Thursday, July 30, 2009

Ooooooooohhh




Lou is talented and makes nice things. Check it out. x

Tuesday, July 28, 2009

Uninspired.



Quite a lot has happened in the last fornight.

Some fantastic, a lot of it, not so much. Most of all, I'm feeling rather 'Meh' about a lot at the moment. So I'm trying to recapture my motivation and passion...

Some of the things still inspiring me in the world...



Nature. Walking along the creek next to my house has been quite literally a breath of fresh air, and a great way to keep my mind off of things.



Romance. It's out there.



My fantastic friends. Especially this one. She's about to open a new stylist/florist business in Bendigo, and I love her to pieces.



Music. Especially the live type. There is some fantastic live and local music happening in Ballarat at the moment, most of it completely under the radar, raw and real. Plus old tunes like those from Mr Cash and Dylan always continue to have an effect on me, no matter what.



Future plans. Working with children - their innocence and unbridled passion and creativity has made me realise that I'm making the right choice for my career plans, even if I'm not 100% sure how that will all plan out.



Happy times are just a hop, skip and a jump away.

Wednesday, July 22, 2009

This weekend.

Things to do in Ballarat this weekend (apart from just snuggling up out of the cold...) :

SATURDAY :


Great Collections
A Museum and Galleries NSW Touring Exhibition
Art Gallery of Ballarat, Free Entry.


SATURDAY NIGHT :



Ratstock : Ballarat musicians showcase
Peter Lalor Hotel, Corner Mair/Armstrong St, Ballarat
6pm onwards / $12

IMMACULATA / CHASE NATION / VITAMIN K / X’s & O’s / MONTH OF SUNDAYS / PATRICK MC CABE / MICK DOG


SUNDAY :

Pleasant St Markets
10 am - 2pm, Pleasant St Primary School, Lake Wendouree, Ballarat.

Selling a diverse range of unique art, craft, fresh produce and fantastic food... live music... live art....workshops for kids...face painting...circus performance and community groups. They have snack food, sausage sizzle, Indian food and Dutch pancakes.
There is a playground and jumping castle for the kids. The market has been running for 20 years. Home made, home grown, home sewn. Over 130 market stalls, raising money for school improvements.

-----

Sure to be a lovely weekend.

Monday, July 20, 2009

Heart.



Oh, Zooey.

I can't wait for this one.

UPDATE :

Thanks to Marcus and Kiri-Joy, I had a look at the movie poster.... <3

Sunday, July 19, 2009

Busy Bee.

My life is pretty erratic at the moment. One week of no work followed by a week of 9-5 all day and nights at Her Majesty's. The good thing about this is that I get an intense rush of craziness followed by a rest / catchup week. And tonight is the first night of my catchup... good meal with my boyfriend, Masterchef on TV, Freelance work and hopefully a good nights sleep.

Oh, and updating my badly neglected blog.

The best thing about my jobs (I'm working for City of Ballarat in three different places) is that they're all in pretty rad places. I'm very lucky to work at Art Gallery of Ballarat, Eureka Centre, and Her Majesty's Theatre. All are pretty cruisy work overall, with fantastic people. It also means that I get to see a lot of cool things while I'm at work, and get paid for it!




First up is the fantastic Hans Heysen exhibition at the Art Gallery. Beautiful landscapes mostly, with impressive depictions of the Australian bush and gums. I'm not a huge fan of Heysen's work, but I can appreciate the beauty, espeically in his depictions of light shining through the trees or reflecting in water. It's an impressive exhibition - and for the price of a gold coin entry, well worth a visit.

While you're there, have a look at the pretty cool Urban Art Agenda exhibition, with a focus on stencil graffiti.

From the Art Gallery website :
Inspired by New York graffiti of the 1980s, stencil art is a form of street art, or urban art as it is often called, which has sprung up all over the globe in the last two decades. Now a respected art movement and refined art-form, it has long moved off the streets and into galleries and art spaces.Urban Art Agenda brings together some of the most prolific artists from around the world in a unique showcase. Featured are David Soukup (Chicago), Kenji Nakayama (Boston), Skran (Lisboa), M-City (Warsaw), XOOOOX (Berlin), Jana and JS (Salzburg), Jef Aerosol (Lille), Ozi (São Paulo), Kostar (Liège), Orticanoodles (Milan), Mandarina Brausewetter (Vienna), Penny (London), El Moocho (Melbourne), ELK (Canberra), KidZoom (Sydney).

It's a really cool thing that in our one gallery you walk through this exhbition on graffiti art to a very traditional exhibition like the Heysen.

Looking foward to the Great Collections exhibtion, starting on July 25th, amazing huge travelling exhibition from Museums & Galleries NSW. Had a sneaky peak at two Brett Whiteley works that are being hung at the moment, going to be brilliant!


I also worked two shows at Her Majesty's Theatre this week : The Dancer's Company Ballet - ushering and getting to watch beautiful ballerinas all night - and The Kursk, a fantastic drama about a Russian submarine tragedy.



The Dancer's Company is The Australian Ballet's regional touring group, comprising guest artists of The Australian Ballet alongside graduating students from The Australian Ballet School, and was pretty amazing. Three acts, with the final act from The Nutcracker (The Gift of A Dream, Act Two).



