Ashes and Snow...

I saw this over at Ruthie's wonderful blog, A Faerietale of Inspiration and followed her links to the Ashes and Snow Website.  Browsing the site moved me to tears in ways I cannot begin to express.  The deep, deep longing for something lost, a knowing that has not been passed down, a way of being we've forgotten.  A homesickness and a longing to return from exile...from ourselves.  Here is a taste from Youtube, but the online exhibition is so much more.  Go visit and be amazed.

Edited to add this wonderful interview with Gregory Colbert.

The Talesingr: The Tale of the Mountain Spirit and the Fire Bird

The Tale of the mountain spirit and the fire bird

Various, fragmented versions of this story survive. It appears to be a creation myth, though specifics differ between tribes, particularly in the geographical details, as one might expect from people so closely linked, and reliant upon, the landscape surrounding them. In some versions of the story, the fire bird comes from an island far out to sea and flies to the dark mountains. Clearly such geographical details are dependent on the location of the tribe, and what lies to the east and west of the land over which they journey. The mountain spirit is male in some versions, and female in others, and sometimes not considered to be either, or perhaps both. 

In the beginning times, the world was cold, dark and still. There was no light to wake the spirits, so they slumbered. Only the mountain spirit was awake, silent and watchful, for he was the oldest spirit. But the mountain spirit was lonely and wished for company. So he began to sing. And as he sang, the fired that burned deep inside his belly began to rise, and as it rose, its red glow could be seen, becoming brighter and brighter. And the slumbering spirits began to awaken to this new song and this new light. And still the mountain spirit sang the fire up, until at last it flew out of his mouth in the shape of a fiery bird, sweeping on great flaming wings towards the water-without-end. And all the spirits awoke and the world grew bright and beautiful and the spirits moved over its face and they began to join the song, singing all the peoples of the earth into being, the fur and feathered people, the human and scaled people, the green growing people, the small and large. And when the flames of the fire bird had faded and the world grew dark again, it crawled back into the mountain spirit’s mouth, to sleep and grow strong again. And the mountain spirit was so pleased with the beauty and brightness of this new world, that he has sung the fiery bird out of his mouth each day from that time to this.

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All text and images © Christina Cairns 2011

‘The Talesingr’s Children’ is a story invented by Christina Cairns, and all accompanying ‘anthropological information’ was found hidden in an old wooden box with aged brass handles, in the attic in a corner of my mind that doesn’t get dusted very often. Or perhaps it’s all true...............................

Last day of the Hols...birthdays and puppets...

...a bit of what we did!

We went and saw 'Hare Brain' at the wonderful Spare Parts Puppet Theatre...actually, I saw it 5 times, because I volunteered to help out for a couple of days, ushering, taking tickets, vacuuming the foyer and making sure the loos were kept well stocked with loo paper (very important when you've got lots of very small bladders in the audience!)  I have to say, I enjoyed it every time, and laughed at the 'blue lettuce' joke as much on the 5th as the 1st time.  The Spare Parts people generously gave free tickets to volunteer helpers, so I took my girls on my smallest munchkin's 7th (eeek, when did that happen!?) birthday.  Spare Parts is a WA institution, celebrating their 30th birthday this year...I'm looking forward to their next season!

And that birthday...I don't know how it happened, I'm sure she was 2 just last week!

Daddy and his girls!

Daddy decided to help blow out the candles...and there were great exclamations of "DADDY!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Followed by the 'Connect Four' tournament.  It looks like bigger munchkin has just lost to Daddy, but smallest did well against Grandad (and they both beat me...without any help...on several occasions...oh embarrassment!)

Smallest munchkin went Goblin Hunting...apparently this is the regulation GH uniform.

Biggest joined the pirates.

Inspired by 'Hare Brain' and to combat the 'I'm bored!' syndrome, we made some (rather odd) puppets.  Faeries of course.  Not quite finished, but never mind.

Finally, just when you think you've tired them out and can afford to sit down with a good book...you make the mistake of saying 'well, you've got mummy and daddy home today, what do you want to do?" And biggest says "Lets make a movie!"

Ahhh...ummmm...hmmmmm...okaaaaaaaaay...I guess we can do that...

