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Life Is What You Make It!

carolyncordon

Apparently Eleanor Roosevelt said that. And itsn’t that so true? You sit back and laze, never lifting a finger to do for than you absolutely, and you life comes to not that much at all, but if you do as much as you can at your job, or sport, or whatever it is that lights you up with hope and thoughts of what you can achieve, you’re much more likely to make an excellent life for yourself.

If you have ideas, run with them you can succeed, maybe not hte first time, but it you learn from what didn’t work the first time, and try something else, and better, until it works, woohoo, you’ve made it, you hero!

At the moment, I’m living a great life and I’m doing my very best to go on living a great life! I’m active, both physically and mentally, and in my community. I make plans and work on them, some of them go better than others do, but they’re all things that keep me positive, and doing ‘stuff’!

Sitting around doing nothing? Well it may look like I’m doing that sometimes, but often the reality is that I’m giving myself some ‘ME’ time, to refresh myself, ready for the next thing I’m going to do. Sure I have a novel I’m ‘writing’ that looks like it may never be published, but I’m thinking about it, on some of those ‘ME’ times, and I do in fact write a bit more of it regularly.

Just because ‘regularly’ means once a week, for twenty minutes, well, so be it. My favoured genres for writing are for short pieces, not novels. And every time I write something, anything, and send it out into the world, I can improve what I do, in terms of quality, audience reach, money making (haha what a joke miniscule amounts!), and enjoyment for myself as well.

I love to write, I’ve been doing it for some of my childhood and much of my adult life. I have in fact written a novel, which may one day be brushed off, edited and sent off to a publisher! That’s not one of the items of things to do this year, but next year, maybe it will make that list!

This year I decided to begin something possibly bigger than I’ve done before, in terms of public events and community connection. I decided I was going to create an Art Installation! Me! What did I know about such things? Not a thing, I don’t even have an Arts degree!

But I do have a creative mind, and I have many, many thoughts building into ideas. And the ‘Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Installation’ is one such thought that turned into an idea, and is now an Art Installation being created! In fact I’ve more or less finished the main part of the creation aspect of this Installation, and I’m getting more into the curation side of things.

This morning I do some of that curation aspect – I had some more items to be put out on display, so I went to the Art Installation (which is actually my Rusty front fence), to place those items on display. While I was there, I decided to move some previously place items to better display them, in less cramped spaces.

Then I completed some work I’d begun during the week, to better display one particular small type of piece (beer bottle caps). I continued looking at what I’d alreadty done over the months since this project started, and realised one item I’m quite proud of having on display, wasn’t in a good enough space, so I moved it so it could attract more attention.

And now, much of hte space that this Art Installation is in, is more or less filled, in that there is something on display, at least every two metres along the front fence. That areas around each item will continue to be filled, not to crowding, but in ways to show what is there, possibly for the rest of my life!

You see, these display items, yes they were found, most of them, and mostly found while walking our dog! So this Art Installation is keeping both my body and my mind active. And the really exciting part is that this Art Installation is going to have it’s Official Opening on the 5th of May this year, by the Adelaide Plains Mayor!

Redbanks, where I live, and so where this Art Installation is, is a part of the Adeliade Plains Council region. There not a lot goin gon there, not that can be seen by others, there are no open shops and the only public building is the Redbanks Hall, which has fallen into disrepair.

If I can draw attention to this township via the Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Installation, perhaps that might bring the Redbanks Community together, and be a further impetus to get that old hall (built in 1935, I think), back up and going as a regular meeting place for the residents of Redbanks, and others from around the place!

It may be not all people living here would be as keen on this idea as I am, but it may be that some of theme definitely are! I’m going to put out a notice in letterboxes in the township soon looking for responses concerning all of this, and we’ll see what happens. It may fall flat, and not have anyone else interested in it, there may be people who hate the idea, and want a quiet like, not people from elsewhere looking around here.

