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!

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.

Got the Blues.

Chills, Cold and Comfort.

Mix tape.

My housemate Helly and I made the most amazing mix tape for a friend last night, and I felt like sharing. Not all of these songs are on these artist's myspace profiles, but you'll get the idea.

1. Run Run Run - Phoenix

2. Phantom Other - Department of Eagles

3. Out the Airlock - Paul Dempsey

4. Blood - The Middle East

5. Babys - Bon Iver

6. All You Do Is Talk - Black Rebel Motorcycle Club

7. Impossible Germany - Wilco

8. Sunrise - Yeasayer

9. I've Got Friends - Manchester Orchestra

10. The Minotaur - The Drones

11. Furr - Blitzen Trapper

12. Second Chance - Liam Finn

13. The Funeral - Band of Horses

14. Best Kept Secret - Jack Ladder

15. Rain on the Vein - Clinkerfield

16. Mystery Talks - Jim Ward

17. Place to Be - Nick Drake

18. Brother - Little Birdy

All are on high rotation on my ipod / computer at the moment!

Footy Fun.

Tim Rogers and his daughter, Ruby, courtesy of The Herald Sun website.

Sunday I had such a fun day at the Community Cup in Melbourne, watching the Espy Rockdogs win in a close match against the RRR Megahurtz. A day of beers, lots of kids and dogs running around, Kick-to-Kick, fun live sets from Kram and the Cosmic Psychos at Half-time, and lots of laughter. Musos trying to play sport was hilarious! Elsternwick Park was a great location for a huge crowd of supporters, and all for a good cause.


Tim Rogers and Kram - who played a set before the match, too.

From the organisers of the event : "We hoped for four or five (thousand people), and to get 6000 to 7000 in the middle of winter in Melbourne really showed what the Community Cup meant to Melburnians."


The Megahurtz cheerleaders. Too cute.

Fun times, reminded me so much of country footy matches from my home area.

Weekend of Warmth.

Well, I didn't end up Grooving the Moo. As much as the lineup was kick-arse (and Okkervil River are disappointing to pass by...), I had a lovely weekend tucked away in sleepy Talbot, eating lovely things, watching funny things, and relaxing. Oh, and a bit of designing too.

Thaw Four is off to the printers tomorrow! And what a mission this issue has been to finish. Not only are things always frantic in Thaw World, but Rohan and Kim (Editor and Creative Director of the mag, and the general brains/organisers/founders/creatives behind the whole publication) are in the midst of renovating their new house, and moving out of their old one. You can read about their adventures in home beautifying and stress management here.

So, Thaw Four, I think, is our best effort yet. A lot more content, lovely pictures thanks to the talented Teagan for our Grunge-Chic Fashion shoot, and a new, cleaner layout thanks to me having a lot of spare time lately. I even took up writing a little bit for this issue, along with the usual grapho and illustration work. Hopefully the proofs will come back from the printers tip-top!






You can still buy our Autumn issue from our Ballarat retails until June 1st, or of course at our online store - where you can pre-order our Winter wonder, or buy a subscription for the next year of Thaw for only $12! I'm turning into such a salesperson - or spammer!

Apart from turning into a publicist for the mag and overwhelming myself with designmania, I also managed to catch the Talbot Farmer's Market this morning, traipsing around stalls with my boyfriend who happens to live in this little town, and buying delicious fudge (mmm rocky road!), olives, fresh bread, cupcakes and some dodgy old CDs for $2 each. I resisted from buying quite a few hats - I'll have to save up my pennies for next time!

To top off our Sunday afternoon, we had a great all-day breaky at Europa, and caught the new Star Trek movie. I really enjoyed this film - and I don't think it was geeky at all! *cough cough*. Well, maybe a little bit. But it was fun, action-filled and very enjoyable.

While waiting for the movies to start, we walked straight into an advertisement for VB being filmed on Lydiard and Sturt Streets. Seemed like most of the town was being shut down, and that a large majority of Ballaratians were in costume and on camera!

I took a couple of sneaky snaps, of some of our friends being "farmers with their hands up cows" and "tall poppies", on their way to the pub for a hard-earned cold VB. Matter of fact... no, I'm not a massive VB drinker. But still, will be looking forward to seeing this one on my TV screen sometime - my bet is on footy finals!





Thanks Herald Sun website for the last one!

And rounding off a weekend with last minute Thaw bits and pieces, getting her all dolled up and ready to go the the printers tomorrow. How exciting! Bring on Issue 5!

Current Thoughts

Winter is starting to set in, and due to a number of circumstances, I haven't left my house since Sunday afternoon.

There's something so nice about lazy days at home in front of the heater, designing away and drinking lots of cups of tea.



In the meantime, I have been completely and utterly obsessed with the Australian TV show 'Love My Way' - Claudia Karvan is one of my all-time crushes, from her days on Secret Life of Us, and her role as the neurotic and totally lovely Frankie in Love My Way. I don't think anything will surpass the first season of this series, but it's an interesting journey all the main characters take - though sometimes I just felt myself getting too frustrated by their many flaws. All round, an amazing show that I'm sure I'll be watching over and over again - I did buy the DVD!



I'm also completely in love with The Middle East's song 'Blood' - reminds me of The Arcade Fire, one of my favourite bands. Lovely and delicate, and the ending of this song is brilliant. I'd love to see these guys - But they've already sold out their show at the Northcoate Hotel! Another time. I doubt they're going to be going anywhere soon.

And I'm still debating going to this festival in Bendigo this Saturday :

Fantastic lineup... though I have seen a lot of these bands live. I think it would be pretty good really, just wish it was in Ballarat instead!