Time for a revamp!

I swear the red & greeness of my blog gave me the migraine tremors so some time soon, I hope to overhaul it and make this into a lighter, more inviting space to pay a visit to. I have half a mind (as all my friends will tell you, I really do have only half a mind) to start sharing some entries from my sketchbook & maybe my art journal too. However the latter is quite personal & who, for example, would want to see in my lingerie drawer? ( Oh Jennifer, do stop telling fibs! It's a mismatched knicker drawer with accumulated love & baby tokens hidden between the lace, cotton & elastic! I wonder; where, dear reader, do you keep your own love tokens, baby booties & mementoes of sweeter times?)

In the meantime, here is one of my favourite Hiroshige prints; art to dispel my misconception about red & green ;-)

My heart has been stole-n!

I love the zig-zag stoles I've knitted!! I can fit two of my babes under one so we sit cuddling on the sofa with the wings tucked around us; I'm like a bird in a nest with my brood. It's a little bit of heaven!

The pattern is the easiest in the world - it's just an incredibly long, zig-zag shaped length of stocking stitch - but the yarn I used is what it makes it look & feel special. It's called 'Fandango' ( though 'Isis' is equally excellent - I just prefer cotton) from the Welsh company, Colinette Yarns.

I've made five (!!?!!) of these stoles so far ( Florentina, Adonis Blue, Jay, Zebra & Sweet Dreams, the latter being for 11 year old Ellie) , got one on the go ( Pagan) and have another waiting in the shopping cart. For those of you who know Lula, this may come as a shock, but Lula........wants one too! Yes, Lula the tomboy, she of the mini-tractor & dirt patch fame, wants a stole of her own! She's dithering between October Afternoon & Heavens Above, though there are a couple more that have grabbed her attention. Ideally she'd like four, but as I knit as slowly as a sloth, I've explained that she may not get all of these until she's grown up & got children of her own.

I think the key to this stole's charm, and thus its huge appeal to Lula, is its cuddle-ability. I unfurl one in bed whilst reading or drape one around me on the school run or when dashing down to my Shack studio. I primped our sitting room using Wabi Sabi principles, but it can be cold in winter so we cuddle up together with two babes plus me all under one stole. It's also an anxiety soother. If I'm out in a crowd & that familiar feeling of panic starts quaking, I've got a stole to pull around me; I guess it's a similar principle to baby wrapping & it certainly helps me. Why, somedays, I can actually manage to go shopping with just a stole & Bach's Rescue Remedy for company ;-)

I've been knitting scarves for years ( for which I have Nicki Epstein to thank), but my heart's been stolen by stoles. Not shawls, but lovely, long, drapery, pinned up or just coiled round.

The pattern, 'Elderflower', can be found in Colinette's booklet, 'Isis'.

A fill in!

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Something for you to colour in :-) You can find some more here!

I've just scrawled an entry all over Facebook which properly belongs over here. Here's a copy:

" Time for ‘the art of curiosity’. I’ve taken a deep breath and looked at my blog & website for the first time in an eon. Oh boy, do I have a lot of work to do! But have I the energy & determination to do it?

Thanks to bipolar blips, I’ve never been able to truly run with the concept of ‘the art of curiosity,’ but after this last big bad wolf of a bout, I feel an odd sensation of renewal & recovery this time. What could possibly have caused this change? I put it down to the humble pencil. By using my creativity to help do battle with the dragon, I feel as if I put more of myself into the fight this time & I think this self-knowledge may be the source of my more positive viewpoint today. Even on the worst days, when waking was a scream of anguish at my still having to live in my brain & immobile body, this time I managed to drive marks onto a pad of paper which I kept by my bed. Marks which looked like a scrawl to everyone else, but which were actually helping to anchor me.

