Magic in the air

My life is in complete flux right now. Change is afoot. Things will soon never be the same.
I feel magic in the air.
Firefly art: a collage I made in the last few weeks of living in Malaysia
Today is my last full day in Malaysia.

There are so many words I could write about it all, about the changes, about the experience, about what's to come, even about just the last few weeks or last few adventures. Heck, I never even mentioned on my blog that I went to Laos!

But for now, I'm just enjoying the last few moments here in this city I've grown to love. Saying good-bye to a few lovely people. Oh, and taking care of all the stuff that one takes care of when one moves (uffda).

What a strange, surprising, turn of life this whole experience has been.

I'll miss this place. But I look forward to going home.
But first...
 *she smiles*
....I have two weeks of adventures that await during the in-between time.

Yay for adventure.

I'm off for Hong Kong tomorrow.

WHALES!

Fifteen minutes into our boat ride we saw...

 WHALES!

 Two of them!

Humpbacks.

 They were young whales, or so our guide told us.

So they were curious.

Which could explain why they hung out with our boat for 40-50 minutes,

popping their noses up,

 swimming back and forth under and around the boat,

and sometimes even waving their noses at us when we waved at them (it's true! the guide told us to try it, and it worked! Curious whales sometimes play with people like that, he said).

It was one of the most magical moments of my life.

My son loved it too.

 We also saw two Southern Right Whales involved in, ahem, courting.

They were a bit less interested in our boat though.

We even saw sea lions.

 It was a day I'm certain I'll never forget.

P.S. This was all while still in Western Australia, for those who didn't read my last couple of posts.

Kite Maker or Collage Artist?

Last week my family took a short trip north to an area of Malaysia called Kelantan.
Many artists around one of the main cities of Kelantan, Kota Bharu, are especially known for practicing several traditional Malaysian handicrafts. The painting above and detail of it below, done by a Malaysian artist named Yusoff Abdullah, hung in the airport at Kota Bharu. The painting depicts many of the local handicraft traditions*.
One of my favorites of these traditions is known as Wau, or kite making.
Kite makers use large wooden frames that they bend out of thin sticks:
And the patterns on most traditional kites are intricately cut out of colorful papers and layered over one another.
Here's an artist at work cutting a pattern using an exacto blade on a folded sheet of foil.
I watched him use a blade sharpener. It made me pause because most paper artists I know back home throw out their blades rather than sharpening them. (I personally most often use a scissors, FYI).
Here's a close detail to give you an idea of the layers of paper. Every color below is a different colored paper, glued on top of one another.
Inspiring!



* The signature here is from the painting at the top of this post. I mentioned that the artist's name was Yusoff Abdullah, a Malaysian artist who I could find little information on, which is why the uncertainty and the lack of links. Please accept my sincere apologies if I've given credit wrong! Also, please correct me, if someone out there knows better, I'd prefer to properly give credit and links if they exist.

Paper made from Elephant Dung

Did you know paper can be made from elephant dung?

 Indeed it can. 

I learned all about it earlier this month at the Pinnawala Elephant Dung Paper Products center in Sri Lanka.

 Elephants apparently have very inefficient digestive systems. 

 They eat tons of plant material (literally), but much of it goes straight through them. That is, after being chewed and pulverized in their stomachs (essentially beaten like one beats paper in a paper beater or blender). So paper-makers gather elephant dung, boil out the "impurities,"rinse the fibers, 

 beat the fibers (as I mentioned, the elephant got this process started in its stomach) using traditional paper-making beater machines, 

dye the fibers, 

 and strain them through moulds just like I do with my handmade paper.

 The paper-makers let the paper dry on the mould and then, depending on the desired texture, either leave the paper as is (rough) or ring it through a paper press.

 Then craftswomen and men make the paper into all sorts of handmade goodies: journals, stationary, picture frames, etc.

Who knew that *waste* could be so useful, interesting and lead to such crafty goodness?

So there's a *fresh* perspective on recycling for you.