Biggest had great 'Cecil B. De Mille' yearnings, involving everyone getting dressed up as Princesses and Princes (hmmm, if you can convince daddy to dress up, you're a better woman than I am, sweetheart!!), and doing Cinderella...on location in the front yard!  Given the cast of thousands required (the Ball scene) plus all the trained mice and birds, I managed to steer her to a slightly lower budget (think cool, indi and hip) style, and Little Red Riding Hood instead (only needing a cast of 4).  It was hilarious really, I do wish I could show you, but our video camera really is a VIDEO camera, circa 1999, and needs to be wound up with a large brass key and fed dusty little cassette-type things that some say can only be found these days in the very bottom of old leather suitcases belonging to ladies who go exploring while wearing button-up boots and crinolines.  Luckily, we had a couple on hand!  A whole day and a half was spent making sets, props, costumes...and casting (very important, you have to consider things such as...is Barbie too tall for our leading man?), while filming took all of half an hour.  So here are some 'stills' from the epic production of 'Little Red Riding Hood'!

And a good time was had by all!

What else did I do...?  Oh yes, I turned the 'spare room' into a 3rd bedroom, so my girls have a room each now...which is very exciting for them.  Alas, as I'm sure you all know, there actually is no such thing as a 'spare room'...stuff tends to expand to fit the available space.  Which means that everything that was IN the so-called spare room is now NOT in it.  

So at the end of the school holidays I have about 3 weeks worth of house-cleaning to catch up on...as well as the Herculean task of trying to find the lounge room floor beneath all the stuff excavated out of the spare room.  There's layers and layers of it to go through...I wonder if Time Team would be interested?!

Inspired by this...A New Kind of Map

Inspired this evening by this marvelous post by Rima Staines, I followed her links to the dark mountain.  Inspired by what I read there a little while ago...I wrote this poem off the top of my head.  It really is straight off the top of my head, because I always have this illogical feeling that it will somehow be magic if only I just don't think about it too much, so I write the first thing that comes into my head.  The phrase that came into my head when reading the dark mountain manifesto was "we need a new kind of map"...and being rather enamored of the idea of maps, I went from there to see where it would go.  I suppose we can consider it a first draft, though as I said, I always feel it loses something if you fiddle about with it too much...........


I Wished for a New Kind of Map

I wished for a new kind of map 

one marked ‘here dance’ and ‘now crawl here’
a path of bread crumbs to follow to a stream I can drink from
and not fear what’s in it.

I wished for a new kind of map
with no names but only the ones that came to me as I passed
whispered by the trees, the rocks and knowing
I heard them as I hear you.

I wished for a new kind of map
that requires an old canvas swag and a tongue full of songs
no tyre tracks, only spiralling footprints winding the ways
of those who have gone before.

I wished for a new kind of map
changing with each unfolding
what use is a page that tells the same lie each time?
Where’s the journey in that?

I wished for a new kind of map
that might lead me to a different when as well as where
and if I dance where yesterday I walked, I might arrive
in a stranger place than before.

I wished for a new kind of map,
though indeed, it is the oldest kind of all
the soft re-membering of my eyes to places new
yet beloved and long lost.

I wished for a new kind of map
that showed the spaces between the roads, and not the roads at all
and marked the wilds where wilds once were
and marking made them so.

I wished for a new kind of map
in a song I can sing and be sung to
in a story that tells me I am
on a journey that has no end.

Christina Cairns © 2011

The Talesingr: The Tale of the Seven Bird Spirits

The Tale of the Seven Bird Spirits

There were once seven bird spirits full of self-importance. All believed that he or she was the most powerful, and they argued day and night driving away the peace of the forest. To decide once and for all who was the greatest among them, they proposed a contest. Because the bird spirits had power over the seven winds, they would each harness the strength of one and for a whole month would blow as hard and as fierce as wind has ever blown since the beginning times. At the end of seven months they would hold a council and each spirit would cast their vote.

First, the wind of the summer morning blew, bringing the smell of first greening, of fruit budding and herds returning. Then the wind of winter morning blew, bringing the smell of hardship and hunger, and the earth froze and the herds did not come. Then came the wind of summer afternoon, bringing the scent of the sea-of-sand and no-water, and melted the frozen earth and all was turned to mud and slush. And the wind of winter evenings, endless and cruel, froze the mud like rock and the trees were bare. Then the scorching wind from the home of the sun burnt all before it, and the trees burst into flame, till the blackened stumps were frozen by the wind of the tomb of the sun, bringing darkness and death. For six months the people of the forest, human and animal and growing thing, endured the contest of the winds. And the people knew if the seventh wind, the wind of the spirit place, was unleashed, all the spirits of the ancestors, good and bad, would be hurled into the world of the living. All was chaos, and the people feared starvation...or worse.

