Trash Art Find of the Week

I just got back from hols with Mr Accordian, a Noted UK jeweller/metalsmith and one of the Messrs Bad Samaritans of Brighton. We spent some sunny and joyfilled days among granite in the Great Aussie Outdoors and some smoky and accordian filled nights in cabintopia.

While passing through a somewhat claustrophobic small town(Woodenbong), we chanced upon a craft shop and met Big Mal, the famous country and western singer and his agent/wife/crafter. She was definitely the little woman behind the big man. She also makes linaments and herbal remedies for such ailments as boils and pimples and offers free advice on how to suppress grey hair (brown onion skins steeped in boiling water and rinsed through one's hair on a regular basis - if the smell bothers you just add parsley). Apparently brown onion treatment would have your grey old hair looking like my tomato sauce mop. The UK jeweller looked frightened. I cannot say I use onions (red, white or brown) in quite this way but kept mum. My English friend whose glorious grey curls are her trademark, took the advice quite well under the circumstances, but is not likely to be found with parsely in her lovely locks or ponging of onion.

Casting around for some small token to purchase I found these $3 Bundaberg ginger beer bikes made by the crafter's son to raise money for the local nursing home and I just had to have one. Feeling much like little insects trapped in a sundew forest, we backed nervously out the door past the table of watchtower back issues and received a blessing from the Lord.

Meantime I got the great news that several of my Nana pieces had been purchased by Toowoomba Regional Art gallery. So I guess I was touched by some Woodenbong magic that day.

I got home, looked at Mr Accordian's photos and had a GANGajang moment: This is Orstraylia.....

Flash Trash

Flash Trash officially opens Sunday 17 September at Toowoomba Regional Art Gallery and continues until 22 October 2006. I have made new work from old vinyl records collected from Toowoomba Dump and mentioned this work before on my blog here and here. Strangely enough it is through my blog that the idea grew when I followed one of those white rabbits down a hole!

Nana, Nana, Nana is made from 15 old vinyl records found at the Toowoomba Dump Lifeline store and zeros in on one of them- the ‘Delightful Nana Mouskouri’. I used this one Nana LP to reflect on the transience of technology, fame, and culture that once held value but are discarded and forgotten by the each new generation. I was influenced by the buried headstone fragments that I found at the dump, black polished granite memento mori poking from the compacted dirt! The similar blackness of the vinyl records is mournful, its message lost especially after I have worked it. We are reminded that our daily competitive struggles for status, fame and recognition are insignificant in the vastness of time and meaningless in the face of imminent death after which we are dust, our achievements forgotten. This is something that was bought home to me in the books of Alain de Botton who suggested that the way that Romans and Victorians used reminders of death and time as techniques to moderate Status Anxiety could be useful for some of us in our daily lives. I took a lighthearted approach though with this Nana project.

Nana 1. The records that I found were most likely taken to the dump by relatives of a recently deceased person.Perhaps a Grandmother- Nana or a Granny. I thought about the cathartic practice of frisbeeing old records at the dump. Getting rid of the clutter and material possessions of the past generation. Though these records had not been frisbeed. They were in good condition in their original sleeves. Each was respectfully listened to by me prior to destruction and a few were even salvaged.

Nana 2. Nana Beads. One of the records was of Nana Mouskouri who was my 1^st pop culture idol. At the age of 3 I loved to dress in my long string of large wooden beads that my own Granny helped me to make and dance to a record pretending that I was Nana. So this is personal nostalgia in making the beads as long as the floor length beads that I wore long ago. Nana Beads were made by hand sawing circles of vinyl Nana + other records and heating them in the oven on glass sheets at various temperature and various lengths of time to create the different effects. Even though I cut perfect circles and filed and sanded them all neatly, they all distorted in different ways. Each record is different- has a different melting point and reacts differently to the heat. So the process was quite organic and interesting. Some shrink and thicken up more than others. I was interested in making them pod-like as if they contain a youthfulness and range of possibilities that is part of my nostalgia when imagining being 3 years old.Nana Beads is what we call the cheap plastic beads as often worn by senior women- the thread in them is glued to the bead itself- Liana Kabel and Mark Vaarwerk have both used them creatively in their innovative plastic jewellery. I used this idea as wordplay for the construction of the work which has more of an organic look than mass produced plastic bead look to it. I was also interested in Art Deco plastic jewellery of and have adopted some of these design ideas with the red and black colours and the style of catch.

