While I was at it I added a few things to my blogroll, like the black and white Flash website I built for my Dad’s sculptures, Sculptural Forms and the photo website Photomuse that was really about finding different ways to display a gallery of images in Flash.

I also did some appearance changes to Tania’s Golden Moments Massage website, which I haven’t told her about yet! See how long it takes for her to discover the new look? It is similar to the old one really, just a bit simpler.

So having familiarised myself with the old html code again it is time to move on to something else I guess! Ahh I know – time to work on my son Craig’s mechanical air-conditioning website, Duomec…

When the kids grow up and leave home they seem to travel further away these days, which makes taking all the odds and ends with them even harder than now than it has been in the past – and I remember how much I left behind! Anyway, one of the things left behind by the oldest 2 boys are some catus plants which I have repotted together and they are really doing well. So even though they aren’t here, little memories are triggered daily by those odds and ends that still need the attention of the mother!

Tomorrow is set up day for the Osmosis Exhibition. It is going to be an exciting show with work in various media. If you haven’t had a chance to have a look at the Osmosis website yet, then it has quite a lot of the work that will be in the exhibition on it so it is a good browse!.

The exhibition will be at the Sidespace Gallery in the Salamanca Arts Centre from the 8th to the 21st and we are having an opening night on the 10th at 5.30pm. Come along and have a pre dinner nibble and a glass fo wine to celebrate the beauty and diversity of Bruny Island captured by twelve Tasmanian female artists!

The tannin rich water that has been flowing onto the beach over the last couple of months is such a beautiful translucent tone – just love it! It looked like silk in the afternoon glow.

I kept the curtain open in my room so that the morning light would force me out of bed to catch the sunrise! It was well worth it as the colours glowed a warmth and grace that left a calm feeling with me all day.

The first light struck the white of the waves as it lifted above the sand dunes and highlighted the rocky cliff faces on the other side of Cloudy Bay.

The morning sun was also fabulous for picking up the edges of the patterns left by the water running off the sandy beach. Delightful dancing forms!

But eventually it was down to work! I like ot use tools from the environment that I am working in, and in this case the screw shell made an excellent scratchy tool. They are a foreign species to Tasmania, coming from New Zealand, but they are super efficient at breeding and it is a sad sight when you see a beach covered with these invading shells. It suited my project to use a screw shell to mark the plate that subtly refers to the colonising of Australia.

Bruny Island lighthouse is a very popular spot for visitors to go. Located on the southern tip of the south end of Bruny it is a fabulous place to check out the view of the coastline. Great spot for a lighthouse I guess! I arrived towards the end of the day when there was a brief moment of sunshine warming up the side of the structure.

This view from the lighthouse is towards the bay we stayed in for our Osmosis 2009 workshop weekend. It is out of view of course, but after another 45 minutes (or so) drive I arrived at the Cloudy Bay Cabin and took to the beach with my camera as the sun disappeared for the day.

The landscape is just beautiful on the Island. The profiles of the distant hills are quite a dominant feature – perhaps because you can see so much without interruption.

The Osmosis journey is on again this year. We have expanded our number of exhibitors to a healthy dozen and we have an exhibition scheduled for September at the Sidespace gallery in the Salamanca Arts Centre.

First step is to take the journey to the location we have chosen, which is Bruny Island this year. Several ladies have already ventured across the short but deep stretch of water that lies between the Tasmanian shore and the Bruny coastline. The ferry leaves from Kettering and tomorrow I will be on it to join a group of 5 for a weekend of making art.

This year we have people working in a number of media – painting, photography, printmaking and sculpture, so the final exhibition will be an exciting event as we gather together the work for the first time. We have built a website which is at the ‘bare bones’ stage but the news page is a blog which will have entries of progress as we work towards the September 8 deadline.

So I’m off to put together a boiled fruit cake  and all the arty supplies I might need for the weekend, and of course the camera! Hopefully it won’t rain the whole time and I will have some half decent photos to share here when I get back.

The winter chill has settled on the roof of the car on some mornings. It freshens up the squishy mud that has developed in the yard with all the rain we have had over the last couple of months. A lot of people who have grown up in Tasmania and remembering how it was so wet and chilled in winter in years gone by. It is certainly needed, to fill the dams and lift the drought from the parched farms.

So in between carting folders, boxes and armloads of prints, plates and all the odds and ends that goes with it from university to home I have been putting together a little exchange print.

I intend to add one more layer this weekend which will hopefully pull the print together – a gradient roll up. I’ve also started working on the next major project which is going to be developed around the fan.

As you can see it is in the early stages yet! After two etches – a line etch and then the aquatint – it is starting to build up to what I am hoping to create in print. I just love the very old painted fans with the stories so beautifully crafted across the classic fan shape. My fans may not have such clear cut stories though – perhaps there will be some layered perspectives in there! I am using the fan as a mask between the local environment, which will be around the outside of the fan, and the story that brings the holder of the fan to that point in time – if that makes sense!

It is an interesting project to embark on – gentle after the intensity of the MFA, but it will still require a lot of research and as I’m basing it on my family history it will mean a few trips about Australia – and beyond?

If all the letters at the end of peoples names weren’t hard enough to work out, there is also a doubling up of some. Doing a Masters by coursework means that you don’t have to work the research side so much and produce a written paper. It is assessed  on the exhibition work alone. So the university has quite a few people working this way and there is a number coming up for examination this weekend.

Fiona Fraser is one of the exhibitors and her photographic work explores the suburban yard. The exhibition opens on the Friday 12th at 5.30 at the Plimsoll Gallery in Hobart and continues over the weekend with the gallery open from 12 – 5pm.

I know it is a bit over the top to put up so many photos – but it is such a fantastic, magical place to take in the sunset that I just can’t resist sharing the moments as they happened! The island on the right is called Woody Island and it used to be grazed by sheep – how wonderful it imagine the sheep being rowed across to and from the island!

Steven has been busy redesigning my art website to make it much more functional and offer a better gallery display. It has a blog page called latest news and four galleries which I can update easily.

Thanks very much Steven! He has also been busy building a new website for his growing collection and interest in photography, Steven Clark Studio, which is well worth having a look at. Its a very graceful and attractive website too I might add!