Wednesday 3 June 2020

Life in the time of the pandemic


It’s quite a while since I wrote a blog. I’ve thought about it every few days for months, but….honestly, kept feeling unable to say anything that doesn’t offend myself for sounding either too blithely mawkish or ridiculously bathos.

I’ve been working erratically, trying to distance myself not so much from people but from news of the endless litany of almost biblical ravages. 2020 is turning out a year unlike any other with the quantity of significant distractions piling up on each other in an avalanche of catastrophe. 

Starting on January 1st we had cataclysmic bushfires destroying vast swathes of the country to a degree never recorded since white colonization. Before that was over in late February the pandemic had arrived on our shores and started it’s own peculiar reign of devastation.

a collection of earrings I made in front of TV in May 2020. Some beaded, some cloth
a collection of earrings I made in front of TV during May 2020. Some beaded, some cloth


I am fortunate that my life has barely been affected. An aspect of my Aspergers is that I’m a very insular person who avoids friendships and social situations. Since I was able to leave my last workplace 4 years ago (due to the financial support of my husband) I’ve worked alone in my studio with great relief at not having to accommodate being around people with their constant inane chatter and the weird interactions they call “communication”... wtf!!! So you could describe me as a lifelong instinctive social distancer. That is my preferred comfortable place.

I’m an Aspergers person who was perplexed for 50 years why people thought solitary confinement in jail was a punishment. I honestly thought for decades that it was a privilege granted for good behaviour! In the past, sometimes when I’d had enough of the world I wondered if I should break the law to go to jail so I could get put in solitary confinement. Comforting to know the option is always there if required….

I’ve been working on digitizing the pattern for the loose, kimono style coat I used for almost all the coats in my “Thirty Coats” exhibition. It is very close to being ready for publication. If I could find 2 days when my eyeballs aren’t plastered to a screen watching the hideous person who is president of the USA bring that once noble (yes and flawed) country to its knees and final dismemberment….well, in those 48 hours I could finish up and publish….

Meantime, here's a preview, the pattern is called "Coat Thirty"






line diagrams. Coat Thirty as a 7/8 length coat, 3/4 length or hip length jacket





Lastly, if anyone would like to see the coats that were in my exhibition I've published a softcover book with photographs of all of them which is for sale in my Etsy shop