Calendar: February 2010

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Oh oh…

Did you see this in the news earlier this week?

“NEW YORK: A clumsy art lover has accidentally ripped a Picasso valued at $US130 million ($143m) during a class at the Metropolitan Museum in New York. The woman made a 15cm tear in the lower right-hand corner of The Actor, an unusually large 1.8m by 1.2m canvas of an acrobat striking a pose. “A visitor attending a class lost her balance,” the museum said in a terse statement.”

Wouldn’t you be heartbroken if you’d done this – how mortifying.

[text from full story on The Australian here; there are many news stories on the net about this, including a fairly upset take here]

Dani M designs @ enCounter Craft Vic

Australia Day was so sunny, I thought I’d amble around the city. I didn’t realise it would be so busy with people attending all manner of events – so it wasn’t quite the solitary or relaxing walk I was expecting. Then the acrobat planes flew overhead and I was so in awe I felt like a kid again – fun!

A wander past Craft Vic was on the agenda, to see what is in the window.

enCounter at Craft Vic

Dani M is a local maker, and crafts her pieces from porcelain. I like how her site states her work is ‘NOT a well marketed charm bracelet of ugliness‘ – we seem to share a horror at the proliferation of crap jewellery.

enCounter at Craft Vic

While the black and white porcelain pieces are more for me, the pastels aren’t really my thing. I have seen Dani M’s work at markets over the last year, but looking at her site I don’t remember before seeing the ‘Tea Party’ collection – I very much like the simplicity and lines (and finish) of these silver pieces.

Dani M is showing at enCounter at Craft Vic until 31st January 2010.

Update (31st January 2010): Craft Vic blog has a story and some great images of this window here.

Jewellery for Australia Day

What’s more Austra-yan than a barbeque, I ask you? It’s a rhetorical question actually, for I don’t think there is any single definitive act that defines a nation … but let’s not get into that serious discussion here. Today, I’d like to share some handmade jewellery worn at an Australia Day barbeque I attended, at which there were indeed meats cooked above a fire, and a showing of ‘BMX Bandits’ and ‘Puberty Blues’.

#1. Jen

photograph taken with artist and model permission

Yes, it’s the Australian National Anthem.

#2. Me

photograph credit: Vetti (from Vetti Live in Northcote)

Yes, Happy Little Vegemite. [Vetti’s blog is here.]

Spontaneous jewellery-making is fun.