Nana 3. The thick black-rimmed rectangular trademark glasses of Mouskouri. I have heat-imprinted different heritage glass patterns on the sawn out shapes of Nana’s glasses. Another wordplay pun here but also referencing the transience of human objects through the old decorative coloured glass which, like vinyl records is no longer manufactured on the same scale or in the case of the glass, to the same quality as in the past. Initially disappointed that I did not find any heritage glass at the Toowoomba dump to work with, I was pleased to find a way to use it in my Flash Trash work.The pins are made from brass and melted skim milk bottle tops imprinted with the decorative glass patterns.I have made 50 frames of different sizes to represent next year’s 50 anniversary of Nana’s professional career.

Sea Beans

I just finished a seed necklace design that I can only ever make about once every three years when I have collected enough of the seeds from beaches for one. At times like these I try not to ponder the economic logic of my practice! I collect various hard shelled bouyant seeds that have arrived on the ocean currents. They bob in on the plastic and pumice flotsam tide and are quite rare on beaches near me. The smaller bean seeds are more plentiful and actually grow in the headlands behind the beaches.

After watching The Wrecking Season about flotsam and jetsam along the Atlantic Cornish coast (recommended by Rebecca Crawford), I realised that these same tropical seeds wash up on beaches all over the world - they are longshore drifters of the bean kingdom and even have their own fan clubs with a great Sea Bean website and a symposium every year on the topic of sea beans.

Now some of the beans I am finding in QLD are probably from Far North QLD - where they are called Burney Beans, Mucuna gigantea - you can rub them on stone or together until they are very hot and burn people. A useful bean indeed. And the larger matchbox bean is also one I find alot, sometimes encrusted in coral. But others like the nickernuts Caesalpinia bonduc sometimes called sea pearls, may come from further afield and have had many past uses including as currency in South America.

There is some frightening sea bean craft out there so be warned but I discovered some exquisite sea bean jewels in the Kew Garden Economic Botany Collection.

Sea Jewels Wrecipe

I've been going quietly insane making sea jewels earrings, my cow money.
Yeah it's repetitive and time consuming but I do love finding new colours and textures of glass and different shapes and pulling them out of my tumbler. Then trying to find matching pairs is especially therapeutic. I wouldn't miss the drilling and polishing though.
I also love using the labels I made for them.

They remind me of the original photo - a super holiday with friends doing some synchronised swimming...

Best Banana Cake Ever

It has been a weekend of activity at wrecker central. Mr Accordian has bought a new instrument called Hammond and has been filling the air with melodious meanderings and I have been going silly in the garden and kitchen. So today I am publishing a coupla wrecker recipes.

BecNana Cake

Don't you hate it when you walk into a room and someone has a bigger banana than you? This happened to me, believe it or not, when I had a recent banana harvest and then saw some other cheatin bananas on steroids at the Ekka. How demoralising.

Left with a heap of small manky looking bananas getting riper by the day, I knew I had to take some action.

You will need about 10 finger-sized drought dumps (bananas) or 2 normal ones or one banana on performance enhancers.
1. Peel the nanas and cut out the bad bits. Let the wrecking begin- you may choose to use a fork for the smashing.
2. Put 125g butter (not margarine for heavens sake) and 3/4 cup of dark brown sugar (the one with a hint of molasses is best) in a bowl and beat until fluffy.
3. Add 2 eggs, one at a time beating in until mixture goes mousse-like.
4. Add the smashed bananas.
5. Add 1 & 3/4 cups - 2 cups of self raising flour.
6. Mix lightly with a slosh of milk until combined.
7. Add a handful of chopped walnuts. You could also add pecans or dates.
8. Bake in a cake tin in a moderate oven- 160degrees c. for 1/2 - 3/4 hour until golden brown on top and cooked in the middle.

Melodius Meandering Mulberry CordialMy lovely friend, Tipi-Laura gave me a little mulberry bush years ago and it is now a colossus.
Thanks Laura.

Normally the fruit bats get most of the harvest and spray our house and car in purple poo. Making me glad we chose to paint the house in 'mulberry desire' anyway and that Mr Accordian bought a car in the same colour.

I don't really like to eat mulberries on their own because of the stalk but have made sorbet with them and now cordial, inspired by the Cascade Rasberry Cordial (yeah okay it's red cordial) we are addicted to.

You will need a bowl of fresh picked mulberries.
1. Wash the berries and put them in a saucepan and cover them with water.
2. Add a cup or so of fine white sugar and peel of half an organic lemon - use a vege peeler.
3. Simmer for one hour mashing the berries every so often.
4. Strain and cool. Pour into a bottle and refrigerate.

