Ramblin Rose

Well I finished the wall hanging that I’d started in my last blog, and it’s now in The Mill reception as part of August Craft month exhibition. You’ll see Stella Bluebell there as well. Now Stella hasn’t had an easy time of it. When she was living the hallway upstairs someone stole one of her belts, which I was able to easily replace by spraying another one white. Then some nasty person took all her hair (strips of leather) out, so she had to move into the studio with me in order to recover after being so horribly violated. I had to give her something temporary for her head for the exhibition, so I fashioned a veil type of thing which I wasn’t too happy with. Then, joyously, I found another belt made of leather strips and now she has a lovely new head of stringy hair!

 As I’ve been involved with Artsekta and their oral history project, I was invited to the launch of the Mela a couple of weeks ago (the Mela was on Sunday there). It was on the Nomadic, down beside the new Titanic building and started at 11am. On arrival I was handed a beautiful multi-coloured sari and pointed in the direction of the buffet table. What a treat that was, lots of spicy bits to fill my plate with what was technically my breakfast. There were speeches and music and speeches and singing and speeches and dancing, and in between Julian and his wit. All in all it was a thoroughly enjoyable outing.

 Just before I go, let me tell you about the That Wee Cat Café night that Anna & Sheelagh invented as part of the Feile West Belfast Festival. They made these cats and tagged them with questions that would instigate conversations, and I was volunteered as a conversation person. Quite exhausting is was, let me tell you. I can talk, and I ramble a lot, but don’t do so good if I’ve to stick with a brief and not deviate. A lot of people turned up and it was a great success, but I don’t know how much actual ‘discussion’ took place. And the cats just loved all the attention.

 This has been a long-winded one, but sure I haven’t blogged for a while and I’d a bit more to ramble about than usual. Next blog I’ll tell you about the opera I was in.