But it may become a thing the residents of the township of Redbanks can be proud of, and it could be the thing that finally brings us all together, and the whole of our township reaches out, and becomes more than just somewhere to go home to after work, and more or less ignoring anyone else living there.

There are already a couple of other places in Redbanks that have displays in their front yards, and they look great, I would love it if other Redbanks residents may be keen to put on more of a show as well, and we could all one day get together to look around at what others have done that they’re proud to show off to others!

At the moment, Redbanks is a township, but it doesn’t feel like a community. I want it to be a great community that cares about making all of our township shine with pride of our achievements! An Anzac day display in the front yard – that’s fantastic, a front yard display of old farming equipment, wonderful! An Art Installation made up of Rusty and Found objects, great!

Getting together and doing things, that’s what makes community. I hope I can help get this kind of thing happening again in Redbanks, starting when all of the township, and others, will be invited to the Grand Opening of the Redbanks Rust & Found Art Installation!

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A Poem Inspired By Another’s Misfortune

carolyncordon

If you live in Australia, particularly in the country, you quite likely know about the Three Corner Jack. They’re horrid sharp little prickles that come out in summer every year, unless a person with a bit of land isn’t quick enough to rip them out and dispose of them.

They look quite arrtative as they begin growing, up until the flower grows a seed that turns into a painful prickle that can jab into foot, or hand, or any other body part that it gets too close to, and OUCH!

This is my poem:
UNHOLY TRINITY
Even lovers of plants would agree
The fruit of this plant is devil-made!

Attractive leaves, a sweet flower too
Grows well, even out of the shade

Its spreading nature may seem fine
Greenery there where few plants strayed

Summer’s harsh sun killing many a plant
This one stays, whether in desert or glade

An ideal plant one may think it
But with one sharp prick, pleasure will fade

You’ll curse this damned evil weed,
Of plants; one of Nature’s most ill-made!


I feel sorry for anybody who has had the misfortune to fall victim to this horris weed! I’ve both trodden on the prickles, and been stabbed in the hand by it when weeding. Barefoot and fancy free, uh uh, not when there’s any Three Corner Jacks around!

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Why On Earth Am I Creating An Art Installation?

carolyncordon

To be honest the main reason for taking on this new Art Installation project, titled “Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Installation” is almost certainly a way of avoiding the writing of my much awaited first Murder Mystery novel … I’ve hit around 35000 words of that or more, but I’m dillydallying around in the middle of that novel without doing anything much in the way of actually solving the crime …

If I were to change the genre from cosy murder mystery to chick lit set in country Australia, I could probably wrap it up and finish it far more easily. But Cosy Murder Mystery is what I said I was going to write, so that is what I am going to do! Eventually.

In the meantime though, I’m doing to continue with the creation of this Art Installation with is so much more fiun, and it’s better for me too! To create this Installation, I have to actually go outside and find things, preferably rusty things! I have over 400 individual poieces so far, all, or almost all placed on my front gate, and fence.

There are rusty and/or found objects of many shapes and sizes, from rusty old beer caps to our actual fence, with stands at least a metre and a half high in parts, and is approximately 60 metres long. The fence is rusty, and found in as much as we obtained it when we found our home in the country way back in 1988!

I had no idea I might one day decide to use that fence of rusty barb wire and ordinary fencing wire in an Art piece! But this Installation has captured my mind, and my creative ideas, and I’m enjoying the creation of it, and the planning of further things regarding it far more than I was enoying almost anything else in my life at the moment!

And I’m not giving up writing, because I’ve actually written quite a bit about this new projet, and there is even going to be a non fiction book written (by me) about this project, to perhaps be launched in 2015. In the meantime, I will go on creating, and writing about this RUST & FOUND project, and hopefully it will be even more impressive once the time comes to open it!

There are a good few other pieces on the Medium platform too, relating to this new project, and I’ve picked up a few new readers on that other particular platform, which is always nice, for a writer.

I have a notable person organised already to do the launch, and he is excited about the part he will play in this project. He tells me he already knows what the rusty item is he will be speaking about with he does this his ‘opening’ duties! He won’t tell me what it is, and I”m looking forward to seeing what this old object might be!

