ROAD TRIP OF THE WEEK REDUX

Craft ACT

My trip to Canberra was pretty wet and windy. Crazy weather did not make for the easiest of gallery tours on Saturday. Of course we had to brave the rain to get to Craft ACT. Their new shop space is spartan but full of the most beautiful local work. My favorite was the ceramic paper cups by Bev Hogg. We've all seen this sort of thing before but her citrusy colorways felt fresh to me and sitting all together they looked like a Pantone dream.

Ceramics are obviously pretty strong in Canberra. I thought that Debra Boyd-Goggin's work in the gallery space was really gutsy and delicious.

I was very impressed with the curated cabinets out the front that had a group show of miniature craft and design objects. I was disappointed this Peter Bollington chair that was the size of my thumb had a red sticker on it!

My favorite craft object of the weekend as actually found at the Museum of Australia. A small stuffed pig toy from 1946. These very austere toys are all the rage at the moment. Can't you see this resting on some design festival trestle table or on a little bed in Vogue Living?

Of course we had to stop off for baby chinos at every cafe in town. You can take the baby out of Melbourne but you can't take the Melbourne out of the baby.

Tomorrow I'll give you a peak inside the Gallery of Australian Design and show you the amazing glass work of Wendy Fairclough.  In the meantime I have 30 loads of washing to do. RAMONA

ROAD TRIP OF THE WEEK

home town

Well I'm off to Canberra for a few days. First up to visit the Gallery of Australian Design where I am curating a show next year (eek). lucky for me they have exhibition about Design in Media, looks quite crafty from here don't you think?

I'm popping into Drill Hall gallery to see a new glass piece by the amazing Wendy Fairclough. There is something so ethereal about glass forms referencing ordinary objects, like ghost of their former selves perhaps...

of course I have to visit Craft ACT. Can't wait to see the shop (which is new since my last visit many moons ago) and the joint exhibition 'Conjunction' between the Debra Boyd-Goggin and Chris Harman.

If I have time I'll also visit Beaver Galleries. This long established space has a terrific history of supporting good craft and design long before it was cool thing to do. It's been about 10 years since I last visited and I'll be curious to see what's changed. I'll also check out the Amanda Shelzer ceramic sculptures.

Of course I'll always end up wandering through the fog sculpture at the NGA sculpture garden. Can't wait to show nearly'two Thom this amazing piece...Then we might go and throw eggs at our old high school. My beloved and I return to where we met 21 years ago! Good Grief. More pics from the road. RAMONA

SHOW OF THE WEEK

Artists, Gold and Silversmiths, jewellers, sculptors, makers. Call them what you will but both Katherine Bowman and Vikki Kassioras are amazing. We can't wait to pop into the Nicholas building at the end of this week to see how they explore the possibilities of 'Black'. Kassioras with jewelery and Bowman with delicate and disarming watercolours on paper. The show is on at weird times so you'll need to concentrate if your going to make it. So very Melbourne!

PARTY OF THE WEEK

Twice as nice

This weekend, despite grey skies we celebrated the Maxmonster turning two. Yeah i'm wondering just where that second year went as well! After scanning the dodgy array of store bought birthday party decorations all week, and being sadly dissapointed in the choices (fairy, pirate, thomas, spiderman) I decided on hand made bunting and balloons. Overall I was super happy with the result, although perhaps a little less enamoured of the lack of sleep the night before as I whiled away the hours cutting out triangles, then stapling them along crepe paper. 

Food wise it was a bit of a Masterchef special, as I had a crack at Donna Hay's never fail vanilla cupcakes, and Mick whipped up a truck load of Gary's home made sausage rolls. Both went down a treat (thanks Ramona for the last minute icing assistance) Unfortunately the sausage rolls were devoured before I managed to snap a photo. Probably an excellent reccomendation for the recipe i'd say!

We decorated the pre blosson crab apple with some of Max's stuffed toys, which he found completely hilarious, so much so that I think every toy in his collection ended up there by the end of the morning.

Unfortunately for poor Muji there were some not so Dog lovin' little peeps at the party, so he was confined on a lead within begging distance of the food table, which of course he worked to his best advantage...(Maybe that's where all the sausage rolls went?)

We had a red hot crack at setting up a bit of adventure playground action in the backyard, which the birthday boy thankfully gave a big thumbs up. And after much running, sliding, tunnelling, bucketing, driving, tipping and digging it was time for some time out while everyone sat down and had a cupcake, or three.

Then of course came the presents, great excitement all round... the boys were very good with sharing the toys and the unwrapping duties.

Max especially loved his pies scarf and football from Auntie Ramona, despite yesterday's one point loss. And big ups to the weagles loving truck driving historian for actually fronting up and making the black and white purchase...we know that must have hurt!

