So… this is what’s been keeping me busy for the last month, and more flat-out the last 4 days.
My friend Athina and I decided that rather than just combine our skills, talents, experience and energy to do smaller creative workshops as we’ve done in the past, we would do a HUGE event/workshop combination to end all event/workshop combinations!
Ok, so, the idea began as a desire to meet other creatives on Paros, to inspire and share our skills and to raise funds for charity.
Rather than set up a lot of individual workshops we decided to combine a show/fair and mini workshops into 2 days over a weekend. All for FREE.
We invited creatives from different genres to join us and set up in a beautiful space owned by the municipality. The plan was simple – 6-7pm meet and greet the artists and check out their work. 7-9pm FREE mini workshops. Buy/donate money to charity.
We were lucky enough to obtain support from many small businesses on the island in order to arrange everything and the weekend was a huge success. Everyone had fun, people learned new things and we even raised money for our chosen charities.
Athina has been doing work with people with disabilities her whole life so her chosen charity was the Cycladic association for the blind, AROGI.
I chose to support PAWS, the Paros Animal Welfare Society, cause, you know… me and animals!
We had people who did collage, decoupage, soaps and lotions, jewelry, weaving, watercolour, mixed media, macrame, rock painting, fimo sculpture, mandalas and cookie decorating.
Here are some photos of the event!
We also had a demonstration of tap dancing and tango from people who teach on the island.
As always, Vincent was there to spread the joy…
The president of AROGI gave a short talk and shared what their association does for people with sight issues on the islands and brought in some items to give people a taste of what its like to not be able to see.
And of course we had information about PAWS and donation tins.
All in all, it was a fun weekend and a great success. We will be organising more stuff in the future, but of course, like life in any tourist destination… as summer approaches everyone becomes too busy to do anything other than work. So autumn is when we plan to start up again!
Till then I need to find a way to advertise and book my own sculpture and art workshops for visitors on the island – now that Air BnB is no longer supporting new ‘adventures’…
I will put out flyers in hotels and such, but that means people can only book on short notice (as they aren’t often here for long) and I’m often flat out grooming in summer. I need to have advance notice to organise workshops.
If anyone has any suggestions on how to get the word out and book small private workshops online, please let me know.
As I already shared, we went to Naxos for the carnival. It was great, totally different to anything I’ve ever done before. A real adventure, so much fun! Of course, little Vincent had to sit out the actual Lampathofori (Parade of Torches) as it was too loud and too crowded. He stayed in the air bnb while Zefi and I joined the crowd as they chanted to the beat of the drums.
On the balcony, waiting for the Parade of Torches. A long wait.
We were lucky (or unlucky) in our choice of air bnbs ’cause we were right over the main square where everything happened on Saturday night. It was ideal for watching thing unfold from our own balcony, but not ideal for the early morning wake up on Sunday as they sound tested the equipment for the float parade later that day.
Dionysia was a Panhellenic festival in honor of Dionysus. One of the most important centers of these festivals was Naxos. The celebration included wine drinking, cheerfulness, unbridled enthusiasm, cymbals, drums, troupes, processions, dithyrambs (choral chants) and phallophoria.
Here is my own video of the night:
The lambathofori parade on Naxos.
The next day, we went to a couple of villages where we saw the Koudounati.
Men strapped with bells and carrying Dionysian phallic symbols known locally as somba, stir up a racket while parading through the village alleys in a procession held to welcome the spring season and exorcise evil spirits.
Turns out, this would have been a better day to leave little Vinnie at home. It was way louder and way more crowded. Poor little man cowered in his bag. Especially in Apeiranthos, the town most famous for the Koudounati where if you fell you’d never hit the ground.
However, we managed to catch them in another town as well, where this lovely man was happy to take a photo with us.
Here is my short video of the event:
Koudounati, bell strapped men, at the Naxos Carnival.
Now, if you’re wondering at the lack of actual MEN in those parades, let me take some time to rant a little about the organizational skills of the Greeks and their total inability to stick to any kind of schedule. Ever.
