WOW leather

I'm now going to fill up my blog with WOW for the next month! Tis a passion of mine...and somewhat of an obsession. Luckily people share it with me and Konev Leather is no exception. In fact they are going to have one of my pieces in their Wellington shop window from Tuesday next week.

'Love is Temporary Madness' was inspired by the wonderful 'Captain Corelli's Mandolin' (the book is wonderful, the movie was rubbish- go read the book). The quote above says it all. The Bizarre Bra I made is below. If you are in town go check out the window at Konev in Featherston St... and then go in and drink in the leather. They know their art...

WOW 2010

Kanugi Kodama- back detail

Well August is just about shot to pieces and that means September is nigh, which brings the calendar into sharp focus for me because... yes it's Wearable Art month. I have my 17th piece in show this year. And I can't tell you ANYTHING about it except that it was inspired by a New Zealand Author's excellent novel. I can't show you pictures, I can't tell you what I made it out of because it would spoil the show otherwise. But I CAN tell you that once the show opens I will plaster it all over my blog! So you'll have to wait until the 23rd September.

In the meantime I can show you some working drawings (because I think it is always interesting to see the process) and photo of my piece from last year- Kanugi Kodama which will be on display at the Welllington Botanical Gardens (in the Treehouse) during the Spring Festival.

There are often a few pieces of wearable art around the Capital in shop windows where you can see pieces up close and personal which is a fantastic opportunity to see how things have been made and out of what- especially if you are thinking of entering the show yourself. Kanugi Kodama was made from recyled kimonos from 'Made in Nippon' on Courtenay Place. I'll also be showing how I made it on the Good Morning Show- so keep watching TV1 on Tuesdays around 9.30am from September 7th.

Kanugi Kodama- working drawings

Kanugi Kodama- photo courtesy of WOW

Fabo again!

Well the secret is out...it was me who was the mystery author for last week. We got a good response from fabo kids all over NZ vying for the top prize- which is the one featured here- a signed egg carton bull terrier with snappable jaws (read the story) and a copy of my book 'Glory' and a badge went to Andy Xie; read his story here. 8year old Georgia Fyfe from Maungawhau Primary won the junior section 8 and her story is here.

Get your kids involved- all they have to do is read the chapters to date a feel for the story and write the next installment by Friday- email it to us and they could win books and other cool prizes.

The best 5 writers at the end of the fabostory experiment win mentorship with one of 9 new Zealand Children's Book authors (us). We have prizes for juniors (7-10) and seniors (11-13). High school students are out of the running and so are adults masquerading as talented kids. We are after NZ's next generation of writers!

I want to say a huge personal thank you to Gavin Bishop who illustrated my chapter with a very fine 'frozen' Pit Bull. Each week a famous New Zealand Illustrator heads a chapter. How lucky are we?!

Biting news

In the absence of anything very much to report this week (prizes, publishing deals, general fame and fortune), here's a picture from the archives. I did it for an advertising campaign a few years ago- for a cabling company...all about large Cat cables. It's on canvas and it's BIG- A1 sized on a white background. It is also for sale.

Lianzas

So...it's the LIANZA awards tonight and Glory is shortlisted and it would certainly be a touch of Glory irony if I got the Esther Glen so I am not writing an acceptance speech, but AM looking forward to to dinner with all my writing peers, to good times, old times and new times to come. I'm completely honoured to be there, thankyou the librarians of NZ... mwah xxxx

Fifi who?

There are sometimes great benefits for having an unusual first name. Fifi is not really my given name; I was christened Fiona in a grand Scottish tradition, but have been known as Fifi ever since I tried pronouncing the former as a toddler. I was convinced that I was the only Fifi who was a children’s book illustrator…that is up until a week ago, when Dianne from Nelson contacted me, because of, simply, my name.

“I have a painting by a Fifi Wynn-Williams. It came from my husband's aunt Meg Everton and I even have the bowl to go with it.  I am pretty sure it was painted before 1970 but how much before I don't know.

There is also a children's book called 'Mr Moa' by F Wynn-William given to Meg's mother with the author's complements in 1946. There is also a manuscript for a book called 'The Wonderland of Mr Moa' but I don't know who wrote or illustrated it.  Meg may have written it but it's in child's handwriting so must have been a long time ago as she just died aged 90.  Meg was a well known teacher and Ardmore Training College lecturer in Auckland. 

The manuscript and book are accompanied by a letter from Heinemann Educational Books (NZ) Ltd dated 1976 saying they are sorry they can't publish the manuscript or republish the book (ah…does nothing change 70 years later?)

The Mr Moa book has an article from the NZ Woman's Weekly stuck to the inside cover from 1946  written by a Count Etienne Micard.  He is agreeing with 2 men who protested about the V&A museum in London showing Picasso's "crazy-guying of Mankind".  He says "all the praise and clatter around Picasso's 'surrealism'  can only be explained by the Western world's decadence." (!)

There is also a sentence that has been underlined and 'Fifi' written in the margin:  

 "I wonder if the man in the street would hesitate between the odd naked bodies of Maoris on the wall of the Public Library in Auckland , for instance, and the charming faces of the children in a Shortland Street studio which remind one of Raphael's Jesus?"

Well, we are burning up to know who this other fabulous Fifi is. Can anyone elucidate?  

Gorillas?!

Miranda & Giles as I envisage them

We have our first FaBo winners and our next chapter up... 

go check it out!

Fabo is live!

The first chapter is up!

Now the fun begins... check out how Kiwi kids can participate in the first NZ online writing competition side by side with published, award winning NZ writers

many thanks to Mike Greenfield, designer extraordinaire for our Fabo blog!