Although the pies present had some serious competition from Rory and Lucas's gift of a pop up Thomas book complete with talking fat controller.

And it was good to see that Max and Thomas had called each other earlier to make sure that their outfits were colour co-ordinated.

Of course once the last present was opened and the kids started to come down from that cupcake sugar high the wheels started to come off a little.

So why not make like Thomas and just grab another cup cake then hit the slide to up the mood again!

Then of course everyone's favourite surrogate grandfather stepped in and started some 70's Dad danger bike racing games... (although we're not quite sure why he was dressed like an extra from Underbelly for the event). Uncle Matt, not to be outdone, got behind his own green racing machine and soon both boys were flying around the old concrete track like Captain Slow and the Hampster while Ramona and I nervously looked on wondering why we hadn't hired the Stig and which one was going home in an ambulence. 

Thankfully, this time it didn't end in tears and we finished off a rather lovely second birthday party with a load of very loud birthday poppers... and coloured streamers.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY MASTER MAXWELL WE LOVE YOU!!!  and we hope you had a super fantastic day.
BECK

Redhead

Source: Marie Claire France August 2010

Local and or General

RENAISSANCE DINOSAUR
We could go on and on about this one - synthethic hypercolor taxidermist Kate Rohde has always bamboozled and delighted us with her renderings of Wunderkamer meets Baroque. And we do so love the woozy neo-craft interpretations of sydneysiders Romance Was Born. We were gaga (lady and otherwise) over the outcome of the collaborative pairing of these peeps for the Romance Was Born spring/summer collection showcased during Australian Fashion Week last May. So we're very excited by this exhibition of  new works which sees a a further refinement of the spectacular and colour drenched aesthetic of the runway shows: this time placed in the slightly more formal exhbition environment. As with most of Rohdes work inspiration is mostly drawn from animal imagery, this time in the form of dinosaurs, antelope and deer all fused with the insane excess of the Baroque and Renaissance traditions and her now tradmark hand made psychadelic technique.

Sculpture, clothing, wall-paper, fabric, accessories and objects crafted from synthetic fur, resin, expanding foam, papier-mâché and psychedelic prints are on display for purchase during this unique one month exhibition. We wish we were there.

Karen Woodbury Gallery
August 25 - September 18

CREDENZA CREDENTIALS
We love collecting stuff, and showing said collections of stuff off - regular readers will be familiar with Ramona's famous hutch installations and my teak sideboard and german ceramicdisplays. As you can imagine, with these pursuits and new small people in our homes we are faced with new storage problems. Credenza Credentials now on in Adelaide's Jam Factory is a smorgasbord of contemporary storage solutions that features some of South Australia's leading furntiture makers, all of whom have taken on board the many functions and fashions of dining room furniture and come up with a diverse collection catering to all tastes.More than half the makers in this exhibition have been through the Jam Factory's furniture program, and the dedication to some seriously old school craftsmanship is apparent in the level of respect given to both the raw materials, construction and finish.  Apparently the term credenza is derived from credentia, a medieval latin term for the practice of food and drink tasting by servants to check for poison. Let's hope the offerings that ultimately adorn the tops of these delectable works are not quite so deadly!

Andrew Bartlett, Gareth Brown, Petra de Mooy, Edward Garcia, Michael Geissler, John Hayward, Takeshi Iue, Gray Hawk, Tom Mirams, Michael Penck, Ken Pfitzner, Julie Pieda, Adrian Potter

30 July - September 5 Gallery one,
Jam Factory, Adelaide

I'LL SHOW YOU MY CRAFT IF YOU SHOW ME YOURS
Hot on the heels of the brilliant collaboration between Alexander Ouchtomsky and Aimee Fairman

comes the next set of hand made exhibitionists brother and sister combo Simon and Jemila Mac Ewan. where Aimme and Alex worked through sci-fi and fantasy to create other and off-world objects and environments, this pair take the shared books of their childhood as the starting point for their installation. In a case os sibling simpatico rather than rivalry their everyday lives both work in creative fields Jemila as a set, costume designer and artist; while Simon is an artist who also works as a jeweller and illustrator. In this exhibition they combine their diverse skills to explore the childhood influences on their creative practices - creating a hand crafted shadow play light show which slowly spins in the window while gallery 3 transforms a collection of sparsely filled bookshelves into a tiny paper theatre as daily new creatures and characters from the books will tumble from their shelves and escape into the gallery space.
August 23 –  September 4
Craft Victoria


REBECCA

RESULT OF THE WEEK

it's not easy being green

still in post election shock...
very happy about the Greens
very worried about Abbott
hopefully we'll come round by mid week
and be able to get on with our regular reporting
REBECCA