The Naxos municipality puts out a timetable of events around the island, and like most gullible people who have lived in countries where a schedule is a schedule, we made our plans. I’m not saying we didn’t expect some delays… its normal to have some delays… especially in Greece where the national tag line is ‘siga siga’ (literally ‘slowly slowly’ or ‘it’ll get done eventually‘).
However, let me warn everyone who will visit Greece – times/schedules etc are not a program based on any kind of reality but of fantasy. As Captain Barbarossa said in Pirates of the Carribean, its more like ‘guidelines’….
Seriously. The program said that the Lambadifori would start at 6pm at the square were people would get dressed to start the parade. I didn’t expect to see them till about 8pm, cause it needs to be dark, right? They didn’t show till almost midnight. sigh. Good thing we didn’t turn up to get painted and dressed at 6pm or we’d have been dead on our feet before the parade began!
And it was the same with the Koudounati. We got to Apeiranthos around 2.30pm, they were meant to gather at 2pm. We left there at 5pm when someone told us that the men still hadn’t gathered, it would be at least another hour before they made their entrance. Only the young boys were happy to run around town with the bells and clubs – so, no wild mustachioed men for us… We weren’t going to waste more time being squished while we waited.
We also hoped to see the Kordelati but missed them due to the lateness of everything. We ran into these two Foustanelatoi just as they finished their dancing…
On Clean Monday the custom of ribbons and foustanelata (foustanelades) is observed, which, like the other customs of the Carnival, is a memory of the ancient Dionysian festivals and coincides with the ancient Anthestiria.
According to scholars of folk tradition, kordelatoi and foustanelatoi (foustanelades), during the Venetian occupation, were a way for the Orthodox to communicate with each other, while it is said that during the revolution of ’21, they sewed triangular handkerchiefs they had on their chest and hid gunpowder there to transport it to the Peloponnese and elsewhere.
The custom is that the young people of the village, wearing colored ribbons or foustanelles respectively, form groups, the bairakia, led by the bairachtar, that is, the one who holds the bairaki of the group, which is a thick reed with a colored scarf at the end, and to honor with their visit the women of the neighboring villages, dancing with them in the central square accompanied by violins and lutes. In turn, the women of each village treat the men with food, sweets and wine to please them.
In the past, this custom was also a way for young people from different villages to get to know each other and so many weddings occurred. Today the inhabitants of the island zealously maintain the custom and pass it on from generation to generation.
Amongst all the things happening around us, we visited a few villages, had some great meals at tavernas, caught up with family and friends and made some new ones.
Vincent made a new friend.
Walking up to the Portara on Sunday morning, Vincent made a new friend. Here she is, peering at us over the wild flowers.
The Portara
Naxos’ Temple of Apollo – Portara, a huge marble gate and the single remaining part of an unfinished temple of Apollo of 530 BC, is the island’s emblem and main landmark.
Standing on the islet of Palatia, at the entrance to Naxos harbor, it comprises four marble parts weighing about 20 tons each.
The view back to town from the Portara.
Here are some pics I took along the way.
We visited Lionas, a tiny place you wouldn’t even call a village, on the furthest end of Naxos. There was a cute little taverna there and a small beach with the most beautiful black sand, black stones and the best white rocks I’ve ever seen.
This is how Vincent felt after all our travels…
Pretty much how I felt too!
Back home now and trying to catch up on all the things I have on my to-do list. Well, some of them at least!
I have no idea what to call this… It’s a helping table – a side table for grooming, a tool table. Whatever it is, it’s a handy little benchlike structure I made to sit next to my grooming table to hold my tools handy and safe while I groom.
I had a general idea of what I wanted in my head and pile of scrap wood on the patio here at home. So, without any real plan, I just began cutting random bits of wood and screwing them together.
I don’t recommend this way of working, but it’s how I roll… flying by the seat of my pants!
