Exhibitions

I must be on a roll, doing yet another post this month.

I have visited two exhibitions recently.
Once is the Escher x Nendo at the National Gallery Victoria.
I loved it! The woodcuts were amazing - so detailed, apart from the wonderful images.
I just felt myself smiling as I walked around. I think it was the setup, the Nendo part, I assume, and the buzz of people having a lovely time. And taking the time to just be there, not doing anything in particular, not being there because I had to, etc.

I kept thinking how the tessellating images would make a quilter sooo happy!

I also got the the Shaun Tan exhibition, Untold Tales. I also loved that. It was really well named, each piece told a story. I told myself stories quite different from the ones my friends were telling themselves.

I loved this one, I had my own story, which did not quite match the title (fortunately, I read it after I had made up my own story). The title was quite amusing too.

This one was used for the publicity. Seeing it in situ, with the wonderful lighting, was amazing, it just glowed!

I don't think it is on for very long, so I was lucky to get there.
I love Shaun Tan's work. His picture story books are great, even though I did think about reading them to some younger grades as they are 'picture story books' but when I actually read them I decided that they were much more suitable for older children. Some of the themes are quite challenging.

And the art is amazing.

Christmas is Coming

It being 12/12/17, I thought I had better blog.
Gone are the days when I did at least one post a week!

Today a couple of friends and I went to the Ian Potter Centre, the Australian Art NGV, at Federation Square.
What a wonderful day it was, weatherwise.

Just had to take this photo of the lovely holiday atmosphere outside.

No snow in sight!

We went to several of the exhibitions, totally breaking my rule of only one exhibition per visit.

We saw Del Kathryn Barton's exhibition. That was amazing!! So much colour, so much work, so huge.

Then we went into the paper sculpture exhibition and plastic sculpture by Louise Paramor. Also huge works, colourful and amazing. 

Then we walked into yet another room, with Helen Maudsley's works. I was feeling rather overwhelmed by this stage and will have to go back and look again. But I did really like the statements/poems that accompanied the paintings. 

And the one on the floor.

Making the Australian Quilt

This week a friend and I visited the NGV exhibition, Making the Australian Quilt, 1800-1950.
I am very happy that we got to this exhibition. I tend to leave ones that are on for a long time till the last minute and then have to rush. But we have been and seen it in plenty of time.

There were some amazing quilts there. Some were sent back to England, some were sent to the person for whom they were made. It is amazing that descendants have kept them and then been able to see the value and donate them to relevant museums.

It was also very liberating to see some that have been treasured over generations and realise that perfection in making the quilt is not essential. Quite a few were obviously made for practical reasons and the makers didn't stress over exact measurements, etc. They were wonderful to see.

This was an appliqué cut from fabric. 

An amazing hexagonal quilt, made of tiny hexagons.

Some of the quilts were worn away, showing the back fabric, with no batting in between. 

Log cabin, using some rather gorgeous silks. 

This was shown as a bag! Gorgeous. 

Wagga, using all sorts of fabrics. Very utilitarian,

I have 'almost' been inspired to get out some unfinished quilts and see about actually getting them done. There were some examples of unfinished quilts, not finished for various reasons. But it was great to see that they had still been treasured by the families.

visiting Melbourne Now at the NGV

As it will be the Australia Day long weekend next week, out tapestry group decided to meet this week instead.  And as it is still the holidays and there are summer school courses on at the guild rooms, we decided to meet at the NGV and see some of the Melbourne Now exhibition.
Another group from the guild had made arrangements to meet also and had even made arrangements to have a talk by one of the curators of the textiles and fashion section. They very kindly asked us if we would like to go with them.  Of course we said yes.
So we got to see a sample of some William Morris pattern weaving

and some coptic weaving from the collection.

We were also given an insight into an upcoming (in 2017!) English embroidery exhibition of works from the collection.  We had a very interesting discussion of what is involved in setting up such a collection and how much effort is needed to research and conserve the materials that are already in the collection.  It was a wonderful opportunity to see behind the scenes.

Then we parted ways with the weaving group, had lunch and ventured in to the Melbourne Now exhibition.  It is huge!  There are quite a few interactive parts.

You get to put little vinyl birds onto the wall.  

It was children's day too, which was very well attended. It was lovely to see all the families there, all the different groups of people, just wandering around having a lovely day.

I must remember that they keep the gallery rather cool, it would have been a perfect place to go these last few days.  Thankfully, the temperature has dropped a great deal and it was much more comfortable today.  I am almost feeling too cool - never happy.

Two exhibitions that showcase 1920s clothes

I know, I should have posted yesterday because the date was interesting.  It was 12/11/13.  Would it have been 11/12/13 in the USA?  I can't remember how they do their dates.
Anyway, today is ok, it is 13/11/13.

I have recently been to two exhibitions showcasing art deco fashions.  One was at the NGV, the Edward Steichan and Art Deco Fashion exhibition. The photographs were black and white, with some gorgeous lighting effects.  I enjoyed the fashions and photography, my friend is more interested in movies than I am (not hard to be more interested than I am!), she loves the old movies too. So we both had a great time looking at the photos.  The clothes on display were spectacular - and we both loved them.  It took us much longer than we had expected, there is so much to look at.