Act One was by far my favourite, costumes and dance from the 1920's. Beautiful. From The Australian Ballet website:

Choreographer Robert Ray, inspired by several poems of Sir John Betjeman, has created a translation of the spoken word into beautiful dance. Set in England in the 1920s, Ray's work is one of graceful ballet, of wit and uncluttered style that suits both the period and sentiment of the poems.

I'm pretty lucky to be involved in such magnificent performances and exhibitions. Makes work worth going to.

And now for my week of rest and catching up... Freelance and Thaw design mostly!

Sunday, July 12, 2009

Hottest 100...

I don't know how anyone can narrow their favourite songs down to a list of only 10! I find it hard enough to list my top 10 artists, or top 10 albums, let alone only top 10 songs.

I've attempted to narrow my top 10 albums of all time, whilst listening to the top 100 of all time on triple J. There is so much that can be said about that countdown : I wish it was the top 100 of this decade, or of the 90's or something. Of all time, voted by Triple J listeners, makes me really annoyed.

So, my top ten albums (as of today, anyway)

---

Jeff Buckley - Grace

Neil Young - Harvest

Pixies - Doolittle

Radiohead - OK Computer

The Beatles - The Beatles (White Album)

Bob Dylan - Highway 61 Revisited

Ryan Adams - Cold Roses

Bon Iver - For Emma, Forever Ago

The Rolling Stones - Let It Bleed

Arcade Fire - Funeral

---

Oh, so hard. Some close calls :

My Morning Jacket - Z // Any Beatles album, and quite a few Bob Dylan albums. Same with Radiohead, Ryan Adams and The Rolling Stones. // Air - Moon Safari // Augie March - Moo, You Bloody Choir // Quite a few Nirvana albums // The Avalanches - Since I left you // The Drones - Gala Mill // Beastie Boys - Hello Nasty // Bloc Party - Silent Alarm // Coldplay - A Rush of Blood To The Head // David Bowie - Ziggy Stardust // Eddie Vedder - Into The Wild // Elliot Smith - Figure 8 // Gomez - Bring It On // Led Zeppelin (I can't chose just one!) // Modest Mouse - Good News For People Who Love Bad News // Oasis - (What's The Story) Morning Glory // Miles Davis - Some Kind Of Blue

God, this list could go on forever... and now to listen to the rest of the countdown ( #31 Metallica - Enter Sandman, playing at the moment).

What would be in your top 10 favourite albums of all time?

Friday, July 10, 2009

Developing..



from FFFOUND.

Music of Love.

Last Saturday night I saw Jack Ladder at Karova, with support by Kid Sam.

Both bands completely blew me away, Kid Sam in particular was absolutely mesmerizing. Best moment of the night : when Mr Jack Ladder ate a banana on stage. haha.

Give these two a listen :

john cena

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Wow.



Uh... ok...

Found via awesome design blog, Swiss Miss.

More Football...



This Sunday just gone, I met my Mum, Dad, younger brother, Aunt and Uncle in Melbourne, and saw the MIGHTY SAINT KILDA beat the Geelong Cats! A fantastic game - I'm already dreaming of wearing Red, White and Black on that one day in September... I've been a saints fan all my life - didn't really have any choice with my Dad being a bit of a fanatic - and am enjoying seeing them win at the moment! Hope the momentum keeps up, and at the end of the year if all goes to plan, I might have to take my Dad up on the pact that we would get some sort of tattoo to commemorate their win... God, how bogan and sad am I?



Saying that, there isn't too many things that I find more enjoyment from in life than a fantastic evening at the football with my family, eating a meatpie at half time and cheering along madly to a close game with a thrilling finish.

Catch-ups

Ok, so I've been useless with the blog lately, so thought I'd do a massive catch-up post of what i've been upto the past two weeks.

First up : my boyfriend and I spent a lovely weekend in Bendigo, and saw the Archibald exhibition at their gallery (which, in my biased opinion, is not as good as my Ballarat gallery... hehe).


Vincent Fantauzzo
Brandon
Archibald Prize entrant 2009

It was an interesting exhibition : I'm always interested to see what artworks are chosen in terms of technical skill and artistic merit, and ones which may have been chosen with the subject of the portrait in mind. I guess it would be hard to find balance, and an immense task to undertake putting the exhibition together. I don't like to compare year to year this exhibition, as it is so unique, but I just don't know if I was impacted as much by this collection as the previous year's entrants.



The Cherry Hood portrait of David Helfgott (pictured above) was one of my favourites, huge and confronting, but with lovely soft paint dripping and forming a lovely painting. Hood is a favourite artist of mine, her paintings of children are beautiful and haunting. I'm looking forward to seeing David Helfgott play at Her Majesty's Theatre in Ballarat soon.

We also managed to catch the 'A Camera On The Somme' exhibiton (which had lovely WWI photgraphs, highly recommended) and have some of the always-delicious woodfire pizza from GPO, yum! Funny, I never went there when I was living in Bendigo, but everytime we are in Bendigo now it's almost a tradition that we go there.

Topped off by a purchase of night in with scrabble challenges, all round a fantastic day.