Hear ye, hear ye! “Once Upon A Time” exhibition and workshop event in Brisbane

A fairy tale exhibition, with 30 local artists is coming to Brisbane's West End. 

Illustrators, fibre artists, painters and sculptors will all exhibit and sell work with their unique interpretation of the fairy tale genre. 

The ten-day event will open on Friday 16th Aug from 6pm in aid of the Make-a-Wish Foundation. There is opportunity to enjoy an evening of wine, art and fairy tale magic; and let your creative juices flow in one of their fabulous workshops - suitable for children as well as adults. Click here for a list of all workshops.

Arzu of zuzu&me, a fibre artist and craft educator from the Sunshine Coast Steiner school ~ Noosa Pengari, is leading a class in how to make these beautiful floating fleece fairies or needle felted toadstools ~ but places are limited. please contact Arzu on zuzuandme@gmail.com. For a sneak preview of some of the pieces she is exhibiting, visit http://www.facebook.com/zuzuandme

 

See you there?

Moulting

 

All three of them! I have had to buy eggs! (the organic ones with cute little smiley faces on them.. the farm has a live web cam chook tracker which is kinda fun).

They are pretty feathers but it takes quite a bit of energy and protein to grow new ones so I'm feeding them treats and being patient.. (sort of).

Free Tea...want some too?

A good friend of a (very good relative type) friend is making the most delicious blends of tea... tho it is not really tea ~ they are infusions of fruit, spices and herbs, all certified organic products, caffeine and chemical additive free. They look beautiful and are delightful to drink hot or cold.

This one is called Sunshine...

So my friend is being given loads of free tasters; her friend is trying to seduce her BUT my friend is a very big fan of CAFFEINE in her tea... I on the other hand, am not a fan of caffeine so I have been given the most luscious bags of free tea.

My favourite so far was Superhero but I drank all that and have now moved onto Berry Rose

full of juniper berries and rose petals.. so pretty!

As I sat sipping my tea this morning I looked at the unopened sample bag of KT Fruit Tea.... Rooibos, Honeybush, Vanilla, Cinnamon, Orange Peel, Hibiscus and Rosehip... sounds good doesn't it? I figured it would be nice of me to share my good fortune.

For your chance to get the free fruit tea put your name in the comments hat. I'll 'pull'out a name next week; say Wednesday. Happy to post worldwide - KT posts her teas worldwide so I know I can too.

If you are interested in finding out more about this fledgling Brisbane tea business have a look at her facebook page KT.qld or email Ktea4health@gmail.com

I skipped craft and went on an excursion to Samford Museum instead

It was a fabulous morning, the volunteer staff are all dressed in period costume, have all lived in Samford since their youth and have an average age of about 80.

Class four (and a few mums - we ferried them forth and back again) learned a little local history and a little more besides.

First up we heard about tools, good old fashioned hard work and the bullock trains.

We met the Blacksmith

I did a little poking around in a relocated original house - wonderful treasures!

 

The children filed into the old school house after first pledging their allegiance to the Queen! and sat obediently at the old desks, hands on heads, slate pencils between and began 'metal arithmetic' followed by times tables and phonetics.

The general store held some delightful relics 

~ this thing (he is holding)  is a fly spray contraption!

They have a wonderful colection of bikes, scooters and the like and didn't mind at all when the wee ones rode them around on the veranda.

I took many more pictures but if you are local or local ish you should go see it for yourselves it is only $4 entry, $1 for school children, and an absolute delight.

Reas some more at the Samford Museum Website

Gifts cast off the needles and a whole lotta tulle

My sister calls the months of June and July the birthday tusnami; there are eight immediate family members in those two months and at least as many friends... July 30 brings a break for us, for a week. Ha!

In my cleverness I finished a milo vest for the wee girl some weeks before her birthday and forgot to give it to her! I woke in the middle of the night a few days later thinking "where did I put it?"

Found it! and this afternoon had just enough chill in the air.

My mum (who is beyond clever) knitted her a delightful turtle; she has named him Ollie.

 

He is everso snuggly, I think she loves him. The pattern is from the fabulously fun book Knit and Purl Pets by Claire Garland (I am quite keen on the chamelon; I think my
sister is too).

July 30 is a friend's little girl's fourth birthday. I was her midwife and I remember the day her sweet baby girl chose to make her grand entrance so well; it is magic that birthing business.

Anyway her mum tells me these days she is quite a fairy princess and loves to twirl and preen. I bought tulle (a couple of metres of it) and spun it into a skirt interlaced with satin ribbon and stars.

 

Every fairy needs a wand right? I gave it a little wave before packaging it to post. When she touches it it will bless her with joyful birthday wishes and have someone plant four little kisses.

