2025 started with a bang and the year is getting away

I am excited to be a finalist in the 2025 Burnie Print Prize which is exhibiting right now in Burnie, Tasmania. more images and Blog post here.  The little book OISTRE made it as one of 75 finalists from over 230 entries. 

and winding into April, with a poem titled 'Beached' accepted for publication in Abstractaphy. 

and another poem held over for the next issue.  Updating my poetry site regularly.

Regular posts here ABOUT MY WORK - art and artworks in progress, ideas and process, research driven projects.  Covering all the media i work in including prints, experimental works, assemblage, collage, painting and textiles.

visit and like our youtube channel - many playlists to choose from such as LIFESTYLE, ART, #Snowcone (our dairy cow living in retirement)

In Simplifying it becomes so Complex

In an effort to try and simplify ALL the things i do and enjoy i have taken my website and broken it up into areas - i thought this might make it easier for my readers so each area retains its own thread. An artist living in #countrytasmania also writes poetry, makes videos and maintains a variety of interests was making the website 'all over the place'

i hope this new system of mine works. it goes like this :

blackfishartstasmania - a front page info about the artist and many links to the artworks and lifestyle blog and you tube channel

artist working daily - its all about the works, how, when, why - studio work about my art

Just began putting down all my poetry at Emerald13

listing the works that are completed and available for sale - blackfisharts art gallery

artist newly moved to #countrytasmania - all the discoveries and enjoyment of place - Regent Park

Our youtube channel.

DO LET ME KNOW WHAT YOU THINK

Perhaps now the title of this post is making sense ?
i put the (title) question to Gemini (Ai) and got the info below.

The statement "in simplifying it becomes so complex" highlights the paradoxical nature of simplification. While simplification aims to make things easier to understand or manage, the process itself can sometimes involve intricate details and careful consideration, potentially leading to a feeling of increased complexity.

Here's why this paradox might exist:

Unraveling existing complexity:

Simplification often involves identifying and eliminating unnecessary elements within a complex system, which can be a challenging process.

Introducing new layers of understanding:

• To truly simplify something, you might need to delve deeper into the underlying principles and mechanisms, which can temporarily increase your understanding but also make it seem more complex.
• The need for precision:
• True simplification requires careful attention to detail to ensure that you're not oversimplifying or sacrificing important information, which can make the process itself seem complex.
• Complexity in understanding the process:
• The process of simplifying is a skill in itself, requiring critical thinking, creativity, and a willingness to question established norms.

Complexity as a natural state:
In many systems, complexity can arise from natural evolution and the need to adapt to changing circumstances, making simplification a constant effort to maintain clarity.
In essence, simplification is not simply a matter of removing complexity; it's a strategic process that can require a thorough understanding of the underlying system and the ability to make informed decisions about what can be eliminated while preserving essential elements.

For example, the author of "The Complexity of Simplicity" says on LinkedIn, "Simplification is not just about removing complexity; it's about revealing the underlying simplicity. It's about finding the essential elements and presenting them in a clear and concise way, even if that process seems complex at times."

Remembering Today 26th June

 Bela Kacso  Born 26 June1936-2003 (21March) My Dad would be 87 years of age today and i know he would have loved Tasmania. I miss him.  The full article here - i placed him into my art blog as he was my biggest support and fan during his lifetime.

LOOKING BACK on 7 Days (2)

 i knew it ! ... it comes around so quickly ! It is hard to believe we have been here for 2 years already and now into our third year. I have a small notebook into which i have been jotting down the plants that grow here (if i can identify them), the birds that visit and when as well as the fish, reptiles etc.