So on 5th of May 2024 the Mayor of Adelaide Plains Council is going to launch the Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Installation! Woo Hoo! I’d better get some actual promotional stuff written and printed and then handed out around the place, so there is a crowd of people for the Mayor to speak to!

Doing that kind of thing is certainly not my forte, but I need to work on getting better and better at it, for this project, and in fact all of the things I’m doing that I want to get other people excited about too! If I can get oh, twenty people there, that would be great! If there were ten of fewer, it would be a fizzler. And if there were more that twenty, woo hoo. Success!

I’m not going to make lots of money doing this, but it isn’t actually costing me anything really, to create this piece of visual art. I own the fence it’s all displayed on, and it’s being hooked onto the gate and fence, or leaning against it, or wired in place with found pieces of wire. I never before considered myself to be a visual artist, I’d have always declared literature to be my personal art form, but these days, there seems to be more visual art work happening, rather than the writing!

But I haven’t given away writing in favour of Installation creation – writing about what I’m doing is an important part of it all. I wrote this short piece recently, and am happy with it https://medium.com/@kittycordo/ferrous-non-ferrous-plastic-not-in-competition-all-have-their-uses-357d7c8dbf47

I’ve written spome poetry too, about this project, and some of the found objects, and expect to do more of that kind of thing from now on, so I have a few poems to read at the bit Opening event …

And the reasons why I’m doing this? There are a few – Art Installations tend to be conceptual artworks, and I have a range of concepts I’m working with for this project. The main concepts reange around the ideas of Recycle, Reuse, Repurpose, reimagine, and touching further on waste, and ways to lessen the amounts of waste produce, by finding other ways to deal with it.

So the things I find as I’m walking around, looking for rusty or other interesting things, these items will not be thown out as rubbish, they will be taken to the Art Installation and put on display. And when I’m out there walking, I will be picking items that don’t fit into my project, so I will throw them out in the bin, but that is still a better thing to do, than just throw things around where they become ugly waste items, or sometimes dangerous items out on the roads, where they could cause terrible accidents!

One of the items on display in the Art Installation, is a metal shovel I found dangerously close to the road. Other items have been metal tools of various sizes, or lengths of wire, found in the middle of the road – I barely like to think about what could have occured if I hadn’t taken them off the road, and placed them out on display in the Art Installation!

So that’s another big concept being looked at, that of Road Safety, and being out in the country, as I am, I am well aware of the dangers of coming across large items in the middle of the road, when driving at say 100 km per hour. I fact wrote off my car around ten years ago, driving over something in the middle of the road I was driving along. It was a piece of rubber from a car tyre, and when I was driving at night I didn’t see it, drove over it, and it got thrown up under my car and somehow lost the ability to steer my car, ultimately hitting the fence fortunately in the middle of the road, and stopping, rather than running into the traffic heading off in the opposite direction.

So I have personal knowledge of what can go wrong if these kinds of items are left on the road, and if possible, I am now doing my best to stop and pick such things up. And even if they are not suitable for the RUST & FOUND Art Installation, well saving people’s lives is an important thing to do as well!

And of course getting out and about, walking our dog, talking to people, cleaning up the place, and making my local area a safe and tidy place to be, as well as keeping fit from all of the walking I’m doing, these are all worthy things on their own. But put together, wow!

So there you have it, writer, recycling whiz, road safety zealot, physical exercise inspriation, Clean up Austalia promoter, and more, here I am – playing my part in making my life, and the lives of others better, safer, neater, more lovely even, and sharing my thoughts and ideas with others so they too may ome up with interesting ways to assist make their lives, and the lives of others more important, and better in many different ways!

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Enjoying Helping Others!

carolyncordon

When I took on the role of teaching creative writing at a local, I didn’t realise how much fun I would have doing it! Some of the people who came along to learn already knew a bit about creative writing, others hadn’t written anything like that since their school years, many, many years in the past.