No photographs allowed of course.

Then today I went to Rippon Lea Estate to see the exhibition of some of the costumes worn by Essie Davis, as Phryne Fisher, in the murder mystery series on ABC tv. 

The costumes and accessories are wonderful and you can get up really close to them, examine the detail. Quite a lot of the fabrics, accessories and costumes come from the costume designer's collection. Marion Boyce must have an amazing collection - and a fantastic cataloguing system, as well as a good memory to know what to look for in her collection.

The clothes are lovely but, as with the Grace Kelly exhibition, they look so much better on the body.  Some of the notes pointed out that the designs are made to swing with the movement of the body, which would explain why they look so much better in the show.  Not to say the exhibition is not wonderful, it is well worth visiting.  It has been extended but finishes on December 1st.

Another thing I noticed is that some of the costumes seem to have been designed for one scene, which might only last a minute or two. Such a lot of work for such little time in the production!

Once again, no photos were allowed.  We could have tried on some costumes at the entrance and photographed ourselves but that seemed a come-down after all the images of Essie Davis that were around.

The grounds of Rippon Lea are huge, with wonderful gardens.  We wandered around outside a bit before going in. It was drizzling but still worth it.  It was raining when we came out, so we didn't look at the rest of the gardens.  Was I complaining about the heat recently? It has gone, gone, gone.
It is such a lovely old house that it will be worth another visit in the future.
I did take some photos outside. I am thinking of designing a green tapestry and the gardens were so lush that there were lots of photo opportunities.

There are huge trees throughout the garden.

This is part of an apple orchard on the estate. I couldn't resist the windmill.  

Why blog?

I haven't blogged for over a week now.  I have been in a bit of a creative slump, in terms of doing my textiles and in terms of blogging.
It is not as if I haven't had inspiration, in the last two weeks I have been to the Bendigo Wool Show, the Craft and Quilt Fair and the Monet exhibition at the NGV.  All interesting and inspiring, in different ways.
Here are some pictures of one of the challenges at the Quilt show, it was based on a plate.  There were many lovely and interesting ones.  These are just two I took photos of.  The first one reminds me of crockery my mother had and I felt a twinge of quilting interest reviving.

Judith Williams

The second one is quite humorous while commenting on the pest that rabbits are in Australia. 

Anne Sushames

I have been dilly dallying about getting the final part of my current assignment done - it is supposed to be a machine embroidery 3D object with some hand embroidery included. I had been working away very happily on experimenting with the samples required, including hand embroidery.  That latter requirement slowed me down but I have got it almost done.

But making a 3D object has been preying on my mind - with no good ideas developing.  I have finally decided to just do something and hope I can make it into a 3D object.  More on that later, when I eventually get it made (I hope!).

After I decided on an idea, based on something I had done in the past, I was very pleased to be able to find images and ideas about it quite easily - because I had blogged about it!!  I have lots of visual diaries on the shelf but I had no idea where some of my images and articles are.  It was daunting to think of going through them all, looking for particular ideas I know I played around with.  But the blog is searchable - what a bonus.

I have often thought of my blog as a visual diary and now it has proven to be very good in that respect.  I read another blog where the person was wondering why she keeps a blog and I was beginning to wonder if I should keep going. Now I am feeling inspired to continue.  Finally being back experimenting and creating is good too, I feel more likely to post. Blogging makes me look at things around me slightly differently - so I hope the inspiration continues to revive.

Lace in Fashion

I was in the city yesterday and decided that, the way I am going, I might miss out on the Lace in Fashion exhibition at the NGV if I wait to organise myself and friends to see it together, so I made a quick visit to see just that exhibition and nothing else. It was very interesting, with works from several eras and areas of the world.  It is only a small one and I was able to take my time and read the information and be amazed by the work.  There was one small piece that apparently would have taken 10 months of 15 hour days to make.  I don't see how you could actually do something so small.  No wonder lace was so expensive before machinery.
And look, another date with lots of ones - 11/1/11

Winter Masterpieces

Today I went to the Winter Masterpieces exhibition of European Masters: Stadel Museum 19th - 20th Century, at the NGV.  I went with my friend from New York and a friend of hers.  We went in and looked around at some of the rooms, then went to a talk about the exhibition.  This was excellent, it went for about 45 minutes and had a good balance for people who know their art and those who know little.
It was interesting to hear how the political situation in Germany affected the artists.  There was also mention of how the invention of tubes of oil paint allowed outdoor painting. It is interesting to see how new technology can affect developments in art.  I tend to forget that those classic artists were also innovators and trying new ideas, breaking rules, etc - that they were not classic masters at the time. That came out clearly in the talk too.
I was impressed by the use of colour in the gallery, there were several rooms of paintings, representing different movements in the art, and they were presented in rooms that were painted in quite different colours, some of them very bright.  I am not sure if this is to replicate how the Frankfurt Gallery displays the works or if it was a design of the NGV.
The atmosphere at the gallery was great.  It was Wednesday evening and there were people eating and drinking in the foyer area, more people were in the Great Hall, listening to the band that was playing there. Others were in at the exhibition.  It was relaxed, happy and a great place to be.