Drink with soda water, ice and garnish with mint for a cool summer drink. Add gin or vodka to taste... Arrange your extra mulberries in a Shannon Garson native violet dish and take in Mr Accordian's melodious meanderings.

Window of Wonders

Today Liana and I installed our joint window at Craft Queensland to officially mark the launch of our websites tomorrow.

We each made some fabulous new jewellery for it- I have created louvreite swingers and shard necklaces, pendants and earrings using sea green, blue and clear tumbled glass from Bombay Sapphire bottles, louvres and heritage window glass. It is all for sale of course!

Go to my website 24 August 2006 to enter my competition and join us at Craft QLD 24 Aug from 6pm for the opening of the Pathways exhibition.

Also, I am speaking on Friday at CQ for Meet the Makers with Sharon Muir, Liana Kabel and Taryn and Elise Eales.
- everyone is welcome. I must say I'm not much of a performance artist, so I'm hoping that the others hog the limelight!
Date: 25 August 2006
Time: 10am – 12noon
Where: CQstore, Craft Queensland 381 Brunswick St Fortitude Valley Q 4006 T 07 3215 0808 F 07 3215 0802
CQgallery and CQstore hours: Tues-Sat 10am-4pm

Glen Rocks 2: Interior/exterior

Some more photo arranging here. Ironbarks and Glen Rock and kangaroo grass and through old screened hopper windows looking out onto a close cropped yard. Thanks Wayne Kington for the photos.

Glen Rocks

I visted Glen Rock on the weekend, out on Main Range. Mr Accordian took these snaps.

It was thirsty country: cattle in the dry creek bed where once were platypus, brushboxes wilted on the rocky slopes. A series of farmhouses built at maybe 50+ year intervals were in a ridge line looking over the valley. The first was a old slab hut with a single room and handcut timber built a rather long time ago. The 2nd was an old timber Queenslander maybe 70-80yrs old. The final was the classic 1970's yellow brick 2 storey. Some of the lurid internal wallpaper and carpets in the 2 most recent houses seemed to relate to the stark environment in a strange way.
The hardy silver-leafed ironbark (top right) grew in stunted colonies up the sides of the Madder Horn, which we climbed at a leisurely canyonero assisted pace. The Madder Horn, spelt that way on the map, must have earned it's name from the cows mad enough to walk to the top. But it was well worth it for us view lovin humans.

RebEKKA 2: Banana Envy

I was a bit offended at the 6ft mega bunches of bananas seen at the Ekka this year. Just what are they feeding these plants? And where is the water coming from? Mine have never been the same since we fixed the plumbing. And then I missed most of our meagre winter harvest of drought bananas. As you can see, the bats and the possums took their cut.

RebEKKA 1: An old friend

Miss Windbag, Miss PlasticGirl and I are doing a bit of an Ekka long weekend for the next few days. I'd beter kick it off as I have to go to the mountains for a couple of days to recover.

At this years' Ekka, my first in many years, I bumped into and old friend, General Cheeso. I recognised him immediately. We first met in Dubrovnik on my grand European tour. Mr Accordian and I were travelling on a shoestring and being unable to afford to eat lunch in a cafe, we had humble tomato and cheese and biscuit fare in the daggy ditch outside the old town walls. I was rather grumpy about the whole non-gourmet lunch deal and also extremely hungry after plodding all the way from our supposedly 'walking distance from the old town sobe' to the old town and all around it a few times gazing in wonderment. In my haste to make the lunch, I dropped a big slab of Pag cheese on the ground. Along came General Cheeso and a mad chase ensued. Anyway Cheeso won of course and the whole incident enabled me to ditch the bad mood for the day.
General Cheeso had a great knack of popping up wherever we were afterwards to check on my hormone bitch levels. It was sad to see him in a cage at the Ekka but at least he had plenty of braised steak and onions to munch on. See Pigeon Post for uptodate news from the world of Cheeso.

Non-human Drongo

The jasmine's a-blooming and I saw my first non-human drongo today which means that it must well and truly be spring. Being a drongo, it's probably migrating in the opposite direction to more conventional birds. Like from a Melbourne winter to a Darwin summer or something equally as stupid. It was sitting on the wire above the roadside -tho they also love hanging about in the she-oaks with Langley Longlegs- and I was reminded that words such as drongo (meaning idiot, not to be confused with Galah) will soon be banned from Parliament. Now parliamentary debate is one of the few examples where drongo is still used on a daily basis, mostly to refer to the opposite member. So it will be up to all little aussie battlers to keep such words alive in sentences like, “How many of you drongos voted for John Howard?” But it will be tough competition with new words coming into the lexicon all the time, inspired by our loathsome pollies.