So a great council was called, and the chiefs and Dreamspinnrs of all the tribes, human and animal and growing thing, met in circle to say what must be done. And the oldest and wisest sat among them and listened and said nothing, as they shouted and argued for a whole journey of the sun. But in the end they fell silent, for none knew the answer. Then the oldest and wisest opened her eyes and touched two fingers to the geisan on her chin, and spoke. “I will dream.” She went to her hut and lay on the reindeer hides, and slept. And in her dream she wove seven nets, made of hair from all the people of the tribes, to make it strong as the tribes. And into the nets she wove the thorns of the Martuk tree. She spoke no word but the spell of net weaving. She did not eat, nor drink, nor could she lift her eyes from the work. And when she had finished, she bound a strip of cured fish skin across her mouth, for to speak one word would cause the nets to break. She tracked the bird spirits to their meeting place, and waited for them to sleep. And when the curved moon rose and the fire sank low, she threw the nets over the bird spirits. They woke and struggled to free themselves, but the harder they fought, the deeper the Martuk thorns bit into their skin and tore away their feathers. They begged and pleaded to be released but the oldest and wisest said nothing. When all the feathers had fallen away from their skin and with them the power over the winds, all that remained were strange creatures like wizened human children, and they crawled away into the caves of the snow mountains and were not seen again.

This was the dream of the oldest and wisest, this was done, and order was restored.

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All text and images © Christina Cairns 2011

‘The Talesingr’s Children’ 

is a story invented by Christina Cairns, and all accompanying ‘anthropological information’ was found hidden in an old wooden box with aged brass handles, in the attic in a corner of my mind that doesn’t get dusted very often. Or perhaps it’s all true...............................

For a stunningly beautiful illustration of 'The Tale of the Seven Bird Spirits', please visit Lecte's Etsy Store.

The Talesingr: The Tale of the Coming of Humankind (for Mo Crow!)

The Tale of the coming of humankind

Only a tiny fragment of this tale survives, a brief outline with little detail. Woodford- Harding collected it from a seafaring people he stayed with very briefly, most likely in 1904, but he recorded almost no information about the tribe itself, thus it is difficult to determine who exactly they were or even their exact location, though it is believed they were most likely people living along the coast of the Bering Sea in far Eastern Siberia.  Unlike modern western perceptions of killer whales (also known as 'Orca'), this tribe clearly thought very highly of them and considered them to be the ancestors of their people.

Two spirits eloped together, for the laws of their tribe forbade them to marry. To escape they turned themselves into fish and swam down river to the sea. There a Killer Whale came upon them. She was hungry but she could see they were spirits disguised as fish, so she said to them, “I am hungry. If you will give me the fish bodies you wear, I will hide you from your families.” So the fish swam into her mouth, and she swam far away from their angry tribe. And in her belly, the two spirits took off their fish bodies as they had promised. But they were afraid they would be found again and punished for breaking the law. So they stayed in the belly of the Killer Whale. And in the spring, she gave birth to a woman and a man, and they became the mother and the father of the first people. 

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All text and images © Christina Cairns 2011

Psst...a Talesingr and a few Wandering Souls have made it to my Etsy shop...

...Songs for Wandering Souls being the name I decided to give my other little hangers, as the Talesingr's Children were getting all the attention and glory!  More will be uploaded to Etsy later this week, but I want to post the Talesingr stories onto my blog first.  Stay tuned....

The Talesingr: A Brief History part 2

The meaning behind the Talesingr’s Tale

The fragments pieced together by Woodford-Harding, and more recent scholars using his raw data, tell a very simple tale of a tribal storyteller who has lost the ability to tell stories. While in today’s modern society this may not be considered a calamity, in an oral culture it has grave consequences. Many oral cultures, both past and present, have a designated storyteller, or bard, and their role goes far beyond mere entertainment. In a society where writing is unknown, such people are the source of vital information, the living, breathing libraries of their people. It is their responsibility to preserve the accumulated knowledge their tribe requires to survive, and to disseminate it when needed. What may seem to be simple ‘fairytales’ to the modern observer, in fact hold vast amounts of information on everything from the correct herb to use to heal an open wound, to the best moon phase to trap particular game, to applications of tribal law, blood connections in relation to marriage, migratory patterns of game, weather patterns for planting and harvesting, the care of the elderly, and so forth. These stories not only strengthened and unified groups in times of hardship (particularly for arctic dwellers during long, freezing winter nights when there was little to do other than huddle together for warmth around a fire), they also taught the younger members of the tribe all they needed to survive and become useful members of the group.

