Thursday, August 11, 2011

I'm A Bit Obsessed With...


...this song at the moment "Somebody That I used To know" by Gotye featuring Kimbra. Doesn't it capture beautifully the strangeness and difficulty of having known someone intimately when now they are a stranger to you?  Favourite line of all: You can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness
Looking forward to the whole album coming out later this month :)

Monday, August 8, 2011

A Hit Of Spring.




This is exactly what I am needing today. A hit of strong colour and floral extravagance to keep me going until these winter clouds lift. Taken from Vogue US August issue, starring Racquel Zimmerman as the flower girl and shot by Steven Klein. Editorial titled Late Bloomers, the Northern Hemisphere is having to drink up the last of summer while here we can only imagine it....

Friday, August 5, 2011

Saturday.


A dark rainy Saturday after a week of almost spring like weather. A friend calls this "Sucker's spring" in Canberra - fooling us into thinking our bunkering down for the sub zero nights is over and that we can now emerge back into the sun in t-shirts with renewed life - only to plunge us back into the freeze for the next month. Cruel. 
A couple of cool etsy finds this morning - an original oil painting by one of my favourite etsy artists Vivienne Strauss above and below this too cool scarf by Celapiu. Hope you are having a great Saturday!
"and she grew..." by Matchstickgirl.

Tracey Emin Lite.



Tracey Emin was my chosen contemporary artist for Contextual Studies last term. I didn't know a lot about Trace before that choice, only that she'd made some pretty cool quilts which had subverted the idea of traditional quilt making by appliquéing her thoughts and messages onto them in large felt letters. The subversive bit coming from the nature of her thoughts - angry, tormented recollections from her difficult upbringing which included several incidents of sexual abuse by her mum's boyfriend, a stranger and then a rape at age 13 by an older boy from school. Then the promiscuous teenage years ending in her reputation as a the town slut. I love that quilting is such a traditional female past time and that women throughout history have probably stitched away as therapy for whatever was going on in their lives - their anguishes and joys somehow being stitched in as they went. However here Emin actually spells it out in uncomfortable truths that meet the viewing eye. See more of her work here which includes everything from textiles to drawing, installation art and photography.
As for the CRAP quilt up top, part of the requirement for the presentation I gave on Tracey Emin was to produce a small sample of our own inspired by the artists work. I have never quilted or done any patchwork before and had only half a day spare to do this but I was driven on, I have to say, by the fun of the subversive element and the excuse to avoid writing said presentation. Alas I can find no further need for the CRAP quilt but if you think you might have a use for it let me know. More than one will result in a "giveway" style draw. Less than one will have it donated to the school fete later this year where it will be snapped up by a cheeky second grader....