For example, ‘Beasley’ and ‘Ruddock’ have become common curse words in my household and are also used to describe those stinkier bodily functions one has from time to time. In a sentence: “Don’t go in there, I just dropped a Ruddock”.

Which leaves the poor drongo where exactly? Up the dunny without a paddle I suppose. Back to the flower arranging now.

Nana Mouse

Yippee I finally finished my Nana Nana Nana work and handed it in last week. I was so relieved to be taking a break from vinyl fumes, I forgot to photograph some of the final pieces but here are some Nana Glasses and Nana's Nana Beads made from same The Delightful Nana Mouskouri record that has been causing all sorts of problems at MoB Workspace.

Tex, the large ginger from next door was very unhelpful though entertaining during the ordeal. He is pictured reclining on top of the sharp brass wire pins I was preparing for the 50 brooches.

The stuff on my cat website has got it all wrong in forcing cats to have stuff put on them. What is it with cats that they always have to sit on what you are making, reading, paying attention to? If televisions were a horizontal surface, I'm sorry to say that our cat would be permanently attached to it.

I wonder if Nana Mousekouri likes cats. Maybe she prefers mice.

Looking forward to hitting the bottle again now:

Tales from the Accordian

Do you have an old accordion sitting in the corner of your house? Perchance inherited from a whiskery old uncle or grandpa? Accordians can sit around quietly for many years soaking up the secrets, the tales and the myths of suburbia in their papery folds. Then, one day they get their own blog and it all starts coming out the bellows.

If only I could say that the accordion in my house were so well behaved. Sometimes it really earns its nickname, The Annoydian. Though I have to admit, the annoydian and its human appendage are my 2 favourite things. And no, Liana, you cannot cut up the plastic pearlescent keys.

Visit The Urban Myths: Tales from the Accordian for tales that will tickle your fancy.

Duelling Jewellers

Okay, I must say that last week at MoB Workspace, Miss Liana aka Plastic Girl and we had a most dreadfully horrible thing happen to us both. I finally feel like I'm ready to talk about it.

At all started on a bright sunny morning in the studio when we eagerly pounced on the city newspaper, hoping that our press release promoting our web launch would have had some sort of an effect. Well, there was jewellery news alright. Indeedee doo- an article entitled "Handcrafted with brains and beauty" all about a certain Rebecca (Mitchell) but no mention of our own fabulous selves! OUTrageous. The fact that she is a former international model and certainly makes a pretty picture really got our female danders up.

After all, neither of us are strangers to the arts of female beauty and poise: Liana was once the belly dancing champion of Australia (or the universe) and I did 2 years hard graft at the Joh Bijelke-Peterson School of Physical Culture (Queensland's answer to Hitler Youth- involved alot of marching, shining faces and hair scraped back in bouffant buns, what were my parents thinking?).
But what really was so terribly hurtful were Rebecca-former-international-model-mother-of-2's words: "our collection employs only natural products - never glass or plastic - in its creation." Now, I could say that using gemstone beads sourced from "exotic locations in Turkey, Asia and the Middle East and the vast islands of the Pacific" does not maketh a personally handcrafted piece of jewellery and that until you diamond drill through hundreds of beach pebbles, thousands of pieces of tumbled glass and melt and shape millions of bits of plastic, you don't really know the meaning of the term 'handcrafted', but no, I won't say that. Because that would be petty.

So I spent the weekend in the kitchen fuming in the fumes, melting my way through a stack of vinyl records and milk bottle tops on my new Art Wrecko jewellery inspired by Nana Mouskouri for Flash Trash. Sneak peek:Info about our web launch:

Web Launch: Museum of Brisbane Jewellers Now Online
Venue: Craft Queensland
Dates: Thursday 24 August – Wednesday 20 September 2006 inclusive

Contemporary jewellers Liana Kabel and Rebecca Ward of Museum of Brisbane Workspace have combined forces to launch their websites in 2006. www.lianakabel.com and www.rebeccawardjewellery.com are the dynamic portals to two very different and creative worlds. A new body of work from each jeweller will be on view at CQ Store window to highlight the occasion.

Competitions to win original jewellery will be launched from www.lianakabel.com and www.rebeccawardjewellery.com starting 24 August

Nana Challenge

Can you spot the Impostor Nana in the 51 Nana Mouskouris (click image to enlarge)? Well there is it least one imposter in this collaged google image search.

