Hobbits and more

Dwarf from Lord of the Rings

I am travelling with a hobbit obsessed travel partner so we are going from one hobbity thing to another.

The WETA workshop has tours every half hour and they are very well attended. The level of interest in the art of film making seems to be high for every generation. The tour we joined was mainly over-60 year olds from Australia.

Retro comfort

The Cambridge Hotel is an upmarket backpackers/hotel in Wellington with a nice vibe, lots of wood and a lift like those you see in 1930s films, with an manually closing cage and outer door.

There are delicious aromas wafting out of the one man kitchen. Might eat in tomorrow.

Sign: enter at your own risk ...just possibly.

My little garden friend

It is autumn and the spiders are building huge webs to try to catch their local human. They are succeeding.

Plum cake

It is the time of plums, those little freestone sugar-plums, with their purple, white sheened skin and yellow flesh. They are perfect for plum cake (the German Pflaumenkuchen) and this year I made the recipe with cake mixture base instead of the yeast base. It rose and rose ... next time I try it I will half the recipe for the same amount of fruit.

The secret is to put as many plums on as you can.

Plfaumenkuchen (cooked).

A couple of years ago I painted the plums, but this year I couldn't wait to eat the cake.

Sugar plums and flowers

Bibeau and his Bass

Maxime Bibeau's bass was built in 1581 and glows from the stage

Yesterday bassist Maxime Bibeau celebrated 20 Years with the Australian Chamber Orchestra by playing the most wonderful commissioned work by Missy Mazzoli called Dark with Excessive Bright. The bass is seldom seen at the front of the stage, but that may change as this Mazzoli piece is such a pleasure to listen to and may well become an orchestral favorite.

Another future favorite might be Tognetti's arrangement of the Brahm's Sextet #2 in G Major for 30 instruments. Students from the Australian National Academy of Music joined the ACO to play this arrangement and it was inspiring to hear them galloping along with the ACO.

Sydney Opera House in colour

Sydney Opera House in colour(s)

Before the advent of the Vivid Festival in Sydney it was unusual to see the Sydney opera house clothed in colour, but once you see the festival's startlingly vivid colours on the opera house sails, they are not easily forgotten.

I have been manipulating some opera house etchings made in Dunedin and the photo app on my phone has kindly made a collage of them for me (above). They are not as vivid (some would say garish) as the festival lights but there is something nice about a coloured etching.

New studio space

This blog has been neglected of late for several reasons.

In early January I slipped (in Sydney) on an outdoor mat and fell heavily onto a brick pathway, fortunately not knocking my head or breaking any bones, but pulling some groin muscles (excruciating) and bruising some bones. I couldn't sit down for most of January and hobbled on a stick. I watched others walking, wondering at the ease with which they stepped over obstacles.  I also noticed how many people have limps. While incapacitated I read lots of books and overdosed on social media. I was extraordinarily fortunate in that my son had just arrived in Sydney on his way to my place for six weeks. I asked myself how others in similar situations manage at home.

While he was here my son put in a new back fence and converted my garage into a studio/guest room. It will be lovely space once finished, probably more livable than the house as it is so well insulated. The price of new windows ($500-1500) drove us to search local recycling yards and we found a window, bigger than those we priced, for $150.  There were a few delivery dramas but it did eventually arrive on the day my son was leaving, so he just had time to install it. Yay for that.

Studio

High ceiling

Another reason for my blogging negligence has been a manuscript I have been working on for ages and with increasing perseverance over the past six months. I finally submitted it to a publisher today and I feel as if I have been let out of school. Suddenly I can blog again and take up those many art or craft projects that have been waiting for action. By the time I hear back from the publisher (they estimate 3 months) I will probably have forgotten all about the manuscript.

#redeyeman

#redeyeman: Texter, ink and watercolour pencils

 A collaborative effort by my eight year old granddaughter and I.

Lights, carols and then peace to all

Sunset with clouds

Season's Greetings dear blog-readers and I wish you a pleasant passage into 2018.

I will certainly have one as 31st is the last day of the American Carols that have been echoing from the much-decorated house across the street since the 1st of December, attracting hordes of kids to party until late in the night. Only eight more nights to go!

Buebeard's Castle in Sydney

SSO harpists

Bluebeard's Castle is a one act opera by Béla Bartók and this Sydney Symphony production was the first time I had heard it. I was taken by surprise at how very moving it is. Bartók manages to convey  how scary intimate relationships can be and the singers, particularly soprano Michelle DeYoung, added a human dimension that underscored the music.  

If you are reading this and have the opportunity to see this production it is well worth the effort.

Enjoy the rest of the year ...

Enjoy the year ...

Thoughts on #metoo

In 2005 I attended a life drawing course in northern NSW.  'Life drawing', for those not familiar with art lingo, is the practice of drawing the naked human figure.  Drawing nudes helps you draw clothed figures with more certainty and art students spend a lot of time in life drawing classes.

This particular 4-day course had two models as subjects, and they modeled together. It is the only time I have had this luxury. They were a couple and stood, sat or lay in loving and gentle poses.  I have seldom seen models with such an admirable ability to be still without apparent stress for long periods. They said they did a lot of yoga to prepare for the course.

The class was for more advanced students and they arrived at the teaching room each day much earlier than the 9am advertised starting time. The teacher of this committed class of about 30 mainly female students was an older English artist who introduced the day by reading us snatches of poetry. We all worked like demons until about 4:30 in the afternoon when everyone was completely exhausted, then we did a show and tell about our work before heading to the local pub. It was a wonderful, creative and inspiring course.