Thus the Talesingr’s story appears to be a cautionary tale, warning against the dangers of withholding information. The Talesingr has selfishly chosen to hold back certain stories in order to benefit herself alone, and as a consequence she loses the ability to tell all stories, simultaneously calling into question her place among her people and putting her whole tribe in danger. The Talesingr is shown the error of her ways, and to put the situation to rights she must sacrifice the very treasures she has hoarded. 

Inscription on back reads "Fitting in with the locals!  W.H"  The man on the far left is believed to be Woodford-Harding, circa 1907.  Woodford-Harding bequest. 

Professor Woodford-Harding's groundbreaking discovery and his controversial conclusions

Details of the Talesingr’s story emerged gradually over the course of Woodford-Harding’s researches. He began to take note of the ‘prologues’ often used by storytellers to begin a tale because he noticed similarities wherever he travelled. Phrases such as, “I found the bones of this story hanging in a tree…”
“The old woman left this tale in the snow when she passed long ago…”
“Crow found the bones of this tale, and whispered them to me…”
“I had this story from the wind, who took it from the Talesingr…”
Woodford-Harding presumed at first this was a standard phrase, much like our ‘once upon a time’, which simply indicated a story was about to be told and people should hush and listen. However he realised as he travelled more widely that the same, quite specific, details appeared again and again, and he began to ask storytellers not only about the stories they told, but also about the Talesingr motif used to introduce them. What emerged was a consistent, though highly fragmented tale. What also emerged was the indication that traditional storytellers from Finland to eastern Siberia used the ancient figure of the Talesingr as both a kind of muse, and a validation of the stories they told. Old tales known among many groups were often considered to be ‘Talesingr’s children’, stories passed down from storyteller to storyteller over aeons. But equally, a new tale would rarely be introduced as invented entirely by the storyteller her/himself. Rather they might say, “I was walking in the snow and I found the bones of story left by the Talesingr and I have sung new life into them.” Storytellers also told Woodford-Harding that the vast majority of the Talesingr’s tales had indeed been lost, many known only through tantalising snippets, sometimes no more that a story title or a character name. Woodford-Harding collected many of these, hoping that by piecing together these fragments he might be able to restore these lost tales as he had done the Talesingr’s story, an thus create a storehouse of some of the oldest stories known to man. Some of Woodford-Harding’s conclusions are considered controversial at best in this regard, particularly his insistence that many well known modern fairytales are the descendents of these lost tales. Given that there was (at the time) no knowledge of these fairytales among the people most familiar with the Talesingr, and in countries where the modern fairytale developed there is no evidence the Talesingr was ever part of oral folklore, this seems highly unlikely. Most modern scholars consider that Woodford-Harding’s belief this was the case led him to piece together story fragments to fit his preconceived ideas, rather than using rigorous and objective research to match parts together. Research is continuing in this area, using both Woodford-Harding’s raw data, and new research collected utilising modern anthropological methods. The outcome remains to be seen, but whatever truth is ultimately revealed, Professor Woodford-Harding’s contribution cannot be overstated.

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All text and artwork © Christina Cairns 2011

Old photos public domain (as far as I know!)

Success...in an unexpected manner!

Yesterday turned out to be something I wasn't quite expecting...fun!  I've never done an art show/expo/stall type thingy before, and thought I'd possibly be nervous...shy...uncomfortable...bored...but actually I was none of the above, once I'd managed to calm myself down and actually get the wing nuts done up holding my sign onto my table (very fiddly, and already responsible for one broken nail on my guitar plucking hand)!

What you can't see is my ugg boots...it was VERY cold yesterday (mind you, that's Perth cold, which of course isn't REAL cold!)  But it's OK, they are very swish ugg boots...purple with braid around the top, he he!

What was also unexpected was that I didn't sell any small items other than 1 print and a few cards, though lots of people showed a lot of interest in the wooden hangers.  But what I DID sell was 'Storm Spirit Moving', the large painting in the lower left of the photo.  I thought that the smaller and cheaper items would be the bigger sellers (seemed a logical assumption!) and didn't think it very likely that any of the big ones would be sold.  Not that I'm complaining!  I actually made a profit after taking out the $350 or so costs.  But I think it was a bit of a lucky fluke, the right people happened to come along, and if they hadn't I would be very out of pocket.  Has anyone else found this to be true, that market type situations often defy all your expectations and you end up with a most unlikely outcome?