My top secret Flash Trash work made from old vinyl records centres around the fact that 2007 will be the 50th anniversary of Nana Mouskouri's professional career. 50 years and she's never converted to contact lenses or a side parting. You've gotta admire that. Harry Belafonte tired to bully her in the '60s not to wear glasses on stage but she dug her clunky heels in. She made glasses cool. Geeky before her time, she paved the way for all of us short sighted dorks.
She was my first role model as I have said before and although my first glasses at age 14 were heavily influenced by my John Lennon period, the second pair were pure Nana. The sales assistant informed me at the time that they would remain in fashion for at least 18mths. This surprised me as I was unaware that they were currently in fashion and I intended to wear them for at least 10 years like my previous frames! Unfortunately though, the huge weight of the large glass lenses and the onset of a permanent headache meant that my 3rd and current pair are rather more conservative. However, innovations in lightweight plastic lenses may mean that my fourth pair, to be chosen very shortly due to more to vanity than failing eyesight, may well go back to my Nana roots.
You can be assured that I will never, never succumb to contact lenses, which are surely the work of the devil and not to be trusted by us neo-luddites.

Fresh is best.... naturally

Is it just me, or is the current marketing campaign for the Ekka (Brisbane's Royal National Agricultural Show) just a little bit too fresh? Well, an agricultural show, where the country comes to town is all about the slaughtering of innocent beasties for our groaning tables but does this take it too far for our squeamish city tastes? As a lapsed vegetarian, I know all too well the propaganda about what happens to the little critters in the petting zoos after they get a bit tattered around the edges from all the love of our overenthusiastic kiddies. So it is heartening to know that the Ekka promises us lots of fresh animals this year.

An investigation is clearly in order when RebEKKA-the-Wrecker, Miss Windbag and Miss Plastic Girl visit the Ekka next week on a craft/cultural field trip into the unknown followed by a flurry of blogging unheard of since Geek Week. And just what is a Dolphin Derby?

Before she was famous

Yes, I knew her before...
Deb Conway (brunette), before she was famous. When faux bone/white plastic jewellery was fashionable among the knitting classes. Before Do Re Mi was on Countdown. She was a knitwear model. Oh how the mighty have fallen.

This is my new obsession. Collecting knitting patterns with people in them before they were famous. Yes, a bit of a niche I know. And I only have one other one so far of some curly redheaded broad who used to be in a Country Practice and was later in a tragic travel magazine show and I'd really have to look up her name if only I could be bothered, but one day I'll have a collection to rival the girls at Threadbared.

So this is a nice thought: Before she was famous. At MobWorkspace we can often be found singing under our breath "When, will I , will I be famous" which got stuck in our little budgie brains somehow soon after the arrival of Plastic Girl. And last week we had an article about me, Liana Kabel and some other diamond and gold jeweller (what?! they don't use garbage and found objects?!!) published in the local rag- article link here. So for the benefit of all and sundry I have pasted the full lyrics of this definitive generation x anthem below:

Bros
When will I be famous

Yes, you're suitably at one with your body and the sun
Yes, you are
You've read Karl Marx and you've taught yourself to dance
You're the best by far

But you keep asking the question
One you're not supposed to mention
Hey, yeah, oooh!

When will I, will I be famous?
I can't answer, I can't answer that
When will I see my picture in the paper?
I can't answer, I can't answer that

But I can't tell you when
You'll see your name up in lights
When will I, will I be famous?
You keep asking me, babe

You're a slave to fashion and your life is full of passion
It's the way you are
You've suffered for your art with the jogging in the park
You know you should go far

But you keep asking the question (Ooohooo)
One you're not supposed to mention
(I'm not supposed to mention) Yeah, oooh!

