Pause and remember bench seat

Over the last couple of days I have completed the cutting, sanding and oiling timber for a bench seat that might go into a grief garden - if the garden gets approval from the local authorities. The photo above is Fiona testing the bench for height in her sartorial yard splendour.

Yesterday I cut the supports in three graduated lengths to give a stepped look; but Fiona and I felt that it detracted from the simplicity of the bench. So today I recut the supports to the width of the seat. I think it is a better look.

A few process photos follow. The timber is very hard and heavy hard wood - first life as fence posts for a horse property - hence the holes etc in the timber. The cut ends of the timber have been sealed with timber wax.

While I had the sander on the go I gave the base for my negative space leaf sculpture a sand and oil - really brought out the grain.

If the bench seat eventually goes into the garden I will need to bolt it together and cement it into the ground. It will be raised about 50mm on a cement base. And Fiona and I will rout the words pause and remember on the front edge of the seat.

Bone jewellery

 

I got to finish a stash of bone jewellery (earrings and pendants) today - some of the earrings above.

Quite a bit of work goes into cleaning, cutting, grinding and polishing the recycled bone - and I'm not always happy with the end results so some bits are not used.

Some process photos follow including some metal and buffalo horn that was prepared for toggles on the pendants.

Photos of completed pendants and earrings.

A good achievement for the day.

Much gorgeousness after rain including visiting wallaby trio

 

It was a beautiful fresh morning to walk in this morning. We had heavy rain yesterday afternoon - everything just seemed more alive - as though nature was breathing a sigh of relief. So many flowers (including the opening one) still held droplets.

I was walking down the back path - stopped to enjoy a feeding lorikeet.

I had to turn back and take another path as I did not want to disturb the three wallabies enjoying the rain drenched grass.

A few more droplet encrusted blossoms.

A carpet of purple from Jacaranda blossoms brought down by the wind and rain.

Blossoms in the fork of the tree - I wonder what the new plant is?

Of course a couple of beauties in G's orchid house - I will need to tell him about that micro grub I now see in the big orchid - can you see it at the back of the front orchid?

So refreshing - so uplifting.

What a weekend

 

The weekend was really about The Red Thread showing-exhibition at DEP - but I will leave that up to Fiona to report on. Photo of the Print Princesses at the start of the opening event.

As well as spending time at DEP in a support role and particularly for the opening event, I did some work cutting up and prepping metal (see above photo) for etched panels for the posts that Fiona and I will be making for the pathway in the upcoming community grief garden.

By careful measuring I managed to mark up most of the 2mm thick aluminium plates we will need for the 5 posts - each post requires 4 etched pieces. The sheet of metal was purchased from a fellow artist. Fortunately I had another couple of small pieces of plate that enabled me to cut the full 20 plates.

I also got to finish 9 pairs of buffalo horn earrings.

Whilst it was good to progress the metal work and earrings; the real highlight of the weekend for me was the fact The Red Thread was a great success - well done to Fiona, Tory, Susan and Steph of the Print Princesses.

Transforming

 

During the week, and again today, I have been finishing some melted metal work. Whilst I love the colours that developed on the back of the cross form above; I love the story behind the pendant and earrings below.

I occasionally get asked to rework some family item (silver-plated objects, trays etc); often because folk don't want to keep cleaning big trays etc. But this last request gave me much joy as the friend wanted a silver object that belonged to her dead husband transformed into a heart pendant - a beautiful wearable memory piece. I was also to transform a broken gold chain and odd bits of silver earrings into gold/silver earrings. The outcome above was received with much joy by the owner.

The crosses, hearts and ingots below were being ground and polished to go to DEP shop. I poured the extremely hot melted silver-plated brass into cold moulds - I think the sudden change of temperature resulted in air-pockets and rainbow colours on the underside of the metal.

I rejoice when I get those happy accidents.

Morning wonders

 

Part of the magic of some days is that so many little wonders are there if is one open to them - including the gorgeous soft colour on the big tree as the first rays of filtered sunlight to touched it. 

So many exquisite blossoms.

Birds and bees. I only saw the tag on the magpie when uploading it to the blog. Such a big blue sky behind the flower stalk and bees.

And a swing by G's orchid house to get another top up of beauty.

Exposure to such beauty in the morning helps to sustain one during the day.