Today was our last day in Brisbane. I spent this morning in the State Library, looking at the Flash Women display of fashion design by Aboriginal women. There was a wonderful dress shaped like Ayres Rock in bright orange, and some print fabric based on the woven patterns in tradition aboriginal basket making. There were some good quotes on display.
One for the reading community:
"Ignorance and fear on the part of the dominant communities often influences the way those societies deal with Indigeneous communities. Libraries have a duty to dispel that ignorance". Wharehuia Hemara.
One for anyone interested in identity:
"We are reminded from an early age to never forget who we are and where we have come from. Unless we have the capacity to have knowledge about our history and culture, we may never realise our identity, our dreams and our future". Dr Jackie Huggins
One for artists:
"Prints are connected to marks and marks are connected to symbolism, and symbolism to identity. As Aboriginal people, one of the ways we retain, maintain and demonstrate our identity is through print" Fiona Wirrer-George (Oochunyung)
While all of these statements have an obvious application to the exhibition of Indigeneous work, they all have a wider relevance. My librarian friend Juliet would be committed to the role of Library to dispel ignorance and build a love of learning for many groups/people. She is also very committed to oral storytelling, for the communal enjoyment that it gives. Juliet would probably have an opinion on what other things oral storytelling gives. Sociologists, anthropologists, old people, young people, adopted people and others, each have a particular interest in identity and how it is manifested and utilised to create positive futures. And if a community has a limited written history, with a strong oral tradition, how does the Library service support such a community? Around the millennium, there were many oral history projects in the UK, so does this indicate that academic thinking is broadening, to accommodate people and stories that do not fit with the western (Victorian?) way of recording knowledge? Is this set of thought processes, created by my summer roadtrip and the exhibitions I encounter, part of what the Study Abroad experience is meant to give me, in addition to the formal study? I think so. But I'm only getting this because I'm making the effort to go out and look, and think. I'm making the effort to take my visual diary with me, make notes and sketches, and it's often only when I'm writing my blog that the conclusions come to me. I don't think quickly and it takes time for the assimilation of ideas before I realise I've seen something profound.
Another reflection from something I saw in the Queensland Art Gallery yesterday. I was looking at a painting by an Aboriginal painter (did not note down his name in my visual diary), whose work commented on appropriation of Aboriginal painting styles by western artists. He had an image on the left, but on the right, had painted the names of about 20 western artists who had incorporated Aboriginal techniques /style /motifs in their work, and who had not credited their inspiration to the indigeneous community. Two names that remain in my mind are Ian Fairweather and Margaret Preston. In the 1930s Margaret Preston was very keen for Australia to develop its own national style, rather than to follow the European art deco movement. Therefore she incorporated indigeneous spots, lines and artefacts such as boomerangs. I understand that it is inappropriate to fail to credit other people's work. She did not ask permission from the Aboriginals to use their designs and did not credit the specific tribes, and this is now deemed wrong. However, my observation is that this happens worldwide to ethnic art patterns. And as students we have to do extensive research into other artists work, and this informs and influences what we develop and create. Creative students have to show their artistic research and credit the main influences in their design folder, but we don't credit other artists in our final work - because if it is that obvious at that stage, it would be plagiarism. (So how do I differentiate between plagiarism of an individual, and plagiarism of a community or style?) Artwork is often described as being "from the school of" to indicate it is from a particular style. I think the issue is about how western art theory deals with the intellectual property of ethnic or historical communities as opposed to individuals. I think in the West, we differentiate clearly between the individual and the group/style, and this may not be appropriate to non-western communities. Another case where I don't have all the answers to my own questions.
Also while I was in the State Library, I saw some live drawing take place. Stephen Wiltshire is an autistic adult from London, with a remarkable skill for architectural drawing. He has had a trip around Brisbane over the last few days, and proceeded to draw Brisbane cityscape from memory in front of passers-by at the library. Absolutely astonishing detail. His website shows more detail of his visit.
Tomorrow Jim and I are off on the next stage of our tour - another campervan that we will take to Cairns over the next four days. We may not have wifi again until we reach Cairns.