(Note: did I really just write that and leave it for the world to see?)

Back to cleaner subjects next post.

Going on a Whale Watch

I have a couple of fun posts about our trip to Sri Lanka coming up. Thought I'd try something different for this one. Enjoy!


Kjersten (as Mommy) and her son Oscar (age 3) present:
A story we made about whale watching in Sri Lanka! 
Written mostly by Oscar after a song Mommy was making up on the boat.
Please note that some illustrations have been replaced with pictures for the purposes of this blog.
Also, for those who aren't in the know -- this is DEFINITELY not the sort of thing you want to submit to publishers. But, all the same, I do recommend trying this at home.
(kinda sometimes sung to the tune of this song, but not perfectly so by a long stretch):

We saw the Indian Ocean and it was more rough than it should be! 
[don't try too hard to fit that into the melody, I'm telling you it won't work no matter how hard you try, but I digress]
We saw the sea.

Until...
[here's where we kinda loose the song for awhile]





Footnote for those interested: Blue Whales are the big attraction off the coast of Sri Lanka. But we didn't see a Blue Whale (even though they are usually spotted nearly daily at this time of year). We saw a Bryde's whale. Maybe not as big as a Blue Whale, but pretty thrilling anyway. Maybe only slightly more thrilling than your kid telling you he wants to make a story about the experience later that afternoon.

A new point of view

So here I am, typing at my computer in my new studio in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. I'm not on the 13th and a half floor as previously promised in a blog post. We opted instead to live closer to my husband's office so his commute would be walkable.

So I'm on the 18th floor of a different building in the heart of Kuala Lumpur's financial district. These photos are of the view I have from my new studio and living room. The first photo is of the iconic Petronis towers and KL tower. The second is of the adjacent park and Mosque.

I wonder what this new point of view will do for my art?

I look forward to finding out.

Change

My studio is my sanctuary.
I'd rather be there than almost anywhere else.
So it's difficult to wrap my head around the fact that I'll be leaving it soon.

I guess I need to make the formal announcement. Here goes: I'm moving -- my family, my studio, my life -- to Malaysia for two years. My husband has taken a two-year assignment for work there.

As you can imagine, my little world flutters in a whirlwind right now.
This week I had to start packing.

I never in my wildest dreams ever imagined I'd be hauling my studio across the ocean!

But I am.
I have a two-year art retreat waiting for me.
You'll still be able to buy stuff from my etsy shop -- a friend said she'd take care of shipping stuff for me while I'm gone (Thanks Marcy!). But I won't be making new journals and photo albums while I'm gone (get them now, folks! I can't very well do craft shows from Malaysia!).

Instead this will be the first time in my life that I'll be dedicating 100% of my work time to children's book illustration and writing.

Watch out world.
Because even though change whirls around me and my to-do list is longer than my leg and I'm bidding adieu to beloved people and places and responsibilities
--
my center dances in the eye of the storm.
Sitting down at my drawing table to work on the children's book dummy I'm working on makes me feel giddy like an ant at a picnic. And the way I've been getting through this transition is to make sure I keep working on that story that holds my heart.
Every single work day. Every. One.

The rest of the to-do list can wait at least a few hours every day.

Question.
Do you ever find yourself whining? Dragging? Wondering how to get through?
Count your blessings.
Seriously.
Get out a journal and write a few down.
Because that's your eye of the storm.
And you can thrive there.

Handmade Book of the Week(s) Feb 7 - Mar 1, 2009

I call this design "Tree Of Life."
I thought I'd put it up because I'm leaving for a big adventure in Spain soon. And adventure gives me life, so why not the Tree Of Life book.

I guess technically I could have had posts scheduled for the weeks I'll be gone. But that's not very much like vacation. I'm taking vacation. So this book will be book of the "week" for several weeks.

I might put up a few posts from Spain though if I feel inspired to share something cool and crafty or awesome and arty that I find. We'll see.

To see more photos or to buy the book go here.

Happy trails!