Sunburnt Suburbia

Comedy festival compliments

Last night we went to see Shappi Khorsandi joyfully share with us the details of her life. We know her work mostly from listening to BBC Radio 4 comedy, and have enjoyed it. Time we thought, to see her for real. To make more of a night of it we dressed up with a strong steampunk or Victorian influence.

Susan wore a tight, bright tweed jacket over a black corset atop a red mini-kilt layered with tulle. She also wore checked stockings and red boots. I wore black, stripe textured trousers with a dress shirt under a waist coat and long jacket, all finished off with a bright bow tie. We looked different from everyone else, but not quite in costume. 

Somehow some people who saw us felt comfortable, and through the evening we got 3 or 4 compliments from strangers. One of the ushers said we were the most interesting audience members he had seen for the festival. Such compliments have never happened to us before, and it did give us pleasure. We have been playing more with clothes as a distinct artistic expression, and I suppose that would eventually draw a response. 

Stretching out our vacation

Our last day of vacation, back in Brisbane, continued the relaxed feel of the cruise. We had to rise at 6:15am to allow sufficient time for a large breakfast, and disembark. We were off the ship and taking the ferry up the Brisbane by 8:15am.

We got to the Queensland Museum at 9:30am to spend the morning there. This museum presented well different aspects of Queensland, including some reconstructed skeletons of dinosaurs dominating the gallery space. One gallery included a display covering the 2011 floods in Queensland - a good idea, as it shows visitors how history continues.

The museum also had a small display telling the story of three Australians who won Victoria Cross medals in WW1. I found one letter very moving.

One VC winner was Private Patrick Bugden, decorated for a series of heroic acts, one of which included rescue of a captured corporal Alex Thomson. Thomson wrote a letter describing the episode. He tells how he got separated from his unit and captured by three German soldiers. One of the young soldiers was about to execute him by pistol to the head, but an older soldier talked the young man down. Moments later Private Bugden attacked, shooting the older soldier and bayoneting the other two, to rescue Corporal Thomson. This episode shows clearly how in war 'there are no good guys'.

Our day moved onto a pleasant café lunch and a wander through GOMA to view some contemporary art - as always some works engaged and some irritated. We did some present shopping and then headed off early to the airport for our return to Melbourne. Flight delays meant this journey took over 6 hours, but we got home feeling particularly relaxed after a memorable holiday.

Brisbane sight seeing

Looking for another contract gives Susan and I an opportunity to take a holiday, so last Saturday we booked a 7-day cruise leaving from Brisbane. We flew up early so we could pass some time in Brisbane. 

Our day's touring around Brisbane passed well. After crossing the river on the new footbridge that brings to mind a mass of square-rigged sailing ships, we walked to GOMA. Leisurely consumption of one exhibition, that of Yayoi Kusama, lifted our souls. 

Her creative power and discipline led me to the understanding that great art comprises 5% inspiration and 95% perseverance. For all her artistic life she had limited herself to a few stylistic forms and mediums, and then pushed them until she created her own voice. I particularly enjoyed Dots Obsession. To me there was little meaning, but I wondered at the imaginative discipline. 

The end of her exhibition had a public participation installation - the Obliteration Room - in which people were invited to stick multi-coloured dots over the completely white room. To achieve this, we were given a sheet of sticky dots in assorted colours. With so many coloured dots over everything, the room had started to become a complete hallucination of formless colour. 

Susan had a wonderful thinking outside the circle moment. She reclaimed the white, angular space by collecting all the sticky sheets left over to make a square on the wall. Though the underlying colours peeked through, her square made an impact. 

For lunch we enjoyed the GOMA café, a simple, elegant place providing good food. To sate Susan's nostalgia, we walked down to the man-made lagoons on South Bank through a great city park. In 2002 we had a great day at the lagoons with the Stratford family, and Susan wanted to see the place again. We finished our afternoon in the Queensland Art Gallery, looking at pictures and enjoying coffee in the company of lizards.  

We finished our evening with a swim in the apartment block pool, and went back to our apartment pleased with an excellent day's sightseeing. Our vacation skills have improved markedly over the years - we should do vacations more often now we are so good at them. 

In the Mad Square with Susan

Having finished at Yarra Valley Water last week, Susan and I have started a semi-vacation while I look for more work. Today we saw the Mad Square exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria. This exhibition continued our exposure to German painting in the first 50 years of the 20th century. Both the artists and some of the individual works take on a strong familiarity through repeated viewings over the years in Australia, Austria and Germany.

Many of the paintings and drawings from the post-WW1 period in Germany portray a hard society with much suffering. If the art portrays the feelings of the times, I doubt living in Germany between WW1 and WW2 felt peaceful and comfortable. For those invigorated by change, all the radical art would have added to the excitment of the times. However such social unrest also created fertile minds in which the dangerous nostalgia of National Socialism could grow. 