Sunday, 27 November 2011
Saturday, 26 November 2011
Museums and theatre in Brisbane
This morning, I went back to the Brisbane Museum of Modern Art. I'm starting to identify the themes that recur and that I like. I've looked at a lot of modern art that leaves me cold, but the themes that appeal repeatedly are ones that refer to social history, family, narrative, and illustration. Today I looked at a series of family portraits from a chinese family. William Yang had compiled this series "About my Mother" after her death, taking portraits of her and her immediate family, and mounting them with a piece of script that explains something about the situation or conversation that took place at the time. An insightful narrative about the life of a chinese migrant mother and her son. She had died just after a family tour of Australia. Her 3 children had come home from worldwide locations, and had taken her on holiday, to visit all the places she had lived in Australia, and she had spent a lot of time telling them about their heritage, and she had died two days after this holiday from a stroke, perhaps because she had had the final satisfaction of having her dispersed family back together again.
Another series of artworks was by Vernon Ah Kee, "Neither Pride, nor Courage" which was simple, large hand-drawn portraits of his family members, who were attributed as indigeneous people, by a variety of Aboriginal group names, but who also appeared to have asian features, as well as asian surnames. Very simply drawn, with clear scribbly charcoal lines in the tonal variation, but absolutely brilliant interpretation.
In the afternoon, I went to see the "Rock of Ages" musical. It was a riot! It played lots of rock songs from the 80s, with a predictable story line of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy regains girl. As I am not a rock fan, some of the music was lost on me (Styx, Whitesnake) but I did recognise some of it "we built this city" etc. There was some comment at the beginning about certain rock bands (Def Leppard?) that had refused to allow their music to be played, and there were certainly parts that parodied other rock stars - the lead actors were strutting around taking off Freddie Mercury and tongue actions taking off Mick Jagger. And another actor played a rock star who "died" and reappeared as an angel (looking very like an ageing John Lennon). All in all it was a good tempered story of right winning out over wrong, with some fantastic music performed on stage.
Another series of artworks was by Vernon Ah Kee, "Neither Pride, nor Courage" which was simple, large hand-drawn portraits of his family members, who were attributed as indigeneous people, by a variety of Aboriginal group names, but who also appeared to have asian features, as well as asian surnames. Very simply drawn, with clear scribbly charcoal lines in the tonal variation, but absolutely brilliant interpretation.
In the afternoon, I went to see the "Rock of Ages" musical. It was a riot! It played lots of rock songs from the 80s, with a predictable story line of boy meets girl, boy loses girl, boy regains girl. As I am not a rock fan, some of the music was lost on me (Styx, Whitesnake) but I did recognise some of it "we built this city" etc. There was some comment at the beginning about certain rock bands (Def Leppard?) that had refused to allow their music to be played, and there were certainly parts that parodied other rock stars - the lead actors were strutting around taking off Freddie Mercury and tongue actions taking off Mick Jagger. And another actor played a rock star who "died" and reappeared as an angel (looking very like an ageing John Lennon). All in all it was a good tempered story of right winning out over wrong, with some fantastic music performed on stage.
Friday, 25 November 2011
Art galleries in Brisbane
On Thursday evening, when we were walking back to the hotel, Jim and I found a free event for board games. It was part of the Making Brisbane Better campaign. The last Thursday each month, the council have provided an open space and some board games for use by the public. One of the best ones was Scrabble - but a floor size game. We watched a couple of games being played, and some of the words were different to those accepted in the UK (eg Danes) and the scoring was different - a triple word score, where the link letter created words in two directions, scored triple in both directions. In the UK rules, it only scores triple in one direction.
We had a lovely day yesterday, Friday. While I toured the art galleries, Jim looked in cycle, book, and camping shops.
I went to the Museum of Modern Art first, followed by the Brisbane Art Gallery. I looked at a textile exhibition, where the best piece was about exploitation in the mother-of-pearl industry, called "No job for a white man". In its heyday, Broome provided 80% of the mother-of-pearl supplies in the world. The local population dived for the shells, and the overseer was the white man. Apparently, white people tried to use white migrant labour for the diving, but they were not up to the job, so the job returned to the local population. The artwork showed a starched white cotton suit (as worn by the overseer) pinned rigidly to the wall, with the soft, warm, loose, cropped woollen trousers worn by the divers, draped over a wooden chair. The trousers were covered in pearl buttons, indicating it was the divers who earned the valuable resource, not the overseer who benefitted from the trade.
