Future Paths...?

Not to be pushy parents, but can we have a builder/drummer please?

Drumming at the Pony.

Actually, he likes destroying the constructions so far......

Garden (and Garden show)

This is the first flower of my violet alstroemeria, I'm very excited, because I thought I lost it last summer during the heat wave, and it's now happily living in a pot, waiting to move to it's new home.

And these are the yellow flowers that have just bloomed for the first time as well. Luckily the way you pick the flowers encourages more growth of the lily, because I couldn't help myself with these ones! I'm hoping to have a bed of them in lots of different colours for cut flowers. I like having flowers in the house, but most of the ones I grow, especially the bulbs, I don't have enough of, or enjoy them too much out in the garden to dare pick them.

On another note, I am now officially part of an art exhibition about gardening (thanks DC!) that is happening next November. I'm really happy about that and really looking forward to working in a studio that has enough room to store all my materials and equipment. Since the whole moving decision I kind of have paused on my eternal quest to find a better way to store everything in a small space (can't give up anything, so please don't suggest it!), and have just been waiting to figure it all out again in a new space.

Does anyone have any suggestions or favourite websites for cool sewing storage stuff?

I'm thinking a giant pegboard for my tools, and possible thread display.........

House Hunted!!

We went to the bank on Friday to figure out a budget, we started looking at houses ..........

we put in an offer two weeks later on one.......

and got accepted!!!! Check out the beautiful* blue brick veneer!

This is the wallpaper in the kitchen of our new house. I don't have any other interior photos because I didn't want to jinx anything, but the wallpaper was special enough to warrant a picture. The rest of the house is wallpapered as well :)

THis is a partial view of the backyard - it has fruit trees and a yard for Xi to play in, and a vegie patch and a space for chooks and a brick garage that will be converted into a FABULOUS STUDIO TWICE THE SIZE OF WHAT I'VE BEEN WORKING IN!!!!!!!!! (and thus freeing up a room in the house - spare room/office hooray!!!)

This is the work of a day with the help of a friend (and Xi, to a lesser extent) towards getting our garden ready for the move. I've just decided to take cuttings of my bigger succulents because they'll take off fast, and potted up my favourite bits and pieces. There is already several established fruit trees, and grape vines (it's an old Italian suburb, bless their cultivation!) So we'll just see what the space and conditions are like before planning anything major..............or not if I can't wait.

IT'S SO EXCITING!!!!!

we're getting the keys sooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon

*it's definitely going.

Melbourne Trip

While Tom was away at Pilchuck, I had to pack some work for inclusion in the Melbourne Art Fair and sort out what we needed for the installation.

This was done by multiple emails and skype conversations over a really bad internet connection on both ends. This was one of the reasons I didn’t keep up with the blog, I was so annoyed at how slow and unreliable the internet was that, and I spent so many hours on the phone trying to figure out what the problems were with the technicians that I couldn’t bear to spend anymore time on the computer. I finally found out that it was a physical fault with a broken line and weird connections at the exchange, but I feel that that experience has scarred me in terms of loving technology, or alternatively I have been thinking that I could possibly become a phone tech support myself……..

Anyway, back to the show!

We sent everything across earlier for a preview at Helen Gory Galerie so we just had to take ourselves across with Tom’s outfit for the opening party.

The idea was to set up the installation, and then have some time together to wander Melbs. The reality was that at 8am when we rocked up to the Melbourne Royal Exhibition Building we were told that no children were allowed (under 16) and so I would have to go… We know now to double check if we can drag Xi with us, but as he’s already been part of three installations, I didn’t even think that it would be a problem. However, we are finding out that the more official and fancy an event or exhibition, the more rules and procedures there are!

This was Tom's wall of work.

So, we did try and sneak in, and succeeded for a while, until I’d just hidden the pram behind the wall set up, and was emerging with Xi on my back in a sling and ran face to face into the same guard that wouldn’t let us into the building.

I got escorted off the premises, and wasn’t allowed to bring baby back until it was open to the public. First time that’s happened to me.

We wandered around the area for a while until it started raining (and it was cold in August as well) and then hid out in the museum café reading until Tom was finished.

But on Wednesday, our free day, we got to go to the Tim Burton show (that DC went to as well),

It was great!!! That's us underneath a big sad balloon.

And then Tom went to the opening party (I did the stay home with baby gig) and on the Thursday we got to check out the MAF in all it’s multiple galleried glory. The building it was in is amazing, it was derelict for years, and then restored, and as they were restoring it, they found all these paintings had been covered up, so they restored the paintings, and now it’s a totally glorious example of 1890’s art deco interior grand hall symbolistic design with LOTS of swirls everywhere.

So we cruised all the stalls.

This is a photorealistic, yet distorted perspective supersized sculpture that messed with your head. ......I can not remember the name of the artist (bad bad me!)

Xi's new room!

After Xi's first birthday, he moved into his own room, (finally - hooray!)

We were a bit concerned that he might freak out (like the books warn) so we'd take him in there all the time and show him his room (full of our junk) and talk about his new dinosaur light shade (which he loved/s) and when we finally got our stuff out of there and his in, it was not a problem at all. In fact, he started to sleep better already (no more daddy snoring, and mummy tossing and turning I guess!)

A beautiful glass mobile by Nick Mount, which is only in the baby room because we were afraid all the other ceilings would collapse.

He likes to pull out all his clothes out of the drawers. That stool next to him has a machine knitted cover - my first big piece!

