Nourish Me

dessin

Mid-way through this blog's now 9-and-a-half-year existence we lived in a beautiful, rambling house in Elsternwick. On Saturday mornings, Peter and Anselm had a life drawing session thing going on in the loungeroom. Afterward, we would talk, nothing being off limits as artists like conversation to be, but Art was the reason for it all. I loved those lunches. I felt a part of something smart, occasionally funny and always deeply creative. Anselm spoke a lot about the French word dessin, a word that means both design and drawing, concepts the English language separates as though the two are not inextricably linked. It's an idea I've filed in a small space my brain reserves for the kind of wisdom you know that, one day, you'll want to draw on.  

There's a book called Drawing Projects that's been a constant companion in recent months. Reading an interview in the book about the process of artist Kate Atkin, a woman who was put on report at college because no-one could see what she saw in the photographs she presented one semester, I had a moment of resounding clarity. On a whim, she drew from a photograph one day:

In making the drawing the most incredible thing happened, like an epiphany. I literally felt drawn to this kind of  magic, and discovered how to express myself., it was incredible. I could barely talk about it without welling up. I still feel a bit like that, I get strangely weepy about it if people get me going, it's like a tap into all my most excited feelings.  

Well. That's exactly how I feel right now. I well up when I try to explain how happy dessin and my burgeoning understanding of it, and of the maturity making pictures again has delivered into this little life. 

 

mr hughes

It must have been the mid-90's I suppose, well before the relationship I'd devoted myself to for too long already ended, when I was deeply unhappy and incredibly lonely, that I deliberately brushed the arm of the late Robert Hughes one night at The National Art School. It was Robert Hughes for godsake. Formidible, hilarious and razor-sharp of wit, I knew I'd forever regret not at least trying to engage the man. Smiling, he turned and I offered him a plastic cup of cheap cask wine which, to his credit, he willingly took. A brief but surprisingly warm chat about the importance of drawing ensued and I felt happier than I'd been in weeks. 

I'd completely forgotten about that night until just now, the beautiful article of Peter Carey's in The Cardigan last week still very much on my mind. It made me oddly patriotic, something that happens so rarely...and I, for one, miss him dearly already. Thanks Mr Hughes.  

 

 

bali: tirta gangga

When Gill first suggested Bali I was, I must admit, a little sceptical, but I dismissed any misgivings I had and focused, instead, on fresh, golden-fried tempeh, sunshine and rice paddies, and the promise of time spent in parts of the island less travelled. Large crowds freak me out, man, as does sticky tropical heat; rural settings, on the other hand, well, those I love, so Tirta Gangga in the east was our first port of call.

The arrival drinks above pretty much set the tone. Sweet, non-acidic orange juice, squeezed from a mild green-skinned fruit, arranged with just-picked flowers from our guesthouse garden.      

Turns out I love rice paddies, especially when the sun breaks over the volcanic hills that surround Tirta Gangga, sending magic light into the clouds and bouncing pink off the fields of rice and kang kung below.

You need to get up early, but an all night chorus of roosters and full-moon festivities will do that, no problem.

These were all taken on our first (early) morning, just outside the walls of our accommodation. Gill called it a wonderfully soft landing. I call it paradise. 

There are lots of photos to come, so I apologize in advance, but the place, as you might be able to tell, got well and truly under my skin. Going away to tame my insanely spring-y farm today, but back next week with, I am sure, a LOT more to say. The food, of which there will be much to talk about, was gorgeous, the people warm and the landscape simply breathtaking. I mean, seriously breath-taking. Even the dusty, frantic bits.   

I know that people always say that their holiday has changed them, but this holiday really, really changed me, adjusted some deeper parts, shifted some creeping negativity, and I look forward to unravelling some of that here, as the weeks ahead go by.

the day started out looking pretty bad. it's ended remarkably well, all things considered.

looking forward to an evening of relative calm.

(taken on the west lake, hanoi) 

blad, from feb

Gone back to black and white recently. Colour can be a bit distracting,

particularly when you're trying to think about it as drawing with light. 

The square, she is hard to master.

 

Brilliant

It isn't often that there are business shout-outs here at Nourish Me. Each time I begin that sort of post I'm instantly overcome with awkwardness; I um, and ah, then my writing gets wonky and I end up pressing delete before I've even thought about adding pictures. Yet today, when collecting the 'Blad, it occurred to me that really good repair shops are increasingly rare beasts, and the advice I've been given at some of the big name camera shops over the years has been not only lacklustre, but often actually wrong.

Mei and John at Shutterbox in Camberwell are a small, family-run business, wise and knowledgeable, down-to-earth and trustworthy. I met them when I did the unthinkable: bought an expensive, long-desired camera sight unseen. John's advice got me not only a full refund, but no fuss at the other end either. They've been incredibly helpful. To top it all off, this morning Mei handed me a jar of their homemade fig jam with my beautifully repaired Hasselblad, 'cos we also talk clean food. Couldn't ask for more. They sell and repair cameras (both digital and film) and accessories, and, best of all, can talk cameras in layman's terms.

Brilliant. Can't wait for tomorrow's breakfast...  

the pear and the kitchen crock

"...Proust says, 'Chardin has taught us that a pear is as living as a woman, a kitchen crock as beautiful as an emerald.' Since Proust wrote these words painters and writers have revealed other beauties to us - they have made us see the poetry of factory canteens and metro stations, the romance of cog-wheels, iron girders, bombed buildings, dustbins and pylons. But in the excitement of discovering these wondrous things we shall be poorer if we don't give a thought now and again to the pear and the kitchen crock."  

Elizabeth David, writing for Vogue in 1960

Still doesn't make me want to actually read Proust, but I love this ED quote.

Happy 2011

Here's to a good one.

Salad

Potato salad. Friday afternoon, adding bits as I went around the garden. 

a bunch of stuff I ate

Using film pretty much exclusively now means there are some meals that were great then, but which, by the time the negatives come back, are completely wrong for the season. Others have been eclipsed by meals that were deemed better along the way, but most have just been forgotten.

When you cook most of the meals it can be a drag to write it all down all of the time, right?

Tidying up the files this afternoon, so here's a bunch of stuff I ate this year, with pictures I like, that didn't make the cut for some reason or other. 

Hang on. I know this one; Kathryn's gorgeous beetroot curry. I like that the greens look sinister, and just a little bit Sideshow Bob.

That bathroom had great light.

And the mangoes, well, I just ate those.

Some with lime and chilli and salt as a side dish, but mostly just over the sink.