I couldn’t have functioned without medication and the people who cared for me, but my pads & subsequent journals of marks allowed me to remain in contact with myself. Rather then being adrift in mire, these marks, which became more lucid & fluid when I had moments of feeling human, which ultimately calmed into meditative drawings and notations of what was around me, charted my days & I was able to see that not every hour was a heartrending scream. They helped me to start comforting myself and this simple act of being kind to myself kick-started something in my brain.

But enough! This is no place to bore you. This should be in a blog: henceforth meanderings about this, that, life, art & all manner of curiosities will – with luck – be contained once more in ‘the art of curiosity blog’.

I thank you! "

The Blog Sitter Blog Questions

I'm trotting out of town until I don't know when ( 'I don't know when' sounds so free & easy and as much as I would like to reinforce that carefree illusion, in actual fact it means I'll return to Chez Hovel when the trench in our sitting room has been filled in. Call me fussy, but when we're entertaining I prefer to offer our guests a floor to stand on rather than a plank over a hole. I have a pernickety streak in my character which I don't think my husband will ever adjust to ;-)

When we all go travelling, we pick up things which we bring back home with us. These can come in the form of the acquisition of a memento, a shift in perception, a new dream or something requiring medical attention.

What do you go looking for? Have you any favourite mementos? Have you been somewhere or done something that has made you reappraise your life or plans or dreams?

I'm asking these questions because I'm hoping that you might consider answering or talking about them whilst I'm away. Oh boy, am I cheeky by asking if you'd consider doing a little light blog sitting?

Let's me hit you with a list. Here are five things that I'd like to be able to bring home after a journey.

1. A pebble.
2. Fresh drawings in my sketch book.
3. A bottle of milk for the tea I'm going to make as soon as I can lay my hands on the kettle.
4. Dirty washing that has magically laundered itself on the journey home.
5. Something new to be curious about.

How about you?

A Vain Passion?

I nurse a passion & thus far in my long & uneventful life, I've not met anyone who shares my love. It's a cousin of my handbag lust.

I hope my handbags cut a dash, but they serve other useful purposes too. If I hold one close in anti-mugger manner, it helps to disguise the disgraceful state of my abdomen. If I'm nervous or panic stricken, I clutch one like a security blanket. They combat boredom too - I reorganise & tidy the contents when I'm early for appointments - I have no shame! Interesting things migrate into my handbag - I don't know why or where they come from - I obviously have a subconscious handbag filler habit.

The handbag's cousin is the vanity case & I'm guessing that my collection has grown well into double figures. Some live with our luggage, but I have others around the house & in the Shack. Only two are truly full of vain things - one lives in the Shack & the second is my bedside companion along with another which houses my journal, diary, note books & other blah, blah things. I have a really useful one which is part of my jewellery kit - it stores all the 'bits' that aren't tool-kitty. I use another to keep my costing notebooks & jewellery 'recipe' files in. I haven't lodged any of the information from these on to my computer - I like using a pen & I love scribbling so please don't take my notebooks away. If my computer died & took my life files with it, so be it - I could take it. I've got things written down on paper - I could start again.

I also keep a hospital stand-by one. I'm accident-prone & I have three children who also fall over. Having to spend the occasional night in hospital is a possibility - indeed the stand-by has proved useful on a number of occasions. If I was stranded in hospital & had to rely on James bringing me in some things to keep me going overnight, he'd probably bring in big black knickers ( panties?), the flimsiest white nightdress available & thick socks. This is the man who after 37 hours of my being in labour with Tom, turned to me & said,'Obviously men have a higher pain threshold than women.' He is clueless & cannot be trusted. Before I started to make my own, he bought me 'old lady' jewellery. I snapped after floral brooch number four. I recall my broaching (ha ha?) the 'Do you ever actually look at me?' question during my tantrum.

Thanks to my vanity case habit, all I have to do now is draw him a diagram of where the stand-by is located & back he trots, secure in the knowledge that his wife is not going to chastise him for bringing in washing up liquid instead of the shampoo that had miraculously hidden itself in the bathroom cabinet.

