Leaf and Little Branch

The BIG logo is fast growing on a Little Branch. Lilly and I muse and chatter excitedly over the drafts sent to us by the amazing Maree Oaten and then sleep with castles and birds and boats and ocean fonts all swimming in front of our dreamscapes. 


The attention and ongoing navigation between the domestic/professional/BIG spheres is noisy, demanding, untamed and without prediction. On some days we are tired and a little bit broken and on other days we soar. We now have a 'dropbox' housing shared documents including the new BIG business plan and the very BIG list. We prioritise and get to things when we can, balancing the BIG picture with the ongoing 'work' of it, a crazy and vulnerable way to begin. The only way for us. All in, all at once. Multi-coloured-tasking.


As I go to post this draft of Lilly's, I check in with the Leaf blog and read Cath's latest post on serendipity. Timely as we launch into the next 'stage' of this making of a BIG magazine. How Lilly and I reconnected here after twelve or so years still has us both shaking our heads in wonder at our sudden landing in the same BIG sky. Every BIG connection, child, artist and idea we meet provokes, inspires, fuels and challenges our future steps.


Here Lilly introduces and shares the story of Leaf: 

I found Leaf  through Story one night when i should have been asleep.  I was searching online for  place/idea/business, where everything could live and new things could be born; concept, brand, ethics, ecology, diversity, heart, imagination, connection, hope, humanity and responsibility. I was looking for a different ways of seeing and telling stories for children, and for ourselves, side by side. And then I found Leaf, and sat for a while in the trees, and wondered about the woman who created it. I wrote to say thank you, and share BIG with her, and invite her to contribute a bird,or a story about flight, or an idea that might spark a skyward journey. She wrote back:

My Little Bird

I loved him from the first moment I saw him.

To the rest of the world, this bird is a mark on paper – a graphic to be sold, shared, enjoyed briefly, then discarded.

To me, he represents the realisation of dreams.

He is the marker that pinpoints my journey into the unknown world of running my own business – one which finally brings together all that is ME, as wife, mother, daughter, sister, friend, traveller, creative, entrepreneur, woman; of who I have been, and who I will become.

From him, a whole business has been born, and with it, the hope that I will bring joy, intimacy, insight and creativity to other people’s lives.

I dream big dreams. Often they keep me awake at night, as I shiver in fear at their sheer magnitude.

This little bird reminds me that every journey of a thousand miles starts with the first step. He is my first step.

Cath Connell

Owner and Creative Director of Leaf. Paper for Life. 

Emerging artists

Barney, 8
Sydney

Mia Holton, Perth

Wandering through Finders Keepers Market in Sydney I came across 8year old Barney standing alone behind a stall. Big smile, confident and engaging. Not only was the card I fell in love with illustrated by him, but the business of creating and selling cards was his also! I have a suspicion we are going to see more of Barney as BIG grows and we begin to gather our young editorial team. Barney's 'bird match' above is by Mia Holton, a multi-media artist of exceptional talent.
All flight to these two emerging, original and inspired ways of seeing the world!

A BIG week

Offspring
By Lilly Blue

Jo:
One week. Three childen, one birthday, four theatre shows (one worked on, three seen)- two meetings, four rehearsals (including one in the playroom) one class, two new future projects and a swimming carnival. And BIG. I am finding it hard to write on the blog, and easier to post the words/pictures of others. Perhaps this is a good thing. I don't know where to start, I have too many words.

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Lilly:
I write a to do list late at night, after Twyla has fallen asleep, her questions and and body exhausted, finally. Not that I rush the intimacy of pre-sleep conversation, I relish it, and grin my delight quietly, adoring her and her quirky view of the world. "Mummy do you like donkeys? I like donkeys, not scary ones, friendly ones. Mummy I can hear someone practicing the flute, it is the next door neighbor. Can I see it? Why? Why are they doing it? Is it dark time now? Why? Why Mama? When the light comes can I have a swim? Talk to me Mama, say words, no mama say them loudly not quiet like that, why are you saying them quietly" Her sentences run into each other and she talks until the breath before she is asleep. I feel her body soften under my hand. I inhale deeply, breathe out, lie still for a moment and wonder if I have the energy to crawl out of the dark and meet the night. I always do. I seem to have inexhaustible stamina for BIG, perhaps in part because I want to offer an opportunity for that powerful, imaginative world that Twyla inhabits to be available in the pages of a magazine. A celebration of make believe, made real.  A carnival of new ideas and unreasonable dreams.
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Jo:
Two of the Festival works I saw spoke of children. Artists children. And the stolen generation. I have essays on each. Maybe I will link a research page to BIG, I will build a house furnished with words. I wish you could cook with them, then words could contribute to my ailing domestic sphere. Tonight Lilly writes for us both, and her shadow birds on the water above land here in Perth with the tiniest splash of rain to break the heatwave for a dream of a minute.
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Lilly:

