carrie chau has been mentioned in this blog before. here her artwork, the scarf, has been made into a set of brooches. if you look closely the scarf is being nitted straight from the sheeps back.

the beginning of a very big summer crop. the tomatoes have grown into a tangled jungle...nothing else in the garden is able to find space...the herbs are all but buried.

this black doll has been waiting to be made for ages. it will hopefully make it way to an artist back in newcastle and be painted...

'secrets' from the 223 series. made in 2005 for the exhibition A Crowd.
he was finally dismantled after a torn and broken leg....
each piece taken apart and returned to the rescued pile of bits to be used again in something new.
a similar thing happened to another 223 series doll, 'Pupa'. he was not completely dismantled but just had some new legs made... he went on to be exhibited in an exhibition all his own.

bumper stickers can be so clever sometimes... often they are just weird. this one was on the back of a beaten up old country ute in bailingup.

empty beds seem to still be an ongoing theme for this blog.
these ones are from a holiday stay in nannup wa on the first weekend of december.
it was a weekend of bike riding, many birds, amazing bush, eating and skinny dipping in the blackwood river.

how you make it exhibition opened tonight at the fremantle arts centre. this piece is by Ess.Laboratory

jody wong (from the previou post) has just started her own blog like i hoped she might.
it is just at the beginning... but surely it will be full of interesting sketches and things in no time.

there is nothing quite like a sketch found in the corner of a diary, notebook or even a post-it note.
these two by jody wong are so whimsical and divine that i just had to post them here for all to see. the characters are anything but the usual...though at the same time they seem almost familiar...there is a story going on... yet the sketches only reveals tiny hints. it would be great to see more. perhaps the artist will create her own blog soon.

these pictures were taken at the most southern western corner of australia. augusta is the closest town to this wild and beautiful place... cape leeuwin, where the indian & the southern ocean meet, is a good place to watch for whales and of course to see squally weather blast over from the not so far off antarctic

empty beds

as part of the silver artrage festival in perth, windows on william 2008 has just started. this is where a large range of stores on william street give their window space over to an artist, or group of artists to create an installation in. in each store there are limited edition postcards to collect. above are six of them, below are pics of keith and lottie's window, and lala orange too.

a sea of lights in a cafe on the main street of leederville, perth

small tin insect brooches from japan, bought at the lovely store 'distracted' in leederville. 'distracted' is a store that is self described as being 'merchants of fancy'... it is incrediably beautiful in it's detail and careful collection of wares for sale.. it is also a hairdresser, a coffee shop and an art shop...all rolled into one inspiring & detlightful experience

in the gallery at distracted the current exhibition is by sabrina ward harrison. she is a canadian artist who is here is perth at the moment for her exhibition 'true living project' and was a guest at the recent 'dumbo feather' evening

this was a small project about monkey the finger puppet going north on a road trip from brisbane to cairns just after christmas and into the beginning of 2008. there was a lot of rain, a lot of sun too, even a tan along the way...and food seems to feature quite a bit too...monkey seems to always be hungry.

spring has finally begun...the first poppy burst open on monday, the perfect yellow. it was the morning of the first swim too, in very cold water, but such a glassy inviting ocean.

empty bed, sunlight, views, silhouette, the window... the nunnery, fitzroy melbourne.

this is the sort of thing that i love melbourne for... this beautifully crochet covered magnolia tree in gertrude street, fitzroy is both street art and environmental art (Andy Goldworthing comes to mind).
apparently the designer Penelope Durston who has a little boutique on gertrude street stitched old dollies and what looks to be sections of old tablecloths around the trunk and bare branches of the magnolia tree outside her boutique Cottage Industry during winter. on the opposite side of the street the magnolia trees get plenty of sun light, so they all blossomed first, and this year the magnolia tree outside Cottage Industry blossomed first on the shady side of the street. perhaps because it was kept warm by its elegant crochet garment?

image by Tim Walker taken from a past issue of selvedge magazine.
the theme of the princess and the pea seems to come up quite often in art

this is just a funny sign that i love finding. it was stuck to the phone in the nunnery where obviously many backpackers have thought they'd just try it out anyway as though the sign is the problem...

after every winter comes a spring - artist leon hendroff's beautiful puppets in remedy's footpath gallery, fremantle
'not only a representation of the physical changing of the seasons, it also represents the seasons highs and lows that we go through in life. May you be encourage with the hope of a "sunnier' tomorrow and even find some "warmth" in your "winter".'

