Christmas dinner

Christmas dinner, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

I've been offline for so long it actually feels like I've been on holiday! This year we did the long car trek up to brissy to stay with our excellent friends in Highgate hill and pop over to my brother's place for xmas dinner. He recently took his girlfy on a mystery surprise trip to Barcelona - awwwe how romantic - and she got inspired to produce this amazing paella for xmas lunch.

The nice thing is that even though we ate heaps, it wasn't like the overeating you do with the traditional meat and veg fest that is Christmas dinner. We also got to GOMA to see the Andy Warhol show and did rather a lot of sleeping - now I'm off to the coast for a few days r&r....

Drawmo 12

Drawmo 12, originally uploaded by ellishutch.

Left hand drawing of a roller skate - done with willow charcoal. I've been really getting into the drawing - but have been totally slack on the posting. Anyway I'm posting them all to the flickr page, and a selection here - so go to my flickr page to see the lot. (I'm still behind on posting to flickr too - maybe I'll catch up by the end of the month...)

drawmo 7

drawmo 7, originally uploaded by ellishutch.

drawmo 6

drawmo 6, originally uploaded by ellishutch.

drawmo 5

drawmo 5, originally uploaded by ellishutch.

After a week of no internet access and a week of insane busyness I'm finally posting the drawings I've been doing. I'm going to post them in the order I drew them - but in batches since about 13 drawings in one go seems excessive...

drawmo 4

drawmo 4, originally uploaded by ellishutch.

And it's day 4 - I've managed to squeeze this drawing in before 11pm - yay! I'm still drawing with my left hand, this time using charcoal. I'm about to head up to Queensland for a week for work so I'm not sure if i'll be able to post every day. If not I'll keep drawing and post when I can.

Rollin' with the Adeladies

Last week Salami boy and I made the trek across to Adelaide at some hideous hour on Saturday morning to spend the weekend with the fabulous Barrelhouse Bessie and Mr W. Since Bessie rarely looks at my flickr page I'm posting some of the weekend highlights here purely for her edification. (Big thanks go out to Bessie and Mr W for being the hosts with the mostest, providing yummy food, a comfy bed, driving us 'round in the silver bullet and an introduction to roller derby skating.)

We went collecting hard rubbish in the silver bullet (Bessie and Mr W's grown up new car). Here's Salami boy with some very special Jamaican art found on the side of the road.




I helped Bessie build a merch booth for the Adelaide Roller Derby Halloween party and then went and found myself a brand new pair of roller skates. (I really wanted the cool black ones with the grey wheels, but alas there were none in my size).

The Halloween party at the Fad bar was a blast - I've got a sneaky video of Mr W doing some very imaginative dancing that I can't post here because it's too big - I'll be mailing it to Bessie to use as blackmail material.


Tuff Puff, Mr W and DJ Alice party on.

The blokes worked on the trailer in the shed on Sunday and Monday putting in windows and generally having shed time. I can't post that photo because Salami boy hates the way his hair looks in it.

I made self saucing chocolate pudding and on Monday night joined the Adeladies for my first ever roller derby training session, run by Bessie and the brilliant and sassy Smarty Pants. I stopped counting the number of times I fell over around 5 or 6 - all I can say is thank God for all those elbow, knee and wrist pads. I'm very proud to say I survived the entire two hours and that only my entire body hurt the next day.

drawmo 3

drawmo 3, originally uploaded by ellishutch.

Today's effort - weather balloon man, the left hand drawing thing is weird and tiring but good.

drawmo 2 - trashy scribble

trashy scribble, originally uploaded by ellishutch.

Some time after 11 last night while doodling and looking at trashy magazines I decided to set myself a specific task for drawmo. From now on I will submit only left handed drawings (I'm right handed). It's a way of loosening up and focusing more on looking than on the end result. I also like the look of the less 'in control' drawings. It makes me step out of my comfort zone and stops me repeating the stuff I already know. So from today onwards I will inflict some very wobbly lines on the internet...

cozy

cozy
Originally uploaded by ellishutch

Today is the first day of DrawMo - the month where a bunch of people from all over the place attempt to do a drawing every day. I've only just snuck in before midnight - but at least i did it!

Vote The Bastards Out

Need I say more?

take off

take off
Originally uploaded by ellishutch

I was inspired by Ampersandduck's post to check out the drawmo blog - it challenges members to do a drawing every day during the month of November. Certainly more achievable than growing a mo during Movember for those of us of the female persuasion. I did the little charcoal drawing above a few weeks ago and have done some scribbling since. I've often thought of setting up a drawing regimen for myself and have never quite made it - so - deep breath - this is a good motivation to get moving.

current online faves

make magazine
drawmo
The Ditty Bops
Space and culture
knitta please

and anything roller derby

Adeladies
Lone Star Rollergirls

All quiet

, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Been off the computer for a bit lately - can't face turning it on at night after spending the entire day, nay week ... well last couple of months desk bound. The good news is I've seen lots of art - the Guggenheim show at the NGV, Pixar show at ACMI, a bunch of stuff in Canberra and have been spending an excessive amount of time eating.

One day I'll get around to blogging about these things. In the meantime check out the yellow .... I drove out to a conference in Galong, past Binalong about four weeks ago and had to stop the car to take this photo.

I love yellow....

Tea

Ahh - tea - I truly can't live without it. for the sake of my health I reduced my intake recently from - weeell - more than five, or six or maybe seven cups a day to no more than three. There were even a couple of days when I only had a single cup of tea...whew!

