I'm not typically a big fan of Summer. That is part of why we moved to Tasmania - because we couldn't stand another mid-40 degree Summer in New South Wales. This Summer has included a handful of mid-30 degree days which are very atypical for Tasmania and were pretty uncomfortable especially for my little Winter baby who sleeps best when it is chilly. Complaints aside, there are lots of things to like about Summer here - the longer days (I'll still never get used to the sun setting at 9.30pm!), delicious salads and cold beverages, beach-going weather and those irresistible perfectly warm days when staying inside would be a crime. Here is a list of some things I'd like to do before this season ends.




I actually got to tick one of the items off this list today - we took Theo to the beach for the first time. We went to Devonport Bluff which is a really lovely family place to swim and has a great burger place on the shore. Unfortunately, Theo hated the water and was terrified of the waves, though did enjoy eating a bit of sand. The water was probably a bit cold for him and the sound of the waves was pretty intense - we'll have to take him to the aquatic centre instead I think. Because days warm enough for beach-going are so few and far between here, we'll probably have to wait until next year to try the beach again with him. I am a huge fan of the beach (there is a photo of me, just a little bit older than Theo is now, in a bonnet, on my hands and knees in the water at the beach with a massive grin on my face - apparently I would crawl into the waves, get knocked over, laugh and then get back up and do it again), so I'll be so sad if Theo hates it forever!


+ Note sand on face. Delicious!

I thought I'd share some photos from the Tasmanian Creative Arts Summer School exhibition that I participated in. There was such a great variety of art exhibited. I'm kind of thinking of sticking around at uni for just one more Summer school, they're so fun.





Here is my work set up. I collected a couple of hundred shopping lists while working at my old supermarket job and was happy to finally have a use for them. They took me more than an hour to put up, but C thankfully helped me to take them down. I had a little plinth where I sat my zines and I sold most of them and gave a couple away. I loved the work to the left of mine, a guy from my class called Maximilian - it's hard to believe that they're relief prints with such a huge scale.

Below is some of my classmates' work.




Here are some photos from around the exhibition.








These cute little brooches and earrings were made by my friend Holly.

I'm looking forward to semester starting and getting immersed in creative materials again.

Over the past two weeks I've been doing a Summer school unit at my art school. I've been really looking forward to going back to uni to finish my degree - next semester I'll be going three days a week for three hours. Summer school units are great because you can do one whole university unit in two weeks, intensively. Two Summers ago I took a book making unit which I loved (posted about here and here). This Summer I took a subject called 'The New Woodcut'. Our teacher, printmaking artist David Marsden, was a lot of fun and I got a lot out of the unit. I had taken one of his printmaking units in 2012 and this subject was similar but more focused. I didn't really come up with a theme for my work until the end of the first week but had fun playing around in the meantime. Our student contribution for the subject was $100* which I thought was a bit steep at first, but it covered access to the laser cutter in the architecture building which would usually cost at least $100 per hour to use (one of my boards took 76 minutes to cut alone!).




I decided I wanted to make a zine and for it to have a supermarket theme, based around the hundreds of shopping lists I had collected while working at my old job. I wrote 2 dozen haikus based on my experiences working there (I used to write down notes when interesting things happened). I illustrated some of the shopping lists in Photoshop and then printed them out and transferred the images to my MDF blocks and carved them by hand. I found that my carving got a lot better as the class went on - initially I would try to make really big, deep cuts, which ended up being quite messy and imprecise and would slip. I watched a video of American artist Thomas Shahan's process and noticed his really lovely, light, shallow cuts and the way that he holds his tools with two hands - his left low down on the tool to direct it and the right hand high on the tool pushing up and down.





I used the laser to cut a couple of images and the text for the zine - however because they were so intensely detailed, it was very difficult to ink them without ink getting on parts of the boards I didn't want inked. The interference from the ink ended up being something I kind of liked in the end - giving it a smudgey, DIY, ziney style.

I was so happy to make another zine - it has been 4 years since I last made one! I made this one pretty quickly and I'm pretty happy with it but I'm going to keep trying to develop it a bit more before I put them online to sell. If you'd like to buy a copy (should only be a couple of bucks), leave me your email address in a comment and when they're finished I'll let you know :)


+ I used a sewing machine in the textiles studio to sew some colourful binding.


