finally...

finally...reporting back on the wonderful trip to Alice Springs for the Beanie Festival, and other happenings around here since then.

I dont know where the time went.

Way back in June a colleague and I were lucky enough to travel up to the Beanie Festival, which was such a great trip - I had never been to Alice Springs. My hope before the trip was that I would be impressed by the difference in the landscape - I really wanted the desert colours to blow me away, and I certainly wasn't disapppointed.

There was big sky, red earth, fascinating flora, a funky cafe, loads of crafty stuff, a freezing breeze every day, the most eye popping indigenous art everywhere and...beanies...

So as not to repeat myself (being a work trip I have already written two reports and made a power point presentation) I direct you to this blog for The Great Gallery Garden (in September at the Arts Centre) where I have gone into a bit more detail and provided links.

I will share some of my favourite pics here though - 

Just a few favourites!

We had such fun. Rhonda was a great travelling companion and we met lots of lovely people. We attended several workshops over the duration of the Beanie Festival, visited the Olive Pink Botanic Gardens, Standley Chasm, Tangentyere Artists co-op and paid a studio visit to one of our upcoming exhibitors, Sarah Brown (more about her later). 

I bought some art (still at the framers!) and rather a few felted, crocheted flower brooches by Alice Springs local Donovan Hannis (examples above). 

I missed the boys, but I think I could've stayed another week. And I have been wishing I was back there. Since Alice, I've also been to Sydney (Bienale and a reunion in Balmain) and over to the coast for school hols. Next up, Rhys and I travel up to Sculpture in the Gaol at Trial Bay historic gaol, South West Rocks. More about that later too, because I'm a judge! How cool - some of my favourite things together - sculpture, heritage buildings, coast!

We have been hurtling head-long into the new school term, things have been crazy busy working towards the Great Gallery Garden, and there is a very sweet surprise in store for me at work next year. Announcement in the pipelines...just around the corner...not far off...but I'm smiling already!

Today we mosey-d around and had late breakky before catching the abstraction show Word of Mouth: Encounters with Abstract Art at CMAG , Bryn started on his own abstract piece as soon as we got home! Inspired!!! We also took in our favourite Nolan works (Ned Kelly series from 1946) as well as a cool little collection of typewriters from all vintages, courtesy of collector Robert Messenger. The boys had a ball clunking away on manual machines, and it made me smile and think of mum - as a typing teacher she tried for many, many years to teach my brother and I to type - it was always the last thing we wanted to spend our time doing in the holidays!

Ni night

xNarelle

Looking at shadows

To contemplate is to look at shadows. 

Victor Hugo.

Aesthetically there is a lot I like about shadows.

They are sharper or fuzzier versions of their objects.

They often produce a more intense colour where they fall.

They are stretched, exaggerated and abstracted in a lovely way!

I have been finding them unexpectedly and searching them out purposefully a lot lately, and have therefore been very contemplative! One of my favourite shadow pictures is this one, a fairly old photo from a road trip to a beach many years ago, it still brings a smile.

 

 

in a similar style, this lovely one of the boys in the moment when they are aware of their figures shadowed and captured in the rockpool. I love the deepened colours of the sandstone where their joined shadow falls.

 

 as well as catching your own shadow, there are lots of lovely abstract shadows created in the natural environment...

 

  

Another of my favourite things, is the shadows cast by sculptures. Do you notice these when you see three dimensionsal stuff in a gallery? Those above are from my little PIN sculptures.

I saw these in a great exhibition down at The Incinerator Gallery, Melbourne. Wall sculptures made from a conglomerate of found lace by textile artist Louise Paxton.

 and from the web, pinned onto some of my very lean pinterest boards*.

Aren't they beautiful and whimsical?

XNarelle

 

*Unfortunately on pinterest, there are often no credits for images/artworks and so I am unsure of who these these two works were made by. The bottom one had a label L J Maxx, which I will run with today!