You can see various bits of pine, odd corner bits of some kind of wood, thicker bits, thinner bits, wider bits, narrower bits. All different.
Eh. They all tie in when painted… sort of. After all, it’s not a beauty contest.
One thing I knew for sure when ‘thinking about designing’ this little table, was that I needed a safe place for my shears (scissors to non-groomers!) so they wouldn’t fall off the table. Actually, that’s also why there are sides on the top, to stop anything at all from falling off. But shears are especially delicate… drop those and they’re useless till you get them fixed.
So, besides the corner side bits of odd wood I found on the rubbish pile, I drilled holes into the top to put the shears in.
Here it is finished. Or 99.9% finished. I still need to decide how I’ll orient it when I’m working, then add some hooks to it for hanging clippers, Dremel or anything else that I might need to get out of the way of scrabbling little feet.
The lower shelf will hold my dryer and maybe even my extension cord to keep them off the ground. The bad thing about grooming outdoors in this place is that if one of the neighbours further up decides it’s a good time to hose down their yard, my yard is second last and I quickly find myself ankle deep in water.
Generally speaking, it’s not recommended you stand in water while performing activities requiring electricity.
The lower shelf is made from a skinny pallet I picked up along the side of the road and pulled apart with only minor damage to myself. I cut, sanded and varnished the pieces before pre-drilling them in order to prevent splintering when screwing them to the side pieces. It was a frustrating endeavour, but I got it done with minimal swearing.
So now its ready.
I’m ready to use it.
Unlike the dog bath while still awaits the plumber to plumb it in… He said this week.
I admit, I’ve been lazy. Very lazy. But that doesn’t mean I haven’t done anything at all. I’ve done a few things…
Including this very large painting of a shell.
It’s a commission for an air bnb studio apartment, the theme was something island-ey and the main colour had to be grey.
It took a while to do, first I had to find something I liked as a theme, then I worked on layers to achieve the colours and texture I was after.
I think I achieved it.
For now I’ve hung it over my bed in my bedroom as its the only free wall in my place. The new owner will pick it up in a month or so, till then I’m the one enjoying it.
Here are a couple of close ups that show the texture I was aiming for. It’s not nearly as textured as the cat on a chair I did last year because I didn’t cover the canvas with magazine pages first.
I’m pretty pleased with it. I’ve rarely worked on something this size – 120cm x 90cm. But I like it, it was fun. It was done on a recycled canvas so now I’m looking for more large canvases to recycle!
So, you may ask, what other things have kept me busy? Well… Vincent keeps me on my toes for one thing. He’s either sleeping, chewing on things he finds in my toolbox, selecting a toy from his toybox and playing with it, asking for cuddles, wanting to go out and socialize and have coffee with friends… what did I do with myself all those months without a poodle?
Plus I am working through a list of things to get done both online and in real life.
I’m halfway through making a small table to hold my grooming tools while I work, using all sorts of odd and end bits of timber I have lying around.
My dog bath arrived and has been set up. Now I await the plumber.
I’m waiting for the wind to die down so the guys can come out and do more concreting on our building – a slab for the container to sit on, columns and a structure which will house the electricity meters.
Yes. You read that right!
I actually heard from the electric company and it took me two visits to see the guy I needed to see, who just wanted to show me the map he’d made of where they will bring in the power.
I said “That’s fine”.
He said “Get your construction crew to build a spot for the meters.”
I said “Sure” and it was done. Only took getting up at 6.30am two days…
I also got a call from the water authority!
Wonders will never cease.
This was trickier.
I was told that the closest route to get water into our property was through one of the 3 neighbouring houses above our land. So I have to find out who they are and knock on their doors to see if any one of them will give the water company permission to put pipes through their land…
This is Greece.
How likely is it?
I don’t know.
As for the road access… I’m still on that, but I’m told I will most likely need a solicitor to locate the owners of the other properties who would benefit from opening that section of road. No way I can find the owners on my own… and the neighbour who said she will fight the issue with me can’t find her contracts… which would mean I’m requesting a road on my own.
