MONA love

There's a whole lot of beauty, inspiration, and surprise waiting for you if you haven't yet been to MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) in Hobart, Tasmania.

Where do I begin?

The location for one. Oh my goodness. MONA sits carved into a cliff face on the gorgeous Derwent River. You can arrive by ferry or car. I've heard coming via ferry is pretty special. I had a car so went that way. However, I parked about a kilometre away (accidentally) and walked in. That was pretty special in itself. You get to see glimpses of MONA sitting there on the edge of the cliff facing the water from various angles around a small cove.

That cement truck iron sculpture in the pics above captivated me. How extraordinary that someone could make something so mundane and ordinary so intricately beautiful! Something so bulky like a cement truck has been utterly transformed into this delicate sculpture.

Inside MONA was mind boggling to say the least. Exhibition pieces have been chosen deliberately to push the boundaries of peoples' expectations about art. There are a lot of surprises in stall. And I won't ruin them for you by telling you too much here. Let's just say you need to set aside at least half a day - one day to be there. It's massive. There's so much to see and experience. And the place is gorgeous so you might like to have lunch and a glass of wine and sit outside on the pink bean bags and look at the river while you're there.

I was especially moved by the pencil rubbings (pictured above) by Okabe. These were made by hand over a 9 year period of the Ujina Station train platform in Hiroshima. Eventually the train station was demolished to make way for a freeway but Okabe's rubbings remain as simple reminders of what was once there. You can read more about their background here. And here's a picture of Okabe with his work.

I'll be going back to MONA later in the year. My brother also loves the place so we thought we might go again together. There is no other art gallery like this in Australia. It's extraordinary on so many levels. So if you can, go!

linen and paper

Lino block prints. Experimenting on linen and paper.

The cards are in the shop. And so is the linen tea towel.

The end of summer has found me eating too many fresh figs with blue cheese. I guess things could be a whole lot worse!

making, eating, listening, seeing

Heide Gallery are currently showing an exhibition showcasing 30 years of their collection. Two pieces that stood out for me were Charles Blackman's 'Alice' and Mary Boyd's 'Hands'. Such powerful works, both of them.

Aimee Mann's music is keeping me blissfully happy. As is this beautiful autumn weather.

Have been eating at Pope Joan. Their corn cakes are to die for.

Lot's of carving still to do but am hoping to print next weekend. Now that it is said, I'm committed. Ha.

mojo thoughts + 21st century conundrums

I think I may have my printing mojo back. It's been a while. But sometimes I think it's good to step away and do other things. It can be quite conducive to letting the creative juices percolate.

Today's carving session was musically accompanied by:

1. Holly Throsby
2. Jen Cloher
3. The Jezabels
4. Sarah Blasko
5. The Be Good Tanyas.

A fabulously talented combination of Australian and Canadian musicians indeed! And really good to do some intensive carving to. In case you ever wanted to know.

Now have you heard about all the Pinterest fuss going on? It seems the web is full of debate about Pinterest inspired copyright and digital identity crises at the moment. And here I was thinking it was just pretty eye candy. To be honest though, the first time I looked at Pinterest (about 2 weeks ago) I found one of my woodblock prints pinned there without any reference to me, the creator or to where they'd pinned it from (my shop). I was a bit annoyed when I saw that. Then after I signed up to play on Pinterest I realised that when you click on a pinned image it takes you back to the original source so you can see who owns it. Eventually. I was still cross that the original pinner hadn't taken the time to mention who owned the print though. And then on Twitter I noticed some artists saying a big thank you to people who had pinned their work because they'd receive enquiries as a result. And one person I know sold a painting due to the publicity it received on Pinterest.

Then Flickr made some moves in response to the Pinterest copyright debate. They disabled the pin function on copyright protected Flickr images.

So it seems that it's a bit of a complex situation. A real 21st century conundrum.

Any thoughts?