靈芝 

Ling zhi, in Chinese, means "herb of spiritual potency". It's also a Chinese symbol of longevity. Also known as Ganoderma lucidus in taxonomy.

This little crocheted experiment reminds me of a mushroom.

Coloured Figures of English Fungi or Mushrooms, James Sowerby, 1797, London.

All welcome. Please come and have a look and say hello!

Fungi and other microorganisms break down the rotten logs. A giant web, branching in all directions, like mycelium. Cellulose...... a long chain made by nature.

Orange polypore.

The first clumsy attempt at making rope, from a weedy looking plant. It got thinner and thinner. A bracket fungi found on a rotten log. It's tough and leathery.

Beautiful Japanese rope used in bamboo fencing.

Water hyacinth cord.

Hemp cord.

Thoughts of branching of algae and coral have changed to thoughts of branching mycelium.

My new scythe. 

So much grass everywhere.

My new skirt.

Yesterday's harvest.

Mounting components onto fabric. 

Highlight........ 2m carpet python Morelia Spilota  in the grass. Stunning!!!!!

I'm naming it the Linnaeus project. It will be big, approximately 60 x 60 cm and made entirely from preloved tapestry wool.

The hook is sizzling at the moment. I'm also trying to consolidate years of little experiments into whole larger pieces. Much of the challenge is working out how to mount and display them. I hope to include these pieces in an exhibition by the name of "Branching" at the Gaffa Gallery in Sydney in October.

So it's head down and tail up for the next few months!

A little bit of progress has been made on this piece. 

Last week I went back down to Sydney to appear on "Mornings with Deborah Cameron", 702 Local ABC Radio. She was hosting the "Knit-in" and I did a demonstration showing how to make plastic bag yarn and talked about my work. 

I'm back and itching to finish a myriad of projects.

The newest piece is beginning to take shape. The final form it takes is not apparent at this stage but the same archetypal shapes come back to me again and again. Are they hard-wired or have they been imprinted on my brain after years of looking at cell structure through a microscope? The plastic bag yarn is becoming finer and the stitches more uniform. Lots of practise and increased neuromuscular wiring has made the medium and technique very familiar and the fingers are dancing quicker than ever.

Tentacles perhaps?

A little nest, the first found here. The eyes are rehearsed in spotting this delicate structure,

and dear Lucy (a sight hound) has spotted YOU! 

At the local market I found some old tools.......... 

a net making needle,

and a drawknife.

I want to learn how to make rope/cord from the abundant plant material here. How to lash sticks together and how to thatch. What shape the new projects take is anyone's guess.

I've left a temperate climate and now live in a subtropical climate. It's bright and sunny and warm during the day but very chilly at night. Sunflowers grow here in the middle of winter.

A friend, from a local sugarcane farm, brought me some beautiful orange plastic bags back from a trip to Berlin, as well as tangellos from his garden. Such sunny colours. 

Also new creatures....... strange calls at night and a certain amount of destruction after a nocturnal feeding frency!

This snoozy, baby red-belly black snake was in the compost heap. Yikes! I wonder where it's mother is. Note to self: start wearing gloves when gardening.

So much rain has fallen here in the last couple of years and the staghorn ferns are thriving. Two of my favourites survived the drought. I used to cart buckets of shower-water out to them when the water was scarce. Now the tanks are full.... and the showers luxuriously long. This one is growing on a big basalt boulder, shot out of the old volcano millions of years ago. The branching fertile fronds are full of brown spores.

In an attempt to retain the gene pool of the surrounding rainforest and revegetate the land, I have been madly collecting seeds and hope to be able to germinate them. 

These black seeds came from the loofas (in the vegie patch) I harvested last week.

Straight off the withering vine......

.....peeled and seeds removed. Ready for scrubbing!!

The kookaburras are laughing and the horses are being led out of the stable across the road. The sun will be up soon. I'd better catch a bit of sleep so that I'll be ready for another glorious day. It's good to be back here. 

The preparation and packing for the big move to Northern NSW is taking up a lot of my time and energy. I have managed to do some work on my Bleached Coral Garden. It's made from paper yarn. The yarn is lovely to work with having very different properties to the plastic bag yarn. One interesting quality is that it can be shaped using a little pressure from the fingers. I like the ivory white too. Note to self..... pieces made from paper in the future, when the dust has settled.

 

Joanne Woodward

An image from one of my favourite books which I found tossed on the side of the street during council clear-out many years ago. Jump Book, Philippe Halsman, Andre Deutsch, London, 1959. Available here

I wish I could be there for opening night. 

Thanks Susan for including me in the show.