I also looked at the work of Yayoi Kasuma, a japanese artist whose work is brightly covered and mostly created from polka dots. Apparently as a child she had hallucinations with bright dots, and she has been painting them ever since (now in her 80s). It sounds as if she has some form of obsessive compulsive mental disorder, because she lives in a mental institution and has a studio a short distance away. She works intensively for 60-90 hours then has a spell of exhaustion. I have to say her work left me cold, but some of the comments in the exhibition provoked thought. She considers introspection/spectacle; expression/formalism; asian/western; insider/outsider; repetition/variation and materialism/tradition. For some time I have been thinking about differences - monochrome/colour, smooth/texture, inside/outside, open/concealed. She had a wider range of differences that she considered. And from my perspective, if a Study Abroad experience is all about "difference", how do we express the ability to define or portray what we experience? Does my Study Abroad experience have a long term impact on my life and if so, in what way? It has taken me some time to be able to clearly articulate the question. I don't have the answer yet. I hope it does have a long term impact. I'm here to identify differences and utilise them. I'm not here just to have a jolly.
I then went to Brisbane Art Gallery (next door) and looked at a variety of Australian, Indigeneous, and European art. I definitely like the Impressionist style - Pissaro, with a painting of washerwomen and their washing on a line, in a bright green field, John Russell with bright images of Belle d'Isle sea and coastline, Grace Cossington Smith with bright dabs of colour representing cloth on a sunlit table.
I liked some of the quotes on the walls - John Russell "I am a painter of nature, of nature's moods. Of sunlight and the changing temper of the sea", and Margaret Preston 1923, "When is a work modern? When it represents that age it is painted in".
All in all, a very good day.
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| End of the game of Scrabble |
We had a lovely day yesterday, Friday. While I toured the art galleries, Jim looked in cycle, book, and camping shops.
I went to the Museum of Modern Art first, followed by the Brisbane Art Gallery. I looked at a textile exhibition, where the best piece was about exploitation in the mother-of-pearl industry, called "No job for a white man". In its heyday, Broome provided 80% of the mother-of-pearl supplies in the world. The local population dived for the shells, and the overseer was the white man. Apparently, white people tried to use white migrant labour for the diving, but they were not up to the job, so the job returned to the local population. The artwork showed a starched white cotton suit (as worn by the overseer) pinned rigidly to the wall, with the soft, warm, loose, cropped woollen trousers worn by the divers, draped over a wooden chair. The trousers were covered in pearl buttons, indicating it was the divers who earned the valuable resource, not the overseer who benefitted from the trade.
I also looked at the work of Yayoi Kasuma, a japanese artist whose work is brightly covered and mostly created from polka dots. Apparently as a child she had hallucinations with bright dots, and she has been painting them ever since (now in her 80s). It sounds as if she has some form of obsessive compulsive mental disorder, because she lives in a mental institution and has a studio a short distance away. She works intensively for 60-90 hours then has a spell of exhaustion. I have to say her work left me cold, but some of the comments in the exhibition provoked thought. She considers introspection/spectacle; expression/formalism; asian/western; insider/outsider; repetition/variation and materialism/tradition. For some time I have been thinking about differences - monochrome/colour, smooth/texture, inside/outside, open/concealed. She had a wider range of differences that she considered. And from my perspective, if a Study Abroad experience is all about "difference", how do we express the ability to define or portray what we experience? Does my Study Abroad experience have a long term impact on my life and if so, in what way? It has taken me some time to be able to clearly articulate the question. I don't have the answer yet. I hope it does have a long term impact. I'm here to identify differences and utilise them. I'm not here just to have a jolly.
I then went to Brisbane Art Gallery (next door) and looked at a variety of Australian, Indigeneous, and European art. I definitely like the Impressionist style - Pissaro, with a painting of washerwomen and their washing on a line, in a bright green field, John Russell with bright images of Belle d'Isle sea and coastline, Grace Cossington Smith with bright dabs of colour representing cloth on a sunlit table.
