Cat Boundaries and an Art Habit

I've been mean and closed the door on Natalia. Natalia the Love Biter. The biter of elbows and chin and arm and nose. A purring chainsaw of pain. Natalia of needle sharp claws into my pillow thighs looking for a comfortable position. Natalia the Scamp. Sometimes I just have to say no to the cats. I am not the Chinese Emperor who cut off his sleeve rather than disturb his sleeping companion. No, I pick them up and move them out of the way. I encourage Nairobi to sit beside rather than on me because she makes my legs look like pages of Braille. When Matisse sleeps between the crook of my knee I have no compunction in rolling him to the outside. He weighs a lot. Having Matisse sit on my legs is like being weighed down by a furry boulder.

It has been raining steadily since last night. Although the cats are totally indoor cats, I suspect they get cabin fever when the rain brings the outside inside as a green gloom. I can almost hear them say, 'I'm bored!' Natalia doesn't usually notice whether I'm on the computer or not. She may come in and check out the bird tv through the window or hunt a wild fly on the pane, but sit on my lap? No, she's too busy. But this morning, my lap was a prize to be won despite gentle discouragement. Frankly, if she quickly found a position and went to sleep, no problem but being a rather large cat, she had to twist and turn and try this position and then that, digging claws in to steady herself. I removed her three times. She was like the boor at a party who just doesn't get it that you don't want to hear the fine details of his trip to the dentist. I put her out and shut the door.

Have finished, signed and framed the latest drawing. It's not pretty. It's not logical. But it has presence. It is pencil. A man's bald but beautifully formed head stares through his cupped binocular hands but the hands are joined at the elbow forming a sort of heart shape. Another pair of hands, striped and joined at the wrist form the bottom of the drawing. Massive shadowy shoulders frame the binocular hands. I should (oh, there's that word!) take a photo and try and get it up here but as I've used the word 'should' of course I won't. If I wanted to market my work I'd do so. It's still the work for it's own sake. These walls don't need any more pictures (although I've always admired the shot of Gertrude Stein's Paris salon which was hung with art from ceiling - and high ceilings at that - to floor) but when there's something on the board I breathe more easily. So I keep working.

Have started another work, coloured pencil. One day I sat in the chaise lounge under the poinciana tree and looked up. The sun coming through the branches, the green leaves and the orange-red blooms was a vision that I can never replicate. Yet I have to try. It's odd that artists know they can never truly recreate nature but are compelled to attempt it again and again and again. How frustrating to see the result of hours of work and know that it bears little resemblance to that golden kernel of joy that inspired its creation in the first place. When I looked up through the branches and saw the sky/tree/blossom/sunlight vision, I knew I would have to try. I'm not a plein air painter. I won't take the pad outside and try and copy what I see. I will try (and how impossible and at the same time laughable this is) to recreate the feeling it gave me when I first saw it. What else can I do?

I have copied many things; drawn people from life, copied images from photos, but the paintings which give the most satisfaction are the ones that come from my head. I read of artists who project a photoshopped image onto the canvas and then paint it in. That wouldn't work for me. In one sense it would seem like cheating, a paint by numbers exercise for adults. Trying to recreate the inner life is what interests me, even if it's only my interpretation of an image I've seen and then scrambled with memory and emotion.

Hot Yoga and Hot Computer and Cool Dimitri

The computer's been down for a few days (overheated with an extra hard drive. Now the drive's been removed and it's running better than ever, especially as I've removed the side of the CPU). Wouldn't have minded so much as everything can wait but as I've started the parrot behaviour mini lessons I haven't wanted to miss anything. Finished one lesson but was doing an 'extra credit' and couldn't send that. Anyway, all good now.

With much anticipation went to yoga with a couple of friends. It was a new 10 week Hatha yoga course. Unfortunately it was a very beginner course and I feel confident that I can handle a bit more than what was on offer. Overheard the instructor say that at the end we'd be doing real postures. Ack! The other thing that didn't sit well with me was the meditation. I've just got a thing, unreasonable as it is, about starting a class with a meditation and then having another at the end. I'd rather have one at the end, when the body has been warmed up, stretched and then cooled down. The postures themselves, with the focus on breathing, are a kind of meditation. They still the mind and bring me into the present. So the search continues.

Dimitri is starting to trust me a wee bit more. If I didn't follow our interaction so intensely I probably wouldn't notice it but it is definitely happening. He's more willing to wait and see what I'm up to before he hurries away. Sometimes he doesn't move when I have to pass him to get to the cages, he just watches. He's targeting well when he's in the mood. More often now he wants to come directly to the seed dish for treats and as it's sitting very close to me on the floor I let him. Last night and this morning he was closer than he'd ever been. I decided to slowly move my hands about, nonchalantly dropping one hand to my knee or lifting it to wipe the sweat from my face (literally - very warm and humid here). Sometimes he'd walk away a step and then resume eating. Other times he didn't budge. Very happy with that. He's also more responsive to my voice. If I tell him it's all right, he does listen. I've also been c/ting him for looking me in the eye. I think part of the lack of connection was the lack of eye contact. Not the staring predator sort of eye contact but a quick look in the eye so that he sees me as ME and not some huge behemoth waiting to pounce on him.

That's the thing with cockatoos, no matter if it's a cockatiel or a sulphur crested. There is so much somebody in there when you look into their eyes. A thinking feeling being. It's humbling. They're like cats. Cats look you right in the eye, mano a mano. You can't fool a cat and you can't fool a cockatoo. You can fool dogs however. Dogs are great, but they are seduced by kind words and the hope of a pat. Cats are cynics. Hell, they've been burned at the stake. Why wouldn't they suss out our intentions before committing themselves?

Was going okay on the book until the computer cacked it, hence writing and warming up in here. Just finished reading The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo and The Time Travellers Wife. Bless those dear friends who go out and purchase the best sellers. I just wait for them to show up in some op shop. Ditto movies. I know if I wait long enough they'll be on television.

I've been kind to myself however. For years I've hung on to Isobelle Carmody's Darkfall hoping I'd find the sequel. I did. On Fishpond.com.au. Ordered it and two other books by her. They arrived this week. It's like having Christmas all over again. Then I crack open the second book and find there's actually a sequel to the sequel! Ah well, some pleasures are better after prolonged yearning.

Just a quick note about the weather. It's awful. Worst rainfall for January ever. The grass is cooked. Brown and yellow with lashings of faded khaki. I've always welcomed the heat because it brings the rain but this is ridiculous. If we don't get good rain soon we will be in trouble as we'll have nothing left in the paddocks for the horses. I can't even begin to wonder how the birds and critters will fare. This is their time to get fat for the winter. The juvenile galahs have disappeared, including Amos. Is this normal or does it mean something more sinister? We're hand feeding Silda (rainbow) who was released last week. She's still making smoochy faces through the bars to Pablo and now we find that Nidji, who was supposed to be flightless, can fly. We'll hang on to Nidji for awhile, make sure he regards this as home and then release him too which means Pablo will again be on his own. I don't wish for some rainbow to have an injury but we'll have to be on the lookout for another companion. He might be getting a complex by now. This is the third bird he's lived with.