+ Some extra prints that didn't end up in the zine.




+ My work set up for marking. Right at the end I decided to try making a tea towel, which I really liked the idea of, but I think I'd probably screen print if I made some more in the future.


+ These two photos were taken by Linda Riseley.

At the end of the subject we had our work marked and today we had our exhibition with all of the other Summer school units. My uni has some pretty awesome summer school units like furniture making, jewellery, metalwork, painting, textiles, drawing and theatre - which anyone can take (uni students have the fees deferred, but anyone can sign up and pay the course fees). I'll do another post with some pictures of the exhibition.

*NB. For those wondering, the $100 is a consumables fee for materials we use during the course. The actual course fees are something like $500 - $800, but in Australia, most people defer their university education fees and eventually pay them off incrementally (something like 4% of your earnings to begin with) once you start earning over $51,000 dollars a year (which for most people I know, including my mum, they still haven't had to start paying theirs off yet, or pay a very small amount each year with their tax). And of course, if you pass away, your debt is cancelled and doesn't get passed on to anyone. This system means that finances should never be a deterrent for anyone seeking out an education in Australia. I know that without this system, it's very likely I might not have been able to go to university.

A week ago Isis and Holly accompanied me on a little road trip up North to go opshopping. We left by 9am and took our time and managed to visit a handful of opshops in Deloraine, Latrobe and Devonport. Apart from a raging migraine, I had a lovely day and it was great to spend time with Isis and Holly, not to mention, picking up some goodies.


Holly is cute as pie.





Sunny's Antiques & Collectibles in Deloraine is one of my very favourite second hand shops and was a must-visit on our travels. It's the kind of shop where you want to buy everything, but walk in and feel totally overwhelmed by all of the beautiful things and end up only buying one thing. It's hard to pull the items away from their beautiful displays. Libbi, one of the ladies who runs it, is a total delight to talk to and you can see how much enjoyment she gets from curating her beautiful shop.








Libbi makes these beautiful handmade skirts from tablecloths.



We stopped at Laneway Cafe in Devonport for lunch and I had an enormous breakfast.


I loved the decor in their bathroom.





Before we headed home we checked out the Devonport Antique Emporium, which was pretty incredible, jam-packed full of antiques on their top floor. We spent quite a long time checking out all of its nooks and crannies, though after we left the three of us discussed how we kind of prefer 'the thrill of the chase' when it comes to second hand things, and like to uncover them ourselves in opshops rather than curated in an antique shop (with antique shop prices).

These were some items I came home with.

This cute backpack from The Black Hen.


Some little toys for Theo.


This little toy caught my eye at the Antique Emporium and the lady at the counter told me that it was American and from the 50s. You pull it along and the little bear hits the xylophone and plays a different combination of notes with each turn of the wheels. It was one of my more expensive purchases of the day ($15) but I just couldn't part with it.



I thought the graphics on these dominoes were really beautiful, from Vinnies in Latrobe.



I found an overabundance of baby girls clothes, but nothing for my boy. And, no, we're not having another baby any time soon, just collecting for the future!


I found this child's Tintin shirt, which I knew C would love (it will be a few years before Theo will fit into it) and Isis picked out a nice cropped, short-sleeved cardigan which I would have worn all this week except for this ridiculous heat wave (Tasmania is NEVER this hot).



Shops we visited:
+ Salvos, Deloraine
+ Vinnies, Deloraine
+ Sunny's Antiques & Collectibles, Deloraine
+ Golden Opportunity, Deloraine
+ The 2nd Hand Shed, Deloraine
+ The Black Hen, Deloraine
+ Deloraine Secondhand
+ Lifeline, Latrobe
+ Vinnies, Latrobe
+ City Mission, Devonport
+ Antique Emporium, Devonport

Next time we'll try to make it a little further and get to Ulverstone, Penguin, Burnie and Wynyard. I'd also like to plan out some Hobart opshops to visit when we next visit. Have you had any thrifting wins lately?