I liked some of the quotes on the walls - John Russell "I am a painter of nature, of nature's moods. Of sunlight and the changing temper of the sea", and Margaret Preston 1923, "When is a work modern? When it represents that age it is painted in".
All in all, a very good day.
Thursday, 24 November 2011
Arriving in Brisbane
Jim and I took the overnight train to Brisbane. It set off at c4pm from Sydney and arrived at 0530 in Brisbane. This was a different experience to the plane or campervan. As it was a $69 budget railtrip, the customer base was that of budget customers. Oddly the seat booking system put most of the customers on one carriage, out of the 3 available. This meant we were in the middle of a noisy car.
When I got fed up of this, I took a stroll up and down the train, found the two other cars were virtually empty and decided to ask if we could move. There were transit security officers right at the back, and they said they would get the supervisor to find me to confirm we could move seats. She came seeking "the english girl", and duly found me, and agreed we could move, and noted it on her seat allocation sheet. We had quite an interesting discussion with her. She advised Us that a girl with mental health issues had been moved into the rear car with the transit officers, and the girl had quietened down. We decided to settle in this car as, other than the girl, it was empty and quiet.
The supervisor and I had an interesting chat about shift patterns as transport workers. Her pattern was for a duty taking a train to Sydney, then 7 hours rest in a barrack, then an 11 hour night duty taking the train back. I thought this was appalling. I've worked a system where the rules said you had to have 12 hours rest, and even this small turn round made me feel appalling. 7 hours rest, even in accommodation provided by the company would never be enough for me. The supervisor said they had also recently had a change to shift pattern where they now were not allowed to work more than 10 consecutive days, whereas my pattern previously had no more than 8.
The supervisor showed us how the seats reversed with a foot pedal. Apparently the train has a diesel unit front and rear, and the train runs forward or backward, and each journey the seats are turned to face direction of travel. But if it is nearly empty, as in our carriage, and you get on with the supervisor(!), they can reverse alternate seats so four seats are facing. This meant Jim and I could curl up to lie down to sleep, each of us sleeping across 4 seats. Much better than sleeping sitting up.
My first museum in Brisbane, was the Brisbane Museum, which has an exhibition of social documentary photography 1993-2010. Blakeley and Lloyd are two photographers whose work focusses on documenting stories about trauma, suicide, genocide and grief. It was a set of very demanding, thought provoking artwork.
The first series of photographs was called "Control Yourself" - a set of images about a girl with anorexia and self mutilation. One image was of her torso, very thin with self harm scars; followed by a pink corset with extra pink laces around the body; followed by a handwritten weight chart documenting fortnightly body weights over 3 years deteriorating from 52k-37k, and finally a large image of a bottle of laxative. The images themselves were not particularly disturbing, but close inspection told a very distressing story.
The next series was about the Rwandan genoicide. There was a row of 37 black photo frames, to portray one Rwandan woman's family. There were 4 head and shoulders portraits, and the rest of the frames either had a name and birth/death dates, or just a name if the person disappeared. Obviously this person had lost most of her family in the genoicide of 1994. Very powerful.
The third set of pictures that remain with me are the set of 4 images of a woman talking, obviously upset. The caption stated she had lost her son, and kept his ashes on her dressing table, and dusted them regularly. But when she needed to, she took the urn and nursed it, feeling closer to him. Another set of very powerful images, which probably portrayed intense emotion, with which parents in similar situtions could identify.
A small exhibition, which was very thought provoking.
When I got fed up of this, I took a stroll up and down the train, found the two other cars were virtually empty and decided to ask if we could move. There were transit security officers right at the back, and they said they would get the supervisor to find me to confirm we could move seats. She came seeking "the english girl", and duly found me, and agreed we could move, and noted it on her seat allocation sheet. We had quite an interesting discussion with her. She advised Us that a girl with mental health issues had been moved into the rear car with the transit officers, and the girl had quietened down. We decided to settle in this car as, other than the girl, it was empty and quiet.