My room was in a local hotel, one of those old style buildings with surrounding veranda. My room opened out onto this veranda and early each morning I went out to the veranda to read relax before the start of class. Our tutor's room lead out onto this veranda as well and he too was an early riser. We would share bits of poetry or discuss politics on the veranda before it was time to leave for class.

One day he asked me it I had noticed anything in particular about the work the class was producing. No, I said, not really. I was probably too involved with my own work. Well look about you, he said, and you will find that only you and one other student are producing work in which the couple looks loving. I did look about me that day and realised that what he said was true. One student was drawing lots of kicking legs, another was painting doll like figures with big eyes. Many were drawing or painting thrashing figures. One woman had announced to the class in general that her figures always looked as if they were in a rape scene. Before the tutor's quiet comment I had not taken much notice but now I realised she was not alone.

The couple hang on my wall. This painting
was produced on the last day of class
in a state of exhaustion. 
56 x 76 cm

Here is one of the many stories appearing that help explain.

Alexander Gavrylyuk in Sydney

Alexander Gavrylyuk plays

The Ukrainian born Australian virtuoso pianist Alexander Gavrylyuk played in Sydney last night. The audience held their breaths as he wrung emotion from Bach, Haydn, Chopin, Scriabin, Rachmaninoff and wildly applauded whenever there was an opportunity. As the man in front of me nodded in time to Rachmaninoff's Preludes I wondered when he had last heard them played so convincingly. 

The little sketch above was made early in the evening and captured Gavrylyuk in one of his seldom upright moments. He danced with, pounded and caressed the piano, often bent so low that he looked as if he might hit his head on the music stand. Whatever his posture, his playing was extraordinary.

Pipe problems

The plumber's mate had to scrabble around in my back garden for some time before he was able to locate the end of the sewer pipe last week. The plumber had been in the day before and jetted away the blockage and now his mate was attempting to find the end of the pipe to feed in an exploratory camera.  When he eventually located the pipe his camera soon found the blockage culprit.

Even a tiny hole is probably enough to encourage a tree to grow into a pipe and my backyard trees have probably been tapping this rich water source for some time judging by the size of the roots in the pipe. The offending pipe is two meters deep so they are going to have to take down the back fence and bring in a big digger. The fence has needed replacement for some time and now the tree-root-problem has forced my hand.

Magazines - fruitless search

Part of the newsagent shop in Frankfurt Railway Station

Another part of the same shop

Every so often I land in a newsagents looking for something to read, something lightish but not silly. I invariably leave empty handed. All the women's magazine fall into the 'silly' category, the computing/gaming magazines are mainly for beginners or only of interest to people with a particular computer model, ditto cars/caravans etc., home renovation magazines and similar are full of glossy photos of interiors that look like upmarket motels, naked ladies and sports are not in my field of interest, business/economics/newsweek etc. still spruik the tired old neo-liberal mindset, health/wellness mags are full fake news and in Australia there is little from foreign countries on the  shelves.

If only there was a magazine shop in the Sydney Railway station like the one in the Frankfurt rail station. (The pictures above show only half the shop.) My wallet would certainly be lighter each time I visited. 

Gerbera

#yellowestyellow

Ceramic dancers

Dancers: framed ceramic

The honey-glaze on the ceramic dancers is an old recipe. It runs off a piece if not contained (which is why the figures were created as depressions) and it is too toxic to use on anything you want to eat off (which is why this is not a plate).

The piece was made in New Zealand with clay that fires to a light honey-colour. I didn't realise what a nice clay it is until I started making ceramics in Sydney where the art-school clay fires to a dull concrete-like gray.

Cockatoos

Cockatoos on the roof. They want to be included in my series of  'fabulous ceilings'.
'

Sulphur crested cockatoos on the garage roof

Textile art: knitting a fox cub in winter (2)

When the eight year old (previous post) announced she wanted a fox cub and her mother on the front of the partly knitted jumper I was making, I searched for some quad ruled paper to draw the foxes on and bought skeins of dark blue and dark green wool since the foxes had to be 'just like in the book' .

The picture of fax and cub chosen as motive

Mother fox on Quad ruled paper

Today I sewed the finished jumper together.

Front

Back

As the foxes emerged I showed them to the eight year old - she thinks they are wonderful. Phew...

Textile art: Knitting a fox-cub in winter

I am knitting a jumper for an eight year old with colours she said she liked ... mainly blues and pinks.  

I get a bit bored with plain knitting (thus the ad-lib colours) so when I was a good way up the back, I asked her if she would like an animal picture on the front, perhaps a dinosaur?

She thought a while then said 'I know!' and hurried off to find the book with the picture she was thinking of.  It took a while to find, but she knew exactly what she was looking for and eventually emerged triumphant from her overloaded bookshelves.

'There!' she announced showing the picture. 'I'd like the mother and the cub please. And the snowflakes!'

'Hmmm,' I said, thinking of the half-completed back. 'Can I change the colours a bit?'

'No,' she said, 'it should be exactly these colours!'

Picture from Cub's First Winter by Rebecca Elliott

Children are as absorbent as sponges and very impressionable. I thought it fascinating that this picture book has had such an influence on a child (who is now reading the hobbit) that she wants the mother and cub motive on her jumper.

To be continued ....