Today we drove from Canberra to Rookwood cemetery (Sydney) and back for HIDDEN Rookwood sculptures exhibition. For HIDDEN 2019 there was a short films section for which I was a finalist. The short film I entered was a reworking of the animation I made for Born of Flowers.

It was a very WINDY day for the opening, and I didn't get to see all of the works. I particularly liked Claire Tennant's bird seed lady (All things move towards their ends).

I'll be visiting again on the 28th September for one of the curator tours.

It is Spring here in Canberra, the first Jonquils in my garden have bloomed and hopefully the rest of the bulbs are on their way.

This wallpaper background has been through many many iterations, with the same pieces being reworked and reworked. Happily (at last) I have something that feels right. Less is more in this case!

The elements are:

some quick liner pen studies of the first Jonquil blossoms from my garden and a busy mono print to fill the flowers

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This month, again has been a lot of investment casting and prepping moulds for kilns, working on commissioned projects for other artists. With one pair of waxes I had help from the wonderful Peter Nilsson, and wow did that make things easier. I am so used to doing my own work on my own that it took a bit of a mind shift to think about getting help. Best decision!

I also tried out some techniques that I have been thinking about for a while and these large complicated projects were the ideal motivator to put those ideas into practice.

I have been anxiously checking kiln temperatures for there is no peaking inside once the door is shut and 18-22 days is a long time.

Kate Forsyth was 'in conversation' with Robyn Cadwallader at Harry Hartog (ANU) with her new novel The Blue Rose. As always it is fascinating to listen to the stories behind Kate's writing and a delight to be in her presence. Kate is such a generous soul, you can see it reflected in the way her fans and students engage with her.

Unusually I haven't yet read Kate's latest book... little else but mixing plaster, steaming wax or cleaning glass and packing kilns has entered my world of late.

The desk top & mobile wall paper background I created for my Patron's for August 2019 is a digital collage of a print and a selection of seperate sketches.

I'm not sure what was going through my mind when I created this but I do wonder where that rabbit is off to?

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The mould room at the Canberra Glassworks is usually a quiet place, with one or maybe 2 people calmly working away. July however is breaking that pattern with 5 projects on the boil and I'm currently working on 3 of them.

Artist Brenda Croftis on a residency at the Glassworks and myself and Luna Ryan are helping her cast axe head and spear points in glass. Brenda is planning an installation so we are making quite a few (100 or so) of each object.

Artist Jamie North is having a show at the Glassworks in September. Jamie has been using some of the old furnace brick and slag for a sculpting material and we are casting part of a piece in glass.

I have also been working as an assistant for Simon Maberley and Jacquline Knight in making the biggest blow mould I have ever seen. A huge team of glassblowers set about making a big enough bubble to fill up this monster of mould.This is a commission that the Canberra Glassworks has taken on for a fashion brand and I hope that I will be able to show you more detailed images once the commission is complete.

Determined to actually read my book club title for July's after slacking a few months, I jumped into Lanny by Max Porter with no idea of the theme or mood. I was quite delighted with Lanny.

Set in the present day in a small village outside London. Told around a small boy called Lanny, there are many voices, including one that belongs to the woods, one that remembers times before.

I really enjoyed how Lanny engages with Pete the local artist. This is a strange, whimsical, awkward, complicated little book.

Recommended.

The desk top & mobile wall paper I created for my Patron's for July 2019 is a digital collage of 2 mono prints. I wonder who or what is watching the owl swooping down through the evening sky?

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Today I ran a class called 'Botanical Impressions' at the Canberra Glassworks. With a selection of blooms and foliage we pressed the plants into clay. We started with a quick plaster cast and moved on to make an open faced mould that would be cast in glass later in the week.

We certainly packed a lot of activity in 5 hours!

I do read a lot of e books but I love the tactile pleasure of paper. I think it was the gorgeous covers looking so pretty in my Instagram feed bolstered by glowing comments by various reviewers that prompted me to buy both books on a flying visit to Sydney. I found The Binding by Bridget Collins at Abbey's and Echo North by Joanna Ruth Meyer at Kinokinuya. The Binding I read in one sitting, in the passenger seat on the way home back to Canberra. Echo North I finished last night, curled up on my bed with my cat Thistle.

The Binding was a surprise (I had expected more fantasy) but it was a gripping story. Echo North is a fairy tale retelling which took motifs from 2 of my favourite tales East of the Sun, West of the Moon and Tamlin.

The Binding is brutal in places, Echo North has some delightfully whimsical details and both feature magical books. While very different in style and mood I found that both books brought up ideas of forgetting and escape through stories which made me reflect on the nature of reading.

The exhibition that was showing my installation Born of Flowers closed in May. The de-install was, as always much faster than the install process. For those of you who didn't get to see it, here is a video of the stop-motion animation and glass together.

Click here for some beautiful images taken by Photographer Adam McGrath