The supervisor and I had an interesting chat about shift patterns as transport workers. Her pattern was for a duty taking a train to Sydney, then 7 hours rest in a barrack, then an 11 hour night duty taking the train back. I thought this was appalling. I've worked a system where the rules said you had to have 12 hours rest, and even this small turn round made me feel appalling. 7 hours rest, even in accommodation provided by the company would never be enough for me. The supervisor said they had also recently had a change to shift pattern where they now were not allowed to work more than 10 consecutive days, whereas my pattern previously had no more than 8.
The supervisor showed us how the seats reversed with a foot pedal. Apparently the train has a diesel unit front and rear, and the train runs forward or backward, and each journey the seats are turned to face direction of travel. But if it is nearly empty, as in our carriage, and you get on with the supervisor(!), they can reverse alternate seats so four seats are facing. This meant Jim and I could curl up to lie down to sleep, each of us sleeping across 4 seats. Much better than sleeping sitting up.
My first museum in Brisbane, was the Brisbane Museum, which has an exhibition of social documentary photography 1993-2010. Blakeley and Lloyd are two photographers whose work focusses on documenting stories about trauma, suicide, genocide and grief. It was a set of very demanding, thought provoking artwork.
The first series of photographs was called "Control Yourself" - a set of images about a girl with anorexia and self mutilation. One image was of her torso, very thin with self harm scars; followed by a pink corset with extra pink laces around the body; followed by a handwritten weight chart documenting fortnightly body weights over 3 years deteriorating from 52k-37k, and finally a large image of a bottle of laxative. The images themselves were not particularly disturbing, but close inspection told a very distressing story.
The next series was about the Rwandan genoicide. There was a row of 37 black photo frames, to portray one Rwandan woman's family. There were 4 head and shoulders portraits, and the rest of the frames either had a name and birth/death dates, or just a name if the person disappeared. Obviously this person had lost most of her family in the genoicide of 1994. Very powerful.
The third set of pictures that remain with me are the set of 4 images of a woman talking, obviously upset. The caption stated she had lost her son, and kept his ashes on her dressing table, and dusted them regularly. But when she needed to, she took the urn and nursed it, feeling closer to him. Another set of very powerful images, which probably portrayed intense emotion, with which parents in similar situtions could identify.
A small exhibition, which was very thought provoking.
Tuesday, 22 November 2011
Leaving Sydney, taking the train to Brisbane
Jim and I have had a lovely time in Sydney. We stayed with friends, Rob and Sal, for a couple of days. We spent a lot of time just walking around Sydney, looking at buildings. There is a contrast between powerful impressive Victorian buildings and the modern commercial office blocks. Yet, somehow it all seems to meld together better than in the UK. Not sure why. One of the phrases that keeps coming to mind, is "contemporary retro", was a term used about a student's work in the textile class. This is where a retro design is created with a modern twist. And seeing the Queen Victoria Building juxtaposed with modern office block window reflections makes me think how a textile designer might use the two sources of inspiration to create a contemporary retro fabric. I've also been thinking about the Scott sisters botanical illustrations, with the palest imagery of the landscape in the background, with the bold botanical illustrations over the top of butterflies on their host plants - this contrast of pale detailed background with bold imagery superimposed, might appear in my design work next semester. Maybe architectural detail from iron lace railings, with australian plants? So many ideas, so little time!
On Saturday, I had a trip to Bondi beach to see a sculpture exhibition (which I failed to find!). Bondi beach has never appealed to me before, because over the years it has had a reputation for being overused and litterstrewn. But when I arrived, it was beautifully clean so there has obviously been a big push to keep it pristine. I had a lovely peaceful afternoon, watching the various school activities being conducted by the surf lifeguard team. Some of it was obviously water safety, but other games were in progress. One game involved boys lying in a line, facing away from a line of rubber hoses, (one less than the boys left in the game). The life guard said, "head up, head down, go" and the boys bobbed their heads, leapt up and ran to grab a hose. Far too energetic for me.
We found a 50 metre pool yesterday and had a lovely swim. It is the first time I have swum in such a long pool, and it was not as different as I expected. I had expected to find it very tiring to swim with fewer turns but I must be fitter than I thought, as it just felt as if I were flowing along easily. Mind you, the lane was very wide, and there was only me and Jim swimming in it. 900m for me, 1200 for him.
