Working together

Hello again! Fancy meeting you here again so soon.

I thought I'd check in and let you know how the singing went.
Last night we had our 9 lessons and carols service which we have been practicing for for weeks.
As I said in my last post, I had some meltdowns during a couple of practices due to ...life!
So this performance although less involved for me personally, was also much anticipated.
I did do a solo verse and was in a trio which was a little stressful due to lack of practice opportunities and last-minuteness. However, all went well. We didn't stuff up too badly and the sound was glorious. Somehow the carols were my favourite part, because the congregation joined in with gusto. It really felt we had a cathedral's worth of people singing in our tiny church. Of course the choir is full of trained voices, so it packs a punch as well. The whole thing was a lot of fun and my family came and enjoyed it too. We knew it would all go well, or suspected, but the real triumph was the resourcefulness and stickability required to get there and perform. If that was the story in my family, I wonder about all the stories involved in the choir and even the congregation to make that triumphant moment part of all our lives. 

I really do have a hard time sometimes with my "art" being so ephemeral. I want a tangible thing to remind me of the moment and to have something to boast over. It seems hard to allow it to disappear into nothing. But maybe it doesn't. Maybe it is released into the lives of all who were there. Life after all is just a series of ephemeral moments which make up our story. If I can be involved in others' moments in such a pure and joyful way, then I am grateful.
I am thankful my body recovered enough to allow me to stand in amongst the noise and not immediately start crying. 
I am grateful for my training that helps me through my nerves during solo moments.
I feel the hand of my teachers resting on my shoulders as their words of wisdom are brought to life.
And I feel the audience buoying me up with their expectation and delight.

I also really loved the end of the service where we all file out to the courtyard where the supper is ready and sing "Silent Night" to guitar accompaniment. This is where having Christmas in Summer makes sense.

I leave you with a picture of our Christmas tree from last year (because we haven't got around to it yet this year!)
It is a picture for me of how a slightly wonky imperfect life can light up the world.

Much love and Merry Christmas!

Jazzy Jack

Creative Catchup

Greetings everyone!

I thought I'd catch you up on a few creative projects I've been working on lately.

Here is a youtube video I made with my new microphone.  Prior to now I've not had a microphone that will record my singing without blowing out.

Finally I treated myself, and I'm very happy with it.

So I attempted to do a youtube video, but my miming skills leave a lot to be desired.

Instead of scrapping it I thought it would be funny to share it with some weird trying-to-be-cool graphics to suit!

This illustrates something I feel is important in creating, remember to play and give yourself the freedom to make mistakes. When you do, just laugh and move on. Creating should be fun, not a serious chore! After all, you are creating something new. Who says it's wrong? It's never been made before!

Another venture I've been involved in over the last couple of years is a photo shoot which turned into a book. Talk about embracing imperfections!

I was asked to pose for a exhibition of queer people in Canberra. They asked us to suggest a location where we felt at home. I chose the arboretum, because for some reason that is where I feel most Canberran, which is big for this nomad. I didn't like the photo that emerged due to my scowly expression. They had me staring into the setting sun...squint, squint!

However they said it looked "strong" and "elegant", so I stifled my objections and perfectionist tendencies and ran with it. What do you think?

A couple of years later they have come out with a book called "Queerberra" and recently had the book launch.

During that month the photos from the book were randomly projected on a wall high in the foyer of one of our hotels. It is a surreal experience seeing yourself this way.

Here is a photo Cris took at the book launch after waiting phone poised until my photo flashed up. Such dedication and arm pain!

Finally, here are a few photos of some other creations.
This outfit started life as a wrap around dress which was too small. I picked it up secondhand of course, because I loved the quality of the fabrics. The top is a strong jersey and the bottom a thick linen. I removed the ties, added a button, enlarged the armholes (by cutting and leaving them raw!) and stitched down the front. I wear it with a singlet underneath to preserve my modesty and it all works really well!

Here is the detail of the scarf I knitted. It showcases the beautiful yarn so well and I feel very elegant in it. Do you see leaves or feathers?

The next outfit is a dress I made from a tablecloth and overdyed with eucalyptus and iron. It developed some holes due to the age of the tablecloth, and so I boro stitched some dyed silk on top. How to make something rubbish into something useful.  Just have a go!

Close up of the patching.