But 'Storm Spirit' has found a new home, and it was rather wonderful too.  A lovely couple and their daughter came along, and admired all my work and we chatted for a bit.  Then they moved on to look at all the other stalls and I didn't think any more of it.  But a while later they came back and wanted to have another look at 'Storm Spirit', and then they said the magic words 'Yes, we'll take it, thank you!'  It turned out that their daughter turned 21 last year, and they'd promised her a painting for her 21st birthday, and she has been looking and looking for the right one.  I think 'Storm Spirit' whispered to her, and I wonder if perhaps she whispered back?  Perhaps the 'true' owners of a painting are the ones who know the painting's story and the painting senses it and whispers "you are the one who can tell me my tale, and only you."  What do you think?

Other unexpected things happened too.  I've long despaired that my work is so eclectic (or rather, all-over-the-place with no rhyme or reason!) that there doesn't seem to be any unifying theme or identifiable style.  And yet, I found myself telling people over and over yesterday that the one thing that appears in all my work is STORY.  It was only when I'd said it about 5 times that it dawned on me what I was saying and I realised, that's it, that's what holds my work together, whether it's a large acrylic, or a pencil sketch, or a stitched piece or a piece of wood and pyrography.  It has a story.

I also found myself being told very sternly that I am a writer!  I was chatting away to a lady who told me I should really do book illustrations, and I laughed and said it's a one-day dream and that I'm just a frustrated writer.  Then she listened as I chatted on (waving my hands around a lot as I do when I'm excited and enthusiastic), telling her the story behind the 'girl in the boat' paintings and 'Shipwreck Coast', and she listened as I talked about the Talesingr and all the little stories I'd written for her, and she flicked through my book of 'prints available' and asked me if I'd written the info and little 'blurbs' for each one.  And she said 'so you wrote this?'  Then she pointed to the flyers and sign about the Talesingr, "and you wrote that?'  Then she looked me right in the eye and very seriously said, "so you're ALREADY a writer, aren't you!"  Perhaps I am.

I even plucked up the courage to take Cordelia along, making sure my neighbouring stall holders were happy for me to play guitar.  And I plucked away (as well as I could with no decent fingernails!), and even sang a bit, very quietly.  And the lady in the stall next door told me it was lovely, and when I stopped and put Cordelia back in her stand for a bit, the lady opposite popped up and came over to tell me not to stop, that it was beautiful!

Perhaps the most surprising thing I learned is that I'm actually quite good at the 'chatting to the customer' thing.  Normally, I'm pretty shy and the idea of starting up a conversation with a complete stranger makes me nervous.  I'm just no good at all at small talk and general chit-chat, utterly hopeless at parties.  But if people stop and ask me about my work, I can chat away and tell them all about it and enjoy doing so.  I had some really interesting conversations with people, getting their impressions and ideas about my work too, which is always refreshing and interesting, and lots of people took my cards and pamphlets, so perhaps they might even pop in here.  So if any of you are people I met yesterday, thank you so much, I had a lovely day and enjoyed talking to all of you!

So while I DIDN'T learn what is a 'sure fire' seller at an Art market, I did learn lots of other things that may ultimately be more useful!

The Talesingr:The Tale of the Foolish Bird

the tale of the foolish bird

There was once a bird who wanted to make her nest the best and most beautiful. In the spring, all the feathered people of the forest returned to build their nests and lay their eggs. The forest was soon full of the chattering and cheeping and squawking of birds large and small collecting twigs and leaves and moss and fur cheekily stolen from the fur people. And the trees glittered with colourful plumage, and the leaves shivered as birds swooped and landed among them, weaving their homes to cradle their young.

And the foolish bird tried first one tree, then another, then another. But she was not satisfied. The first tree had thorns. “This will not do, for these thorns will scratch my little ones and I.” And so she tried the next tree. Its branches were young and thin. “This will not do, for these branches will bend and sway in the wind too much and my little ones and I will fall.” The next tree was small. “This will not do, this tree is too short, and the foxes can reach easily and devour my little ones and I.” She went to tree after tree, and each was no better than the last, and sometimes worse. “This tree is too tall, my little ones and I will be burnt by the sun and frozen by the wind.” “This tree is too far from the stream where I catch fish, my little ones and I will go hungry.” This tree is too close to the river, what if my nest falls in?”