So I was thrilled to see this post on Momo's blog. Check it out

Too busy to blog

Red duette by Marie Hagerty, shown recently at Tim Olsen Gallery


The good thing is, it means I have a life. The bad thing is, there are heaps of things I want to write about and the longer I leave it the more I forget...

I spent last weekend in Sydney, enjoying the quiet streets and staying well away from anything connected to APEC. We had a delightful weekend catching up with mates and getting to see a bit of art.

We went to this exhibition which was a stunner. Marie Hagerty is a Canberra based painter and creates these very controlled and powerful abstract paintings with a limited palette of red, white, black, grey and a touch of orange.

The work pictured above Red duette is one of the images in the exhibition - the digital image goes nowhere near doing the real thing justice, but it gives you a bit of an idea. The trip to Sydney was worth it just to see these works.

the future is certain.ord

Ampersandduck posted this on her blog and I was so thrilled I had to post it here too. I went to artschool with this artist and love her strong graphic images.

Lonestar Rollergirls Banked Track Roller Derby

How I waste time on you tube

State of belonging

, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

I spent three hours on Saturday frantically making a collaborative work of art with four other NSW resident artists. The event, called State of Belonging was inspired by Iron Chef - with teams of artists competing to produce something amazing in a very short timeframe. Our team competed against the ACT team for the inaugural CLAW (Canberra Living Artists Week) Trophy. It was mad, fun and totally exhausting. The judges - HG Nelson, Deborah Clark and Jessica Good kept up a very engaging commentary throughout the event.

My team of Jono Everett, Tom Skeehan, Bronwen Sandland and Steven Holland cooked up a crazy tableau with the central object of a boat linking a whole bunch of symbols and images referencing kangaroo culling, the history of the Molonglo river, feral rats and linking into a theme of no - borders. Each of the teams had to bring a surprise mystery material to give to the other team, which then had to be included in their final piece. The ACT team gave us a bag full of cauliflowers...

So what do you do with a bag of cauliflowers?

...Well the team sheep eats some

and...

a couple become the bosom for the boats figurehead

aka. me

damn heavy things - cauliflowers

Pics of the event can be seen at CLAW and commentary will appear at glasscentralcanberra - i've only got shots of us setting up below:

You're cute...

...so I baked you a pony

from Futurama

down the coast

I spent last week in Bega installing a group exhibition Proximity at the regional gallery and had one of those great Woolies moments... where you run into someone completely unexpected in the supermarket. It's not such a surprise at home but a real buzz when it occurs away from home.

On Friday while stocking up on cheese and bikkies we ran into Li'l Odette and Ray Dee Ator from the Red Hot Poker Dots. They've recently been in the US so we weren't expecting to find them in Bega, though they have family down that way and are currently living in a caravan while they get ready to move to the US permanently. We had a very tasty breakfast of coffee and left over pizza outside their caravan while watching a video of Odette playing double bass while riding a horse and singing her sweet country tunes. She later pulled the same stunt with an increasingly grumpy water buffalo - this occurred somewhere in Queensland. You can see it on their website - under the title of Swampy Tonk Delux.

We then visited Sam the bass player who turned us on to some great you tube clips - Spade Cooley - the king of Western Swing and Willie Hall - the king of Jazz - check 'em out.

Swampy Tonk - love that Pokerdot style

CLAW

Canberra Living Artists Week - not sure what I think about the acronym but so excited to have been invited to participate in an art version of Iron Chef...WoooHooo...It's going to happen on Saturday 25 August and two teams of artists, one from ACT and one from NSW will have three hours to create a work of art. A famous media personality will be the commentator and the competition will be fierce!

I'm on the NSW team and we're gonna win the inaugural CLAW trophy - of course...

Anyone in the vicinity of the ANU near Childers St and the Street Theatre should come along. I'll post more details as they come to hand.

Morning television

This morning in a motel in Bega I watched morning tv - I never do this as I usually get out of bed, shower and leave for work running late sans breakfast. While I can happily say I never need to see morning tv again I did learn a joke. I can retain a great deal of useless and even useful information in my head, including countless names of artists - but jokes continue to escape me. That's why I'm celebrating... wait for it... the special occasion that is me remembering the punchline of a joke for more than twelve hours:

Q. What do you call a parrot in a raincoat?

A. Polyunsaturated

Australian Hellzapoppin Prize

This is what I went and saw on Friday night - wooooeeee!

, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Birthday socks

, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

My excellent sister-in-law is an ace knitter. She's recently been getting into the knit1blog1 activities at craft act and I've benefitted by receiving these fab orange hand-knitted socks as a birthday present.

yum

, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

My favourite Japanese restaurant in Canberra has these fantastic hand drawn ink menus on the walls.

Exhibition in Bega

I'm in a little group show in Bega opening next Friday - anyone in the area check it out!

The show is called Proximity and features my work and the work of Blaide Lallemande and Caroline Huf. We all studied sculpture at ANU School of Art and work in the general areas of sculpture, performance and installation. Blaide's work amplifies visitors' heartbeats, Caroline's incorporates some fantastic objects and animations - and mine - is a series of drawings created from hot glue - main image featured above.

Skating in the '80s

Love the fashions, the hair and the excellent sound track...

Ohh now I'm sore

My last post was a whinge about the soreness brought on by actually doing a pilates class properly. Today I add to the former soreness a day skiing - the first day skiing in two years - a glorious sunny, perfect snow day - and now some quite unhappy knees, hips and quadruceps.

Should be good practice though - building up my leg muscles and coordination - my friend Ginger had challenged me to learn how to do the Charleston on roller skates by 25 December. The reward - If I'm successful - is a new chicken.