How likely do you think the council is to do this if me and my brother are the only ones asking?
You do know that you can’t create without making a mess, right? So why bother cleaning if you’re going to just make another mess?
At least that’s my philosophy in life.
My house is my art studio, a place to pile stuff, where I groom dogs, where I make stuff or paint stuff and, sometimes, where I actually make art…
This little 50m2 apartment has to fit all that in it.
As a result, I can’t see my kitchen table top for months at a time. When I want to cook I have to clear crafts, paint and occasionally tools off the kitchen bench and stove top.
In summer, since I don’t really have time to do much other than groom, I usually keep the house tidier. Soon as I get busier with grooming, I pack away all the paint tubes, varnish spray cans, the sewing machine, the unfinished works of art, and clean the house. Once almost everything but the daily living stuff is put away, its easy to clean.
I just run a broom or a vacuum cleaner over the floor, mop it, and voila. Its pretty much done.
But its too early in the year for that, so for now I only sweep or mop when it gets embarrassingly bad, or I can no longer quieten the voice my mother implanted in my head as a child which hassles me to do housework.
For the last couple of days I’ve been doing online stuff as well as building a side table for grooming. I’m using all scrap wood I’ve collected over the months, making something not so pretty but functional. It’s where I’ll put my scissors, clippers, blades, and anything I might need to reach for while grooming a dog. When its finished it will have a couple of handy hooks, get painted a pretty colour and have a cover to protect it from the weather.
Till now I’ve been using a metal trolley I found at the rubbish bins a couple of years ago. It’s missing the top but the two lower shelves are intact. I think that while I have power tools out, I’ll make a top shelf for it. So far, I’ve been spreading a clean towel over the existing middle shelf and laying my tools on that. However, now I bought a bath for the dogs, I will move that to the wet area to hold shampoos and other bath accessories. Hence the need for the patched together little bench/side table.
When it’s finished, I will share a post about it, but trust me… I am no carpenter, so I don’t bother sharing instructions or how to videos. You do not want to do things the way I do them! I just screw this to that, measure then measure again another 2-3 times, and still get it wrong sometimes, cut this or that to add as I progress along a path that is totally unplanned and for sure completely the wrong way to do things.
It works for me. I’m not fussy. I like using recycled materials and making things from scraps. I also don’t care if something looks wonky. It has character!
I figured that now I have a poodle who actually plays (Lainee didn’t play…) and who actually loves toys, so I’ve been buying toys… I needed a toy box.
At first I considered buying one online. Something pretty.
Then I considered a lovely basket from a local store…
All good choices.
In the end I opted for the free (right now) option. I made a toy box out of a cardboard box I had lying around and gathering dust (and orphaned items).
I began by hot gluing the flaps down to give it strength. Then I decoupaged inside and out using old brown paper bags I’d been keeping for some unknown reason.
You can still see the logos of the shops in parts of the box… I had planned to paint it, and maybe I will one day, but I was in a rush to finish it and watch Vincent* pick his toys out.
*Yep. He is now Vincent. Calling him Vega or Vegas just didn’t feel quite right. Vincent does. It means a bit more than Vince Vega, it’s got connections to the art world as well as to hit men and the mafia. Vince, Vinnie, Vincent, Vincenzo, Vince Vega at odd angry mother times.
So, in the vein of hit men and mafia, and because Toy Box seemed too obvious and banal, I give his toy box a name:
I am easily amused.
Once dry, I filled it up with some toys and then watched as he chose the fish first.
He gave that little sardine a good ol’ chewing.
Please excuse the mess behind… a big old cardboard box full of stuff to put away, my old sewing machine, a lot of sand and dust bunnies (thankfully invisible to the camera) and my favourite Blunstones.
The box is now on the porch being enjoyed by the cats till I take it to the recycling bins.
The old sewing machine, which needs a new motor cause it blew up, is waiting to be taken to storage. I might be able to get it fixed one day if I’m lucky. Apparently, I can get a new/old motor in England… But I live in Greece. Whatever.