When will I, will I be famous?
I can't answer, I can't answer that
When will I see my picture in the paper?
I can't answer (I can't wait), I can't answer that

But I can't tell you when
You'll see your name up in lights
When will I, will I be famous?
You keep asking me, babe (I can't wait)

You won't suffer in silence (Suffer)
You're a talent, you know that I've noticed (I've noticed)
You'd like to be a legend (Ooohooo)
A big star overnight

(Tell me when) I can't answer your question
(I can't wait) It's driving me insane (Ooohooohooo)
And your impossible impatience (Impatience!)
Tearing at my brain (It's tearing away)

Oho, I can't take it, take it much more
Got too much to hope for

(When will I, will I)
When, when, when, when, whe-whe-whe-whe-when will I
Will I, will I
(When will I)
When, when, when, when, whe-whe-whe-whe-when will I
Will I, will, will, will I

When will I, will I be famous?
I can't answer, I can't answer that
When will I, will I be famous?
I can't answer, I can't answer that

When will I, will I be famous?
I can't answer, I can't answer that (What's the final answer?)
When will I see my picture in the paper?
I can't answer, I can't answer that (I can't take it)

When will I (When, when, tell me when)
I can't answer (I can't tell you when), I can't answer that
When will I (Will I be famous)
I can't answer, I can't answer that

When will I (Babe, better believe me)
I can't answer, I can't answer that
When will I (Will I be famous)
I can't answer, I can't answer that

When will I see my picture in the paper?
I can't answer, I can't answer that
When will I (When, when, tell me when)
I can't answer, I can't answer that

When will I, will I be famous?

War: what is it good for?

Well the plastic toys are about the only benefit I can think of. Here is my flatliner brooch pin range - made from vintage plastic army men. They will soon be available for sale on my online shop. They are a very limited edition as the modern army men no longer are made with good quality plastic that melts nicely. Like cheap easter egg chocolate, they are padded out with dirt, bits of grit and paper. They don't melt so much as burn (photos by war correspondent, Wayne): Anyway, my Flatliners are inspired by the disturbing street art I saw around my 'hood one day:

+ beach plastic + war bowl by mosely meets wilcox + plastic girl's gorgeous melted Tupperware jewels. The Flatliners are spirit blobs. Unlike their pre-melted selves full of action and deadly intention, they are dissolving back into the earth, their weapons gone all flopsy.

Computers are Bad

Okay, time for geek week backlash. My previous posting was the RSI (Repetitive Strain Injury) bracelet made from computer keys and today I do NECKPAIN. Because computers are bad for you in so many ways! The Luddites knew what they were doing when they took hammers to the machines of the Industrial Revolution and now we must enact the final solution.

Here are some of the different ways that homo geekiens have managed their computer rage from a survey by University of Maryland where they research all the important stuff. Click here for full list.

• I name my computers, and I use their names pretty much only when I'm mad at them. When my old computer, Charles, use to be bad..I'd yell, but then I tried giving him hugs instead..

• I scream at my computer because I know that it hears me and is laughing at me.

• Pull the plug instead of going through shutdown or report this error to Microsoft.

• I tend to bang on the keyboard harder when I get frustrated but not to the point of breaking it. I don't curse at the computer but do say harsh words to it occasionally.

• I take frustration out by yelling foobar outloud as i don't want to damage expensive hardware. I also tell everyone around me how evil my computer/ the technology was.

• I've never hit a computer screen hard enough to break it, but this week I hit my car windshield and cracked it. Maybe I should find a road rage survey.

• I often show my PC the middle finger!

• I sometimes put my Hands around my monitor's "neck"

etc etc, very funny...University of Maryland seems to have an entire faculty devoted to the study of Computer Rage and you can visit this site to find safe and cathartic ways of venting like the recommended mouse torture pictured at left.

I have often come close to some of these behaviours whilst editing the jewellers and metalsmiths A5 booklet quarterly newsletter but never whilst blogging. Blogging is good. Nothing bad has happened to me while blogging...yet. Any rage against computers comes out of me in the way I meticulously take apart computer bits and reconstruct them into delicate pieces of jewellery.

Seriously but. They have improved a bit over the last 20 years. I remember back in the bad old days of the early 90s I sharehoused with a systems analyst who would return home from a 90 hour week sporting monitor burns all over his face and looking like Michael Gambon in The Singing Detective. We didn't have much sympathy for him though as he was earning more in a couple of hours than we earned in the whole week as underemployed artists!

But maybe we are getting more intolerant of computers. We should be more in control of negative emotion. My theory is the more disposed you are towards inflicting violence on a computer, the more likely you are to inflict it on a living creature. Like those studies on domestic violence survivors whose pets have also been at the receiving end of violence before and while the interhuman abuse got really bad. Anyway, food for thought. If you are going to enact violence or nasty words on anything, think of how it might effect those around you first. Have a laugh at yourself instead! And do it for the sheer joy of destruction, not out of hate!

Don't forget, Junk IT starts this friday!

Geek Week 7: Geek go bye bye

All this blogging has given me an overuse injury. It is only 8.05pm but I am sooo sleepy. Guten nacht meine kleine geekinder.