I currently have three chickens - Madame Duchamp is a beautiful big Australorp who lays the biggest chicken eggs I've ever seen, Fifi is a small white silky bantam - totally the bottom of the pecking order, runs away when you come to feed her - and - finally Miette, bantam, black and white stripes and yellow legs. Miette is a grumpy bitch - but very good looking.

So Ginger says if I can do the Charleston on roller skates by her birthday - yes quite a famous date - she will buy me a new chicken - something exotic with spots...

What muscles?

I was just reading ampersandduck's entry on how sore she was returning to a particular form of exercise after a long break. Me too! Though sad to say I've had no such break - after doing pilates for six months I've bumped my class attendance up from once a week to twice (because I'm not very good at motivating myself to do the exercise at home.) Still sore from Tuesday's session I proceeded to shake my way through tonight's class - I'm just hanging on to the hope that one day I'll be really strong - in that nice lean ballerina way.

On a completely unrelated subject I'm in an exhibition called Proximity opening in a couple of weeks in Bega, anyone living in or visiting the region check it out!

burning underpants

I was a bit crap at work today having stayed up late to finish the latest Harry Potter - ripping good yarn...

I was introduced to the HP phenomenon by my sister-in-law a couple of years before it hit international cult frenzy status. I remember a dinner a where the lovely T raved about this fab new book, about a boy wizard that all the kids at school (she was a kindy teacher) were getting into. We thought she was getting a bit carried away and forgot all about it until she gave us the first book for Christmas.

I got sucked in and had a great time procrastinating with the second and third books when I was supposed to be writing my thesis at uni. Since then I've read each one as it's come out.

I was discussing the books with a literary mate of mine the other day who lamented she'd never really understood what all the fuss was about and couldn't really bring herself to read the books as they don't have beautiful sentences...

Well maybe not beautiful - but how can you beat:

The smell from the kitchen was getting stronger; it was something like burning underpants.

Tequila!

, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Ahh Tequila - it's a bit out of focus and shot on an arty angle and looks like a bottle of aftershave, but it is the best Tequila I've ever tasted. I spent the weekend with my Adelaide Texan friends who spoilt me rotten, fed me constantly and entertained me with hours of trashy reality tv about texas roller derby. As I mentioned in my previous post. We also went to Hallett cove, a spectacular piece of Adelaide coast, saw a flock of black cockatoos near McLaren Vale, and visited the Adelaide showground farmers markets. All I can say is thanks Boone and Sarah for a fab weekend - I can't wait to visit again so I can see the final episode of Rollergirls!

Knittin' and skatin'

I'm sitting on the couch at my friend's Boon and Sarah's place in Adelaide after an almost perfect day hangin' (would be perfect if my fella was here too).

Over the course of the last couple of weeks two old activities have made a revival in my life. Knitting is getting a lot of attention in Canberra at the moment with a fab show at craft act called knit1blog1, check out the website for lots of good links to knitting and crafty blogs. It's inspired me to start knitting again, having knitted two scarves a couple of years ago and nothing since. I'm now halfway through a scarf made from scraps of wool bought from op shops. The next project will be a real life jumper.

The second revival in my life is roller skating. I'd love to know if there's any organised skating going on in Canberra. My buddy Barrelhouse bessie in Adelaide is getting a roller derby league up and running. We've been watching texas roller derby videos, discussing roller girl name ideas and hearing about a real live texas roller derby player coming to Australia to train the locals later this year.

Now I just need to get back on my skates...

Arkley in Brissy

Last week I returned from spending a week working in Mackay via Brisbane.

Ahhh Queensland, warm and sunny one day ... warm and sunny the next.

Apparently it had been raining practically non stop in Mackay for a couple of months so my timing was perfect - I had a week of warm sunny days.

While in Brissy I caught the river cat from New Farm up to South bank and popped in on GOMA for a quick visit. I caught the positively fiendish Katharina Grosse installation and the Howard Arkley show on tour from the NGV.

Grosse has built a fantastic landscape in the long narrow central axis of GOMA complete with sand banks, large canvases jutting out and big weather balloons suspended from the walls like some sort of massive multicoloured sea creatures. They are all painted with this mad abstract expressive assault of colour. It's fun, wacky and the scale is appropriate for the space, which I imagine would be a difficult space for many artists to work in, given its height and length.

I also particularly enjoyed the Arkley show at GOMA. I didn't get to see it in Melbourne, but I have often been frustrated by the architecture inside the NGVs Ian Potter Centre so I wonder how it worked there. Anyway it looked great in the big white barn of a space that is GOMA. You could get far enough away from the works to look at a whole series of large paintings at once, and there was plenty of white space to rest hurty eyes after staring at oppy dots and patterns. I particularly liked the Arkley and Davila collaboration pieces – really nice weird awkward works with so much going on in them, I could look at ‘em for ages and keep finding new elements.

I found this lovely interview with Arkely and Davila where they talked about their collaborative process:

Juan Davila: I see our collaboration as a wonderful travesty. Howard might not see it in these terms, but we are two transvestite painters, or camp decorators, who have no sense of taste, and we produced an intentionally bastard result. It has the appearance of a proper painting but as you come near the whole thing blurs, like make-up on a transvestite. We talked about being two prostitutes who would offer to decorate anything.

Howard Arkley: The paintings went back and forth between our studios in Prahran. There would be one of us at each end of a canvas, carrying it through the streets. On a windy day it was like riding a sail board down the street. You'd have to swing out into the traffic and the cars had to stop while we were twisting and turning the canvas, being dragged along like it was a big kite. It was very much a part of Chapel Street. We used to talk about the work and walk up and down the street window shopping, saying "look at this, look at that, let's put it in the painting". I would fling open the door of a place like a building society, drag Juan in, just stand there giggling at the carpet and then race out. There was a lot of energy.

