Festivities/War

I'm tapping this out at my dining table surrounded by the detritus of Christmas a little overloaded, over excited and more than a bit over it. I am staggered by the amount of social obligation sandwiched between work responsibilities not to mention a host of free floating ideas from early 2015 that want to assert themselves right now, propelled by a motor that seems entirely independent of my conscious will.

Even as things get hectic both internally and externally I am finding myself undertaking a process of reflection of the year just past (hard-as). Rather than filling me with any particular sorrow, I am mostly overwhelmed by my sense of gratitude for good friends and the enormous care and love that has been shown to me and my peeps (hospital visitors, you especially). Amazingly, there's still been time and inclination for celebration. The very best moment  has been hosting a bbq for family and close friends this past week in the dustbowl of our backyard (water colour scene above captured by guest and artist Piers Lumley).

The kids were the best. Fresh memories of children snaking out the kitchen patiently waiting for a scoop of ice cream in a cone have been keeping me strong through Christmas elf duties that involve malls and the CBD and the mail which includes the Medican Sans Frontiers magazine Pulse. This issue opens with an editorial about the Coalition forces bombing of the hospital in Kunduz, Afghanastan. Honestly, fuck those cunts and the havoc they wreck.

The Godfather I, II, III

Over the past few years during the Christmas season, specifically the days between Christmas Eve and Boxing Day I've noticed how receptive I am to film. I can't really account for it other than I know in this demanding and volatile emotional period I find myself on the couch with the remote in my hand looking to decompress from the interpersonal intensity of the festive marathon. I'm usually congratulating some nameless individual (the programmer) for their excellent choices. This year, for instance, I fell into a grateful trance watching The Godfather I, II and III over three nights muttering "Genius!" to myself. Is there another series of films more perfect at expressing the wiggy dimensions of family life – its pleasures, obligations and horrors – than this classic trio from America? When I studied Cinema at university in the mid 1990s Francis Ford Coppola was considered a giant who had lost his touch. No one could take the 1970s away from him but, prevailing opinion held that his later films were not as successful. While Martin Scorcese was moving onto Raging Bull and Age of Innocence Coppola was making strange episodes for television and ordinary children's films (The Black Stallion, anyone?). When The Godfather  III was released in 1990 – the only one I saw in the theatres – I remember being disappointed by its flatness. Revisiting it, I was more forgiving. Here is a film preoccupied with regret, legacy and wealth (most likely mirroring Coppola's own life-stage dilemmas) and not the aggressive, energetic turf wars of two decades earlier. I found it closer in theme and texture to Wall Street and Pretty Woman in its reckoning with material excess. Sure, The Godfather III doesn't come close to the inventive and elegiac tone of its predecessors. The straight, steely first instalment with its superb cinematography framing actors on a horizontal or vertical plane and Coppola's use of props; a lighter, a bag of oranges, to intimate psychology or as metaphor – and its ambitious, heartbreaking sequel from 1974. I was in awe of Coppola's nerve watching The Godfather II  especially the set pieces with a cast of thousands, the film's slightly hysterical atmosphere and marvellous casting. Three short years later Coppola would make Apocalypse Now. Like I said, a giant.

2014 in review

Christmas cards

This year I am using an ink pad and four speedball cut out shapes to make cards.

Christmas Bingo

I feel like I fried a few brain cells this past fortnight getting Christmas bingo and the Advent calendar to market. But they are done! I'll post on the calendar soon. This little project has been a collaboration between Little Chair and Sweet polka. We've really enjoyed it. No surprise really. Remember the Coke commercial that was the Little Chair logo?

Believe it or not I've never played bingo. But I've put my very own bingo aside for Christmas day. I plan to bring it out at that sleepy side of the day, between lunch and left overs. I want to cry "Bingoooo!".

Christmas Bingo
(6 cards, instructions + tokens)
$22 + postage

If you want to play bingo too, drop me a line.

The Misfits

Is it just me, do others feel a heightened sense of gratitude for being alive in the lead up to Christmas? I've been bitchin' a lot this week about how 'tired' I'm feeling right now. But fangin' it up Heidelberg Road at dusk I thought, Hitchens is dead. Molly is is a coma. I'm doing alright.

But then I turned on the TV. Only a sadist would schedule The Misfits (John Huston, 1961) this close to Christmas when everyone is preoccupied with where they fit – with their peeps, the world at large – but on it is. Watching an ageing Gary Cooper and utterly messed-up Marilyn Monroe traipsing around the Nevada desert is making my heart hurt all over again. The stories about the troubled shoot are legion. Watching that cohort of misfits, sans advertising, unfolding in the hermetically sealed world of black and white film brought death that bit closer. Thank goodness for the warm, soft night, the warm bodies, this house.

sweetpolka christmas stationary

My idea of a great night is me on the couch with a good desert, no communications with the outside world, a partial view of the garden in full bloom and crap on the telly. I need what children educator's describe as a long wind down period. This week, however, has been an exception. I've been making Christmas cards and gift tags to sell at the Harvest Textiles Market. I'm almost ashamed to admit how much I have enjoyed it. I mean, I'm tired, don't get me wrong. But it's been honest fun. It is why I love Christmas and always have. Making things make me happy.

Gift tags: linocut printed onto Italian paper with string. Packs of 6.

Christmas card: screenprinted on boxboard card. Packs of 5.