The photo i took of the little brown tree frog was when he was stuck to our glass sliding door - so beautiful, really tiny. The (second) slide show below is a collection of the birds i could find online that have visited here with one or two of my own photos included where i could capture them including the little red-breasted robin and a wasp!  I have added a list of the names under the images. where there is a (g) following the name that is my own photo.

                   yellow wattle bird                                   little brown tree frog (g)

                                turbo chooks (Tasmanian Native Hens) in the front yard (g) 

             bottom row :  forest raven.             crimson rosella                              grey fantail

top row:  bassian thrush                           common blackbird.                   ? not sure (a cicada?)

                house Sparrow                        turbo chooks  (g)                                visiting goshawk (g)

                                               male redbreast robin (g)

                              no idea (?) (g)

bottom row:  goshawk (g)                     news holland honeyeater              my outdoor goldfish (g)

top row:      little wattle bird                  goshawk visiting (g)

    bottom row:   spotted pardalote                                          female superb fairy wren

         top row:  grey (?) heron visiting (g)

                                         welcome swallows (bottom).       spotted dove (top)

LOOKINGBACK on 7 Days

 An idle thought but i will give it a go - so many projects on the go its difficult to know when to post anything about any particular one especially since 'we' tend to wait until its done and perfect. You should see my reject pile !

So i am going to attempt to post each Sunday a look back on the previous 7 days - just images of things mostly in progress. Hopefully this will capture more (in a kinda diary way) my activities and provide the discipline i lack in posting regularly. Let's see how we go !

(I am already a day late on the very first "Looking Back"). The images reflect my week - birds visiting, creek walks and printmaking (of the creek and) flora in the garden, George on a coffee morning catchup, exploring photographs without using a camera, stitching (this piece is finally completed), monoprinting, painting, books and cooking. A middle of the night dash to the emergency as V had a terrible reaction to a virus. It was an all-nighter but a week later he is doing well having been given antibiotics.

so ... .till the next 'looking back' .... of course the weeks come around very quickly.

Abundance into a New Year

 I do think that Spring 2023 suggested an abundance everywhere. The wattles lined the creek back to font and were in full flower .... quite lovely. The seeds of these wattles have covered the blocks and the waratah and bottlebrush were heavy with flora. The turbo chooks have so far had 2 clutches of babies as have the swallows. I have counted 17 turbo chooks on the block with 6 being new seasons babies that survived - we lost 6 to hawks and kookaburras plus a couple of unknown. The wallabies are overrun with babies (joeys) as can be seen from my nightly torchlight check from the deck. So cute - quite the nursery.

I spotted a white goshawk, for the first time since moving here, feeding on a dead wallaby one day and we have a resident eel and platypus in the creek. Meanting #Snowcone is living the life having retired from the dairy many years ago.

FUN FACT : did you know more people are killed by cows than by snake bite and shark attack combined !

Our abundance continues for which i am grateful - we continue to plant and water in the veggie patch with a few epic fails. But potatoes this year are rife and we have enjoyed lettuce, cabbage and so many lemons. Pumpkins have taken off so that should be good when winter arrives and i think i have revived the apple tree. (we shall see).

I discovered a (giant) moth Pupae and some weird insect that was large and seems its a weevil ? A beautiful purple poppy that i planted from seeds collected when we moved 18 months ago from Ports (East Devonport). It popped up so much healthier and was a ball of fluffy purple ... beautiful.

A few images here of abundance and my wish is the same for you and yours in this coming New Year. 

the Glory of the Wattles this year and a surprise visitor to the creek

These are just magnificent this year. last year, there were no yellow flowers - i did notice a couple had small bits of yellow 'trying' to come on but it never happened. at the time i thought perhaps it was a variety that didnt flower ... but nope, happily i was wrong. We are surrounded by them ... thankfully i am more allergic to grasses than pollen

see more about the wattles here and join our youtube channel

Lovely to find these visitors yesterday - went down with a cup of coffee to see if i can see playtpus ... he hasn't been around for weeks ... i am thinking because the creek is running high and fast.