More Theo Jansen

Kinetic sculpture

This guy's name is Theo Jansen, he creates sculptures that walk across the landscape powered by wind. They are beautifully engineered. Thanks to my mate Bruce for showing me his stuff on you tube - I highly recommend looking at more videos of his work...

nursies

nursies, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

My mate Ginger's (the one in the gloves) going into hospital for a v nasty operation next week. True to form she had a pre hospital party with a medical theme. It was truly weird to turn up to the Polish club and find a room full of lab coats, scrubs and people in pyjamas dancing to some latinised grooves. Love your style Ginger - you rock!

Bredbo pizza

, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Last week B and I drove down to Bega to check out the gallery there in preparation for out exhibition coming up in August. The snow traffic was steady, but not mad and the weather was perfect for a drive in the country side. Sleety rain, moments of sunshine, spectacular views of stark Cooma landscape turning into green Coastal valleys past Nimmitabel.

I can't remember the time I've seen so much green - and then there was the lovely snow dusting the mountains - and some muddy lumps of it by the road.

The highlight of the day was the wood fired pizza in Bredbo - followed by the delicious cinnamon syrupy apple and rhubarb turnover - the place is for sale so I'd recommend any one in the area check it out soon.

in the air again

I never seem to be able to pack efficiently when I go away. This is a problem because I travel for work. Somehow I need to streamline the last minute washing, drying of clothes and tearing 'round house and office gathering up all the random crap I need to take with me.

This morning I had to dash into work to collect my forgotten tool kit, itinerary and put the voicemail on.

I did however, manage to get all my shit in one pile and get myself to the airport. I'm sitting in Brisbane airport utilising a nifty internet hotspot and have just heard an announcement that flights to Melbourne are delayed due to fog. It is currently 1.35pm. I ran into a colleague this morning at Canberra airport at 11am - she had boarded a flight this morning at stupid-early-o'clock-before-sunrise to go to Melbourne for a day's work. They took off - flew to Melbourne, circled over the fog, got low on fuel and... returned to Canberra to re-fuel.

This reminds me of an article I read on the weekend about the commuter crisis in Australia's cities. Apparently it took 63 minutes to catch a train to Sydney from Gosford in the 1960s - now it takes 83 minutes. So much for progress ay...

artland

I had to laugh last night watching the weather report on tv in Sydney - the temperature was going down to a freezing 10 degree minimum over night, while in Canberra it go up to a toasty maximum of - yep - 10 degrees. While it was crisp and windy by Sydney standards, it was still a relief to get away from home and into less icy surrounds. The reason we were there was to farewell an excellent friend who is off to Cambodia to work for a couple of years and catch a bit of contemporary art. I'm already scheming to work out a way to get to Cambodia for a visit some time in the next twelve months.

While in Sydney I popped in to the Art Gallery of NSW and spent a bit of time with the Anselm Kiefer show, and the Ishiuchi Miyako show. I've loved Kiefer's work for years - he's one of my favourite artists of all time - I'm familiar with his objects - but this show also features massive paintings. What I enjoyed about the large paintings in the show was this incredible sense of three-dimensionality and space from a distance - and then up close they become these amazing textural abstracts with big chunks of cracking paint and unexpected objects mired in the surface.

One of my favourite aspects of the show was the video footage showing Kiefer's studio complex in Barjac in France - he has a property containing a number of great old stone buildings, tunnels with works scattered throughout the environment - what I wouldn't give for my own personal art world!

Miyako's work was a kind of portrait in absence of her dead mother. The show contained black and white photographic images of her mother's underwear which had a kind of medical, almost xray feel to them and yet were simultaneously very intimate. These were accompanied by photographs of other ordinary intimate objects - used lipstick, a hairbrush. I particularly enjoyed the quiet and poetic feel to this installation - and knowing that the subject of the work was dead gave me that sense almost of intruding on some one's private space.

Get Schnitfaced

The other night we were walking along in the fashionable hub that is Manuka in Canberra when we happened upon a blackboard outside a pub declaring 'GET SCHNITFACED $10'. Being eternally curious and unable to pass up a bargain we went back tonight follow up on this intriguing offer. First we went and saw Bridge to Terabithia and had a good cry - I was most impressed by the very realistic children that came across as annoyingly, maddeningly brat-like.

Anyway back to the Schnitzel experience - the deal was you could choose between a schnitzel or a rump steak + salad + a schooner of beer. We were keen before we even knew about the beer so when we paid up and got little red beer tickets we were most impressed. The quality of the meal was what you'd expect for ten bucks - bland with wilted salad and crunchy potato salad. The beer was crisp and cold and made up for the boringness of the food. Ted chose the rump and got to cook it himself on the grill, surrounded by a small group of pub patrons huddled around it's radiant warmth - they kept a running commentary on the progress of the steak cooking and made sure Ted didn't burn it...ahh Winter in Canberra....

night tree

, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

foggy night

, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

As I was driving home tonight I was fascinated by the foggy nightscape I was experiencing. All the street lights created these golden pools of soft light, there was an amazing organge glow in the sky over our house. The misty fog - something I haven't seen the like of in years - created this beautiful diffused light, like a Clarice Beckett night scene. I went outside and took a bunch of photos from my front door step getting some great tree silhouettes in this lovely light.