Snap happy

With the closing of the big project (Material World as previously discussed) and things quietish on the wedding front, I have been doing nothing much more than walking, collecting, looking, and snap, snap snapping pics as I have finally become a convert of instagram. 

I have stopped carrying my camera around with me every day. I have started snapping at every tiny little detail of awesomeness I stumble across. As well as the fairly ordinary. I have read up on how to improve your mobile phone photography. I have joined someone elses' photo a day challenge, which is really no challenge at all as I take rather a lot more than one a day.

As you'd notice from some of the pictures, I have been stealing a few moments to work on small (read: achievable) projects - a new scarf for winter, some multi purpose pom poms, and knotted jute pot hangers. All will become crystal clear when they are used for future projects - rePIN and The Great Gallery Garden.

Also as evidenced in the pictures, we stole away from Canberra (to Lake Crackenback in the Snowy Mountains) to enjoy some of the beautiful autumn sun...I am relying on those golden, kodachrome coloured memories to sustain me through the grey which is just around the corner!

Enjoy the last autumn leaves...

XNarelle

the day after the night before...Material World from go to whoa

As previously mentioned, last night was the official (but casual!) opening of Material World, an exhibition that Martine Peters and I have been co-curating for a good few months now. Its full title was Material World - extraordinary environments made from ordinary things. Spectacular large scale art works, wonderful artists and a nice grass rootsy feel opening which ended with a candle lit gallery when we switched off the lights to observe Earth Hour. 

The artists were - 

Ampersand Duck

Tracey Deep

Mandy Gunn

Ruth Hingston

Ro Murray

Flossie Peitsch

Tony Steel

Fiona Veikkanen

 

This is pretty much a photo essay of the exhibition from go to whoa...

 

There was wine (thank you Casella Wines), there was cheese (Martine's cousin), there were candles (Malinda - Doobie Designs), chilled music (Tim's band) and we even got flowers, from the lovely Tracey Deep (gush...one of my floral design heroes)!

Here's how it unfolds...

 

 talk a bit...(Narelle and Tony)

 

 get up the ladder...down the ladder...repeat...(Caren aka Ampersand Duck)

 measure...(Tony, Martine and Tracey)

 prune to make room for art...(Ruth)

 

 document...(Tony)

 

 detail shots: Tony Steel, 'Terra Firma', mud, sticks and grass, wire, twine.

 

 detail shot: Ro Murray, Blue Gold II, poly water pipe, cable ties.

 

 gallery view 1

 gallery view 2

 

Mandy Gunn, Scroll, woven recycled paper, thread. 

 

 detail shot: as above.

 Tracey Deep, Eucalyptus. Eucalyptus branches.

Fiona Veikkanen, Sag Bag, reclaimed leather, foam, plastics, metal and rope.

 

 detail shot: as above

 detail shots: Flossie Peitsch, 'G' is for Gallery, found plastic letters

 Ampersand Duck, Shelf Life, altered vintage books.

 detail shot: as above

 

 Ruth Hingston, Cold Wash, Line Dry. Reclaimed packing and plastics.

invite a crowd....

 

switch off lights...

 

survey the damage!

What fun!

XNP

P.S Here's what I wrote in the intro of the mini catalogue...in case you have a longer attention span than just pictures...

"Developing Material World has been an engaging learning curve and an absolute pleasure.

When confronted with the prosaic and pristine physicality of the gallery space, each artist responded with their own highly sensory creation. Presented with the premise of environmental awareness and the challenge to work sustainably, the artists have seized the opportunity to remind us of the responsible use of energy and technology, the need to recycle, reuse, reforest and above all, to respect.

Tactile and curious, obscure and fanciful - these constructed environments are at once comfortable and peculiar. The use of familiar, found and repurposed materials draws us into their tableaux so that we, the audience become part of their ponderings. We do this by wandering through and around the installations, by casting our gaze upwards to the unattainable, by passing under the washing line and by participating in a virtual, collective commentary. 

We hope you enjoy exploring these extraordinary environments made from ordinary things."