OPENINGS OF LAST WEEK - GEMMA JONES, VICTORIA MASON, COTTAGE INDUSTRY

How Can We Not be Ourselves and Rumble in the Jumble?

Well we said we were going and so we went. Two big events on the July craft calendar were up for grabs this weekend and we made the most of them... 

Friday night saw the most lovely Gemma Jones' showcase her new paintings and some fine enamel wall banners and jewels by her collaborating cohort Victoria Mason light up Outré Gallery with their fineness. What a great night, what great company and what smashing artworks!

I have to say I'm a complete sucker for mod styling, pop painting and book page prints, especially when they're executed with such a deft hand and quick wit. Gemma manages to merge plentiful and playful subtext together with giddy sense fan-girl fun, wide eyed naiveté with knowing nods and winks. Like a perfect old school pop record her work manages to blend heartbreak and back beats with a soaring chorus that we can all join in. Top Job Gemma.

Victoria Mason has been perfecting her enamel objects with increasingly convincing outcomes for a while now, and just when we think she's hit her peak she wows us all over again. Such are these pieces, the photo of which does no justice to their appeal (I blame the Sailor Jerry's). Incredibly appealing and skill-fully executed we want to see them all over our walls and maybe even our bodies - why not a breastplate sized pendant? Works were selling fast - we hope there are still some left come payday! The exhibition is on until August 8 at one of our favourite shops (see what I did there) Outré Gallery.

Saturday morning we were up early (but not so bright) to head to the cottage studio for the much anticipated Rumble in the Jumble Sale. While we left the lining up for others with earlier bedtimes and better morning dispositions we did still get in relatively early. 

To say that we were a little overwhelmed might well be the understatement of the year. Confronted by a wall of fabric of which the photo above is just a tiny sample, I kind of stopped breathing and went into a kind of ecstatic but mind numbingly confused state that ended with me walking out without actually managing to select any fabric to take home with me. D'OH!!!

But along with the booty came the opportunity to catch up with some of Melbourne's finest craftspeople Madeline Sargent, Lichen Kemp of Sunday Morning Designs, Anna Davern, Sandra Eterovic were all out in force picking up bargains, and we also found our folk fable favourite in the house, AND even got to meet the one and only Kaz Cooke - I was too star struck to tell her that she pretty much saved me from my first experience with child birth and rearing... but Ramona, completely unfazed as usual in her own amazing way managed a chat and confirms that she's tops. We're pretty sure everyone we know made it in over the weekend. And yet apparently there is still stuff left... hmmm payweek next week, maybe I should email Pene about that pile of afghans I saw! BECK

Inspiration of the Week

The grass is always greener

This week we were so inspired by this story that appeared on design boom. We've been seeing moss and grass everywhere lately, in art installations, terrariums and as a form of graffiti.

NYC based artist Edina Tokodi is doing amazing work both inside and out

Don't get us wrong, the ladies of HML love a bit o graph n paste up goodness but isn't this new urban green graffiti fantastic?

English artist Anna Garforth created this amazing cross as part of a garden project where artist and designers explored the idea of the healing properties of nature. I feel better just looking at it.

We found a great recipe for moss graffiti here we know of a few inner city walls that would be beautified by this latest craft design trend.

We Came, we saw, we needed a brolly

Flashback splashback

We were so excited to go to the opening of North City 4 studios it was a lovely evening. Catching up with friends and colleagues is always fun for us and we were really thrilled for all involved. What an inclusive and lovely bunch of makers they are. All friends and family came out to help, lend support, buy a beer or a necklace or badge. It was a real celebration of the contemporary jewelry/object making culture here in Melbourne. How lucky we are!

The next day, in torrential rain, I did manage to spend a total of 15 minutes at the homemaker market. Why so short? It had take me over an hour to drive from Northcote to Richmond in bumper to bumper cranky traffic. By the time I got there I didn't give two hoots about design. What I wanted was a cuppa tea and a lie down. I did procure a test tube of Melbourne rooftop honey for Beck who very wisely stayed indoors! I'd heard about these enterprising beekeepers but I wasnt expecting such a well designed project. Buzzy!