Shopping for curtains in Spotlight

Shopping for curtains in Spotlight, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Is it universal? Do you have to wait until judgement day to be served in any Spotlight store - or is it just the case with my local? It wasn't exactly crowded at 8pm tonight, in fact we were next in line when we lined up - it still took a good 15 minutes to get to the counter - plenty of time to ponder the attractions of discounted polyester fur and numerous mysterious of kreative kraft items.

Rad '80s posters

I went along to an opening at Megalo tonight curated by a mate of mine as part of his museum studies course. Megalo is a printmaking workshop in Canberra that got started by some young arty types in the '80s. They started off in a room at Ainslie Village using an old kitchen exhaust fan to extract fumes created by their screenprinting projects. Megalo has matured since then into a Canberra institution - still a starving arts organisation, but with more room, equipment and regular government funding. Joel and his collaborator Ange have selected 40 fab screenprinted posters made in the '80s. They address environmental concerns, political issues, nuclear protest posters etc. The show is a great little snapshot of a political and social moment in Canberra's history.

It was fascinating for me to be reminded of images I was surrounded by as a high school student. It was great to see a poster for the Bitumen river gallery - the first place I encountered contemporary art as a teenager and to see a poster listing George Washingmachine and the Dead Wringers headlining a local gig. There is a great raw energy in these images - it has that '80s protest punk kinda feel - and interesting to see how many of the same issues we are still grappling with twenty years later.

Anyone in Canberra check it out - it runs until 30 June.

Geelong building

Geelong building, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

I was in Geelong for work the week before last. I have a job that takes me to all sorts of random places and has it's pros and cons. On the negative side I am getting sadly familiar with those nasty synthetic fluffy beige blankets you only seem to find in hotels and motels of a certain quality. The positives include getting to see places I would otherwise never have a reason to visit, getting out of the office, and getting the odd quiet night in a hotel where I can do nothing but curl up in bed and read a book. Tho' I do feel concerned about the carbon debt I must be racking up flying all over the place and am determined to investigate switching my house over to solar power and creating some more environmentally sustainable living habits.

The picture above is of the side of a building in central Geelong, I really love seeing a bit of colour and decoration in architecture - especially if it moves beyond the postmodern lego look. I particularly like the links this one has to wall paper patterns.

Pot latch extravaganza

Yesterday we hosted our third annual Potlatch party and had a ball. Sadly I have no photos so a description of the process will have to do. The term comes from a native American tradition - here's a blurb I've pinched from Wikipedia:

The potlatch was a cultural practice much studied by ethnographers. "Potlatch is a festive event within a regional exchange system among tribes of the North pacific Coast of North America, including the Salish and Kwakiutl of Washington and British Columbia." Sponsors of a potlatch give away many useful items such as food, blankets, worked ornamental mediums of exchange called "coppers", and many other various items. In return, they earned prestige. To give a potlatch enhanced one’s reputation and validated social rank, the rank and requisite potlatch being proportional, both for the host and for the recipients by the gifts exchanged. Prestige increased with the lavishness of the potlatch, the value of the goods given away in it.

In our mutated version people bring random clothes and small household items they would otherwise throw out or take to the op shop and dump them in a pile in our front room. Everyone goes through the pile of stuff and takes away bits and pieces they like. The rest of the stuff gets taken to the Salvos or Vinnies at the end of the day. It's a great way to recycle and have a party at the same time. This year's effort was a little smaller that previous year's but I managed to score a blue velvet jacket, some red cord trousers and multiple pairs of sunglasses while feeling virtuous that I was offloading more unnecessary stuff than I was gaining.

Ted + chook

Ted + chook, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

I've been meaning to write heaps of posts over the past couple of weeks - but have been so stupidly busy they will remain unwritten in my head. As a way of getting back into the habit I'm posting this pic of Ted and our one laying chook, Madame Duchamp, taken today on our back step. Duchamp is the most curious of our chooks and will take any opportunity of scouting our laundry when we forget to close the door.

We have two other chooks - Fifi - a white silky who looks like a poodle and is hopelessly timid - totally the bottom of the pecking order. And there's miette a black and white stripey bantam with yellow legs. She's very pretty and a total bitch - gives Fifi hell.

I love having them in our yard, especially since recent rain has delivered us some green grass. Their clucking around the garden makes the times we're at home during the day (extremely rare, unfortunately) feel wholesome and domestic. I love that when I drive in to the driveway after a hard day at the office a big black chicken comes belting down the driveway to meet me. The comedy of Duchamp skidding sideways 'round the corner makes my day every time...

MA conference

I've just spent the last couple of days at the Museums Australia conference in Canberra and can confidently report that the wardrobe colour scheme required for museum and gallery staff in Australia is black - black with red, black with grey and black with an occassional flash of a green or brown. Today I bucked the tidy trend and wore sneakers (very good for running to the car in the rain while my unfortunate colleagues hobbled in heels). Mind you I still stayed with the colour theme in my very dark blue/black jeans, black and grey stripy top under black designer cardigan... better pull out that old yellow leather jacket and inject a bit of loud, tasteless colour into my life.

On a more professional note the conference raised a number of interesting issues and propositions. The first focus session I attended looked at interpreting contemporary art in art museums and working with audiences to get them engaged and interpreting contemporary art for themselves. This is something I as an artist and gallery worker am particularly interested in. Jane Deeth has done some nice work at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery researching how audiences engage with contemporary shows and ways to get them to express their responses to the work. What I liked about her approach was that it goes beyond bombarding people with information and just telling them about the work. She is more interested in getting people to look at work and form opinions and ideas for themselves.

In Tassie she put cards into the exhibition that asked the audience for comments and found that the majority of the responses were judgement calls - I like it - I don't like it - it's crap etc. However when the questions on the cards were changed to ask the audience to comment on the differences between the works or some other element that required them to stop and think a little longer she found that many more of the responses began to interpret the works - to talk about the discursive element in the works.

