banksia pod red

My banksia pod tea towel is now available in a deep, dirty red after a morning spent screen printing. These are 100% linen and I've printed on both the warmer 'flax' type (pictured) and a slightly cooler 'oat'. So you can take your pick. I'll be listing the oat one in the shop later today. If you haven't tried these towels before then you're in for a treat. The quality in Russian linen is exquisite and will soften over time as it's used and washed and loved.

weeds

In my mind, weeds are pretty special. Meg Keating has a whole exhibition on at the moment focusing on this very specialness. It's called Nature Strip and can be seen at MARS Gallery in Port Melbourne until 5th August. Meg's also doing a floor talk on the 21st July if you'd like to hear more about her work. I'll be going along so come say hello.

When I saw Meg's work it reminded me of my own interest in all things weedy. When I was living in Kyoto (Japan) I made this woodblock print, Wallflowers, based on some weeds I fell in love with in my local neighbourhood. To me they were beautiful.

And then I remembered my recent obsession in photographing one kind of weed I saw everywhere in Greece on my trip there last month. I found a great paddock of them in Crete and went crazy with my camera. Fortunately for you I'm only posting one pic here.

I think the information for Meg's exhibition captures the special quality of weeds:

"In the body of work Nature Strip, weeds are presented as graphic silhouettes that are both beautiful and elusive. The motifs hover through thin veils of pearlescent-layered paint on natural beech grounds. They are delicate in their appearances and at times disappear from view. The wildness presented here is ideal and alludes to utopian gardens and serene vistas while the simple motifs are common and ordinary in their depiction." [MARS Gallery]

travel is good for the soul

And we should do more of it. It opens the mind and the heart and allows us to breathe in and see new spaces.

I went to Greece for 24 days: Athens, Naxos, Santorini and Crete. The jet lag hasn't yet worn off and my body is readjusting to being back in Australian winter after the searing heat of the Mediterranean. But it was all so good I don't really mind my current sleeplessness. I took 800 photos while I was there, both on my camera and phone. I've put a very small sample of some of them here.

Thank you Greece for reminding me of how to slow down and just be.

thoughts on making

This post is about the importance of making.

A no-brainer for those who make, and no doubt also for many who have art/design/craft/making blogs of some kind or other. You already know how valuable the act of making is.

But it's interesting to see how all the wonder and goodness and beauty that makers know comes from making is now starting to be recognised in broader society. People are starting to sit up and take notice of making and makers. Which is a great thing because it doesn't seem so long ago that craft and other making type domains were looked down upon and seen as, well, kind of quaint, but not much more than that. And the thing I'm also noticing is the boundary between art/design and making generally is blurring. And I, for one, am very happy about that blurred boundary.

David Guantlett's book 'Making is Connecting' is one that pulls ideas about the value and place of making together along with a dash of history for good measure. It's quite a good read and for an academic (he's Prof of Media & Communications at the Uni of Westminster), David writes in a very accessible way.

Yesterday Lindy Osborne, an architect and academic, was live tweeting (@LindyOsborne) from the 2012 Experience Conference - a national architecture conference in Brisbane. Two of her tweets caught my eye:

'Students take note: 'The hand is the most important method of learning.' Murcutt wisdom.'

and

'Murcutt keeps focussing on importance of 'making' in his discussions with Wang Shu. Wish every QUT archi student was here.  '

Her enthusiastic references to Murcutt were from Glenn Murcutt, also an architect, who was hosting one of the sessions at the conference. I was intrigued and also elated to hear an architect valuing making and work done by the hand as a way to learn given how digitally savvy that industry has become. 

And every time I watch an episode of Grand Designs lately there is a story about somebody needing to make with their hands, the result often being they give up indoor day jobs to work onsite building their dream houses. Long gone are the days when it was somewhat shameful to work with our hands and more desirable to do 'clean work' indoors, most often behind a computer. Tradies are valued quite highly these days for the skills and practical handwork they can do. And why shouldn't they be?

So makers of all kinds. It feels like the wheels are turning our way. Do you feel it too?

just kids

I've just finished reading an extraordinary book. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the creative process and the evolution of artists. I'm talking about Just Kids, a memoir by Patti Smith focusing on her early life as a young artist finding her feet in New York City and her close relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe.

Extraordinary in so many ways. It's hard to put words to it.

I loved many things about this book. But one thing in particular was having a detailed account of how Patti and Robert worked through the beginning years of creative development, the trials, the explorations, the self-doubt, the hunger and poverty, the small steps forward, the struggles, the sudden unexpected opportunities, and the incredible range of characters that they met along the way. All real. All amazing artists.

As well as all this Patti gives a detailed description of her and Robert's life at the infamous Chelsea Hotel. Absolutely fascinating! It's really quite mind blowing to read about this period of history from a great artist who was deeply immersed in it. Patti Smith, you rock! And thank you for writing this book and recording this history for others to read.

I'm now on the pre-order list for the kindle version of Patti's latest book 'Woolgathering'. Am so looking forward to it.

And she writes so beautifully. Which I guess is to be expected from a poet and song writer of her stature. You must, must, must give it a read. Honestly.

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!