All spring and all summer she did this, as all the other birds laid their eggs and raised their young. Then one day, she felt a cold breeze on her feathers, and with horror she realised that summer would end soon. She raced back to the tree by the river, but it was full of nests of other birds and there was no room even for one more. So she went to the tree far from the stream, but it was full too. She visited all the trees she had discarded, but all were full of nests, and the cheeping of half grown chicks trying out their new wings. Even the thorn tree was full. And as the leaves began to turn and the air grew cold, the foolish bird grew desperate. Finally, she found a broken sharp stick in a crevice in a granite rock, a cold place where the wind rushed through, where foxes and wolves could easily find her, overhanging the rushing river. And she built her nest there. And she laid her eggs as all the other birds were teaching their young to fly in readiness for the long journey to the winter home. And as the other birds began to leave, she sat and shivered and her eggs grew cold. And when the snows came, the foolish bird froze on her foolish nest, and turned to stone. And if you pass by that rock near the river, you may see the outline of her etched into the rock even today, and be reminded that the search for perfection must be tempered with common sense or it will lead only to emptiness and sorrow.

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All text and images © Christina Cairns 2011

The Talesingr: A Brief History

A Brief History of the Talesingr Stories and their remarkable discovery

Fragmented versions of the story of the Talesingr survive across the frozen north, from Finland in the west, across the breadth of Siberia to the east. There is some speculation it may have travelled further, into Alaska, as folklore there reflects elements found in the Talesingr’s story. If this is the case, it is likely the story found its way there with people who crossed the Bering Strait and settled the Americas. Suffice to say, it is an ancient story, though how old it is impossible to say.

What little we know of the Talesingr is mostly due to the work of Professor Albert Woodford-Harding (1876-1914?).  Although a Professor of Classics, Woodford-Harding was a passionate amateur folklorist who travelled to remote areas to collect folklore, songs and stories. He was particularly interested in the folklore of the indigenous peoples of Northern Europe, and lived with various groups in Finland and across Siberia for extended periods, documenting aspects of their everyday lives along with the stories and folklore that informed them. He also discovered pictorial evidence of the Talesingr’s stories in the form of ancient pictographs. He surmised that these pictographs served as mnemonic devices for tribal storytellers, as they remain enigmatic to the casual observer.

Woodford-Harding left behind a great deal of research and data, but very little was published and much remains uncategorized, due to his disappearance on a field trip to Siberia shortly before the outbreak of the World War One. It is known he and J.R.R Tolkien met at University when the latter was briefly a student of Woodford-Harding’s. It is interesting to speculate whether Woodford-Harding’s research influenced Tolkien’s later writing, most particularly the Lord of the Rings trilogy.

Woodford-Harding’s disappearance resulted in his work being lost for almost 60 years. His wife packed his research away and it was left forgotten in the family attic until her grandson found it while preparing the house for sale following her death in 1972. Modern scholars have been astounded at the amount of data collected, and although Woodford-Harding’s methods were not always exacting and disciplined, his contribution to the field cannot be underestimated. While details of individual peoples are sometimes sketchy and the depth of information collected is uneven, he was the first to document the similarities between the story fragments of many groups, thus showing the links between what up to that point in time had been considered to be individual folklore unique to individual ethnic groups. By demonstrating this clear link, Woodford-Harding was able not only to prove the connections between widely disparate ethnic groups, but also provided clear evidence of the survival of a myth over several thousand years, and vast migratory distances.

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All text and images © Christina Cairns 2011

Art Expo July 10th!

Now I realise it would be very a long commute for most of you (requiring rather more than a cut lunch and a water-bag!), but just in case you are in the neighbourhood, or know anyone who might be, here are all the details of the Art Expo that is happening next weekend.  I'll be in Hackett Hall, stand No. 7 (diagonally opposite the entrance in the far corner), with some big paintings, some little paintings, lots of Wood Hangers (including 5 'Talesingr's Children'), some prints and cards, and the small original works on tea-bags you've already seen here.  Please pop in if you're in Perth, there will be lots and lots of wonderful art to look at, as well as demonstrations, activities for kids, food stalls and coffee!  And me...of course!  And it doesn't hurt that the University of Western Australia is a gorgeous campus to visit!