A trip to meet Bambi

On Sunday we drove out through the valley to Samsonvale to visit the Lyell deer farm. Our big girl won a family pass a little while ago ~ we had no idea it was even there, and so close to home.

The wee one fed Bambi

and Bambi seems to quite like the taste of her!

They only have little teeth on the bottom at the front - the serious chewers are at the back.

There are four species of deer bred on the farm, Red, Fallow, Chital, and Rusa; they are mainly left to roam and entertain the visitors but the farm does supply deer for venison and their hides (which are so amazingly soft - like velvet)

 This is a Rusa

and a Chital.

Owner, Maureen, explained to me the reproduction of the antler growth. Antlers are hormonally controlled; falling off naturally each year around August. The following season they grow new and bigger ones. Most of the bucks on the farm are castrated so that their antlers don't grow - less risk of injury from all that testosterone.

If I remember rightly ... the antlers closest to the front are from a Red deer, next along are Chital, Fallow and lastly the Rusa. If you look at the base of the second set (Chital) they have actually been sawn off, look back at the first one and you can see what they look like at the base when they come away naturally.

Maureen and Des hold Native American workshops on a regular basis including Medicine Drum Workshops and every month there are Ceremonial Full Moon Drumming Circles. I have left my name with Maureen for the next drum making workshop - how fabulous will that be?

GoMA 21st century kids

otherwise know as the Gallery of Modern Art; today the big girl and I had our fortnightly 'fun' at the 21st Century Kids exhibition. This post is full of pictures ~ we had a marvellous time!

I wish your wish ~ Inspired by a Brazilian tradition, Rivane Neuenschwander's vibrant installation invited us to write our own wish on a slip of paper and then swap it with a wish from the hundreds of colourful silk ribbons in the gallery wall. According to tradition if you tie the ribbon around your wrist, the wish will be granted when the ribbon wears away and falls off. Mine is the pink one.

Olafur Eliasson's Cubic Structural evolution project puts the construction of a city into children's hands with thousands of white Lego pieces, their task is to create and re-create an ever-evolving metropolis ~ that is right the children (and many parents were having a go too) sit and build their own piece of the city! Very cool.

Stockholm-based artist Carsten Höller's installation is two spiral-shaped slides in GoMA’s foyer. Carsten describs his art as a ‘happiness producing machine’, the slides looks fabulous and sent us hurtling from the third floor to ground level in little sacks to make us super slippery.

Not everything we looked at was made especially for the enjoyment of children, tho my girl enjoyed it all. This colourful thing is by artist Pascale Marthine Tayou and is made of thousands of plastic bags.

These fluroescent tubes are the work of Spencer Finch ~ The Light at Lascaux "The angle of the tubes mirrors the angle of a mountain as seen across the valley from the cave entrance, while the colours relate to pigments in the cave's prehistoric paintings, as well as tones from the landscape and sky outside. The illusion of depth and effect of dappled light play against each  other, while the combination of coloured lights heightens viewers' awareness of the glow as the carrier of an idea of a time and place." I have to admit i just thought it was pretty.

Tender by Fional Hall consists of thousands of shredded American one dollar notes, painstakingly woven into 86 birds’ nests — each for a different species with its own particular habitat and needs. While money is sometimes called tender, tender also means caring, kind and gentle. Like a bird caring for its young, each nest is made with tender ~ cleverly combining the two meanings of the word.

Australian artist Lousie Weave hand crocheted lambswool, cotton and plastic over a taxidermied Indian Blue Peacock - was really quite beautiful but I think she spoiled it by adding the christmas tinsel.

Soul under the moon ‘infinity’ mirror room by Yayoi Kusama is designed to explore reflection, repetition and infinity ~ In the room, you stand on a little platform surrounded by water and reflections are repeated to the point of disappearance, the experience  is similar to gazing at a clear night sky full of stars. My picture is terrible, I only thought to take one just as the doors were opening.

I took a picture of myself ~ can you see me?

Martin Creed’s Half the air in a given space was the most fun! We lined up for 40 minutes to get in. Half the volume of one of GoMA’s galleries has been filled with purple balloons and we got to go in and just get lost in them - it was like a moving sea of static electricity and laughter.

I think that my favourite exhibit was From here to ear by French artist Céleste Boursier-Mougenot. One of the galleries has been strung with harpsicord wires and hundreds of wire coat hangers in which live finches have made nests. When the birds land on the wires their vibrations make music - Oh it was so beautiful, soothing, magical. We were not allowed to take pictures in the room but please have look here and you can see the exhibit and listen to the birds on a utube video here - you will LOVE it!

And finally ~ In India, the bindi is traditionally a symbolic mark of pigment applied to the forehead. Indian artist Bharti Kher specially designed bindis for her installation Nothing is ordinary. "The bindid is like an eye... see the things around you in new and different ways"