Shaken and Stirred

Earthquakes are on every one's minds at the moment with the terrible devastation suffered by Cantabrians last Saturday. I watched TVNZ's coverage all day except for a couple of hours when I attended the 40th Anniversary Celebrations at the Arts and Crafts Corner Otane. Glenys and I had taken along some of our old paintings to decorate the art room the previous day, Jean Addis had bought along two works from original founding members plus I printed out photos from our Venetian Masque themed winter luncheon last year. Glenys and I had stuck these on a noticeboard along with the masks we'd decorated for the event. I took photos of the anniversary for the centre's website including one of eleven past presidents. The most interesting moments though were meeting some previous members including the widow of my father's employer from the 1960s and the son of the man who founded the Arts and Crafts Corner who donated his father's scrapbook of newspaper cuttings to the art group, all collected from 1970 to 1984. These need to be pasted back into the book but once I've done that it will be a valuable addition to our group's memorabilia- not that we have much!

This week I was frantically trying to log up more hours so I could complete a folder for The Learning Connexion and finish Year Two of Stage One. I needed to grab a nap on Monday and just as I was dozing a 5.2 earthquake hit south of Porangahau. That jolted me out of my snooze. Since then we've had three more quakes although nothing compared to Christchurch's aftershocks. Still you wonder with Hawkes Bay's history if the next one will be the biggie so have been filling spare bottles with water.


I spent hours working on my entry for The Art's Extravaganza at Pukeora over the past month. I took the photo of the lamb last year when its mother allowed me near to stroke it just after it was born. I thought it would be easy to paint but its wool really was a coat of many colours and very difficult to execute. No matter though as ultimately it was rejected. The selectors didn't like the background colour apparently. However I was rejected in some good company as there were a couple of well known artists whose paintings didn't get in. It's all a matter of taste I guess.


Finally completed the pendant of Tara the One Eyed Cat for her owner. Also sold another pendant on Trademe. As Christmas is fast approaching and Trademe are offering half price on their classified listings I have advertised my "services". Doesn't matter what other work I do I always return to painting animals. Which in turn feeds my animals. And buys me chocolate...