A Story About A Far-Off Land

Long time. Life gets in the way of formal activities such as this blog.

Something I did many months ago now - I took a 5 week trip to the Netherlands, during which I visited some stunning galleries and was just so impressed by the work there. I visited the Princessehof Ceramic Museum in Leeuwaarden, which has a wonderfully diverse collection of ancient, antique, modern and contemporary ceramic artwork and functional wares. And the shop, oh, the shop.

Fancy a romantic dinnertable setting? This one comes with over 20 small bird craniums.

Bronze lustre torture items are a must for your tool shed tidy.

I also took a guided tour of the Royal Goedewaagen ceramic factory- all giant kilns, 10-piece moulds and wacky machines - which is also has a nice gallery, particularly featuring Gouda design, other art deco stuff and lovely Dutch pieces. This photo does great injustice to what was actually a large and inspired portrait of Rembrandt. The depth of the blue paintwork was breathtaking.


I spent a fair amount of time in Groningen, the main city in the northernmost province of the Netherlands. It's a great city - nowhere near the size of Amsterdam, but more laid-back and still lots to explore. A bit like the Perth of the Netherlands, maybe. What they do have is an absolutely brilliant piece of architecture by Italian architect Alessandro Mendini, the Groninger Museum. To be honest I loved the museum more than the art within it. It looks pretty good in photos but you need to walk through it and touch it to really get it. I was wandering around with a smile on my face the whole time. I think I left a bit of my soul clinging lovingly to its wonderfully kitsch mosaic walls and gloriously inconvenient walkways. The Groninger Museum also has a dreamy floor devoted to Chinese and Japanese ceramics, a disorienting labyrinth of floating curtain curves and glistening glass cabinets.


I took a lot of photos. If you would like to know the artists or details, leave a message. Also, if you're interested in photos of Chinese ceramic ware en masse, art nouveau functional ware, or more of that delicious modern design from the Princesshof museum, send me a line and I'll make more of an effort to upload. Once again, apologies for poor quality.

Oh, so many wonderful things to see in the Netherlands, and I would love to show you all my photos but I'd just get off topic. If you visit Amsterdam I strongly suggest you go to the Van Gogh museum. It's perfectly sized so that you can see everything without getting art fatigue, everything is intelligently and educationally arranged. And the work is so beautiful, it brought tears to my eyes.

If you visit the Netherlands for MORE than just Amsterdam, which i believe is not a very accurate representation of the country as a whole, I suggest you visit Dordrecht in South Holland, and take the scenic ferry ride, preferably late in the day. Dordrecht will capture your heart. Definitely my city of choice, were i to move there tomorrow. Dreamy, arty and cosy.
If you want more action, more student life and more Miffy, go to Utrecht. Utrecht has an enjoyably two-tiered kind of city layout, with a below-street-level section along the main canal, lined with architects'/designers'/artists' studios - many of them have a commercial entries or galleries up on the main street level. Also, Utrecht boasts the Dick Bruna House where you can take a trip into Miffy-land. Miffy is known as "Nijntje" in Dutch, meaning 'bunny'. Sadly it was closed when I was there...

I'm getting all nostalgic thinking about it now. The Dutch really know how to incorporate the arts into their cities - but to be fair, I thought that the actual quality of much of the contemporary art I saw there was not much better than that of the art in Perth. There was just more of it, and more cultural support of it.

A Flock Of Birds

There is a nice photo of some ceramic tiles i made for the Pigeonhole exhibition, over at the Pigeonhole Blog. What a nice evening the opening was, it even inspired me to attempt to "mull" my own wine.

sydney, some art, and a brownish area with points

In Sydney i got distracted by this great palm tree:
and my disappointment in missing Liza Minelli singing at the Opera House.


Here is my art at the Young Guns exhibition:


It's the two black rectangles with indistinct grey blurs on them. Sorry I didn't take a better photo. And to cap things off, here is some more stuff i've been making:


Now I'm off to Germany and the Netherlands for five weeks. When I get back I will get down to work. Tot ziens!

Love Bights

I'm back from Sydney! My eyes are sore from too much art. It was mostly good art though.
I enjoyed the spectacle and glamour of Sydney, but I'm happy to be back in cosy Perth/Freo. I loved looking at the Opera House, I could sit around looking at it all day. I loved the inside and the outside, I loved looking at the big ole bridge through the O.H. windows. But even so, I never get sick of the view from the top of Monument Hill in Fremantle, and even the Opera House has difficulty beating the sight of the ocean from the Round House lookout. Maybe it's because Fremantle has a view of the cranes, and we know how i love cranes.

That there is the Great Australian Bight. Probably the best thing i saw during the whole four days. My shonky camera doesn't really show exactly why. But it was very big, very shiny, and very, very bighty.

I will give a more topical post when I am not sleepy and guilty from avoiding real work.

Love this City

Excitement! I have a piece (or two?) appearing in the exhibition "Young Guns", an exhibit of international ceramic graduates that is a part of the Australian Ceramics Triennale in Sydney. I sent them off in a packing crate two days ago, and soon i'll be sending myself off in a similarly-sized economy seat, to attend the opening on the 15th of July. I've never been to Sydney before. I hear mixed reviews.

Meanwhile, i am making a piece for a cute exhibition at Pigeonhole, and also, my oil tanker is gradually taking form:

A series of tubes

The internets:


Those greenish grey markings are the result of something that was stuck on the kiln shelf. I may discard those ones or i may decide that i like it that way. At any rate i have some more bits going in the kiln on thursday and i'm going to start making the next batch tomorrow. I've moved on from pipes and i've started making rectangular things, but I will return to the tubes soon. I'm going to need a LOT of them.

Return of the Swamp Thing

I'm back! I've been getting sucked into the gloopy mire of a busy schedule, but now i'm going to be awesome instead. I've been getting a bit more work done at uni and I will show you once it's high-fired and shiny.

I visited Melbourne for a week-and-a-bit and whilst most of my time was spent at the Suzuki Convention, I made time to visit some great little galleries in the city centre, and a way-too-brief visit to the National Gallery of Victoria, where there was a jaw-dropping exhibit of ancient ceramic and stone artifacts. I also spent an almost shameful amount of time in the Craft Victoria shop, and came away with new posessions and new ideas.

I also came across a little shop on Brunswick St, selling a fantastic new art surface which is a bit like plaster, a bit like ceramic, a bit like a chalkboard... visit http://www.panelpop.com/ to have a look. I ended up buying a little framed square one that i have been playing around with. Drawing! It is fun.