Space in between book project

OOoo - I nearly forgot all about this - some how I thought March would never arrive; but I have some work in a show at the Bendigo Art Gallery called Space in between book project. (it was originally shown at the VCA Gallery August last year)

It is a touring exhibition curated by Tara Gilbee, and includes the work of 32 artists who have each responded to the internal space of a book carved and presented to them for their artistic intervention.

I am involved in presenting in an artist talk 11am this coming Thursday, the 20th of March (munch on nails) at the Bendigo Art Gallery.

Tara emailed while I was away to say that the show has been reviewed in Artlink by Simon Gregg. Unfortunately the review isn't online - will have to pop out and buy a copy.



This is a close up shot, taken by Tara, of my work Gentle and Useful.

I made it last year while spending a glorious month in Sydney baby sitting my sisters apartment in Sydney - it is embroidered onto a linen that was incredibly expensive >$70 a meter (I don't think my husband reads this!).

The embroidery patter is a pattern I have used many times as you will see here, here, and here.

The pattern is from an amazing wall paper from a commission/residency I did in 2005 with the Castlemaine State Festival at Tutes Cottage, a historical relic from the Castlemaine Diggings.

I loved this lavish red wall paper that the resident - I am assuming a woman, would have ordered and awaited for its arrival to adhere to the tiny, stone plastered walls in her living room.

It was the last layer of many layers - must have been over ten layers of wall paper.

I imagine that she would have spent a great deal of time and also money decorating this room to entertain her family and friends and to present herself as the woman of this household in this room. I wonder what she baked for them.
I am reading lots of decorating books at the moment as we are doing a little decorating to make the best use of our own tiny stone gold rush cottage and today I came across a wonderful little idea and lead for more research and thinking.

"After the Second World War, Germany embarked on a huge program of new housing. This boom was followed by the discovery that people who lived in these homes started to suffer from disase and ill health, and a connection was very swiftly made with the construction methods and matrials that were being used. It led to the formation of the Bau Biologie movement which fosters a view that a home is an extension of the human body and that there are various ways to building homes that reconcile modern construction methods with nature. If we are indeed connected to the homes we live in, then it is quite possible that any changes in their construction and their contents may have an adverse affect on our health." (The Healthy Home, Gina Lazenby)


Funnily enough my sister Joy Chell has just done a post on her blog about how the clutter in our homes relates to the amount of fat we have on our thighs and bums!