I'm fascinated by the reactions of people who go into galleries and get frustrated and angry with contemporary art - that a bunch of inanimate stuff/things can piss people off so much. It was really interesting to see in this case, that if people were encouraged to spend a little more time to think about what they are looking at, and if they were prompted by a question that directed them to think about a particular aspect of the work came up with really insightful and sophisticated responses. My theory is that we are basically a visually literate society and bombarding people with lots of text explaining stuff only works for those of us who like reading. If there are other ways of reducing the sense that the art is alienating and confronting and deliberately trying to make people feel stupid and can get people to stop and look for a while - rather than trying to give them answers - we can create some interesting conversations.

If I still have a brain tomorrow I'll write about some of the other sessions - for now it is time for a nap and then beer and pizza - the perfect way to finish a week of cultural bombardment...

stage 2

stage 2, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

It took four days to get this room clear - the floor was clear literally for a few minutes - now it is covered in a drawing made of hot glue and fishing line - I'm getting it ready to send off to an exhibition in Queensland. Since it is 6 metres long I need to test the strength of the fishing line to make sure it won't fall apart while it's on show. It's times like this when wonder why I don't stick to nice little pencil drawings...

before #2

before #2, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Time to do a little cleaning - this is the before shot and actually looks misleadingly tidy - it's far worse in real life. This is what happens when artists and musicians cohabit. So far I've spent two entire days sorting out this room and T has spent a day in there. We've emptied and refilled four bookcases - thrown out several garbage bags of junk - removed partial and entire works of art to the garage and relocated a drum kit. I reckon there's another two days work to get it entirely functional.

The motivation for this clean up - I have a work of art that needs to be unpacked and checked before sending away to an exhibition - it is six metres long and four metres wide and requires a certain amount of non-dusty, wax or plaster encrusted floorspace.

buttons

Nothing like a bit of instant gratification. I went to the Push your buttons exhibition at ANU School of Art Gallery today and saw some interesting work, and most excitingly got to make some buttons of my very own. There was a busy little group of visitors cutting, arranging and stamping out very cool badges. I got into a bit of a frenzy and made about a dozen. The image above shows Ginger's and my bug and beetle collection - there's also a sneaky fly by Waratah Lahy in there too. I put a few more images on my flickr page - think I might go back tomorrow and make a few more.

Anyone in Canberra can go along and make buttons for free tomorrow between 12 and 4 - the exhibition continues till 5 May.

Miscellaneous Correspondence

I went to an exhibition opening tonight at the local Contemporary Art Space and thoroughly enjoyed Jane Barney's installation. The letter of invitation gave me such a giggle I'm going to quote it here almost in it's entirety:

Dear Art Enthusiast

RE: Miscellaneous Correspondence Exhibition

Enclosed please find a small fridge magnet. Though it appears to be an abstract blur, this magnet is an important component of the image Woman in dress reading near man in suit, and is part of the exhibition Miscellaneous Correspondence.

Could you please convene, with your magnet, at the opening ...

... If you are unable to attend, please send a proxy with your magnet.

Shoul you feel compelled to file this letter as a record, then the file would correctly be titled 'Miscellaneous Correspondence', and the letter would be folio # '1'. Please do not attempt to file your magnet as a record as it does not fall within Redord Management Guidelines as a fileable item. Should you feel compelled to file a resord of your magnet, please make a paper facsimile for placement on file as folio #'2'. You may also wish to consider putting your magnet on your fridge as a visual reminder of the upcoming event.

111 other art enthusiasts will receive the remaining 111 components that comprise Woman in dress reading near man in suit. 112 public servants will receive 112 components that comprise the image Man in white collar. By compiling their miscellaneous correspondence, public servants and art enthusiasts will compete for the coveted title of 'Best in Records Management'....

One of my friends was understandably miffed to fall under the category public servant, I, on the other hand was thrilled that though I derive my income from public service related activities, I was rightfully categorised as an art enthusiast. When I left, both magnet murals were unfinished so I wait with baited breath to find out who won the coveted title of Best in Records Management.

Laura's chucked a wobbly

Laura works on my floor, she is a recalcitrant photocopier who arrived wrapped in plastic, Laura has attitude. The following excerpts from our office email list will give you an idea of Laura's personality:

Laura's sleeping in...

Laura is missing a part that keeps the hole in the Ozone layer stable- The part has been ordered, ETA unknown.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news …. I’ve changed the toner … and it wont’ accept the new cartridge … can
someone come fix it?

Do not use LAURA as we have no yellow toner

Dear IT
We have an enormous problem. The magenta on Laura is gone. Please come and fix it now.

Does anyone else work with an anthropomorphic photocopier?

directional clothing

directional clothing, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

To catch up on the last two weeks - I spent very little time at the National Folk Festival this year as I was popping into work all weekend to finish off stuff before spending a week installing a show at Geraldton in WA (about 5 hours drive north of Perth).

I did catch Fred Smith doing a snappy rendition of a song called Tension - it has the fabulous lyrics 'just don't stuff my clobber full of flora!'

Also was mightly entertained by the Dolls - I'm biased as my fella's band was supporting them - but the rest of the audience appeared to be having a ball too. I also caught bits of Mic Conway's National Junk band - their version of the Sex Pistols God Save the Queen rocked. Also saw the Lawnmowers, Bluestone Junction and a bit of Totally Gourdgeous and Mystery Pacific (website doesn't appear to be working - will try and add a link later). All well worth catching if their in your neck of the woods.