OUT AND ABOUT

free market economy

Before we launch ourselves into this weeks festivities, we'd like to take a moment to reflect on what was an excellent morning of craft, design and christmas shopping. The MarkIt market yesterday at Fed Square was chock'o'block full of great goods and we're happy to say we managed to fit in coffee, scones, meeting and greeting some peeps we hadn't seen in ages, be surprised by new things AND tick some people off the christmas list all in a matter of two hours. Really we're quite chuffed with our work. Interestingly many stallholders were advertising other pop up shop and Christmas markets they're involved in during December so it looks like it's going to be a ridiculously busy month yet again, and clearly the appeal of meeting your maker and snaffling a bargain hasn't diminished one iota for the crafty consumers of Melbourne. For those of you who were otherwise occupied here are some snaps of what we liked.

Now we love stationary mavens Ask Alice, but we WANT that orange typewriter!

Ramona grabbed a set of these bear notebooks as a stocking stuffer for she who will remain nameless.

Cottage Industry was as industrious as ever...Jenny B had to guard the neon satchels while we occupied Miss PenPen with our crazed purchasing. We've already planned a visit to the Cottage to pick up more tree decorating goodies- red robins, sequinned Bob Mackie-esque birds, hand carved wooden elk, glass and glitter balls and spotted fawn - dear god that woman gives good bauble!

Really it was wall to wall people, and here we were thinking that if we arrived at 10am we'd beat the crowd

The lovely and talented Emily Green works the crowd with her prismatic presence and stall stuffed with  lovely lolly coloured present potentials.

As usual the Harvest Textiles stand looked snappy - and no wonder Jess was so smiley those new cloud ushions are GENIUS (Santa, you hear that!)

Brilliant stuff from both the known knowns and the not so known unknowns - Sunday Morning Designs DIY mask kits (top job Ladies!) and these Terrariums which we both swooned over, but failed to find the stallholders name. If anyone out there managed to keep their wits about them let us know!

So good and really clever craft - record cover calenders from Rebound Books and Ruth Allens repurposed beer glasses.

Ramona's favourite new illustrator Wendy June shows of her wares - we loved the colour me magnets!

And I think I know a certain little someone with blonde hair and dreamy blue eyes who might find one of these gorgeous blocks under his come Christmas morning.

As for me, i've decided that I can no longer live without at least two of these monolog tops... AND YES MICHAEL THAT IS A HINT! However the clear winner of the day - purely for making us both snort like old nannas - goes to this card...

 

Ha! BECK

WEEKEND SPECIALS

twist of fete

Never let it be said we didnt warn you. This weekend there are no less than three fetes offering up everthing from pirate pits to devonshire teas. Of course because its Westgarth, Clifton Hill and Collingwood primary schools involved you can also expect excellent food, excellent craft and cake stalls and truckloads of second hand books, clothes and toys...not to mention to tappin musical performances that span David Bridie and the recalcitrants to long haired eight year olds belting out black metal. Fun for all the family. We've attended all three over the years and believe me we've always left empty walleted rather than empty handed.

We are also considering having a bit of a 'yard' sale on Sunday (weather and energy permitting) in our front yard to find new homes for our own collection of excess stereo equipment, vintage chairs, vinyl rekkids (like the one above), cd's, craft books, magazines, clothes and god knows what else on Sunday to co-incide with the Westgarth Primary School Fete. We'll post on Sunday morning and let you all know if we've managed to muster the enthusiasm needed to pull it together after being woken up at 6am by small people jumping on our heads demanding breakfast and thomas movies. BECK

Saturday 22 October
Tempting Fete 2011
Spensley St Primary School
193 Spensley st. Clifton Hill
10am to 4pm

Sunday 23 October
Whopping Great Fete
Westgarth Primary School
Clarke St. Northcote
10am to 4pm

Spring Fair and Open Day
Collingwood College
11am-4pm

Fun time of the week

Who listens to the radio?

The ladies of hml will be on the radio this morning talking up what a heap of fun we are planning over the next four weeks. We'll be checking out the new cool store Gleaners Inc in Brunswick, heading out to Mulgrave Makers Marketto check out what the buzz is about there, heading out to caulfield to the Craft and Sew showto stock up on liberty print fabric and superfine glitter and checking out the glorious new work at No Vacancy gallery by artist Gemma Jones Of course well also be indulging our love of Halloween crafting too. Anything to interrupt the Christmas decoration making (ha ha). We are on air at 1030 am on 102.7

CRAFT FINDS OF THE WEEK

plastic fantastic

Spoiler alert... if you happen to be the owner/creator behind Cottage Industry AVERT YOUR GAZE, well at least until I get to Gertrude street in an hour or so.