Sorry for the poor quality of the photos, it's a room that gets basically no natural light, so it's quite hard to photograph in, but here's his special name crossstitch by his Great Aunty Kathy (to prove it's up and appreciated!)

Museum show pre and post!

So.....

Here's some behind the scenes of the works we made, and the finished installations (a small selection of them, we ended up making quite a lot, and I haven't gotten the professional photos back yet, so they are just snappy snaps)

I didn't go with simple, easy to make free-form crochet like I spoke of in March... I went for casting, sculpting, learning and inventing totally new things and combinations of materials that I'd never worked with before.

I have vowed for the next body of work to utilise my skills, not spend all my time figuring out how to make things work......

This is one of the two Hypohued Oculate Anemones I produced with the help of Tom. This one is as yet nude!

Tom is being a great collaborator and casting the base!

This is the finished piece. It's not that great a shot, I feel I'll have to explain it:

The glass polyps have been sheathed in machine knitted tubes which have been knitted from embroidery threads, so each tube is a combination of three to five different coloured fine threads, so it produces subtle (in hot pink) variations of tone, and you are able to glimpse the glass underneath.

In short, the eleven glass pieces that needed dressing, plus the base, plus the gluing and stitching took a long time. It was hard to juggle making all the other work, the writing, travelling for another show and parenting, and to top it all off, I made this piece to go specifically in a vertical drawer, like a hidden treasure surprise, I thought it was a great idea at the time, but with half the people I sent to see the show not finding it, I wish I'd made something out of cardboard that took me no time to put in that drawer!

Each piece has it's own fake museum labels and story attached to it, here's the anemone's:

This anemone colony is remarkable in that the polyps have developed

completely discrete functions that act independently of one another. There are often several eye stalks, feeding mouths and defensive wings that make up the whole anemone.

The Hypohued Oculate Anemone uses colour as a way to

attract small prey and bigger interest. It uses electrical pulses

throughout the polyps to change it’s appearance, being able to

react to various different stimuli and environments.

They are also able to communicate with other colonies

through colour patterns and flashing displays.

Excerpt from Laurosto journal:

….I was diving, and was entranced by this underwater delight,

until I reached out and it bit me.

Now I have two lovely specimens for my collection….

it did take a few attempts to capture a complete colony,

but the polyps look good with my jellyfish…

Location and dates unknown

Donated Laurosto Collection 2010 LSRHTM274

These are the Egyptian/Australian animal mummies. Here's the spiel for them:

An Interesting Connection

There have been a lot of theories about Ancient Egyptian sailors
reaching other continents, yet there has been little evidence to date.

Now, for the first time there is a definitive link between Ancient Egyptians and Australia in the form of a tomb discovered by Sam Laurosto, the intrepid amateur naturalist and collector.

The date of discovery as well as the exact location is shrouded in mystery, though we know it was somewhere in South Australia and some time in the late 1800’s.

Laurosto discovered in the tomb mummified native Australian animals, objects and frescoes that led him to believe that a small population of Ancient Egyptians resided in Australia for some time and integrated the local fauna into their existing pantheon.

He observed the similarities between the animals worshipped as anthropomorphic gods:
The Jackal headed God Anubis and the Kangaroo God (name unknown),
The Falcon headed God Horus and the Parakeet God,
and the Ibis headed God Thoth and the Brolga God.
He also noted that the Ancient Egyptians had a crocodile headed god, Sobek, and Australia is known for its crocodiles.

They gave us a poster on North Terrace (which is the main drag for the Art Gallery, Museum, State Library etc), notice Xi doesn't look that impressed.

Here's Lauren working on some finishing touches to the foyer display. We've a teaser selection of curios: a Spanish Man of Peace, an eye catching mineral Disconite, a blue hypohued anemone, an Egyptian Kangaroo head with sketches and various glassy sea creatures.
Here's a view of the mineral display with Laurosto's minerals added in. Tom made one called Turdite, found in Deep Craek. He was pretty pleased with that one,
and Lauren made Pompomnite which really doesn't look that different from the authentic green gypsum, but a whole bunch of school kids came through as we were checking out the display and had a great time debunking some of our minerals (but not all surprisingly enough!)
Amongst the sharks and deep sea fishes lurks the elusive many eyed Roller Fish.

And here we are finished installing on a project that we first started talking about when I was four months pregnant and lasted until.........well, actually, it's just been installed at the Adelaide Town Hall, so really, it's lasted until after our son's first birthday.

So thanks Lauren and Tom it was a great and interesting experience doing the show with you, (and Xi especially for getting dragged to the Museum so many times when you would have rather been laying on the grass!)

I'm back, promise

GAH.....it's been how long?

April??

I haven't posted since April?!

What happened??!!

........well.

Here's what:

tricky collaborative exhibition

packing a glass show

husband went overseas for 5 weeks

went to see family for two weeks (while single parenting)

baby got sick

we travelled to set up a show

parents visited

1st birthday party

Xi moved into his own room

started to look for a house

bought a house two weeks later.....

And to top it all off we've been having internet issues (to put it politely).

I will endeavour not only to put all the catch up photos on (for continuity) but to keep up to date, I just got really busy and fell into a funk and it all just piled up. Thousand and one apologies.......hope to make it up to my invisible audience, if anyone still checks this...

However I am back now and have the new toe paint (lurid and kinda fluro zombie green) to prove it!