So Easter Monday I was on a Plane to WA - the best and sometimes worst part of my job is the travel. Its fantastic going to places I would otherwise have no reason to visit and great meeting and working with a wide variety of people. It's also stressful working in unfamiliar environments with a wide variety of people.

Geralton, like many coastal Australian towns appears to do a brisk trade in the alternate, spiritual, hippy, tiedyed, dreamcatcher variety of retail outlet. I didn't get to the store above during business hours so my curiousity about the directional clothing was not satisfied. Also spotted around town were shops with the inspirational names: Inna Dreams, Fantasy Fings and Crystal Hemlock.

Street art in Adelaide

, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

This is a detail of a nice bit of street art I spotted in Adelaide last week while attending the fringe - I love this artist's sensibility and the way they play with transparency and form, I'm also a sucker for anything with birds in it. There are a few more on my other flickr page.

APT at GoMA

YUKEN TERUYA
Notice - Forest (detail) 2005
Collection: Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo

Two weeks ago I had a flying visit north to Brisbane, land of wooden houses and warm breezes. We got a couple of sweltering days and balmy nights to bring back in our memories as we are now being hit by the first cool winds heralding winter. After we returned we got the first of what I've always called the snow winds. Biting southerlies with an icy edge are for me the one true sign that winter is really comming (mind you it's coming nice and slow and should stay that way as long as possible...).

To hang on to the warmth in my mind a little longer I'm going to muse on my visit to the APT (Asia Pacific Triennial) and my first visit to GoMA. Brisbane's new Gallery of Modern Art.

Overall I enjoyed the exhibition - it felt consistently strong, nicely installed and resolved, maybe a bit too nice - there were some politically quite confronting works, but somehow the gallery just makes everything so clean. The GoMA has beautiful big exhibition spaces, but the entrance is not great, and some of the workmanship on the actual building looks a bit shoddy. Their installation of indigenous work was absolutely stunning.

So the entrance - you go through these sliding glass doors that act as a kind of air lock into an entrance way with very high ceilings and a feeling that you're sure exactly where to go to find the art. Once inside I discover an arctic breeze that encourages me to remain in the actual gallery looking at the art for the shortest possible time before scurrying outside to prevent the onset of hypothermia. It seriously was that cold - I had been at the Queensland Art Gallery earlier and it was noticably warmer, even then I was wearing long sleeves.

The shoddyness - we were looking at these grey panels in the doorways between the galleries and noticed the some were quite dented and were not level at the bottom - picky I know but who ever screwed in those panels either used too much force or the material is too soft for it's chosen purpose. The highlight of the APT at GoMA for me was the Anish Kapoor installation - really gorgeous, though apparently a problem for the gallery with visitors accidentally walking into a few of the works. Quite difficult to control as there are some children's activities that actively invite physical interaction and Kapoor's work does mess with perception and can be quite disorienting. The education/kids stuff was fantastic as always - QAG really knows how to do this stuff well, they create really intelligent and engaging activities that provide insight into the works and give audiences something to create and do as well.

I could go on at length about the works in the show across the two venues but I need to go to bed so my highlights were:

Yuken Teruya - images can be seen here, here and here - these paper works were delicate, witty and thoroughly engaging. It's great to see a simple concept handled so skillfully and in this day or high tech multimedia everything to be engaged by art made entirely from paper bags.

Sangeeta Sandrasegar - images here and here - these were also paper based works - cutouts of incredible detail, my favourite was a wall installtion of white hands. The paper was so fine and delicate that at first I saw only the shadows made from the silhouettes of the paper hands pinned just off the wall.

Nursa Latif Qureshi - Indian miniatures with a subversive contemporary edge - images here, here and here

There was so much wonderful work in this show I could go on all night - but I won't so all I can say is that if you can get to Brisbane before May and see it for yourself - go!

Great QBN architecture

Great QBN architecture, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

I will get around to talking about GoMA as mentioned in my last post, but in the meantime I thought I'd pop in an example of the exciting architectural features of my own home town Queanbeyan. I'm thinking of doing an occasional series on Hideous Architecture. Something small town Australia has many examples of, and something I see a bit of travelling 'round the countryside installing art exhibitions. This is my local leagues club, note the wave form awning at the front, a nod to postmodernism without being too risque and the funky geometric forms that create sculptural interest. i haven't decided if it really fits the category hideous, though the front view is by far the most sympathetic...

stickers and stencils

stickers and stencils, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Saw some nice street art in Brisbane on the weekend, also APT at QAG and GoMA but not much at MOB and missed IMA completely (ha! see if I can get any more acronyms into a single sentence). I will write a full report on APT and GoMA later in the week. Apart from the art the highlight was visiting relatives who live in Torbreck, Brisbane's first highrise apartment block built in 1959 and watching the sunset over the city.

stickers and stencils

stickers and stencils, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

black things

I had a sneak preview of Mel Douglas's work in her studio in Canberra yesterday - She's a local glass artist who makes very, very beautiful objects. She's having an exhibition at Sabbia Gallery in April in Sydney. I can't upload pics at the moment, so go to the website and check 'em out.

Who knew?

Who knew?, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

On an evening walk, as a way of avoiding the group of dodgy men hanging out down by the river, I walked through the carpark under Riverside Plaza in QBN. I've lived here for five years now and this is the first I've heard about a fashion precinct. I must say, while I have my doubts about the existence of the so-called precinct, I'm quite taken by the word travelator.

On an entirely different note I spent a couple of very pleasant hours at the Front this afternoon and caught Randall Blair doing some solo stuff, (this guy has a fantastic voice) and a couple of fellas from Hashemoto who I am falling deeply in love with. If you have a chance to see them play - check 'em out.