Seeing the happiness this writing brought to these people made it all feel worthwhile, and even if these people never get anything published, it won’t matter, because they’ve done something they never thought they could do!

So I’m not just teaching creative writing, I’m helping to increase the self esteem of people who never had any thoughts that they were actually good at writing. I helped them learn that, and that is such a fine thing to have done!

I’m not interested in cleaning other people’s houses, serving people in a shop, or driving them to do their shopping, I have my own difficulties with some of those things, but creative writing? Oh yes please, I’m excited to assist others with doing this!

When a person gets an understanding of what they can actually do, when they thought they were a bit dumb, or at least not capable of creating good poems, or interesting short stories, for instance, what a buzz that gives them and what a buzz that gives me too, when they can see they’re actually quite good at doing this!

If I could go on helping other people learn to trust themselves with their ideas, and to bring out their ideas and turn them into something bigger and better, whoo hoo, I love it! When people learn to trust themselves, and to fashion their thoughts into something other people will enjoy reading every bit as much as they enjoyed writing it, what a buzz that is for them!

In my life, I’ve had assistance from a great many good writers, those who know what I now know too, that helping others to write is a fine thing to do. I could become a counsellor, but that would take up too much of my time, when I have many other things I want to accomplish. But giving an hour of my life once a week, helping others with creative writing, that is more than enough, at this time in my life.

Helping others to reach into themselves, learning the power of their words, and the way other people can enjoy hearing, or reading those words, what a fine thing it is. I could go on doing that for the rest of my life, squeezing it into my week, in between whatever else was also there for me to do.

Enjoying doing what I’m doing, helping others to do the writing that brings me a buzz, so they get that too, how awesome it is! If you like to write, and if you’re here reading this, I assume you’re a bit keen on writing too, wel lif you like it, you know how it is, the feeling when you write something good! It doesn’t happen every time, but when you get it, wow!

Helping other people, sharing what you’re good at doing and helping others to do it too, what an awesome thing. Whether it’s writing, or some other kind of thing, painting, knitting, gardening, or learning how to fix a car so it goes better, what great things these all are. Helping others, helps yourself too, and don’t we all need a bit of extra help every now and then? You bet!

So think about what you’re good at, and find those who’d like to learn how to do that too, and help them, you’ll all love it, the learner, and the teacher as well.

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Time For a Walk!

carolyncordon

Going for a walk means different things, to different people, and creatures. For me, a walk is a method for holding onto what I have already, and building my strength and make sure I don’t lose it.

For our dog, Lenny – a Greyhound – going for a walk is a chance to mark territory, investigate what is happening, and who has been where. It’s also a chance for him to connect with humans, and catch some kind words, and pats!

For my support worker, a walk is a pleasant way to spend some time with me, her client, and to get in some exercise as well, as we all go. Today’s walk was a chance to attempt to get my digital distraction – Pokemon Go, finally up and going again for the day. I managed to do that, then we headed back to my place, and my support worker headed off for her next thing to do, pleased to have helped me get out and about in my broader community!

And chatting with her about the new lambs at her place was lovely, as I could learn a little bit more about her ‘livestock’ part of her life, as I was able to show I knew a little bit of what she was talking about.

Sheep aren’t just sheep, they can come in a variety of different breeds, each with their own special aspects that make them that, and not the other. She has Dorper sheep, which I knew already was not the kind of sheep one has to have then shorn to use the wool. Dorpers are a breed of sheep bred instead for their meat.

But my support worker’s family are in fact using these sheep as organic lawnmowers, let loose in their place to help to keep down the grass and weeds growing. I was glad to hear these sheep to an excellent job of it! It’s always good to hear stories of things working well, isn’t it? I certainly think so!

And the other good thing about walking, and talking to someone else, are the little snippets of information a writer can pick up, just by chatting about a wide variety of things! When you’re a poet and writer, writing prompts are so valuable! I could write a children’s poem about a child living in the country, with a lamb as their best friend, using the information I gained today!