Meet Ellen of Shadow Feet

I have a new friend! We met over two intensive days of rehearsing for a big extravaganza fashion-y theatre-y thing, and my job was kinda to make her laugh because the director said she hired her for her smile! I have to agree, Ellen Sørensen lights up the room when she smiles.

see what I mean!

 SHE DOES WHAT?

Now, Ellen does something stunning. She cuts paper very intricately. She makes layers! She lights her pictures from behind, sometimes they are in a box with a peep hole! All this is exciting enough! Then Ellen tells me she loves telling stories in this way and, well...we got on a roll about storytelling...more on that later!

image courtesy of Ellen's website

It kinda began for her in her second year in Art school back in her hometown of Auckland. But not really! You see, Ellen grew up with her mum and dad, big sister and grandfather all encouraging her to tell stories! And they told her their made up ones. Her grandfather (Danish born) and her mother would spend their time embroidering, and this instilled in young Ellen a sense of beauty and taking time to make something, the handmade, and how normal and very human it is to tell stories. Team that with living in some very beautiful seaside, forest-y places near Auckland (did you know there are NO SNAKES in New Zealand;  not one ), which Ellen wandered through, and you have the makings of a richly imaginative child with a deep connection to nature.
I think now is a good time to show you what Ellen has been up to!! (it's 8 minutes)


Let The Light In m4v from ELLEN SORENSEN on Vimeo.

WOW!

 Now as you can see, Ellen is also a musician! That's really a bit unfair, I hear you say, for one person to have such a concentration of talent.  Ellen started tinkering freely on the piano when she was 6 years old, and began lessons at 7, doing piano exams, becoming quite accomplished by the sounds of it. She went to art school when she finished school, moving into urban Auckland to live an old dentist surgery.
Last year (2013) Ellen moved to Melbourne, looking to connect with other artists and to feel less isolated. She's already had a solo exhibition of her paper cuts entitled ""A Place To Call One's Own" at the Melbourne City Library. The works were placed in little nooks and backlit with little lamps. Damn! I missed it!
Only yesterday I heard Ellen's song, "Big Bear" played on 3PBS on the show Homebrew.
I tell Ellen she really has landed on her feet,  as we sit in a cute Thornbury backstreet cafe.
Have a listen!
Ellen explains she now belongs to a collective of musicians called Air Punch Collective , who have a novel  song club idea going and are who are putting on a show soon. The show concept is interesting: it's called "mixed doubles" and everyone pairs up and collaborates on each other's songs. She gave me a listen on her phone of a recording she'd made at the rehearsal with her "doubles" partner David Carlin . It sounds sweet! In fact, Ellen's harmonies are very striking on her song Big Bear. I asked her did she sing all the harmonies? Yes. They sound free, and intuitive, and in fact, the recording sounds like a big party! Just loose enough to have energy, intimate enough to draw you in. And the story: Ellen's own grim fairytale. I ask her which fairytales she loved as a kid: Hansel and Gretel and she had a Danish copy of The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson. Unsanitised. The mermaid has to cut her own tail off. We start ranting about how great real fairytales are! How children need the dark, they need those archetypes intact. If we make fairytales nice and polite and safe we are robbing children of the images we as humans need in life to access our own stories and our own shadow self.

photo courtesy of Ellen's website

And telling her stories through fairytale imagery and leaving space for others to relate with their own stories is what Ellen likes.

photo pinched from Ellen's facebook page

I ask Ellen about her moniker "Shadow Feet".
"It has to do with the retrospective way I write my music: I had this image of a character wandering back through time being followed by it's shadow and  memories of places and experiences that I've had forming my present, and that's how I felt about my self when I wrote them,  being informed by my shadows." I love that!

Thank you Ellen for a lovely chat!
x
Jo

post from a "mumager"

I have neglected my blog, as I have neglected my knitting, spinning and everything else to do with my fibre passions! But for a good cause I believe, and not for to much longer.
I have become what somebody described a few days ago as a "mumager". Meaning I have been facilitating my two talented singing daughters and their music project Charm of Finches.
A beautiful delicate project, involving much love, trust, enthusiasm and support from many people, friends and strangers!
Last November Mabel decided she wanted 2014 to be the year she recorded her music. It coincided with her being given her Year 8 project to consider over the Christmas holidays, in which time we enlisted the help of a lovely new friend who offered to record the girls. From a few casual home recordings in the hills burnt onto a few blank CDs for friends with hand drawn covers, the project grew, and after an astounding Pozible crowd funding campaign involving many hours of planning, recording, filming, listening, photographing, performing, sewing and stitching, the project is almost coming to it's conclusion with the official launch in two week. It's been huge and fun, wholly creative and exciting!
Here are some highlights in picture:

That first recording session in a proper studio with Fraser at the Aviary, after they won battle of the bands last year, giving the girls a taste of recording!

Recording glockenspiel at The Aviary

Recording at Emotion Studios, doing the songs with guitar and both vocals all at once to capture the live feel and the sister chemistry

Photos with the most marvellous Mara Ripani, who made it so much fun! 7am on Black Rock beach in winter!!

Ivy at the early session in the hills near Hurstbridge with Mike.