So there we are. You have just read the confessions of a handbag & vanity case addict who has tantrums about rhinestone brooches. Can you ever forgive me?

Snap!

I'm one of the most accident prone people in the world so it will come as no surprise to hear that I've had to pay another trip to Casualty with a cracked rib - I think this is the third time I done this. The last time it happened was when I was pregnant with Lula so this time round, I'm lucky as I CAN take pain killers. I don't recommend sleeping in a chair though.

Woe is me because I can't assemble any jewellery for a while - I'm scuppered :-(

Before my accident, I took a few OK-ish shots of one of The Big Easy bracelets, so l'll be able to show you these some day soon.

In the meantime, I beg you all to take very good care of yourselves!!

Project Procrastination & the Mslexia Effect

I procrastinate every single day of my life. Indeed I would go so far as to say that it's become a fully fledged hobby - let's call it 'Project Procrastination'. So far I've worked on three projects today. Dreaming up the name 'Project Procrastination' was the third.

Number one took place when I added one of the two photographs that I like of myself to my profile. It was a toss up between me aged two & me aged twenty five. Twenty five won. It's a totally misleading photo, but I can be whoever I want to be on the web, so I'm a twenty five year old with permanently wet hair.

For number two, I thought about sorting through the pile of things to read which totters by my bed. This is dangerous - this shows that unconsciously at least, I had no real intention of doing anything today. Fortunately I picked up my copy of July/August's edition of 'Mslexia', a UK magazine for 'women who write' - there is always something in here that I want to talk about so finally I'm active.

In my humble opinion, 'Mslexia' is one of the finest magazines currently in print. Each page is absorbing & full of interest. It's published every two months which is perfect because this gives one adequate time to assimilate the content of each issue.

In 'Diary of a Literary Agent', you can read how 'It's odd to receive a wastepaper bin in the mail.' There's also an update on the 'Save Our Short Story' campaign, an article about shoes (writing about them rather than a retail recommendation) and a feature about writers on the web, 'the marketing tool that's taken the ether by storm'. This is soooooooooo interesting!

My friend, the Rock CHICk spoke to me recently about Tracy Chevalier - Tracy's sister has developed a cool website for her. Erica Wagner is a writer & journalist whose opinion I have never knowingly disagreed with. I could go on ( and on and on), but now that I have dropped these titbits into your lap, I feel I have accomplished something so it's time to move on & do the work I've been trying to avoid.

Having said that, I may have to pay page 5 another visit & re-read the article about shoes by Julie Farnworth. She describes the effect that a pair of ring-a-ding shoes ( my expression & not Julie's) has on her:

'but when I do occasionally wear them I am transformed from a stewed cup of tea leaving an unsightly ring on a glass coffee table into a firecracker.'

I know what she means. I've got a pair of boots that can perform the same trick!

perusing commonplace books

THE Empress of the Sea Necklace

I used to keep a Commonplace Book - well I still do, but it's badly neglected. My grandmother kept one, but her books & diaries disappeared when she died - no doubt Grandfather had a hand in this. Volumes containing the printed word were spared & now belong to me, but anything handwritten wouldn't have registered as important to him and as he was keen, as indeed are so many men, on bonfires ( & the quest for a perfect lawn) I would put my money on the flames.

I differ - I would have traded in the print for the handwritten.

Whilst I was rummaging in my study trying to find 'Moments of Truth: Twelve Twentieth-century Women Writers' by Lorna Sage ( I've got my nose in Djuna Barnes 'Nightwood' - I like to do battle with it every now & then) I found my copy of 'A Gentleman's Commonplace Book' by John G. Murray. You'll probably be relieved to hear that I'm not going to bore you with tales of the much missed publishing house of John Murray and its connections with Katherine Mansfield, Byron et al, but as part of my '100 things to know about me', I'm going to quote some of my favourite quotations from this delightful volume.