We had a break viewing the exhibition, and walked into the CBD for lunch with Bryony. After the finishing the exhibition Susan relaxed in the NGV Member's Lounge, which does feel swish, and then went off to her German language evening class. 

Beach holiday

Australia Day fell on a Thursday, and Campbell and Melissa invited us to Rye for the holiday. We all took Friday off and made a long weekend.

On the way down we stopped in at the McClelland Gallery and Sculpture Park. We regularly visit there, as it has constantly changing sculptures and lovely lawns for a picnic. This time we found a large labyrinth. 

On Friday we went to the Sorrento Back Beach, which at low tide has a particularly flat rock plateau inset with small and large rock pools. 

We swum in the large pool, and then someone who liked our colourful bathers offered to take this photo.

Later that day Findley and I started a game of CrossFire, but the siren of the beach called again, so we went to McCrae Beach for the sunset. 

We finished our CrossFire game with the morning sun creating wonderful shadows across the gaming table. The beauty of gaming tables dense with terrain provides one of my main reasons for playing CrossFire. 

By late Saturday morning we had returned to the Sorrento rock pools; this time with the Millers. They showed us the location of a ledge which places you behind a waterfall when a large enough wave washes over the outer rocks. The world teems with such serendipitous delights. With God's love, we can see them all.

By Saturday afternoon, we had exhausted ourselves, so we sat around reading and eating - a great finish. 

Auckland Art Gallery

Today we went to the Auckland Art Gallery. It has recently reopened after a major extension and refurbishment. They have created an excellent gallery of which Auckland should be proud. Its collection of New Zealand art showcases a distinctive vision, which I don't think really became clear until the 1960s. 

Generally I dislike abstract art. To me most of it just appears a pretenious joke between artist and curator at the public's expense. However, the Auckland Art Gallery contain one of the two pieces of abstract art that engage and move me. Above is one piece, with its reduction of the koru to its simplest recognisable form. 

The Salon Hanging

Today Susan and I felt fidgety, so we went off to the National Gallery of Victoria to look at the Salon Hanging. This style of hanging was popular 150 years ago, when the gallery established, particularly for competition or society shows. 

This style of hang also provided the gallery an opportunity to display many less significant works for which it does not normally have space. This alone provided a good reason to attend, and we enjoyed seeing the collection - a window into the minds of the Victorians. 

Floriade and National Gallery of Canberra

We started our holiday in Canberra with a visit to Floriade, the large spring flower festival. Entry was free, which surprised us. Traders and sponsors appear to provide sufficient funding to top up what the government puts in. The plantings of bulbs, intermixed with other spring ground covers, were stunning. Around the park were beds planted to big designs, which could not really be seen as there were no high platforms. 

That didn't really matter, as the plantings deserved a detailed look. The interplanting of the bulbs with ground covers gave rich textures.

There was steady drizzle through the morning, so we retreated for coffee. When the weather cleared, we found some truely inspiring flower designs.

After a picnic lunch we visited the National Gallery (of Canberra). For us 'Blue Poles' by Jackson Pollock and 'The Ned Kelly Series' by Sydney Nolan latched in the memory.

Though billed as the National Gallery of Australia, it doesn't really live up to it. The National Gallery of Victoria has a more significant collection. Which truth be told, results from starting the collection earlier and receiving generous private funding. 

The café at the National Gallery however overlooks some amazing Australian landscape design. The intermingling of snow gums and other Australian natives with the grey granite paving and cream stucco walls created what for me is a highlight image. 

Suburbs have beauty too!

Inspired by the Mac OS screen savers that make close-up photos of plants into near abstractions, I captured a couple of photos around our house. 

I started with the trees on our street frontage, and then saw some grasses in the park behind our house while walking Gypsy. 

I have achieved a flavour of the style, but not the purity of execution. I wonder whether they make extensive use of Photoshop?

Holiday at home - almost

On Sunday Susan and I went into Melbourne centre for a short break. We stayed at a cheap hotel for two nights and did things within walking distance. Our first fun was The Burlesque Hour, which we first saw two years ago. We had a shocking and entertaining evening - cabaret pure - a good splash of nudity intermixed with insightful comments and fun dance. 

After the show we ate at Chin Chin Restaurant, purely by chance. The restaurant was open and crowded, so we walked in and had a delightful meal. The tastes all astonished me. We will eat there again. 

Monday morning came with us in the queue for the Vienna: Art and Design exhibition at the NGV. We progressed slowly through the exhibition, linking it to our stay in Vienna last December. The exhibition meant revisting some artists, particularly Egon Schielle, and that was good.  For me the overriding idea was the unified approach of art and design all together to create beautiful spaces linked under a single artistic vision. To do such meant discipline in the patron and collaboration for the artist.  

After our first walk through, we enjoyed a coffee and biscuit, which refreshed us for a second pass. 

On Monday evening we saw the movie Bridesmaids. This is a love it or leave it movie - we fall into the leave it group. We had a good time, but parts of the movie rely on the 'humour' of watching people embarrass themselves, and that never entertains us.