walks with a group of women friends - we usually meet before sunrise and walk Pohara Beach for an hour, chattering away and waking the neighbours as we go.

However, as occasionally happens with the group, there has been only one walker for a couple of days - ME!

While I love to walk and natter, I also relish the quiet time alone with just me and the beach - especially as the mornings are becoming lighter and spring is definitely in the air.

So I got to thinking about a poem by William Blake "Auguries of Innocence"

"To see a world in a grain of sand

And a heaven in a wild flower

Hold infinity in the palm of your hand

And eternity in an hour..."

Which is my roundabout way of explaining that I see so much on my walks on the beach - it's the same beach every day, but different.  That whole world changes - those grains of sand and every sunrise and change of tide brings a whole new swag of treasures.

Whoa!  There are so many life analogies here!

Anyhow, here's some of what the camera and I saw this beautiful spring morning...

An unusual black scallop shell

Tidal lines in the dawn

Oh, something moved!  It's a sandhopper and he's transparent!

There's colour and texture in this cockle shell - it reminds me of cockling with the kids - squeels of delight as they find them in the sand of the shallows with their feet!

A gull's head skeleton

Two horse mussel shells locked together - I love the shiny bits on the ends

there were a few transparent horse mussel shells today - I wonder if they are albinos?

This one is HUGE!

Some little blue lipped mussel shells - you can eat these but there are green lipped mussel farms in the Bay - they're the best ones to eat

Poor old gummy shark - I wonder what happened to him?

Lovely texture in this wee cockle shell

Not so many crab shells today - sometimes there are loads of them!

Oh this is a nice one

This one's been kicking around for a while - I love the worm holes in it

Turret shells - I once made a path of these and collected them by the sackful.  The path glowed in the moonlight!

Oh, that's a pretty one!

Haha!  I tried to photograph a fishing shag...and this is what I got :)

This Week 14th July 2012

Pohara Beach in July!

Some weeks have their challenges, and others seem to sail through fairly unscathed.  This has been a relatively unscathed week - I've been toiling at my bench and finalized some pieces I'm rather proud of and have also had some lovely time to play and sort out my somewhat chaotic life!

 

1.  I had a day at home this week and moved my home office from a draughty corridor to a sunny spot in a window.  Why didn't I do this years ago?  It's so nice to "go" to my office rather than pass it every time I go to my bedroom, and it's just a so much nicer space all round.

2.  I always walk on the beach in the very early morning with a group of friends.  We rip up that beach like terriers and I'm puffing like a train by the time we get home.  My dear friend Tracey and I went for the other sort of walk during the beautiful sunny afternoon hours - it was truly  gorgeous!  There were little children playing (it's school holidays here), but it was so calm and peaceful - a real lift and a gift mid-week.

3.  It seems to have been a week for my old Dad.  He turned 86 last Sunday and we took him out for grown-ups afternoon tea (that means red wine and antipasto platter)  at Jellyfish Cafe in Mapua.  It was another of those glorious sunny winter's days...

4.  I had an oxygen bottle issue this week - my old regulators which have done 9 years of solid service - mostly outdoors - finally coughed and spluttered and needed a trip to the repairers. Now my Dad was an engineer and taught welding in his later years at Polytech and had accumulated an impressive and precious collection of antique welding equipment.  We've had a lot of it stored at our place and when the emergency struck (I WAS mid creative flow...) the Toy Boy rummaged around and found this lovely old regulator for me to use...

It works a treat and is actually much nicer to use than any other I have tried!  Gives and lovely clean, even flow - some of them pulse, some choke...My old one was pretty nice, but this old sweetie, though she doesn't look glamorous, certainly does a lovely job!

Do you know by now that I LOVE old things? I would generally rather re-use most things than buy new, so this totally reenforces all I think about old things and quality!

5.  Speaking of old things, in my clean up on my day at home, I found some old URBIS Design magazines from about 10 years ago, when I was studying interior design.  And, you know, good design is always good design!  Some of the technology advertising was a hoot - cutting edge cellphones with clumsy plug in cameras, mega expensive CD players, and some of it was still pretty sexist, surprisingly.  I'm still flicking through them and found these "medals" (brooches?) which were quite inspiring...

6.  And finally, one of my friends posted this picture on Facebook this morning - it's just so right on so many levels!

Winter tropical escape on a plate

So how was your week?  Did you stop to think about the good stuff?

 

The website sale continues - simply by using the code BUYBEADS in the box at the checkout you received 20% discount on anything on the site.  Sale ends 31st July.

Luscious Ladies Love Lipstick!

I was going to call this post "Boring Lesley Buys Lipstick", but then I referred to all my positivity prompts...you know the mantra..."Accentuate the Positive"!

Counting beads...!

I've been bogged down in end of year financial stuff and was feeling totally over it all before we went over to Nelson for the day on Saturday - the Toy Boy worked at his stall at the market while I went off shopping and having a girlie morning out.

I went make-up shopping - just mooching around looking at all of the gorgeousness and remembered that galadarling had recommended the new Revlon Lip Butters.  I bought "Berry Smoothie"  and I love it!

 

Revlon Lip Butter - Berry Smoothie

It's lovely stuff - really moisturising and a nice shot of transparent colour - subtle but not too subtle, if you know what I mean.

There's a nice range of colours and I have "Pink Truffle" in my sights for my next purchase.

It's a good price too - $27.95, I think?

It was a freezing cold day so we met up with my big sister and went to Cafe Olive where we sat in front of their fire and ate a yummy tasty (and again, really well priced) lamb kebab for lunch.  

This is a spot I really recommend - it's cosy, comfortable, friendly and the food's great!  The place has had many incarnations since it was built as "Faces" long ago and far away...I can remember going there when the Wearable Arts still had their shows in Nelson :).  