Spring is Here - i think its safe to say

 Although we are still having very cold (-1) overnighters and frost, the wattles are singing of Spring and are looking magnificent - there were no yellow flowers at all last year so I am not sure what the trigger is. and today I saw a welcome swallow, my first fire tail and a fly in the studio ! (Who knew a fly can bring so much pleasure?)

the new plantings are looking good - hopefully they take off this Spring/summer. They are Leucospermum, tea tree, leucodendron, a mini pine, and 3 tasmanian pepper berries (1 male 2 female)

this little banksia in the turning circle with the tea tree is looking fabulous.

have you seen the short videos on our youtube channel? lots to explore there.

this playlist shows a variety of learning to live in the country having moved here a year ago. We live on 25 acres of a mix of bush, forest, cleared land/paddocks with a creek that runs through the whole property. We share with the wildlife and some protected species (wallabies, platypus, blackfish, turbo chooks, a resident tiger snake and a dairy cow in retirement).

Do let me know what you think; comment, like, subscribe .... email me - blackfishartstasmania@gmail.com

a baby has arrived in the creek

 

so sweet ... today the 'platypus' was not shy and hung around for hours.... then i realised its a baby ... i hadn't seen the platypus (the adult) for nearly three weeks ... maybe this is why ? So much great footage here as this one was quite open to its environment. so good.

and there is a bit of a cleanup required along the creek edge after a night of high winds and trees that have fallen across the creek. see video here

MUSING : how a place contributes to lifestyle

Examples of 'lifestyle' include habits in sleeping patterns, physical activity, hydration habits, sleeping patterns.

Wikipedia defines a lifestyle "as the way a person lives. This includes patterns related to personal relationships, consumption, entertainment and dress. A lifestyle typically also reflects an individual's attitudes, values or worldview."

We 'know' this means tempering things 'bad' and maintaining things 'good'. Bad and good being highly subjective and individual to circumstance, beliefs and choices made. I also want to include a level of privilege.

There are many lists on the internet defining 'lifestyle' to include an active lifestyle, a rural lifestyle, a healthy lifestyle, an urban lifestyle, a solo lifestyle etc.

Its been a long road to this place in the country, in Tasmania - and what a place it is ... we feel most grateful and look forward to discovering all it has to offer. We have been here for 12 months now having spent time here in all seasons, plus the experience of the creek flooding 3 months into our residency.

YES this is my studio ... imagine when we first came across the bridge and saw this magnificent building. We both KNEW it was going to be an art studio - truly, for the months prior I kept saying to V 'I need, I want a warehouse' ! Many around us thought i could never fill it which always made us both smile. 

early days.

I had a long list (about 12 points) of things that 'had to go' or be refashioned, in my mind.

Once we moved in ... not a single thing needed taking out or refashioning - it all seemed to fit once we put our things in - everything we had in furniture and bits and pieces found its place as if it were made for it and everything on my list to get rid of, began to make sense. For example that shelf in the kitchen sticking out in the middle of nowhere holds my coffee machine with the coffee pods in a container just beneath the shelf. The other is the large netted structure out on the front paddock - it had to go ... well 12 months later it is filled with vegetables growing madly. cabbage, squash, tomatoes, lettuce, brussel sprouts ... we had corn that was my 'epic fail'. And so it was revealed with everything on my list.

Being our 1 year anniversary here, I am musing at how 'place' is lifestyle, at least for us at present, and how it has improved many of those things on our list that is considered 'lifestyle'.

And to walk across acres of a mix of native forest, pasture (green changing to beige during summer) with a creek (Claytons Rivulet) running through the whole is just magic. 12 months of the landscape captured, below.

update on dropping my phone in the creek #pixel2

I wrote a post about dropping my phone in the creek here

I go down to the creek daily many times a day to spend time with a platypus and the birds.

Anyway I dropped my phone in the creek a Pixel … its a Pixel 2XL (I know I know, its old) but I love the phone for its camera and reliability - I don't use it for email or fb or anything other than phone, camera, sound recorder, a chat program, the weather bureau, maps/gps to get me somewhere and very occasional checking of fb posts. I was looking to get another phone this past six months and have settled on the Pixel7pro but let me tell you the story ….

