Etegami for my mum on Mother's Day.

Finally feel I can post this, the poem seems to say it all.

I love swaps!!!!!!!

My new friend in Tasmania, Gay Mckinnon (silvergum studio) who is an amazing glass artist and accomplished illustrator was kind enough to agree to a swap of works. I love her illustrations and asked if she could as a special favour make me one of her glass pendants using her avatar of a cute koala. She agreed and I sent her a couple of my cards and some etegami she had admired.
Although she was not very happy with the koala, I love him and the shell pendant she sent along with him, I think it is so special to have something made just for you so I will treasure them always. They were accompanied by one of her cards, can you find THE koala?

The problems in Japan have not gone away even though the media have moved on to other news but they still trouble the minds of etegamists ( if there is such a word) and I recently received this one from my friend Mayumi expressing the hope that we will all support the Japanese people through their troubles. It was accompanied by this whimsical rabbit (it is the year of the rabbit) card.

Now about that government watch list I am on...........no I am not an agent for a foreign country but I do have friends who send me postcards made out of material other than bleached paper (the owls above are a case in point) and this makes the Quarantine Service very nervous. In Australia we have very stringent quarantine regulations in order to preserve our isolation from many of the bugs, animals and plant diseases that plague the rest of the world, consequently I have had quite a lot of my mail opened. As traditional Japanese aesthetics embrace a rustic ideal, in many cases some of the materials I have been sent are in their natural state and that makes them interesting to the quarantine sniffer dogs. Quite a bit of my mail has arrived with bright yellow stickers on "opened by the quarantine service". I hope they are doing as good a job with other substances, though I guess the people importing the 'other substances' get more than a yellow sticker! 

The new reality

The new reality is that I am a 65 year old orphan...Blessed to have my mum for all of that time.
We buried her on wednesday in a short but moving ceremony held at the graveside. The day was sunny and cool and as with most funerals, relatives whom we had not seen for years appeared. At the wake we were able to catch up on the news happening in their families in the intervening years. Our son made the trip from Singapore and is staying for a few days which is lovely.
I returned home to the sight of my Tree Dahlia blooming in all of it's glory, something which will no doubt remind me of this time . Usually the plant is anything up to 4 metres high but this year it blew over in the wind and became tangled up with other plants to create a glorious mess. The dinner plate sized blooms last for a short time but are worth the wait.

I am keen to post some of the wonderful etegami etc that I have received recently so check back soon

All things must pass...

My darling mum was taken from us last night after a terrible few months of suffering. I am glad she is no longer in pain, the pain is now in our hearts.
Thank goodness I have a younger brother who has shouldered the responsibility of being with her everyday in hospital which is far away from me. My other brother has been a stalwart in later years always being there for mum who was blind and remained in her own home.

I was lucky enough to see her while she was still barely conscious but she deteriorated rapidly after that. Here she is as a very serious 13 year old fashionably coiffed with rolls in her hair.

And here in later years, laughing at her solution to walking in the wet grass in my backyard.

Vale mum.

Etegami, etegami, etegami...Not a Royal wedding in sight!

The mailbox has been very good to me the last few days and I have a heap of interesting stuff to show you. Before that let me say that my last etegami was a bit of a FAIL. I am still having trouble mastering the colour application using the gansai paint on what is akin to blotting paper. I  think I was displaying a fair amount of hubris when I ordered the postcards with maximum 'nijimi' or absorbency as it is probably beyond my skill level. I am pushing on though and in the interests of not posting only my successes, the above is my latest attempt which did not go so well.

Contrast that with this one from the excellent Debbie (DosankoDebbie) which arrived yesterday. Beautiful. The subject is soramame or broadbeans commonly called in Japan 'skybeans' as they have the appearance of looking skyward. Isn' the green ravishing?
Just coincidentally when in Japan five years ago I bought a set of chopstick rests that are the absolute image of these, I do like the colour.

More tomorrow on the contents of my mailbox and why I am on a government watchlist........

