A cavern of crystals

I've just been on the guardian website, where the Turner Prize nominees have just been announced.

One of whom is Roger Hiorns. It was Pene who first showed me images of his work Seizure, where he occupied a condemned flat in London, coating every surface in copper sulphate. Coppery blue crystals encrusted the whole space, turning it into a dark and glittering cave. At the time we were working on Grow Wild and I had been googling crystal growing recipes as a possible element of my work. I had been having memories of primary school science and the wonder of crystals forming in the cupboard. Obviously after seeing this, I left them be.


Into the blue ... Detail from Seizure (2008) Photograph: Marcus Leith

It's such an alluring transformation of a space. I love it. I also love Vauxhall, from 2003, where he placed an ordinary looking drain in the Tate Britain's Sculpture Court and then set fire to its liquid contents.


Photograph: Tate Photography, David Lambert/Rod Tidman

It all makes me wish to be on the other side of the world looking at art. I guess I'll just look at it here.

Mary and Max

We went to see Mary and Max last night. It was well worth the trip out into the cold rainy night. I am not the biggest fan of cute, quirky claymation, but even so, I loved it. It's beautifully made, sad, sweet and funny. And for a lover of letters, and the art of writing them, it's a reminder of what treasures they are. In an age of easy flippant communication, the wonder of a letter traveling across the world and actually getting to you, the time taken to write, the hand and thoughts and stories wrapped up in it, not to mention the squashed chocolate bar, is a wonder, I hope not forever lost.

It opened at Sundance Festival this year, and this is from the Sundance website.

This film explores friendship, autism, taxidermy, psychiatry, alcoholism, where babies come from, obesity, kleptomania, trust, copulating dogs, sexual and religious differences, agoraphobia and more, and is rooted in a very personal relationship. Proof of why we go to the movies - a truly exceptional portrait of compassion and love.

Go see it! People I know actually got work animating it. And the animation is gorgeous, Max thundering away on his typewriter made my heart skip a beat. Help them make more films.

folded spaces

Andrea Eckersley, my lovely and amazing friend, is having an exhibition at C3, at the Abbotsford Convent. After disappearing off to Canada, for love and art school she returns with beautiful oil paintings, and the sweetest little baby named Amory. I am absolutely smitten, and I would also love to take home one of these paintings.
How does she do it, with such effortless grace and glamour?
Come see for yourselves, tomorrow night (wednesday) at C3 from 6 til 8pm.

Infinite Jest

David Foster Wallace*.


I finally finished this mammoth book. For awhile there I thought I'd be reading it forever. I started it when we first got back so it has been 6 months, which is a record for me. I can finish a book in one or two nights if possessed.
I feared for awhile I wouldn't make it, or that I would suffocate under it, or drop it on my head, as I kept falling asleep after reading half a page and returning the next night confused. The irony is that now I have finished it, I want to read it again to find out what the hell happened.
Fool.
*That is a link to a heartbreaking story.

some shows

This is old news, but kinda still relevant for a few weeks. I liked the show at platform at the moment, in particular these constructions by Carl Scrase. Also special paper folding by Kaori Kato, whose work I think I also saw at C3 on the weekend, and I was just reminded of her drawing machine at Victoria Park Gallery ages ago. Have a look if you can, you know, art is good, at platform.

love the love

We got all smartened up to go to Andy and Nat's wedding in Healesville on the weekend. It was lovely. There's nothing quite like people professing public love to tear up my eyes. It was all autumn leafy up there, so good to have a drive in the country.


It seems like it has been constantly BUSY round here. I am hoping to get back into focus and make more things this week. Things like scarves, brooches and maybe a bag. After I make some studio shelves so I can get organized and have a look at all this fabric.

why o why

... would I want to sit for 6 hours in the gallery on my lonesome? Because people might come to see the art. It's heart warming, that on a wednesday people are bothering to come out into the cold to see art. Especially when I am waiting in the cold, in the hope that someone WILL come in. It's exciting when they actually do. Not that they could tell, as I will try to keep reading my book or knitting or staring at the wall, so as not to scare them off. Flighty, nervous types that they are*

Which you know, brings me around to another type* I don't know who they are, but I reckon they're maybe different, the type who go to Art Melbourne. It's like a big weekend art shopping mall experience. Adam is showing his little buildings from 'Don't Even Write' in the City of Melbourne's ARI stand.

I was helper, or schlepper. Anyway, I enjoyed watching all the passersby playing with this giant kaleidescope, across the way, by an artist from Sydney, Jordana Maisie.



I also glanced some horrors - maybe I should capitalize that? yes, HORRORS. Hopefully I will get to go and have a proper look at it all with some free booze in hand, tonight.

*Apologies for rash generalizations. I am obviously both types.

looking after things

I am sitting the gallery today so will be trapped in the cold lonesome art world for 6 long hours... Enough time to really ponder;
WHY O WHY...

I wish the record store was open, then, at least I could broaden my musical horizons by making Pat play me records. I sat the gallery last wednesday in a state of hangover and extreme tiredness, and managed to fall asleep on my book on the desk. Not today! Today I will get things done. Damn things.

rose balsam

I fell in love with this video a week or two ago, UA, Rose Balsam, found via this blog. THANK YOU SANDWICH! It has made me even MORE Japan dreaming, which has been happening for as long as I can remember (basically it involves me daydreaming of living in Japan a while) One of those trips I have been saving up forever (as in saving up to do properly, not saving up dollars for) but I think it's getting near time (to start saving dollars for)...

*Patience grasshopper...

Anyways, I am most pleased for dear Tai, who gets to go to the Australia Council studio in Tokyo later this year, she deserves such goodness bestowed upon her, not that I'm not jealous. I will go see her exhibition 'Fight or Flight' which opens this thursday at West Space, perhaps you should too?

*I want some pretty impatience (rose balsam) for my new garden, which makes me happy every single day, so is a worthwhile investment.

egg hunt!

Um, we got all grown up and bought a BBQ! Thanks to Bird who delivered us to the land of the superstores in her teacher's wagon. We christened it tonight with haloumi mushroom skewers and smokey tofu and some other delicious things. It has just tripled our cooking surfaces, and we are pondering baking cakes* in it all ready.

We had Good Friday breaky in the ladies' backyard, with very special dyed picture eggs and bacon and buns and an egg hunt, where an excitable Sailor uncovered 30 eggs. I have had a belly ache for days, but still I am hoping Adam cracks open his elegant rabbit soon.

*No we don't miss having an oven one little bit. We have both experimented with steamed cake-type puddings, me a dark choclate number, and he a Malaysian coconut cake, to varying degrees of success.

THING

An invitation to our show. You can click on it to enlarge it for easier reading, or you can look at it over here or just come to our show at bus on tuesday night at 6pm. Overwhelmed by options?
Me too. But all of them involve looking at our show. See how I did that?
Yes, now what shall I make? A THING.