Filmiing Wild Mountain Thyme, Anna's song request for her Pozible reward.

Performing with Clare Bowditch after winning the Winter Secrets comp.

Mabel's artwork for the CD booklet.

And in two weeks, the girls will play  a concert to launch this little EP with six beautiful heartful songs into the world. In actual fact, the music has already begun its own life in the universe, already playing in lounge rooms and kitchens and cars all around the world. I love that idea the most. Whether  you are writing a book, making a  film, painting a picture or recording music or some other creation, once that little piece of you has burst out of its egg, it will have adventures you will never dream of, and many times, never even know of!

and the music: you can listen here!

I'm proud, I'm excited, I'm amazed,  I'm in awe of my girls, I'm grateful for all the wonderful people in my girls' life who made this project a success. I'm a wee bit tired right now, and I must now go and sew some bento bags and post them off to the last Pozible supporters patiently waiting for their CD!

capturing the soul

My two dear talented girls went into the recording studio last week. recording is a tricky thing. capturing the soul of a song, giving a performance you are happy with to set in stone, preparing to  send a little boats of preciousness off to sea. They coped so well, sang their hearts out (repeatedly, at times), and I believe caught a bit of magic. I'm so in awe of these two dear people.

They were blessed to be working with two beautiful men with so much experience and such big hearts.
Hopefully we will be launching their crowd funding campaign tomorrow. It's been so much fun planning that as well.

We also frolicked in a forest filming their lovely campaign video. It was so fun and free and beautiful.
Then the girls played a small concert in my friend's lovely old 1862  church which is now his home.

I haven't had much time to knit, but it will return when this big project settles down a bit! I am spinning wheel-less, which has been odd but probably well timed, considering my pre-occupation with the girls' music. But one little gem of a wheel is coming to me soon, and my fingers await eagerly to start again!

dear cedar

The excitement of the week involved playing a wee morning veggie market gig on Wednesday morning with some lovely friends. we ladies call ourselves "Dear Cedar" and have been lucky to have various beautiful fiddlers join us. This Wednesday we were joined by an old mate of mine, Steph, and my didn't he add a special deliciousness to the morning.
We met a gentleman, Peter, who was kind enough to record a song and take lots of photos. We also had a television crew stumble into the veggie market and upon us, and they filmed us too.
My favourite part of the day was when two tiny girls decided to dance to our songs, and one wee dot was in particular very taken by Steph and his fiddle music, and danced softly and attentively just under his nose, her eyes not leaving the fiddle for a moment! ah, the power of music, the great communicator between souls.
The song in the video, "I wish my baby was born"  is one of my favourites. It is found in the movie "Cold Mountain" (the director Anthony Minghella wrote extra lyrics, according to the CD sleeve notes), though of course the song is a traditional folk song from the Appalachians, no doubt with roots in English folk music. Like many of these songs, there are numerous songs with variations on these lyrics or melodies floating about. It's a melancholy and fragile song, yet so beautiful and plaintive.

skein and song

::a bit of excitement: first ever skein of handspun by yours truly: cannot stop cuddling and smelling: beautiful imperfect.

 

listening to::incredible Australian indie folk talent:the mae trio: one up two down: domini forster

 

 and::
last but not least!! presenting my two beautiful girls performing Mabel's gorgeous song "Home" live at music camp.

Spring nature fix and a yarn bombing party!

went to family music camp:

the gumboots say it all...ready for wet weather and plenty of  knitting...

my chickens made new friends and jammed in the forest.

 Taught a friend to knit!

 climbed a mountain,

and explored the rocks and caves.

and then back for my 11 year old's birthday bash complete with a lesson in granny squares and bike bombing (just a bit!)

a little sangin'...

Me and ma ladies, aka "Dear Cedar" at Open Studio last Friday night...
oh the dreadful wind and rain......

Yarning Along on a hot Melbourne day

Joining Ginny's Yarn Along.
It's 31 degrees and feels hotter while I knit this Griffin vest for Mr P. I'm loving the design: a great little pocket at the front and can't wait to see the hood come into being. (ravelled here)

The book, well, I'm making an attempt to read Alain de Botton's The Consolations of Philosophy. Not sure why I decided upon this to read,  but I picked it up at the op shop for a buck and his style and his championing of secular wisdom, common sense, history and culture impress me. A funny choice for a woman who hasn't read a proper big person's book for three years...
...and I am listening to Appalachian folk right now inspired by some sumptuous sing-a-longs with a couple of delicious ladies.

"Even a River Can Drown"

My gorgeous very, very loyal and wonderful friend Beth Knights is making a CD.
In fact, she has pretty much recorded it all and almost ready to make the actual CDs so people can have her gorgeous voice at the ready by their cd players at all times!
She also has a gig at Peat's Ridge Festival this year, and would love to have a CD for folk up there. 
Very exciting,  and lovely for the world, as her music is beautiful, captivating, authentic, stirring, beguiling and...well, you get the idea!
There is a wonderful website/initiative called Fundbreak, which helps artists rally financial support for their projects. Beth has her CD project up for support through this website, and it's kinda like pre-ordering a CD too. I think it's a wonderful idea! A very democratic Arts Grant!