I ache to be in the studio spending more time with Boatbird, the Grumpi Ladies and Jo. Yet I know that for BIG to grow well and strong it is important to create a strong foundation. I try my uncertain hand at a business plan, excited to be in such unfamiliar terrain and loving the steep learning curve. I hear Jo's voice in my head as I write, in moments wondering if the words are mine or hers. The mysterious territory of co-authorship and  six months of conversation history provoking the unfolding of a shared vision. It's like unwrapping a present over and over again, charged and irrepressible.

Still, even with this urgency and excitement, I turn mostly towards Twyla and her needs as the days fly by, and relish the magic and beauty of our shared world. It goes so fast, this life, perhaps BIG will help us remember to relish every precious moment of it because before too long our own little birds will be flying off into the world to make their own nests. I don't want to miss a treasured second of it!
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Jo:
Says the actor (Ernie Dingo) in the play tonight, "According to the accordion, there's only one talent that we's all needs to possess. Look after ya children and ya family and let life take care of the rest".(Waltzing the Wilarra by David Milroy). Indeed.

Sunday Brunch Birds!

Lexi, 3.5yrs, Perth
Lexi resisted all urging from Mum to decorate her chicken with glitter and stickers, but offered instead a small concession in the form of a gold glittery wing.  This is a chicken of few words.  No chicken bling.

 
Breakfast Birds
"I Was making picture pancakes for family and friends yesterday and a few birds arrived unexpectedly to delight them and bring a sparkle to our breakfast compansionship. Perhaps they will bring some delight to Big Kids readers too."
Paul Macklin, Sydney,
Head Hand and Heart

How gracefully they fry



Maria Pizzirusso and her beautiful AVE, Melbourne

Morgan, 6, Melbourne

Where there are no words

Lilly Blue

Fly me to the moon

  These two birds have been waiting for each other.

Guardian the Owl, Jonah, 9, Halls Gap,Vic.
(Read here about Jonah and his family's 'sculptured life' )

My first flight

My first flight was to be to the moon.

I waited all night until my little eyes wouldn’t open anymore. Somehow I kept them open.
I waited until my neck wouldn’t support my head anymore; I pushed it up with my hands and waited.
The adults promised me I would fly to the moon that night of the party; if I were good then I would get to go.

I think they forgot about the promise, but I never did.

Jen Jamieson, Perth

The world was our carnival

Twyla and I return from the little Island with dirt beneath our fingernails and a heart full of ocean. We slept in a tent with the sand from our castles and a rowdy family of paper-mache cats. At night the waves were our lullaby and Twyla made stars with her torch on our canvas sky. Anyone who was interested learned from her that our ‘house’ had two doors and that she could zip and unzip its edges ‘completely by her very own’. I fell in love with the sea all over again, like before, when I was smaller. We drew with sticks in the dirt and made small worlds with shells and seaweed that were stolen gleefully by the waves and the wind. Peppermint tea and dark chocolate. Late night conversations around fires and quiet. Remoteness, gatherings, story, earth, and a mulberry tree with a wooden swing. 

At first she thought they were butterflies

The circus festival was a flurry of hoops and scarves. There were winged creatures on stilts and children leaping and soaring through the air, summersaulting onto spiders webs, and eating donut’s filled with chocolate. We learned to balance and fly like whales with our hands and feet holding each other up. The world was our carnival and I was reminded that there are so many different ways to live this life, and so much to be grateful for. 

It was a magnificent adventure. I was able to drink into my bones the awe, curiousness, celebration and opportunities for connection that I dream will live in our BIG pages. I am so grateful to Jo for carrying the load in my absence, and more than thrilled to be back in the conversation that brings us closer and closer to the publication of our first issue! 

Mother and child sipping peppermint tea
by Lilly