 

Tueday Poem- Honesty

Velvet

Sometimes poems just arrive from conversations- FaceBook is my favourite place; a freelancer’s version of standing round the water cooling, having fun and gossiping.

I put the word ‘honesty’ up yesterday as a status- inspired by Tali Landisman’s notes - she writes amazing truthful, belly hitting stuff that inspires and makes you think. She's also a very successful international artist. (I tried to post one of her paintings as my header today but the upload function on blogger was being less than smooth this morning. I'll try later.)

Then people made it into an alphabet game with the following words: integrity, jalapeno, kilobyte, louche, marzipan, nuance, oligarchy, possibility, quiet, quick, quack questions, renunciation, silly people, trip over, uvula, winsome, xylophone and finally zulu. Ray Neilson from Florida said ‘The next thing is to write a poem or prose using these words.’ So I said, ‘Go on then!’ and he did. Here it is, fun on a Tuesday with words contributed from all over the world.

Honestly, your question of my integrity is like a jalapeno in a chocolate chip cookie. There is none, not even a kilobyte of truth in your louche comment. You do not know the difference between fried eggs and marzipan. Without the understanding of the nuance of life, which you feel is under the control of the oligarchy of a few privileged people, you can't see the possibility of a few quite,quick minded people that rejects the quacks and questions but asks for the renunciation of you silly people that often trip over your uvula that you feel is velvet coated. Your winsome attitude is like a tribal beat on a crude xylophone in a Zulu ceremony. I would debate you but that is akin to arm wrestling with a paraplegic.

Bravo Ray!

 

People in glass booths sometimes should be stoned...

My sister arrived at Wellington airport last week to help me celebrate my birthday. We hugged and kissed and gossiped all the way to the machine where you pay for your parking. We laughed at our attempts to put one note after another into the slot to find we were putting it in the wrong one. Out came the change when we finally got it right and I made sure we scooped that up and on we went chatting to the car, wheelie bag in hand, delighted to see each other, when…

‘Oh crap, the ticket!’ I said, dread coursing through me colder than the wind (and it WAS cold). I rushed helplessly and hopefully to the machine to see if the ticket by any miracle of a benevolent God was still there. But all I saw was a happy smiling guy walking away from it, looking like he couldn’t believe his $3 luck. My sister laughed, but I didn’t, because this could only mean one awful thing.; a trip to the ticket booth, and a conversation with the duty manager ensconced within.

Walking to the booth has much the same feeling as walking to the gallows after committing a heinous crime. It doesn’t matter that you have paid your parking fee, you are presumed guilty before you start; your head is full of how you will hold yourself, the tone of voice you will use, the smiles and puppy dog eyes you might employ to have them pity you and raise that barrier arm. I might have done fairly well with that strategy, except my sister accompanied me, and well, she’d had a long hard week in the corporate world and was in no mood to be jerked around. There were two people in the booth; a long lean studenty sort of lad and a small spikey woman in a puffer jacket perched on a stool looking like she’d spent her shift plotting how to have her husband whacked for his adultery. I think she’d got to figuring out the hit man rate when we arrived.

It went like this:

Me: (smiling and looking sheepish) Hi, I’ve done a silly thing- I paid for my parking ticket two minutes ago and I think I left it in the machine.’

Studenty Lad: So what actually happened?

Sister: We tried to put the money in the machine and there’s no clear slot for it!

Studenty Lad: so you tried to put the money in?

Me: Yes, we were confused at first, but we finally found the right slot and paid $3

Sister: And it didn’t give us a ticket!

Me: Well it might have but we didn’t see it come out; we were busy chatting...

Spikey Puffer: (fast and nasty) Well there’ll be a missing ticket charge then (btw this is around $30)

Me: (smile falls) But we paid already! I can’t afford that- my husband’s been out of work for over a year and I have none either! We are broke! (giving her more info than she needs and suddenly aware of the very nice jacket I was wearing that I bought in a sale 2 years ago but how was she to know that it wasn’t this year’s full priced one)

Sister: (hands on hips) And I’ve come all the way from Auckland for her birthday and we don’t need this!

Studenty Boy: Look, we’ll just see if…

Spikey Puffer: They’ll need to pay.

Me: Noooo!

Sister: Bloody Hell!

Spikey Puffer: Don’t you swear at me!

Studenty Lad: (to Spikey) Shut up!

Spikey Puffer: (ignoring him) It will teach them to be more careful.

Sister: We just want to get to her birthday dinner (which was at home cooked by my son not at Martin Bosley’s but how would Spikey Puffer know that?) and now you are just being bloody vindictive.

Spikey Puffer: You keep swearing at me and I’ll keep you here all night.

Me: Noooo!

Studenty Lad: You paid you say?

Me & Sister: Yes! We told you that. We just left the ticket by mistake.

Spikey Puffer:Thats what happens when you aren't being careful.

Me: (now indignant) Look, I come to this airport heaps to pick up people- I made a mistake one time, I know how to be careful. Don’t treat me like a child!

Sister: (nostrils flaring) Yeah, where’s your bloody compassion?

Almost scuffle as Spikey Puffer and sister start towards the barred glass partition ready to tear each other from limb to limb. Studenty Lad bravely places himself between them.

Studenty Lad: Let’s have a look on the monitor, 5 minutes ago did you say?

And up comes video tape of everyone who had paid at the machine in the last day- scrolls through and finds us laughing over putting the money in the wrong slot and the eureka moment when we put in the right one.

Studenty Lad: O.K, so clearly you paid, so I can give you a new ticket. Here you go, and have a lovely birthday.

Me & Sister: Thankyou, YOU have been most helpful (daggers looks at Spikey) Have a good evening.

Spikey Puffer: And next time, be more careful.

If I hadn’t wanted to get away for my birthday dinner, I would have reached through that booth…