Jim and I have not managed to find a campervan to take us up to Brisbane/Cairns, so we booked an overnight train for Wednesday to take us to Brisbane. Only $69 each. Then Jim has found us a B&B for 4 nights, so I can work my round all the museums.
Yesterday I took my large sketchbook out, and sat to draw the Sydney Opera House in charcoal. I only managed 3 sketches, before the rain came in (didn't it just!) but I was quite pleased with how I represented the shapes and curves. When we first came to Sydney a couple of days ago, I saw the opera house in fog, and thought then, "it needs to be drawn in pastels". I've now decided that what interested me visually at that stage, was not the opera house, it was the atmospheric effect, and it was the atmosphere that demanded pastels. Working in charcoal, in better light, it was the shapes that caught my attention, and the charcoal media was excellent to represent the sweeping curves. I'm starting to get better at selecting the relevant media to obtain the required effect.
This morning I looked up my university results - they are due on line at 5pm today. So by 9am, I wondered if they might, just might, be on-line. I am a very happy bunny - Historical Issues in Art & Design 89%; Private Lives, Public Issues 71%; Studio Textiles - Pattern & Meaning 83%; and Visual Inquiry - Reconsidering Traditions 79%. I was absolutely delighted. And I am quite sure that had I remained in the UK this year, my marks would not have been so high. I certainly needed to raise my game when I got here, and work hard I did. So from the marks, it looks as if I succeeded in raising my game. Thank you Curtin University. YIPPEE!!!
On Saturday, I had a trip to Bondi beach to see a sculpture exhibition (which I failed to find!). Bondi beach has never appealed to me before, because over the years it has had a reputation for being overused and litterstrewn. But when I arrived, it was beautifully clean so there has obviously been a big push to keep it pristine. I had a lovely peaceful afternoon, watching the various school activities being conducted by the surf lifeguard team. Some of it was obviously water safety, but other games were in progress. One game involved boys lying in a line, facing away from a line of rubber hoses, (one less than the boys left in the game). The life guard said, "head up, head down, go" and the boys bobbed their heads, leapt up and ran to grab a hose. Far too energetic for me.
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| Surf lifeguard |
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| Surf school games |
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| Water safety lesson |
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| Bondi beach - it was much brighter than it looks |
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| I've not seen this sign in the UK |
We found a 50 metre pool yesterday and had a lovely swim. It is the first time I have swum in such a long pool, and it was not as different as I expected. I had expected to find it very tiring to swim with fewer turns but I must be fitter than I thought, as it just felt as if I were flowing along easily. Mind you, the lane was very wide, and there was only me and Jim swimming in it. 900m for me, 1200 for him.
Jim and I have not managed to find a campervan to take us up to Brisbane/Cairns, so we booked an overnight train for Wednesday to take us to Brisbane. Only $69 each. Then Jim has found us a B&B for 4 nights, so I can work my round all the museums.
Yesterday I took my large sketchbook out, and sat to draw the Sydney Opera House in charcoal. I only managed 3 sketches, before the rain came in (didn't it just!) but I was quite pleased with how I represented the shapes and curves. When we first came to Sydney a couple of days ago, I saw the opera house in fog, and thought then, "it needs to be drawn in pastels". I've now decided that what interested me visually at that stage, was not the opera house, it was the atmospheric effect, and it was the atmosphere that demanded pastels. Working in charcoal, in better light, it was the shapes that caught my attention, and the charcoal media was excellent to represent the sweeping curves. I'm starting to get better at selecting the relevant media to obtain the required effect.
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| Rain approaching opera house and artist! |
This morning I looked up my university results - they are due on line at 5pm today. So by 9am, I wondered if they might, just might, be on-line. I am a very happy bunny - Historical Issues in Art & Design 89%; Private Lives, Public Issues 71%; Studio Textiles - Pattern & Meaning 83%; and Visual Inquiry - Reconsidering Traditions 79%. I was absolutely delighted. And I am quite sure that had I remained in the UK this year, my marks would not have been so high. I certainly needed to raise my game when I got here, and work hard I did. So from the marks, it looks as if I succeeded in raising my game. Thank you Curtin University. YIPPEE!!!