Here is the scarf I am wearing in the above picture. It was a lovely pale pink silk which I couldn't resist at the op shop. But it really did nothing for me, so I dyed it with the above dyes and careful folding with bulldog clips. Didn't it come out well? And a much better colour for me!

Cris snapped this shot of me with the photographer of "Queerberra" getting her signature.

See my scarf?

Breaking news

Australia just voted for marriage equality and it passed into law a couple of days ago. We have joined the rest of the enlightened world. Go Australia!

So mainly I want to encourage you to 'av a go' as we say over here, and try something creative.

You never know, it might be great!

Do you have anything you would love to create but are hesitant about? Have you had a go and found it worked out?

Or not, and laughed about it? I'd love to hear about it.

Til next time,

keep on creating!

Love,

Jazzy Jack

Coming to difficult conclusions

 

Greetings friends!

 

I write this post to help me process a recent occurrence in my life.

You may or may not know I have a relationship with a choir where I help out with vocal training. This year I branched out into helping with the warmups, to try and set the scene for the voice, as it were. Bringing in a little more vocal technique to help with achieving a better tone, increased breath control and higher notes.

Of course, being the creative soul I am, I couldn't just do the same warmups everyone else has used. I had to invent a whole new system.

So taking inspiration from my yoga class, I decided to incorporate some body work with some breathing and grounding exercises, before we started on the voice.
Then, in order to keep people from just cranking into their voices and to facilitate relaxation, I created stories where people were to put in sound effects and little sung phrases, to create a whole and take people on a journey. Almost like a story meditation but with singing.
It's a little difficult to describe, but it was a lot of fun.

However I had a five week break due to a family holiday, and when I returned the engagement from the choir just wasn't there. I persevered for a couple more weeks and then sent out an email survey to find out what people were thinking about my style.

Half of the respondents were on board and loving it, but half were either on the fence or actively negative. In particular one respondent tried to explain how two other conductors he knew did a similar thing but with much better results. He couldn't see how what I was doing was influencing the choir at all, or changing the sound.

I could have ignored his comment given the greater amount of positive feedback, but something wasn't right, and I was feeling a sense of disengagement from the choir overall.

I should mention this is the first time I've worked with such a large group (60 or 70 voices), and I struggled with my Asperger overload feedback loop in my brain. Whenever people sang my brain shut down for a second, and I lost all capacity to think. To counteract that, I wrote everything down, but this may have caused me to seem less engaging and able to think on my feet.

I'm not sure why I am so attracted to dancing on the edge of my abilities like this.

 

So I decided to pull out from the warmups, and from helping the choir overall for a while, to lick my wounds and reassess. If I had been paid, I would have pushed through the negativity, but being a volunteer, I didn't feel the need. It requires a lot of energy for someone of my sensitivities to overcome negative feedback, and I delayed issuing my survey knowing this about myself. But in the end I did it, and now have to live with the result. My precarious health and my kids' need of me, require me to be careful how I expend my energy, so I decided the environment was not ideal for me at this stage.

Leaving has been a hard decision because I really thought I might have finally found a place to hang my hat. I have a quirky way of relating to the world, and not every group or organisation can support it, but this choir was different I thought. I thought they might manage to go there with me, and maybe they would have in time, but somehow it didn't work out. I do wonder if we didn't have such a long break whether things would have been different. It has also been hard because this was my only real social outlet in my life.

Since I've left I have received some more emails saying how much they enjoyed my warmups, so that has been nice, but also induced a sense of guilt that I've abandoned people.

I think I am reacting so strongly to this situation because it is pushing buttons from throughout my life where I have been in a similar situation.

I seem to get to places where I can't see my way forward, perhaps I've run out of energy or other priorities arise, or I just can't do it anymore, and so I leave. I am not blessed with the ability to stumble along. This makes it seem like I leave things more than I complete them.

I'm not sure this is true, I have completed many things, including university degree, staying married for 29 years, studying singing for 10 years, many knitted garments etc. But I do struggle in groups when I don't have a direct connection with the people involved. Unfortunately being Aspie/gifted/highly sensitive, this can be many of the groups I attend.

Anyway I ask myself, what is wrong with knowing your own mind and deciding not to continue down a path that isn't suiting you? It is good to be proactive and design your life, even if it means making hard decisions.

I think I need to allow myself this process and not listen to the self critique that follows.

