snow in Melbourne

It was that night when I cried in the middle of Bourke street
when the glass of a phonebooth was shattered
that the tram stop was also being stripped, naked
what usually seemed invisible became so detectable on the ground
it reminded of an icy morning in Korea

We were not allowed to approach the nakedness

Me, the shattered glass, and the imaginary snow

[Digital Photography]

happy drops

When I used to worry less about consequences I loved to go out it the rain
and just throw myself into puddles
thumping my two fat feet in them and make heavy splashing noises
I liked how my shoes got wet and then my socks
the slight discomfort at the beginning made me feel brave
and the squelching sound was an ultimate pleasure
I loved the way the murky water felt sticky between my toes

and then I learned that shoes take time to dry and they end up being smelly
or they shrink slightly during the process of evaporation
and don't fit me so perfectly anymore they feel too crisp

and then my life started to have less time for these things
or that's what I think happened
and it began to fill with much more important things
which don't stay in my memory for too long
and I just had no time to waste my emotion on crispy shoes

so rain became a very small part of my life
and I even started to complain about its visits
and whenever it came my moods became crisp

but since I started working
I realised that rain can drive the customers away
and I can have some peaceful time watching live bogan dramas
and now every drop makes me happy I feel like getting a very pretty umbrella

[Digital Photography -
Glass ceiling of the tram stop on a rainy day, wobbly tree branches]

birds gone mental

 

For some reason all the birds decided to gather in this one tree and have a mad conference one Monday, in the late afternoon.

Their chirping masked every sound that existed in that moment - I couldn't hear my own footsteps.

Animals fascinate me.

[amateur mobile phone video recorder]

maybe.. not really..

I was sitting on a bus on my way home from tutoring today
when I remembered a scene from my past
no actually i didn't remember it, it just came flying and I wasn't really ready for it
it was the moment when all these white bars came toward me very slowly
and Charles yelling out words like he was reading a sign
no actually Charles enunciating these words really loudly it was so clear and slow 
and when the white bars stopped approaching me the world seemed so quiet
and the moment seemed to have lost sound, smell, air and most importantly, time
and when the moment retrieved its life I looked beside to see
pale, pale Charles slowly, slowly turning blue
with an expression I have never seen before and hope to see never again
and then I realised that I burst out laughing on the bus
no actually it was just a short laugh, a loud one, and an involuntary one, too
heads turned to me and I looked out the window, pretending something funny was happening outside
but all I saw was an old homeless man with a piece of cardboard that had 'I am hungry please' written on it in a hungry handwriting
which I think used to be a complete sentence before the cardboard somehow got destroyed
or I hope it was
and then came back Charles' face slowly changing colours
and then the second laugh came, involuntarily again
how I wished I could stop
the bus ceased to move and the homeless man was framed in the bus window, with his incomplete sentence
and staring eyes that said 'insensitive bitch' stung my face

but I can't help that
every time I think about my near-death experience
I chuckle out loud

Small Fish

I've been working on a new painting
it looks finished in photos
but it's not quite yet.still lots of work to be done
but with my bad back I can't spend too much time sitting
so I'm going to wait for the background to dry and work on it
later.. sometime later...

this big canvas and I share a long history
this was supposed to be a gift to my grandma
and then the receiver changed to my boyfriend's sister and her fiance's wedding gift
and then I hated my painting so much that I couldn't look at them
so I painted over everything with white gesso
and painted again
but hated it even more
so painted over it white gesso again
and then came my final work.

initial painting

yuck, yuck, yuckiddy yuck

after more than half a year of abandoning the canvas

this is what i decided to do.

if big fish doesn't work, why not downsize them?

you can still see the huge fish beneath the small ones

 i decided to do work on the background last as i always do

and just this part took me 1 hour and 40 minutes

i'm not an efficient painter but i do like things to progress slowly

and this, hours

and this, days

and finally I'm done!

I mean, just first-stage done.

close up of the painting

this painting required a lot of patience 

(which is what i need)

and when i felt like the time was going slowly

it helped the clock move in madness -

I realised that I can control the flow of time

and it felt good!

[Oil on a wounded canvas]

when I visit NZ again

I didn't get a chance to do it this time but next time I visit NZ I'm not missing the chance!!
hopefully I get to do it very very soon.
oh i love horses
and this setting.

me, a lamppost, the third story

In the morning of 28th June
me, a lamppost and Dolly's farm with the quiet lake
and a genuine breeze.

I really miss the air.

[Digital photography]