Sunday, 20 November 2011
A few days in Sydney
Our first night in Sydney was at an hotel on the borders of Potts Point and Kings Cross. Kings Cross, Sydney is similar to Kings Cross, London - not a particularly desirable area, particularly after dark. There is obviously some event on in Sydney this weekend because there was very little hotel accommodation available. We moved on the next day, Friday, to another hotel, slightly closer to the town centre, for 3 nights.
I started my museum visiting with a trip to the Australian Museum, just at the top of the road where we are staying. There was a wonderful exhibition of the Scott Sisters, who were Victorian botanical artists. Their work was amazing - beautiful water colours of astonishing detail of plants and butterflies. They were the first to marry a very pale image of the landscape with a bolder image of butterflies, caterpillars and eggs on the host plant. In fact their work was amongst the first to show the scientific link between specific plants and animals. Their works were ground-breaking in their day, and retain their beauty and attractiveness today. Their father was a entymological collector, and Harriet and Helena documented his collections. Their father, AW Scott, gave independent latin names to the moths and butterflies he collected, although subsequently they were often reclassified or had already been named in another country. However quite a lot of the butterflies he collected were the first collected, thus known as the "primary type". On display were the primary type butterfly specimens he had collected in Victorian times, shown alongside the images the sisters had painted. How good is that!
While I was in the Australian museum, Jim walked up to the Museum of Contemporary Art, but discovered it was closed for renovation. So I had spent the time being educated, and he had spent it undertaking some light exercise.
The following day, Saturday, we started by walking to friends Rob & Sal. We spent a lovely morning sitting having a chat, while looking out from their balcony at the Sydney harbour bridge. They have lived in Aus for about 6 years and have just participated in their Citizenship ceremony. It sounds a bit like a marriage ceremony, where you promise to love, and honour the country, and obey her laws. They had to sing the national anthem and were presented with a Citizenship Certificate and some goodies, such as a toy boxing kangeroo, Aussie shorts and and Aussie sports towel. What I don't understand is why the Aussie flag is a union jack with one 5 pointed and five 6 pointed stars - in red, white and blue - and the Aussie competing colours are green and gold. I don't know of any other country that has its sporting colours a different colour to their flag. Maybe I should ask Rob and Sal.
We then went on back to the Sydney Art Gallery, and I looked around their general collection. I enjoyed the Cezanne and other impressionists in the european art collection, and then went downstairs to look at the art from other continents. In the UK I had never understood why we called people from India, Asians, yet in other parts of the world, the Chinese were referred to as Asian. Now I do. East Asia is comprised of China, Korea, and Japan; South Asia is India and the Himalayas; South East Asia Asia is Indonesia and Vietnam. There was a fantastic undergarment from China, that looked a bit like a jacket made from string vest material. But it was actually made from tiny pieces of threaded, fine bamboo, joined in a detailed diamond grid pattern. Fantastically detailed, and was used to insulate and ventilate clothing, and prevent staining.
From my History of Art lectures I knew that calligraphy was one of the favoured forms of islamic art. In this gallery, it was the best explanation I have come across. "The written word is God's word, therefore calligraphy is the highest art form. It decorates and enhances an object's significance. It also confers protection". This was a statement describing a batik indonesian coffin cover which was beautifully woven and printed with calligraphy.
Today, Sunday, we went to the Powerhouse Museum, and I looked at the "We Love Lace" cometition exhibition. There were about 120 finalists work displayed, all showing a contemporary application of lace, or lace like patterns applied to modern contexts. These varied from carbon fibre rope symbolising a tsumani in an open air display in the city square, to work on acetate screens, to lace chain link fence, to lasercut rusted metal corsets, to porcelain jewellery. It showed people's reaction to the message of lace in a variety of different communities. It was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours.
I started my museum visiting with a trip to the Australian Museum, just at the top of the road where we are staying. There was a wonderful exhibition of the Scott Sisters, who were Victorian botanical artists. Their work was amazing - beautiful water colours of astonishing detail of plants and butterflies. They were the first to marry a very pale image of the landscape with a bolder image of butterflies, caterpillars and eggs on the host plant. In fact their work was amongst the first to show the scientific link between specific plants and animals. Their works were ground-breaking in their day, and retain their beauty and attractiveness today. Their father was a entymological collector, and Harriet and Helena documented his collections. Their father, AW Scott, gave independent latin names to the moths and butterflies he collected, although subsequently they were often reclassified or had already been named in another country. However quite a lot of the butterflies he collected were the first collected, thus known as the "primary type". On display were the primary type butterfly specimens he had collected in Victorian times, shown alongside the images the sisters had painted. How good is that!
