Wednesday, January 19, 2011

Wandering around Melbourne

What a perfect day it was yesterday. Cloudy and grey gave way to a lovely sun filled afternoon. In the mood for some inspiration, I met Kayo in the city for an excursion to the NGV International. I love visiting smaller exhibitions, often filled with work from the permanent collection. There was so much to admire and a few of those goose bump moments. A Eugene Atget silver gelatin print, exquisite lace samples with incredible fine detail, and a tapestry I saw being woven at the Australian Tapestry Workshop more than two years ago and now completed. Titled Alice Bayke, the work depicts a young woman in an ornate white dress staring blankly off into the distance, her black mass of hair melting into the background. Yvonne Todd, listed as designer, is the photographer commissioned by the Queensland Art Gallery to take the photograph which was then woven ever so skillfully in the Tapestry Workshop by two weavers, Sue Batten and Amy Cornall. It must have been a challenge to depict a realistic portrait, and replicate not only the subtle deep colours of her hair, but also the transparency of the sleeve of her dress along with the lace and embroidery details. It is well worth seeing up close. Clouds having eventually given way to sunshine, we wandered over to Gallery Funaki to try on some Karl Fritsch rings, unfortunately which I had to leave behind. I did however, purchase the catalogue below to add to my book collection.
I thought I would add some photographs of a concertina book I put together mid last year for my Luna work. The idea was to document some design ideas and pattern repeats that I was using, along side a small sample woven on a square wooden frame.

Moon image on the right taken from a small dvd catalogue which documents a collection of films by Jean Painleve called Science is Fiction.




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