1/11/17 - Wednesday
I went through the reading provided to the Semi-Colons (TAEM reading group) by Samson, about monsters, and was pleased to see that the author had included corporations among the monstrous. However, I didn’t think this reading was relevant enough to bother writing anything about it.
2/11/2017 - Thursday
With Bob’s experience of many years, the backyard veggie patch is coming along.
Tomatoes
Parsley
Pumpkin
Mint
The last of the bananas
(flower removed weeks ago)
I went to Dad’s for lunch and took soft plastics to Coles near his place for recycling.
Soft plastics to be
recycled.
3/11/2017 - Friday
Toast for breakfast. Lunch with Deniz and Simon.
Andrew forgot about our meeting - reorganised for Monday at 1.30pm
Meeting of the Semi-Colons reading group in the afternoon.
Morning toast of
homemade marmalade
and strawberry jam
4/11/2017 - Saturday
I did some more reading and note taking from Origin of Negative Dialectics
5/11/17 - Sunday
Take Dad to the Domestic airport terminal in Sydney
I did some more reading and note taking from Origin of Negative Dialectics
7/11/2017 - Tuesday
I went to Bill’s for a music jam day with Matt and Simon.
8/11/2017 - Wednesday
Finally got a chance to talk to Karen Barrett today. She advised booking the space costs $70 + $2.50/person. She was also not very optimistic of my chances of using lye in the space. Karen is leaving UOW next week (and only works Mon-Wed) so she asked me to send a request by 4.00pm today so she can get the ball rolling.
9/11/2017 - Thursday
I went to the opening of the Art of Food Waste held at Moving Mountains gallery. One of the artists, Justine McRae, used me as a model for one of her works. She used out-of-date egg yolks to paint around the original drawing.
The original sketch of
me pulling a face
10/11/2017 - Friday
I went to the opening of a national still-life competition held at Project Contemporary Art Space. Philip Reuter (a founding member of the Post-Situationist Society) was a finalist and his work was part of the exhibition.
Philip Reuter’s painting
(excuse the poor angle
of the photograph)
11/11/2017 - Saturday
I enjoyed a little of Viva la Gong in McCabe Park (a local arts/cultural event).
I went to the airport to pick Dad up.
I went to dinner with friends for Matt’s birthday and talked lots of art and thesis with Philip Reuter.
12/11/2017 - Sunday
I made some marmalade today with 2 small oranges and used jam-sugar for gelling. It will be interesting to see how this works out. I grated the rind of one of the oranges (suggested by Misty, which was much quicker and made life much easier). I produced one 375ml jar of jam.
The oranges cut up
with grated rind
underneath
Finished marmalade
13/11/2017 - Monday
Parsley and mint on the windowsill in some water keeps them fresh and ready for use.
Parsley and mint
in water
14/11/2017 - Tuesday
The soap I use for shaving (and shampoo) produces a nice creamy lather.
A creamy lather
for shaving
15/11/2017 - Wednesday
I am going to use the nastiest appearing piece of soap that I have in the remnants of old batches (5 & 6) that never really worked out.
A small, rancid piece
of soap for testing
I read an article, Donna Haraway’s ‘Tentacular Thinking: The Anthropocene, Capitalocene, and Chthulucene’, in readiness for tomorrow’s reading group.
I went out for lunch and ate the garnish as an introductory way to try to get into eating salad. I didn’t realise that I’m supposed to eat the stems as well (hahaha).
‘Salad’ before
Remaining stems from
the ‘salad’ I had.
17/11/2017 - Friday
I went to the semi-colons reading group. The reading was provided by Shelley, Deniz went along as well and will provide the next reading.
I went to the opening of an exhibition at Art Arena Gallery by a collective that Misty was part of. This was a very enjoyable event, complete with live music provided by a duo consisting of female vocalist and male guitarist.
19/11/2017 - Sunday
I made a batch of soap - 40% coconut oil & 60% rice-bran oil - and added colour (red and orange) along with natural yellow for a tri-colour soap.
Oils ready for melting
and heating to 60-70
degrees
The oils have been heated
and combined with the lye
solution
I use bricks to keep my waxy cardboard milk carton moulds
in shape, and rubber gloves to insulate against the cold bricks.
20/11/2017 - Monday
I went to the Uni to try to get more focused (in a working environment) but was distracted a bit by the setting up of the 3rd year Graduation Show.
21/11/2017 - Tuesday
Today was a lot like yesterday because I went to the Uni with good intentions but didn’t get a great deal done due to distractions (helping friends set up).
22/11/2017 - Wednesday
I unmoulded the tri-colour soap and it turned out well. The moulds were my last two UHT milk containers from months ago
Block of tri-colour soap
25/11/2017 - Thursday
I gave the soap an extra day air drying before cutting, both sideways on longways to get a different pattern.
Different patterns appear
on the soap depending
on how I cut it.
There were some interesting
patterns revealed on the soap
when cut.
24/11/2017 - Friday
I made a batch of extremely luxurious (expensive) soap - 40% cocoa butter, 25% sweet almond oil, 25% coconut oil, and 10% castor oil, and also added numerous colours: red, orange, natural (yellow), green, blue, and purple.
Some coconut oil in a jar,
some soap colouring,
and cocoa butter at the
back.
Oils and chunks of cocoa
butter about to be melted
in the microwave.
Oxides mixed with water as
well as some salt dissolved in
water (with teaspoon)
The mixing bowls get left
for a couple of days before
washing.
This allows time to turn the
remnants to soap (rather than
being still oily)
I went to the Creative Arts Grad Show at night. This was a well put together showcase of the works of graduating visual arts, graphic design, and media arts students.
25/11/2017 - Saturday
I finished the nasty piece of soap (I have also been using other soaps I’ve made) and it turned out that it worked well as soap and didn’t smell horrible.
I started to build website using Wix site builder.
26/11/2017 - Sunday
The tomato plants didn’t look well so they have been pulled out, providing a short-term supply.
Tomatoes ripening on the windowsill
I continued to add more of the journal I’ve been maintaining as blog entries. This takes quite a while because of the need to upload media.
27/11/2017 - Monday
I unmoulded the cocoa soap. The colours mixed because I poured the soap mixture into the moulds when perhaps a little too runny.
Soap block with
mixed colours.
I continued to add more blog entries.
28/11/2017 - Tuesday
I went to John Harris and Jo Oliver’s RPRs today. They both gave great presentations. I also saw my supervisor Jo and changed the date of our meeting to enable me to organise and complete some of the reading critiques I’ve been writing.
29/11/2017 - Wednesday
I cut the colourful cocoa soap. I also continued adding more blog entries.
Multi-coloured
cocoa soap
30/11/2017 - Thursday
CREA921 workshop about the creative portfolio - recommended to be documenting with various digital media. We also discussed the flexibility within each project about how work is submitted. Within the overall thesis (project) lies the theoretical (dissertation) and the practical written component (exegesis), as well as the creative work/s.