While I was in the Australian museum, Jim walked up to the Museum of Contemporary Art, but discovered it was closed for renovation. So I had spent the time being educated, and he had spent it undertaking some light exercise.
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| Sydney opera house view on our morning walk |
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| The old juxtaposed with the new |
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| Chinese fruit market |
From my History of Art lectures I knew that calligraphy was one of the favoured forms of islamic art. In this gallery, it was the best explanation I have come across. "The written word is God's word, therefore calligraphy is the highest art form. It decorates and enhances an object's significance. It also confers protection". This was a statement describing a batik indonesian coffin cover which was beautifully woven and printed with calligraphy.
Today, Sunday, we went to the Powerhouse Museum, and I looked at the "We Love Lace" cometition exhibition. There were about 120 finalists work displayed, all showing a contemporary application of lace, or lace like patterns applied to modern contexts. These varied from carbon fibre rope symbolising a tsumani in an open air display in the city square, to work on acetate screens, to lace chain link fence, to lasercut rusted metal corsets, to porcelain jewellery. It showed people's reaction to the message of lace in a variety of different communities. It was a lovely way to spend a couple of hours.
Thursday, 17 November 2011
Flying off to Sydney
We got up at 5am and were off by 6 on our way to Melbourne Airport. We had packed all the spare food into the suitcase but discovered when we got there that we were over the 20kg weight limit. So we jettisoned some food and with judicious juggling to make the hand luggage up to the maximum 7kg allowed, we just made the weight limit.
It was only a couple of hours on the flight and we were arriving in Sydney. Walking up the road to the hotel, I was taken with a lot of the Victorian cast iron balconies. All very intricate and a wide variety of styles. There were a lot of these balconies in Melbourne too. Thinking about it, I've not seen these in the Victorian parts of London where I've worked, but I wonder whether most of them were salvaged as scrap metal during WW2 and used to build aeroplanes.
We made our way to the hotel, dumped the luggage and took ourselves off to the NSW art gallery. There we found a Picasso exhibition, which had travelled from Paris. Apparently when Picasso died, there were massive death duties, and the family paid them by giving all his works from his studio to the State Art Gallery. One of the quotes of Picasso on display expressed the sentiment "the greatest collector of Picasso, is Picasso". There was a lot of his work on display, from his blue period, to the rose period, to cubism, collage and constructivism, classicism and surrealism. There were pictures of quite a few of his lovers. I can't say any of his work is to my taste, but I'm starting to understand how to look at cubist paintings now, and find them quite interesting. I did like his lithographs and etchings that were on display, particularly the series of the bull as it moved from representational to symbolic.
It was only a couple of hours on the flight and we were arriving in Sydney. Walking up the road to the hotel, I was taken with a lot of the Victorian cast iron balconies. All very intricate and a wide variety of styles. There were a lot of these balconies in Melbourne too. Thinking about it, I've not seen these in the Victorian parts of London where I've worked, but I wonder whether most of them were salvaged as scrap metal during WW2 and used to build aeroplanes.
We made our way to the hotel, dumped the luggage and took ourselves off to the NSW art gallery. There we found a Picasso exhibition, which had travelled from Paris. Apparently when Picasso died, there were massive death duties, and the family paid them by giving all his works from his studio to the State Art Gallery. One of the quotes of Picasso on display expressed the sentiment "the greatest collector of Picasso, is Picasso". There was a lot of his work on display, from his blue period, to the rose period, to cubism, collage and constructivism, classicism and surrealism. There were pictures of quite a few of his lovers. I can't say any of his work is to my taste, but I'm starting to understand how to look at cubist paintings now, and find them quite interesting. I did like his lithographs and etchings that were on display, particularly the series of the bull as it moved from representational to symbolic.
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