1. 'Life is what happens while you are making other plans.' John Lennon

2. 'The advantage of being married to an archaeologist is that the older you get, the more interested he becomes.' Agatha Christie

3. 'If you have nothing good to say about anyone, come and sit by me.' Alice Roosevelt Longworth

4. 'Please don't talk while I'm interrupting.' Todd Rockefeller

5. 'A house unkempt cannot be as distressing as a life unlived.' Rose Macaulay

6. 'Facts are not born free and equal.' C.V.Wedgewood

7. 'Some callers can stay longer in an hour than others in a week.' Anon.

8. 'If you do not expect the unexpected you will never find it.' Heraclitus

9. 'He has not learnt the lesson of life who does not every day surmount a fear.' Emerson

10. 'You must come again when you have less time.' Walter Sickert to Denton Welch

11.' There is less to him than meets the eye.' Tallulah Bankhead

12. 'The wider our experience the deeper our tolerance.' Anon

13. 'News is what governments don't want the public to know.' Donald Telford

14. 'One has to resign oneself to being a nuisance if one wants anything done.' Freya Stark (tell me about it)

15. 'We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all we really need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.' Charles Kingsley.

Why of why, am I always so entertained by the impolite ones? I guess it must stem from my hatred of interruptions. I invariably become irritable & impatient. I wish my mind was fleet enough for wit - God was handing out slug brains on the day I was created.

the importance of a blank piece of paper

I should be celebrating. I should be out on the town with a bottle of champagne in one hand & Daniel Craig in the other. The weather is perfect for fountain paddling at dawn! But alas, I am not the girl I used to be. My hot-to-trot party dresses & stilettos were bought at a closing down sale just before the Ark set sail and where as once upon a time I used to set the pace, all I want to do nowadays is to find somewhere comfortable to sit that is not in a draught. That last phrase is the killer. Caring about draughts is a rite of passage that everyone thinks they will avoid. Unfortunately it has the ability to creep up on one in an insidious fashion. If your knees start cracking when you rise from the ground, be vigilant! If you find yourself mentioning the damp weather & its effect on your bones, you are well on your way to developing a draught avoidance strategy. If this had already begun to happen, STOP RIGHT NOW & reassess your situation. If I may make a suggestion, throwing a cardigan away has an invigorating effect. It demonstrates your insouciance in the face of a draught. Insouciance can be very chic & flirtatious, so cultivate it. Buy that anti-ageing serum from you know where, inject a little insouciance into your life & voila - no one will ever guess your real age unless you leave your birth certificate lying around.

Now where was I? Why should I be celebrating?

I have finally finished work on the bones of my website. I’ve installed all the cupboards & shelves that I need for the moment. With the support of my mother in law and Old Man Dickson I have spent eight weeks working on this project from the moment I woke until the early hours of the morning. I had no idea it would take so long, but conversely I don’t exactly know what I’ve been doing all this time because there’s not a great deal to show for it.

So the end of this endeavour is the reason why I should be thinking of taking a dip & doing an Anita Ekberg - if only I had the right equipment!

Unfortunately I don’t feel like celebrating because I’ve fallen out of love with my website. I don’t like it any more - I’ve grown too ‘accustomed to her face’. I allowed myself to become obsessed with it & now it's pay back time. At my age I really should have learnt my lesson by now!

I miss assembling jewellery. I miss drawing. I miss reading books. Allowing myself to get obsessed is rankly dumb behaviour, but I have coaxed a little pearl of wisdom out of it. I now know why the concept of building your own website was invented! It exists to remind us of the value of a blank piece of paper!

You can make marks on a piece of paper & you can erase them without losing half a page of data with it. If you put a pebble on top of a piece of paper, you won’t lose it. Nothing freaks or is dumped - what you see is what you get. I LOVE PAPER!! It’s so simple & versatile and you don’t need a five year old on hand to show you how to do the most basic piffling task! You can carry it around with ease, wet it, dry it, drop it and tear it apart in rage.

I’m not advocating Luddism - far from it. I’m just saying that computers are the spawn of the devil if you allow yourself to be chained to them.