The boots are pretty much still there, just under the bookcase and no longer in the way. Hey, it’s my house and I can keep my boots wherever I want them.
Guess what I found lying in the corner of a parking lot this morning?
A ton of old doors, windows, shutters and other useful stuff!
Turns out it was from a family friend’s renovation, so I just asked if it was ok to take it, and took it. It was as simple as that.
Well, actually it took about 6 phone calls. First to see if a guy with a three wheeler could collect it. Nope. Too big for him. Then to my cousin who works for a transport company, then to his boss (who happens to be my great uncle), then back to my cousin, then to the family friend, then back to my cousin…
Easy!
Luckily they were having a slow day (and the doors were right opposite the depot!) so they were able to go collect the pile straight away. Since I was having coffee with a friend, I couldn’t go pick and choose what I wanted, so they loaded it all up. I got there right after and lead the way to the container.
They put it all inside to keep it out of the awful weather and now I’m ready to adapt any doors and windows which might work for the container!
I’m so excited, you’d think I was given the best present ever. I really didn’t want to miss out. I saw the best green house project made by a fellow Paros inhabitant last week and was so envious. I won’t be making a greenhouse, but I definitely needed doors for the container and some of these will be ideal.
The rest will come in handy for other things – like a temporary shelter for the dog bath among other things.
Cool.
Meanwhile, here’s a photo of Vincent at the cafe.
Vincent: ‘And I’ll have a bacon and egg sandwich please. Lots of crispy bacon!’
I have been calling him Vincent lately. Vincenzo when I’m being ‘continental’ and Vincentius when he’s naughty.
It just sounds right.
He’s still Vince Vega, but now he’s a bit more proper.
He’s doing really well. Toilet training is progressing well and we are working on the separation anxiety…
You all know how much I missed having a poodle in my life since Lainee died. I still miss her like I miss all the poodles I’ve loved in my life.
In the beginning it was too painful to think of getting another poodle. Then, as time went on, I felt the absence more and more, till I began to look for another poodle to share my home with.
There are tons of gorgeous dogs looking for a home and I felt bad when I saw them on FB and didn’t go get them, but I’ve had a love affair with poodles since I was 13yrs old. Yes, poodles are my life and I make no excuses for that!*
I have a good friend in Athens who breeds and shows toy poodles. She’d offered me a boy right after Lainee died, but it was way too soon for me. I contacted her again before Christmas and we discussed options. While I was in Holland she made a decision to re-home a boy she calls Vegas with me.
I like the name Vegas, but it didn’t quite feel right… so now I introduce him as Vince Vega from Pulp Fiction (love Travolta!) and call him Vegas, Vince, Vinnie and BunnyBoy – cause when he runs and leaps about he looks just like a bunny!
So, who is Vince Vega?
He is a 2 year old silver dwarf, a russian import, a greek grand champion, and I am honoured to have him. His pedigree says he’s a toy, but he grew over the measure.
Under FCI, there are 4 poodle sizes – toy, dwarf, miniature and standard. A toy is up to 28cm at the shoulders. Vegas is 30-31cm. So, he has been reclassified and shown as a dwarf. You can do that in FCI, not in Australia or the USA from what I know. There, there is a gap which oversize toys fall into and disappear, unable to be shown.
Also, he didn’t get along with the other male in the pack. And he leaps about like a jumping jack on steroids and injured his perfect knees. Hence – he needed a home where he could live his life as a pampered pet instead of a show dog.
He is still going to do his duty as a stud dog, but he will be my constant companion on walks, at cafes and restaurants and at the beach. YAY.
And guess what? There have been no more sleepless nights now I have a poodle on my bed with me again!!!
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Where did my love affair with poodles begin? At 13 yrs old when I read Jacqueline Suzanne’s book Every Night Josephine. The book I had was the one with the cover on the right. Wish I’d kept that book…
junk4joy 