So once again I feel like I have something to share where I can't communicate what I can see, where I'm going deeply or intensely into it, and where many people can't follow.
It seems such a shame.

My Mum says I'm throwing pearls before swine...but then Mum's are notoriously biased. Love you Mum! It's so nice to have a cheer squad, to know you are in my corner!

So, I start again, trying to find a place for my talents. At the moment I am cocooning, and pulling back into my domestic space. I feel like I never want to try to share anything creative again. But of course, in time I won't be able to help myself, and we'll be on the rollercoaster again!

 

Til next time,

keep on creating,

as I will!

 

Love

Jazzy Jack

Where we visit the zombies at the art gallery.

Greetings one and all.

We return with another video. That's two in a row. On a roll here!

The puppets with freaky penises!

This week we watch Miles build and sleep in a bivouac ( gorgeous word!) in the backyard, play with the zombies at the art gallery in the fog sculpture, visit a couple of sculptures inside, and hear me singing!

Please come along for the ride.

So simple and so beautiful.

The other day Miles wrote about a day in the life of an unschooling teen for an unschooling newsletter at Stories of an unschooling family.

I include it here to round off the story of the video.

A Day in the life of Miles Brack age 14.

From the outside my day looks like this.

I wake up somewhere between 11am and 1pm.

Play video games till about midnight.

And go to bed.

Very basic and boring to write about.

However on the inside:

This morning I woke in my bivouac which I built in the back yard, in order to test out my new folding bed which is going into my Andersen Shelter I am digging on our block of land.

The temperature was between 0 and 5 degrees Celcius which added a little spice to the adventure.

I lay in bed surrounded by two jerry cans I discovered at the recycling centre and resprayed, imagining I was in the Home Guard during World War 2.

At 5:30 am after a surprisingly comfortable but short sleep (3 1/2 hrs!), I returned to the 21st century and the work of Slowmoguys filming glass shattering at 324,000 fps.

Porridge for breakfast called me indoors and I snuggled into my other bed to eat it with more Slomoguys entertainment.

Returning to my favourite era of 1940s I jumped on the computer to play Heroes and Generals enjoying the indepth environment of the frontline. Including installing a new weapons pack on the back of my SdKfz(a 1944 halftrack German motorbike).

After lunch I mostly watched Youtube videos of funny moments in Heroes and Generals.

Then I got bored and decided to conduct some experiments in my fish tank. ( It's alright there are absolutely 100% no fish involved) I bought the fish tank last week at The Green Shed. Various experiments were conducted with food colouring, cut in half plastic bottles, and tissues, studying floatation, water pressure, surface tension, vortexes, bleeding, filtration and oil leaks.

Mum videoed some of this for our vlog Natural Medley on youtube.(subtle plug!)

Various housework took place and writing of this article.

Now I'm off to have more porridge before going to bed in the am. Couldn't do that at school...

Bushy (Cris) on our date at the fog sculpture the weekend before.

Aiden also had some insight into the fog sculpture :

"Being in the fog was like the Arma3 mod for DayZ (Computer game). When the hoard comes out there's lots of fog!"

"It was really pretty when the sun rays shone into the water. When the music started playing it was really 'majestical' "(quote from our favourite NZ movie - Hunt for the Wilderpeople).

Brothers!

We hope you can join us for more adventures.

Make our day and like, comment and subscribe to join in the fun!

Til next time, keep on creating!

Jazzy Jack and The Bracks

Destressing and refocussing

In my search for a more relaxed state, I have been exploring various options.

The first was the book by Marie Kondo called :

In this book she sets out a new way not only of tidying, but of a new relationship to have with your "stuff".

Basically it boils down to "does this spark joy?" If it doesn't give you a thrill or a lift, then thank it for its role in your life until now, and let it go. Don't hold onto things because you feel obliged or a sense of duty...eg. Wedding gifts. I've found this philosophy has also helped in deciding which items to buy and bring into your space.

I have always been rather ruthless about discarding my clothes and my belongings...growing up overseas and travelling ingrained that in me. But I found I was able to let go of even more since I started implementing this method.

I haven't finished the house yet, and other people's things can be a difficulty, but the process is starting.

Another book that has helped me is:

This is a tiny book that packs a punch. Talking about how to create a quiet space in your life to think of higher things. How to create space to appreciate what you have. How to appreciate the fine things in life like food, dining together, taking time to enjoy your daily activities.

