The last bit of Tasmania

This is a paper sculpture by Ruth Rees and Pam Thorne from 2006 called "A Man & His Dog" that is at the whisky distillery in Burnie where I had lunch overlooking amazing landscapes that included seeing snow in the distance and a pair of eagles flying overhead.

This is obviously a terrible shot because the sun is RIGHT THERE but in the distance you can see Table Cape. This was during Lynne's grand tour that she gave me of the area that is all so beautiful. I was learning about house prices and property tax rates! If there was reliable work, it seems like a nice place to live.

Penguin is ALSO a place that seems like a wonderful place to live, right on the water with a very cute downtown.

Pam is admiring a project in progress that we walked by on the beach. Lyndal insisted that we come down to shore before getting me to the airport. It's so nice here the way domestic flights work out of the tiny airport: you just have to arrive about half an hour, maybe even less, and there's ZERO security. I was shocked.

More water and sky and sun.

When we got back from the beach, we of course had to go see the penguin! Two seagulls were perched on top.

Somehow we had time to stop at Pam's and Neil's house on the way to the airport, where she showed me this beautiful tapa from Papua New Guinea, in exquisite shape, and explained how the pattern was made in one section, then folded over, and then approximated from that point, and so on.

Before loading back into the car, Pam showed us the remnants of her tests of native Tasmanian plants for papermaking, which included a native help that stripped beautifully (the woody core in her hand). The leaves to the side she said were split in half to scrape by the indigenous people and that makes SO much sense when I think of how hard it is to scrape things like yucca leaves from the outside. Donna had also mentioned Maori traditions of scraping similar plants with mussel shells.

Pam is a remarkable sculptor, and these are small paper figures. Apparently, her large figures that she made with Ruth are all over town in various places that I didn't have time to visit.

Pam also made all of this string by hand with dress pattern paper. She then makes beautiful pieces from that, including the costume and hat that Lyndal wore on the Friday night event, and her own beautiful collar that night.

To cap it all off, I raced down to Neil's shop. I didn't know until I got to town that Neil also makes paper moulds!

I was being called off to get in the car so as not to miss my flight so I wasn't able to shoot the very first mould he made but it was using what looked like plastic crating as a support. I love that these toolmakers keep their early efforts.

He showed me their little critter by Mark Lander. In several days, I'll be in New Zealand to finally meet the maker himself.