Ms Durston has a habit of hopping off for her birthday each year and really given the option why wouldn't you! As such I am always playing catch up with the gift giving. Thankfully over the last few years I've been lucky enough to happen across a collection of very special handmade wonders that usually make up in craft points what they've lost in tardiness. This year I believe is no exception, combining three of our lady of craft's favourite themes: vintage flower prints, clever stitchwork and plasticated utilitarian three dimensional object d'weird. I think she'll love it.

While I was hunting clearly the op-shop gods were smiling as I also found something for me ,which of course makes the first find all the sweeter.

Really for a log-lady loving lady could this print be more perfect?

and just because ITS TOO FREAKING GOOD (yes I am shouting) here's a close up of that moose call... now I just have to convince the in-house architect that it deserves some wall space amongst the 'real' art. BECK

SHOWS OF THE WEEK

signs of life

Two shows have caught my eye this week - Space Invaders at RMIT and Diamonds in the Rough at Lamington Drive and both are opening TONIGHT people!!!

Whether using spray-can graf, texta tags, paste-ups or desktop magazine layout to catch the viewers eye both of these shows are a testament to the pavlovian appeal of advertising vernacular's visual language and clever scripting. After all, we all want to be sold something dont we? When done well, both advertising and street art can reflect our deepest desires and showcase the best of our creatives - able to be brilliantly amusing, thought provoking and gaspingly beautiful at the same time.

Space invaders looks at "the artist and their iconic street-based works at the point of their transition from the ephemeral to the collectable and from the street to the gallery", along the way both celebrating and making the case that stencils, posters, paste-ups, zines and stickers all comprise an important chapter in the development of Australian prints and drawings. Raising the question of legal vs. renegade once again RMIT Gallery has commissed a public art project with local street artists who will create a work in the laneway near RMIT Gallery during the exhibition. In addition a public seminar, Vandals or Vanguards?, will discuss the political, social and artistic aspects of street art and zines, Monday September 26 in the gallery space. Heavy  - but my money is on the vanguards.

Diamonds in the Rough has been put together by design wizard Andrew Ashton and coincides with the release of desktop magazine’s 25 year anniversary ‘Time Capsule’ edition - edited no less by one and same wizard Mr A Ashton. Get ready for a gallery housing around 20 years worth of design ephemera, from a long list of Australian design glitterati... horders delight no? t should also be mentioned that this will the the last cardboard show at lamington drive so it is your last chance to say goodbye to the brown study that has been Lamington Drive before it becomes "a gallery formerly made of cardboard for nice people".
Given the pedigree's of both these shows i'm looking forward to seeing some seriously good schtick. BECK

CRAFT FIND OF THE WEEKEND

je suis un knitwit

Last week my brother hit the jackpot while oppshopping in the country and found an original knitting nancy which he presented to me (along with a couple of other gems) for my belated birthday present. I love a little french knitting, and I have to say I was a demon with my original knitting nancy all those years ago.

Many a winter outfit and accessory for my beloved sindy - (the only bendable barbie alternative at the time with red hair and while the image above isn't actually my Sindy you get the picture) . So you can imagine I was very excited to whip open the box and get cracking.

Thankfully the inside box lid has a wealth of instructional information for the lapsed knitwit - however it looks a little more like you're giving nancy a labotomy rather than using her to create a masterful tube of neat stitches in Fig.3.

And just in case you feel your creativity waning the makers have very kindly provided an excellent mini fold out pamphlet of ideas... I'm absolutely loving that hankie holder in post war brittish green. Definately on the Christmas 2011 list.

Mind you I don't remember Nancy looking this grumpy back in the day... BECK

EXCURSION OF THE WEEK (well last month actually)

blow it



I'd almost forgotten to tell you about my trip to Canberra Glassworks! We almost didn't go because quite frankly even I can get a bit of craft/art/design fatigue. We were on our way to Silo Bakery in Kingston (a slice of Melbourne in the ACT) to get some lunch when we passed it and on a whim took a hard left to tick it off our list.



And I'm so glad we did because it was a real highlight of the trip. I've been thinking about this craft quite a bit recently. With the closure of Monash Glass dept I wondered if it was on its way out. Its incredibly labour intensive, highly skilled, dangerous difficult work.



Canberra has always had a strong glass community because of its great university course up there- but this place really seals the deal. It's amazing! House in an old power station, this state of the art facility allows visitors to watch the process from viewing decks - and we were absolutely transfixed. Sadly our budget meant we couldn't take a souvenir of the visit - and we missed out on a table at Silo too. Totally worth it. RAMONA