Autumn morning

I woke up at 5am this morning, tried to sleep for a while then gave up and got out of bed at the unheard of time of 5.30. I productively used my time to make a dress out of some scraps of fabric, drank copious amounts of tea (current favourite Chai 2 - Glenborg tea - it has corriander seeds in it) then by 8ish discovered I was out of novel things to do around the house. Rather than clean the house - which has gone ferrel recently - I headed off to the markets.

It was a stunning Canberra Autumn morning, the kind that makes me feel all fresh and new and goodwill to mankind and way to chilled to get shitty with the speeding tailgating roadrage fuckwit in the new ute. I love it when - after being harrassed by a dork who has tried to drive over the top of me, sped round me and raced off - I end up right next to them at the lights on the other side of town. I particularly love it when I'm in that crisp Autumn morning happy frame of mind that enables me to turn to the other driver and give them a big cheesy grin and a cheery wave.

Happy day

And why is it a happy day? Well because there were many hot air balloons suspended in the still sky over Canberra, and that always makes me happy.

After the hail storm

I spent pretty much all of last week in bed with a rather boring virus and then returned to work yesterday to an enormous pile of work and millions of emails and phone messages. It was almost enough to inspire me to turn around and head straight back home again. I stuck it out knowing I'd have to face it sooner or later then headed over to the Art School to see the postgrad exhibition that was open to the public for a few hours. Due to the freak storm the other week (the damage and aftermath faithfully captured by Ampersandduck who works there and is involved in the clean up operations) the school is in a sad state of disrepair and the two poor students due to have their final exhibition only got to show it to the public for a few hours after their postponed examinations had occurred. I really enjoyed Pamela Lofts crisp images of outback/rural environments littered with rusting metal and decaying houses. The way the light played over the man-made elements in the close cropped views of interior spaces, and the contrast between this and the external spaces in the images was what I found most engaging.

I then popped upstairs - with a hard hat on - to the clocktower, where I worked for a couple of years for Art Monthly. The room has been completely cleared, the festy carpet removed and the plaster coming away from the ceiling was being held up by long beams of quite fragile looking timber. It was amazing to see what once had been a cave filled with piles, stacks, shelves and many many intrays of paper - completely empty. The editrix is optimistically planning a new minimalist look for the room which I'm looking forward to seeing.

smashed potato

arty mash, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Ohh its just so pretty

arty dessert

arty dessert, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Last week we had a very posh first wedding anniversary dinner at Courgette - local posh restaurant - sister to Aubergine - I love that these places have the names of vegetables. It reminds me of some performance art I saw in the nineties where the fabulous Megan Elliot sprouted random french words in an endearing aussie accented monologue whilst wearing a very sophisticated evening gown. At one point she needed both hands to gesticulate wildly so she very efficiently placed the stubbie of VB from which she had been swigging snugly into her rather voluptuous cleavage. I'd love to have a picture of that...

Anyway back to matters marital - we have two anniversaries - the living in sin one which has us turning twelve this year in May, and the legal one, celebrated for the first time last week - woohoo. For years we never thought we'd get hitched, but we've attended many ceremonies over the years and had begun to appreciate the idea of getting all our loved ones together for a celebration. It was totally worth it - bar the three million times in the last year that I've been asked 'how's married life', followed by 'so when are you having kids?

If anyone is looking for a posh meal I thoroughly recommend Courgette - it was fab and had the best (and probably most expensive) mashed potato I've ever eaten. My most excellent sculptural dessert was almost too good to eat - but my sugar addiction won out in the end.

blockhead

Ted bought New Boots and Panties on the weekend - he's been hanging out to find it on vinyl for some time and finally gave in and ordered a CD because apparently it's pretty rare.

Ian Dury has to be one of my all time favourite songwriters with gems like:


You come awake
In a horny morning mood
And have a proper wriggle
In the naughty naked nude
Roll against my body
Get me where you want me
What happens next is private
It's also very rude...


And...


Here come duck-tail Danny dragging uncanny Annie, she's the one with the flying feet
You can break the peace, daddy sickle grease, the beat is reet complete
And the jump-back honey in the dungarees, tight sweater and a pony-tail
Will you guess her age when she comes back-stage, the hoodlums bite their nails

Sesame Street Pinball Cartoon

Mr T finally discovered the time wasting wonder that is youtube and spent hours in the middle of last night enjoying a nostalgic journey throug Sesame Street and Dr Seuss animations. The pinball number count is one of my faves

bird or fish

I'm reading a book about the history of airships at the moment. It starts with a quote by Dr Hugo Eckener - the first expert airship pilot and proponent of the development and use of Zepplins for passenger transport and war machines. Zepplins were invented by Count Ferdinand von Zepplin, a somewhat mad enthusiast who spent years (and lots of money) trying to get the airship idea off the ground.

Anyway Eckener said:

The mass of the mighty airship hull, which seemed matched by its lightness and grace, and whose beauty of form was modulated by delicate shades of colour, never failed to make a strong impression on people's minds. It was not, as genarally described, a "silver bird soaring in majestic flight," but rather a fabulous silver fish, floating quietly in the ocean of air, and captivating the eye just like a fantastic, exotic fish seen in an aquarium. And this fairy-like apparation, which seemed to melt into the silvery blue background of the sky, when it appeared far away, lighted by the sun, seemed to be coming from another world and to be returning there like a dream...

xmas poodle

xmas poodle
Originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

My Mum's poodle Lily on xmas day after a little too much fun