Helen Mackay | artist and printmaker
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September 02nd, 2020

2/9/2020

 
Well, it feels like I have been away a long long time, and perhaps I have. This website and blog  has been so neglected, but I doubt that anyone reads it anyway. 
A post every couple of years is pretty inadequate and I am not sure I would be racing to see what I was going to say next. 
Last year I spent in Australia, as I couldn't go to Madagascar in September to work on a lemur project as I  broke my wrist 3 weeks before I should have gone. I postponed this trip to this September and now I should be leaving on Saturday and of course, I am not going there on Saturday. Or anywhere. Such a disappointment as I had the bedroll, the mosquito net, the solar torch and all the shots.  I could have met a rabid dog without worrying. Which is a good thing as a local dog on Riverview Road sank its teeth into my hand recently, and the it was suggested that i get a rabies. I think that I fall into a very small group of people in Avalon that have current rabies status. 
What I did do this year was go to Antarctica in March. I am so lucky, I flew out  to Argentina on March 1st and got back to Sydney before the hotel quarantine. I went on the most wonderful expedition boat with a group called Quark Adventures. Every single day was amazing and I saw the most beautiful landscapes with such a reduced colour palette. I stood on the continent of Antarctica and I saw penguins, whales, seals and birds. We even saw Type D orcas as we were crossing the Drake Passage.  I cannot begin to describe the purity and clarity of that place, and the sense of wonder. 
Since then, in lockdown I have had this wonderful experience to think about. And I have started to put some of this in to my work.  Drawing the seals, who have to have the most photogenic faces, and trying to paint the formation of the pack ice. The paintings are very abstract and I am looking at the patterns and shapes that i saw. 
Well, that is probably enough  for this post . I am going to try and write more for this next month too. 
Picture

    I am Reading….

    Salonika Burning bi Gail Jones. 
    This is a wonderful book, She writes beautifully and her work reminds me of Shirley Hazzard. 

    Our Country Friends by Gary Shteyngart. 
    I so enjoyed this book, it was funny. And the characters so exposed. July 2022 

    Our Shadows by Gail Jones.
    This is such a good book. I had just read The Death of Noah Glass by her and both of these are so well written.
    June 22

    Cassandra at the Wedding by Dorothy Baker
    I loved this book and it felt so modern even though it is 60 years old. Apart from the lack of technology in it, no mobiles, no emails and no computers. 
    March 22
    ​
    Remembrance of Things Past by Marcel Proust
    This has taken me some time and I have another 150 pages to go. It has been a challenging read and I find some of it extremely funny. I will let you know when I have finished it. Read more Austen and Mitford as light relief during this period. As well as other less memorable books.  21.02.21



    The Dutch House by Anne Patchett
    Such a wonderful book, I loved reading this, a perfect joy. 

    Olive again by Elizabeth Strout. 
    Just saying - a fabulous snall book. Olive is such a plausible, flawed character. 

    Milkman by Anna Burns
    I have so loved reading this book. You enter another world where the dial has been moved and you have to tune in and recalibrate to this fine tone. It is wonderful.

    The Angle of Repose by Wallace Stegner
    This book is brilliant. I had never heard of him, and thank you to Avalon Library for having him on the shelf. I started with The Spectator Bird, then Crossing to Safety  and now this book. I think I have read them in the right order for me. He is no slouch, having won lots of prizes including the Pulitzer. His writing is exquisite.

    Nutshell by  Ian McEwan
    This book is brilliant.

    The Fish Can Sing by Halldor Laxness
    I had never heard of Halldor Laxness before, but I loved this book, and found it extremely funny. And he did win the Nobel Prize for Literature, so obviously no slouch. 

    Rereading
    The Pursuit of Love by Nancy Mitford - hilarious and some of it so clever and finely drawn.

    Persuasion by Jane Austen. Again
    ​
    The Transit of Venus. I reread this book almost every year.

    I am not reading
    My Brilliant Friend. Have I missed something here? 

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