Monumental Mention

More exciting news on the publicity front. Just found out that I had an image of my Ripples necklace in st silver and red thread published in the glossy MONUMENT magazine. Number 72:p.17, April/May 2006. It was for the Tag exhibition that I was in last November/December at Craft Queensland when I teamed up with the talented Dani Klein whose fashion design is pictured next to my necklace. Thanks to Andrea Higgins, curator and photographer for the show and thanks also to the great team at Craft QLD.

Green Blogosphere welcome mat

How excited am I? I have been tooling around trying to get my website Rebecca Ward Jewellery launched since new year and someone just mentioned me on their wonderful green blog GreatGreenGoods - shopping tips for the environmentally conscious consumer. This led to me being picked up by the TheDesignBlog as well!! Man- I'd better get cracking on the retail and the metadata!

So I guess it is official now even while I'm still fussing with image galleries and thumbnails. However the 'real' launch, in conjunction with Liana Kabel is not until August 2006 and there will be fun competitions and fabbo events listed on our websites that you will definitely not want to miss.

rebecca the weka

You might wonder where I got ‘rebecca the wrecker’ from. It is actually a deviation from the ‘rebecca the weka’ nickname given to me by my mother. The New Zealand Weka is a large, brown flightless chook-like bird that whilst shy when it choses, can have a feisty and curious personality if there is food to be scrounged. They also have a reputation for stealing shiny things.

I was first fascinated by the wekas on Kapiti Island as a child. The island is a nature refuge, at the time overrun with pesky wekas that kept trying to steal our food. Those naughty birds! We had to take refuge in the big old whaling pots on the shoreline. The Wekas would not take no for an answer. You can understand why my mother might have named me after them. Persistent, annoying, and never really getting off the ground.

Cup Runneth Over

This blessed morning I woke up to this wonderful sight:

A car boot FULL of computer keyboards- 27 in total of many different creeds, young and old. I had to use the wheelbarrow, there were so many! Salvaged by Alpha Nerd/mini-skip diver, Stuart Skabo - thanks Stu! I love them all like they were my children. Kind of - they are the grist for my new 'Neo Luddite" range of work. The original Luddites took their hammers to the lace stocking manufacturing machines of the Industrial Revolution. Nothing makes wrecker blood boil more than technology. Here's how it goes:

The Neo-Luddites will be launched at Reverse Garbage, West End for Junk IT. Opening:
Fri, 21 July 2006 (6pm to 8pm)
Exhibition ends – Sat, 12 Aug.

Sneak peek:

The Bear is Dead

On the weekend I spent some happy hours op-shopping in Tenterfield, birthplace of our nation and Peter Allen. They now have a motor inn named after him so it seems they have come to terms with his sexuality. Anyway, after discovering a pair of lovely old cardigans in beige and green, I realised that next to them, my old mauve fake fur coat was looking a bit shabby. I remembered our precious time spent together.

We first met in a mini-skip outside a church in Paddington in the early 1990s. The poor coat had been left for dead. Being one of those pathetic individuals who cannot help but peer into dumpsters before walking past them, often with arms full of loot, I claimed the sorry pelt as my own. After a few careful repairs and a bath in wonder soap it was fully returned to service for another chance at life. O happy day.

Now, some have said that it resembled an old bear who went into the forest to die. This is rather a generous description perhaps. Others would postulate that it had been mauled by dingoes, pecked by galahs and buried in a scrub turkey mound during the wet season circa 1991 - back before the pace of climate change stepped up and we still had wet seasons. Whatever the case, the name of the jacket was coined : "the (Paddington) Bear". For like its English namesake, the Bear was not without a certain charm and it seemed to go with all of my other clothes. Which certainly says something about my wardrobe.
It is true that the Bear and I shared the best of what life has to offer. Together we traveled far and wide- New York, London, Prague, Dubrovnik, Montenegro, Naples, Canberra. Weddings, parties, banquets, the Bear was there. Life was never so much fun if I left the bear behind.

I remember when its lining disintegrated. Sometimes when I put it on, my hand came out of unexpected openings or disappeared into strange places like it had found a portal to Narnia. This was beginning to cause problems in our relationship and I noticed that my friends started to avoid me when I would wear the Bear. Status Anxiety won out. Yes, we've been through alot together. But now it is time to move on. It is a quality of life issue for the Bear. Not just myself. So this morning I began the ritual to prepare the Bear for burial. His beautiful mauve eyelike plastic buttons, strangely situated on the outside of each frontal pocket were harvested for memento mori. And the 'Up the Creek without a paddle' resident brooch unpinned for the final time. I usually cut up my old clothes for household rags but that does not seem right somehow for the Bear. Does anyone have any ideas for a fitting farewell? Maybe a winter solstice fire ritual. Or do I find him another mini-skip to turn the tale full circle?

Uncanny Nana

My recent excursion to Toowoomba Dump not only exposed me to the different cultural practices and customs of the Toowoombonian peoples, but also catapaulted me back to my early childhood. All it took was the discovery of an LP record entitled 'the delightful nana mouskouri'. I was instantly transported back to my early years when, to unwind after a long day spent toiling in my father's carrot fields, I would don my long string of wooden beads and dance, dance, dance away to Nana Mouskouri, my rock idol. For a moment then in those grim years of survival in New Zealand's bleak south island, I WAS Nana Mouskouri. Maybe I still am.

My Spiritual Homeland: the Toowoomba Dump

Last week I spent an exhilarating day amongst the inert industrial waste at Toowoomba Dump, 200km west of Brisbane. Why, you might ask? Well I had the great fortune to be one of the 14 Flash Trash artists to be selected for this fun outing and the subsequent challenge of creating artworks from our findings. And boy did i find some stuff. Lots.

Firstly, we saw this vermillion elephant. Driving along the Warrego Highway is not for the faint-hearted. They must be so far inland that the differences between a fish and an elephant are no longer important.

Do not stop the car.

Do not try the seafood.

We got to the inert waste facility which was no garden of eden but not too stinky either. I found a few odds and sods and then I saw this bit of polished granite sticking out of the compacted soil. I kicked myself for not bringing a spade but managed to dig out a bit of it to reveal a gravestone with names and dates 1902-1977. Loved and Remembered. Yeah right...

A healthy reminder of mortality and our insignificance!

And another one: 'God's Great'.
God is Great? Not quite. 'God's greatest gift:rememberance'. hmmm.

Finally selected some vinyl at the Lifeline dump store. Can't wait to get my saw into 'em.

We rolled back down the range, windows wide open to combat the deadly fumes coming from the back where something toxic we'd collected was outgassing with avengance. We stoped for toasted cheese onion and tomato sarnies at the 'Cruise Inn', bottom of the range. Yumm. Pure happiness. I felt renewed.