One the inside... 'a group exhibition of the built environment in perth. the suburban home, the development in and around the city, the relationship of the building in the environment and the impact it creates.' curated by shiloh perry, moores building contemporary art gallery, fremantle

clare weeks exhibited over sixty found insect in droplets of resin for the exhibition 'creature discomfort' in 2006 at john paynter gallery, newcastle. these were the precursor to her specialty jewellery label clare de lune. these found insects were hang like a delicate arrangement of raindrops frozen in their fall.

this is a beauiful little postcard called 'wait 'til you're older film poster 2005' by carrie chau from hong kong, the illustrator behind the wun ying collection.
the photo here doesn't show the gorgeous detail very well, but the little clouds are drawn like lace. so intricate and delicate and humorously absurd

there is still so many different plant species to discover, with weekend walking trips into the hills a slow collection of new flora is being recorded... this one looks like it belongs in the ocean with other sea creatures

the old power station at the south end of fremantle wa.
it has been badly vandalized, with every window pane missing. the building itself is quite striking, with huge open spaces inside, it would make an amazing restored, retrofitted and reused building. with a prime position right on the beach front... so much potential...

'the divided self' footpath gallery june-july 2008

the 'pizza family' is a brilliantly funny accident in packaging... it tells a whole story as it sits abandoned on a shop front top step... changing signs to say something else is of course an old one, some of them are particularly clever, this one is pretty standard stuff, but still catches a smile by observant passers by

this is a 'permanent' artwork in the grounds at the fremantle art centre...a whole collection of books buried into the earth. usually public art in open spaces is durable, doesn't erode by weather and very permanent. but this piece has another element... of decay, it changes over time, it's being eaten by insects and swollen by moisture. one day it will disappear all together...

from the train window on the trip down to bunbury from perth.
it seems that the bushlands are so untouched in comparison to the east coast. these huge grasstrees (balga/blackboy) are everywhere, alongside proteas and other native flowers and flowering trees...

my studio emptied on sunday of the twelve dolls i've been working on leading up to my exhibition at the 'footpath gallery' and has given me time to clean down surfaces and start on new things.
these three cojoined twins are the result. they will be going over to melbourne very soon for an exhibition at milly sleeping

'...the little red shoes still danced off into the forest...'
this piece was made a while ago and recently came back to me after exhibition 'brew' finished at milly sleeping earlier this year in. it was also originally part of an exhibition called 'shoes change lives' at the lovett gallery in newcastle last year.

another great exhibition at the moores building contemporary art gallery, 'the garden project'.
this piece by Arif Satar is titled 'lawn series'. strands of grass built from clay. they look like hairs growing from the skin.

this might be an unusual thing to find here in this blog...most of the things that end up here are design or art based...but this system does fit in with the recycling aspect to my work and interests.

i have always been interested in where our rubbish goes once it is picked up from the streets every week. i grew up driving past an open tip in dudley {nsw} on daily trips to the beach. it stank sure, but we all knew where our rubbish went and could see the pile from the road through the trees. we also went there to collect stuff that other people didn't want. it is harder now to know what happens to the things we through away. there is a lot more being consumed so it must be a growing amount of waste.
just recently i discovered that fremantle shire is quite unique with what they do after rubbish collection: it all goes to a big waste site where it is sorted very carefully; all the organic matter plus dirty papers and other biodegradable items go into a huge composting system; which is the second largest of its kind in the world. then all the non-organics get sorted into recyclables or landfill items.
this not only reduces the amount of landfill it also creates a rich compost that can be redistributed into the community.
they do tours of the whole site every week, these pics were taken for me by J when he was there last friday. so we can again see where our rubbish goes.

moores building contemporary art gallery in fremantle always something great to wander through while at the cafe next door.
this installation from the exhibition safety measures is a particular favourite. artist Marzena Topka
not only displays an incredible devotion to crochet, she also cleverly incorporates elements of architecture. it took a while to work out that they were crocheted floor plans. it reminded me of a completely sewn interior of a house in the sydney biennale many years ago. made from sheer fabric and all to life size scale... an amazing exhibit.

beautiful sketches and drawings are so inspiring. i love the work of leah muddle. i have once before posted another of her amazing cards she is indeed a very talented woman.
her skills are varied and very proficient. today i was surprised by these two beautiful hand sewn letters neatly packed into a post-pack... i noticed some of her letters in the window at milly sleeping when i visited her there in melbourne earlier this year. they are printed, appliquéd, stuffed and hand embroidered