This book has inspired me to rethink my daily tasks. Now, I light a candle when cooking to encourage me to think of serving my family, rather than being rushed and cranky about cooking as usual. I also light the candle when making lunches, and doing dishes to encourage positive thinking around these activities.

The third book that found its way into my life is Breatheology the art of conscious breathing.

Stig Severenson is the Guiness Book Record Holder for breath holding. Up to 22 minutes!

He has a lot to say about how we breathe can affect our health, our mental state, our emotions. He also comes at this from a yoga stand point which is very interesting, and also a medical/scientific standpoint.

Being a singer, I'm always interested in breathing...also being alive keeps me interested in breathing ;-)

I'm currently signed up to the Breatheology academy and working through the exercises. I have become aware how much of my body tension is caused by my busy mind.

I first heard about Stig through another website: The singing zone

 

Per Bristow introduced us to Stig and had three videos(since taken down) where they chatted about breathing and life. I am also working through the Singing Zone's members' area, learning about how to make a more relaxed sound. Hoping this will give me some more insights into teaching those with voice issues.

All these books and methods have one thing in common...they all address the mindset or spirituality of the situation. They talk about your motivation and what is behind the state you've got yourself into.

By studying these different works and sites, I'm hoping to observe and change my mind set from the points of view of my house, my mind, my body and my voice.

This is where you come in. I am also changing my blogging, and so for the moment, in order to clear my mind of extraneous noise, I will be restricting my blogging to my BeautyScopes.

'Til next time, keep creating your own beauty!

Love,

Jazzy Jack

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Scarf heaven

Hello all you gorgeous people.

In case you haven't noticed the activity on my Instagram sidebar; recently I received a generous gift of a box of the most colourful silk scarves from Mascha of Maschas Buch. I decided to do justice to them all I would challenge myself to invent a new outfit each day based on a new scarf.

Here is the result so far! I am in scarf heaven!!

Vest - thrifted and felted, silk shirt - sale, silk velvet pants - old retail.

Shirt, vest, jacket, pants, shoes - thrifted, belt - gift

Hat, collar, wool coat, belt - thrifted, silk velvet pants, shoes - old retail

T shirt, leather jacket - thrifted, turtle neck - old retail, pants - new retail

Silk shirt - retail sale, vest and pants - thrifted, Uggs - retail

Shirt and vest - thrifted, jeans and socks - retail

Shirt and vest - old retail, wool skirt and jeans - thrifted

Dress and jeans - thrifted, shoes - retail sale

White dress and shoes - thrifted, underdress - handmade by me, jean jacket - retail old

 

So here is a thankyou song for you Mascha!

I sang you a song in German because that is the only German I know, and you make such an effort in English for us all the time, I wanted to go halfway back :-)

Imagine we are having morning tea and I pop to the piano and sing you a song.

(shot by Mr Actor- Could only upload the last verse due to size restrictions)

The song is "Frulingsglaube" by Schubert and topically, is about Spring!

 

https://youtu.be/vIThAcBjx14

 

For those of you interested, I'm still waiting on results for my health issues. So day by day I am trying to live in calmness and tranquillity.

I've been doing some tidying and breathing in meditative state which I'll talk more about another time.

Anyway, keep an eye on the IG sidebar and watch my daily challenge with the scarves!

'Til next time, keep on creating and showing your beautiful unique selves to the world.

Love,

Jazzy Jack

 

Posted with Blogsy

Dress ups

The other day my nieces, twins Grace and Hope came to visit. They were getting up to speed with their driving ;-)
When they arrived I threw some dress-ups at them, and this is what stuck.

 

 

 

Aren't they gorgeous?!

Even Winter and Mr Artist got into the act.

 

Although here it looks like Winter is saying...help, get me out of here!

They're good mates really.

(Incidentally, do these look like photos of someone with a dog phobia? Winter has been the best therapy.)

Mr Artist decided to show his cousins his Hetty the Hatter trick.

 

And his version of a scarf dance!

 

 

Not forgetting to stop and smell the roses.

Here's trouble..a trio of trouble!

I will leave you with a video I made for Dana of Danalovesfashionandmusic. A snippet of a lullaby.

 

Sleep tight!

'Til next time, keep on creating!

Love,
Jazzy Jack