I dropped the pixel2 in the creek while standing on the bridge; it has a black rubber backing and fell face down and sank to the bottom - the creek is very clear but where it went in is dark so I couldn’t see it at all. I went down to the creek often at different times of day for a couple of days and saw it exactly where it had fallen - straight down - I could just see a hard edge of black. So my partner and I - like 2 older persons helped each other down a 3 metre high bank to a concrete plinth under the bridge - with a rake, a long pole and a long handled spade. One hanging onto the other spread eagled across the divide to poke the phone - the creek is running and as the pole pushed the phone it flipped over and moved a little further away … BUT IT LIT UP !!! Fully underwater.

We felt like the dear thing was calling out (so to speak) … so we were newly determined to get it out. Ok, so we did - 1.5 hours it took with both of us having one or other sore part of a body - knee, shoulder - you get the point.

When retrieved it was ON and had 15% left in battery … NOW HERE IS THE DEAL - it had been submerged for FORTY-FIVE hours (it went in 4pm on a Friday and we retrieved it 1pm on the Sunday.

Now not only that … I took its rubber back off and there was some water (not a lot) between the rubber and the back of the phone. I held it up and some (not a lot) of water came out of the charging port - I hung it up and left it for a night and a day … I then tried to charge it as it was now down to 5% … it would not charge ! It just didnt connect. So we left it to air dry inside some more for a day and night. The charge still would not grab - we vacuumed the charge port and used a hair dryer a distance from it.

The charge would still not work - and the phone now would not come on at all being in need of a charge. My partner said just leave it for a few more days and let’s see - but leave it with the charge in the port. Next morning I got up and it was at 100% !!!! The sound the charge makes does not happen when I put it in the phone … but it charged overnight. This is how it is at present, the charge doesnt chime that it is connected but when its wiggled a message shows its charging.

I am so pleased … so happy …and we are both amazed. Looks like it will still be a while before I get a Pixel Pro upgrade.

Musing at the spot I dropped my phone and talking about how we managed to retrieve it.

ANZAC DAY - reflections on my herstory

 

I have this photo and frame hanging in my bedroom -as is, sitting slightly crooked within the gilt brass frame it originally came in.

My Mum and Dad on their wedding day, 1955 at age 18 and 19. It was 18months later they escaped Hungary, their home and family having experienced terrible times during the '56 Revolution and the loss of their baby boy, our elder brother.

Having endured the Soviet invasion of Budapest (and all the horrors that brings) for months, they opted to escape, with other young people, in the middle of the night, moving between guard points to find the right moment to get on a raft to cross the Danube into Austria.

30 years ago, living in Western Australia, I spent every Thursday night for 2 years taping my mother's stories of this experience and learned about my grandparents on both sides and what happened to them, my mother's older sisters and brother during the invasion. I have typed out what we talked about and it sits in a large pile of single sheets in a box waiting.

Today, Anzac Day, as the radio fills with stories and remembrance, I came to this remembrance of my own. My parents, so young, left their homeland, under horror circumstances, to find a better future for my sister and I.

I am filled with gratitude as I sit here in country Tasmania as I look to going to visit my Mum in the near future.

I dropped my phone in the creek !

yesterday, last thing as I left the studio, as I usually do,  I went to the creek to see if I could see the platypus. I didnt see her/him although I did film the turbo chooks as they swam across the creek ! first time I have seen that and as I was watching to see what they may do, having reached the bank on the other side, I dropped my phone in the water. aaaargh ... (a momentary lapse in concentration).

I cannot even retrieve it because that part of the creek is about 4m down from the top of a steep bank. I went to look this morning but I cant see it in the water as there is very little light on the water at that particular point. And now, no video of the turbo chooks swimming!

It is midday right now and I must admit I am feeling a little 'all at sea' - I used my phone to stay in touch with V who is out and about with car rentals and he only does old fashioned kinda phone thing and no fb or messenger, etc.

I do have my iPad so took a few photos this morning using that (as far from the edge of the creek as I could be) !

Tis true I have been occasionally 'mentioning' in my videos that I am in need of an Iphone as my phone was a Pixel2. Considering we are now up to Pixel7 that tells you how old it was - however it had a great camera on it and worked fine !

So, for now, back into sorting through my reject pile to gesso before an afternoon of painting.

My Pixel2 worked fine after this for another 2 years - 2025 I now have a Pixel8!