Raining etegami

What is it they say? 'It never rains but it pours'? Well after an etegami 'drought' I have managed three in two days.
It is the Easter break here and life has  wound down for most people. Good Friday is the one holiday that people seem to treat with some respect, almost all of the shops are closed and folk spend the time with their friends and family or doing etegami. LOL.
Traditionally it has been a time to tidy up around the house, do those little DIY jobs and paint sales go through the roof prior to the long weekend. In the spirit of home renovation we have decided to replace the silicon joints between the wall and our hand basins, riveting stuff eh?

Gardening and harvesting our chokos (enough for us and the neighbours) prompted the first etegami.

The wombat seemed to be  a good subject to follow in my series of Australian birds and animals, the only wombat I can see locally (they are nocturnal) is in a cage at the local wildlife park, a grumpy chap he really would not make a good substitute for the Easter bunny though I am sure a chocolate one would be better than the Easter Bilby, another Australian animal pushing for that role.

You have to admit they are pretty cute in a lumbering kind of way.
(For a good explanation of etegami go to DosankoDebbie's blog in my blog list.)

Cockatoo etegami and maybe a haiku?

A couple of attempts to 'capture' a Sulphur Crested white cockatoo. They always seem to herald winter to me as they are most noticeable against a dark stormy sky. Flocks of them fly over screeching in their raucous voices, announcing their presence. Sometimes it seems they just do it for the hell of it!

Cockatoos are a long lived bird and very intelligent (as birds go), it pains me to see them caged and solitary as they are very gregarious and mate for life which can be many decades long. Cockatoos are frequently inherited after they outlive their original owners. any caged bird is an abomination to me but I guess they do give the people who own them some pleasure.
The words are meant to be a haiku, a Japanese form of poetry, short, 17 syllables (in Japanese) and evocative rather than descriptive I think....a first attempt.

Lazy Sunday

My garden is having a late spurt of growth and today it was 27 degrees C, I just had to get out and take some photos,something to look at when I move to the aged care facility! Can you see the chicken topiary in the second urn? The plant in front is a Tree Dahlia which should be flowering in a couple of weeks, the gorgeous mauve single flowers last only a day but repeat down the stem.
 The first urn in my front garden has a beautiful blue grey succulent which is as tough as old boots, it is surrounded by gardenia, a tricky one to grow in our magnesium deficient soils.
I am really loving the Japanese box topiary in the front garden, The inspiration came from a temple garden in Kyoto where they were grown in a large plot in lines.
The Japanese Anemones are the best this year and can be a bit weedy, they suffer in dry times but bounce back very quickly with a bit of water. Why do I have so many Japanese plants?
At the moment we are having a storm, almost like Summer and the smell is so typical of a summer storm,   dust mingled with nostalgia.
Tomorrow we are promised Autumn!

That's a bit Goth for you Mum!

Lol, that's my son's reaction when he saw this brooch that I bought  from a Brisbane girl on Etsy, can't copy the link so if you are interested in her work just Google Catamation on Etsy and it will take you to her shop.

It came in this cool handmade box as well. Even though I have been interested in origami since I bought my first Robert Harbin paperback in the early 70's there is no way I could do this level of intricacy.
Re my son's comment, it is nice to be at a time in life when being unpredictable is a bonus!

Life goes on...

The mail gets through, tick tock, tick tock...daylight saving ends tonight, we shall be woken up in the light and go to bed in the dark..life goes on.
After a week dealing with minor family crises I finally got the chance to 'etegami' the gorgeous windflowers in my garden, they are rather ephemeral so I took the chance to paint them while the Prof was disporting himself at the local sports club.

I tried tracing over my original drawing and reproducing it with a different line from the same poem, which do you like? As usual I like the image on one and the words on the other Doh!
Received mailart this week was from 'Senior' always a delight to get mail from him. This time the envelope was just as wonderful as the contents.
The etegami is in response to one I sent him saying that I wanted to see the cherry blossoms (Sakura) and he made me this wonderfully abstract card.
I am so envious as my work invariably becomes too literal, I do so admire people who can loosen up.

Told you it was fabulous.!