Cafe Olive - full of sumptuous couches, carpets and kilims.  They get an A+ for atmosphere!

From there we went on to be wined, dined and spoilt by our long time friends who live at Marybank with a fabulous view over the coast.  They have a beautiful home and D has an  amazing design "eye" for design - she can put a montage of lovely things together just "because".  I love that!  She inspires me!

The little heart is made up of tiny bells

So, filled up with inspiration, I have come home to finish off the boring stuff and get my teeth into something more fun - I have a selection of brooch beads under way.

TAKE what you NEED

After a week of grey "porridge" weather we have woken to a glorious morning!

I've been thinking about how I bang on about the weather, but it really does affect me.

  I'm OK about getting my head down and bum up and working away when it's grey and horrible, but I feel infinitely more cheerful when the sun shines.'

I've found this really cool new time-wasting device called "Pinterest " - you  may have heard of it ;).

I can spend hours looking at all of the pretty things and getting inspired while pretending to watch TV with the Toy Boy.  He also pretends to watch TV with his lap-top on his lap, but he cruises cars and machinery and blokey stuff.

I was inspired this week by a picture of a simple sign, and decided - for once - to act upon my inspiration.

I pinned this on a little noticeboard between the workroom and the Organic Grocery Store it's been really uplifting to watch people stumble upon it.  Even if they don't physically take a "gift" , they smile.  I wonder how many "gifts" will have gone when I get in this morning?

 There has also been lots of work going on to stock the Stitchbird's new store in Wellington.

 Being back into my work is good! 

{Share your bliss! Scatter your joy in a comment below or link up at LivLane.com!}

Being Inspired

Years ago I read a life changing book called The Artists Way by Julia Cameron and one of her suggestions for re-fuelling our creative tanks was to have regular "Artists Dates".  That's not exactly what I did this week, but I did have two days out visiting with family, shopping and just generally browsing.  The effect was similar, however, and I have come back to the workroom with my head bursting with new ideas!  Yah!  I just cant wait to get back on the torch and convert some of those mind pictures into form.

 I stayed with my darling big sister and we spent some really special time together.  She took me to a new cafe in Nelson, situated in an old historic house on the Nelson foothills called Melrose House.  We had lunch there, served on beautiful china and drank an artisan tea from a gorgeous tea pot in china cups.  Not only was the food amazing, but the staging and setting are to die for! 

I had a fresh fish cake - YUM!

Jane had Chicken Liver Pate with Toasted Walnut Bread and Caramelised Onion Relish

  We've decided that we will take our little sister there when she comes to visit next month. - oops!  Did I let the cat out of the bag?  Was it to be a birthday surprise? Maybe the treat will be magnified by anticipation!

There's a tea wagon loaded with cups, fresh flowers and a gorgeous old garden to wander

Found at the Bottom of the Garden

Flowers are inspirational for me.  And I also love bulbs - you plant these brown, boring looking lumps and a few months later, when there's nothing much else around, up come these little jewels.

These are little rock irises, and for some unknown reason, they remind me of feathers.

I would love to be able to reproduce these in glass!

The Paper Art of Isabelle De Borchgrave

I have just discovered the art of Isabelle De Borchgrave, a woman from Brussels who creates the most incredible paper "fabric" sculptures.
She paints paper then sculpts it into costumes, mostly iconic pieces from history, but often with her own whinsical twist. Among other things she has created a whole collection of historical garments but changed the colour palette to just white to show the design details in the garments.

She observed images in ancient portraits and as she was curious to see right around the clothing, she studied it's construction and used it as inspiration to construct like garments in paper.

It's hard to believe that the pieces are not made of fabric, such is her skill in catching the lie of the cloth, the texture of the embroidery, or the heft of her embelishments.
I've only ever seen her work online or on paper - I would love to see it "up close and personal", but I know that the first thing I would want to do is touch it, and I'm sure that would not be the done thing!

Delphos Dress 2006 2007 Inspired by a design by Mariano Fortuny.

Detail of Neopolitan Woman 2010.  Inspired by a 1635 portrait by Massimo Stanzione in the collection of the Fine Arts Museums of San Francisco.

If you would like to see more - try the website link above, or just do a Google Image search - it's well worth the clicks!

Paua Shell Beads

I’ve just uploaded a whole new batch of Paua Shells beads to the website.



These beads were the result of an amazing day of alchemy in the studio – I’d been playing with two glass colours for a while, but as an experiment I tried adding a third glass – and – WOW!

I got this lovely opalescence which is different every time it occurs.

This happened a few months ago now, and I keep playing with the idea and each time the result is different – I have yet to discover exactly WHY this happens, I just know that it does, to varying degrees every time!

I reckon they look rather like paua shells on a beach.

If you're looking for them on the website they are
1. Large Paua Shells Heart
2. Medium Flat Round Paua Shells Bead and
3. Small Paua Shells Round Bead

I’ve been fascinated with the colours in Paua shells forever – they’re known as Abalone shells in some other parts of the world. The shells have layer on layer of transluscent colours - blues, greens, pinks and purples – although they can be quite thin, the shellfish has taken the minerals from the water it lives in and created the individual swirls and flows – so like an intense version of the water it lives in.

They hold special significance in spiritual rituals and are often used as a bowl or vessel in ceremonies such as smudging. I love to find them on my beach walks – I am a real magpie (I pick up shiny things), and rarely come home empty-handed from a walk.

My artist friend Kim shares this love and has created some amazing paintings using a paint layering technique which emulates the paua’s own layering. I am the very blessed recipient of a fabulous triptych – a work that is very hard to photograph, but one which I can look into for a long time and always see something different. It is one of my treasures!