To move on...

So far I’ve only given you 5 things out of ‘100 things you don’t really want to know about me.’ I’m going to add a few more things to my list now & because I’m enjoying the renaissance of paper in my life, I’m going to tell you 10 paper related things. I bet you can’t wait ;-)

6. I love Ethel M. Dell (my laptop) but I still prefer to write on thick creamy paper.
7. I draw & paint & make collages with paper. Sometimes I make paper collages with paper I have made.
8. I have amassed a lot of cuttings. Two of my most cherished cuttings are the obituaries for John Peel and Spike Milligan.
9. I am a stream-of-consciousness list maker - read my lists & know my life. I can’t do anything unless it’s on a list.
10. I can make paper hats out of the broadsheets. I can do a ‘Wellington’ or a ‘Napoleon’. (I bet you know how to make these hats too.)
11. To date, I have never made a successful paper aeroplane.
12. I am currently reading a paperback called ‘The Deadly Space Between’ by Patricia Duncker.
13. I doodle on any available paper surface
14, I still practise my signature just in case I’m asked for an autograph when I’m a world famous writer/painter/Orla Kiely handbag expert.
15. If a card or something interesting arrives in the post, I use it as a bookmark for whatever book I’m reading. When I’ve finished reading, I leave the card inside the book - it’s a memory marker.

Have you had enough? I thought so. Well done for getting this far :-)

Photograph & design of Exotica necklace © Jennifer Dangerfield 2007

how to embarrass your grandmother with William Blake.

Foxglove Necklace

My dear friend Jean has urged me to relate a story from my childhood, but before I begin, jump over to Jean's blog and have a good wallow in her wonderful words. Amongst other things, you can read about The Ruse, Paul Yates, scuba diving, divine jewellery and on 8th April, 100 things to know about Jean. Jean is very kind to me & she's encouraged me to write a list too. My brain is so tiny that it doesn't have room to think of too many things at the same time so given this limitation, I'll have to lay my facts before you a few at time.

1. I once kissed a man who told me my hair was the colour of a tawny owl's feathers. I believe that men who come up with compliments like this should be encouraged.

2. Eleanor Romy was named after Eleanor of Aquitaine ( my heroine), my step grandmother, Ella & my mother, Romy. These are sensible reasons.

3. My daughter Lula was named after a dog & my son's favourite teddy bear. Indeed 'Lula' was his first word. Loopy's real name is Georgia Alice ( which she hates) and in her case she was named after my dog, Georgie Girl. These are not sensible reasons. To avoid confusion between Georgie Baby & Georgie Dog, we decided that we would give the babe a nickname. This seemed a reasonable solution. James & I couldn't think of anything suitable but when Tom suggested Lula we cheered because it suits her perfectly. BTW Tom's intuition was spot on. I have never met anyone who is as Lulaish as Lula.

4. I embarrassed Ella with the help of William Blake. I was always allowed to rummage through my grandmother's library of books. I fell for 'Songs of Innocence & Experience' with my favourite poem being this. I knew it off by heart. When I was circa nine, I was allowed to attend one of my grandmother's afternoon tea parties. She asked me to recite a few lines of poetry to her friends. She'd been reading Walter de la Mare, John Masefield & Tennyson to me & was probably expecting a few lines from'The Lady of Shalott'. But OH NO!! Ms Dangerfield gave a perfect rendering of 'The Sick Rose' instead. I was still allowed to read any book I liked, but it was decided that I needed fresh air when my grandmother was entertaining so no more poetry recitals for me!

4. I am not ticklish.

5. I know a lot of gossip about the Pre-Raphaelites. In my opinion, a man who has his wife exhumed because he wants his poems back, is not fit for polite society. I would tell you who this was, but I fear that I have bored you so much that you're probably asleep by now. I don't want to disturb you whilst you're slumbering so I'll save my tittle-tattle for another day.

Sweet dreams!