Some news!.....(and monkeys).

Once again, despite my best efforts I have failed in my goal of blogging at least once a week. As a result, this post is going to be a bit all over the place as it's been a busy couple of weeks with several pieces of news I'd like to share.

The first is that I will be exhibiting at Imagine Gallery in the UK in October 2011. This is incredibly exciting for me and even though it seems like a very long time away, I have already begun making plans for pieces and will be working exclusively on these by the end of August this year. This is a beautiful and highly regarded gallery and I am honoured to have been invited to show my work there. You can visit John Foley's blog about gallery life by clicking here. I am hoping to travel over for the exhibition, so I hope that those of you who can will come along and make yourselves known. Final dates etc. are still to be determined, but I will keep you updated here and on the website.

I am also very happy to have been asked to customize a "Schaffa" for this years fundraising exhibition. The photo at the top of the page is the template that each artist receives, to do with what he will. No prizes for guessing the theme I'll be going with.......but we have been asked not to reveal the final design in its entirety until opening night (again, date not yet finalised), so all I'm giving away are these two early stage close-ups. The pieces will be auctioned for charity and exhibited here during the SALA Festival and then travelling around Australia. Very exciting!

Speaking of SALA, I will be having an open studio during the Festival, mainly to make people aware of my new location, but also to show some new pieces and of course some works in progress. I always enjoy chatting to visitors during this time, so I hope to see some of you here!

Over the past month I've also had a 'work experience' student from the local high school spending each Tuesday with me in the studio. Shannon is a very talented 15 year old who is interested in sculpture and digital art and she has been learning some skills here with me while working on her own projects. This has been a thoroughly enjoyable experience all round and the fact that Shannon has Asperger's syndrome has made it all the more rewarding to watch her achieve her goals and take pride in her work. I'm continually amazed at what a hard worker she is, ploughing on even when the work becomes repetitive and (dare I say) boring. I've taught many adults in the past who could learn a thing or two from this young girl's perseverance and commitment.

So all in all a busy few weeks! I'll be adding a 'news' page to my website soon, which will have all of the details of upcoming events as they are finalised.

The bottom two pictures were taken last week at Adelaide Zoo, a short but fun day with my friend Linda that was filled with mad scrambles for photographs, unwanted reflections, potato wedges, lizard vomit and beautiful animals who smugly turned their backs or disappeared entirely whenever we approached their enclosures. Out of the hundred or so shots I took, I was most pleased with these two.

Till next time.

Warning! Long-winded post with too many pictures.

I have to admit I've been in a bit of a funk after our return from Melbourne two weeks ago. Each time I visit my home state of Victoria, and in particular it's bustling, vibrant and fascinating capital city, I find it harder and harder to leave it behind. I was born in Ballarat, a beautiful, historical town only an hour or so from Melbourne, but my family moved to South Australia when I was very young, so my earliest memories of Victoria were formed some years later when we went on holiday to Melbourne.....I was twelve and I fell in love with the city instantly. I've visited Melbourne many times, but over the past few years we've been exploring more of Victoria and it seems that each region we visit is more beautiful than the last.

This most recent visit started out as a birthday gift from my husband, to take me to see the Ron Mueck exhibition at the NVG. We soon decided that we would take our two youngest, Grace and Noah, with us as they were only babies last time they visited Melbourne.

So, we started out in the city with the incredible Ron Mueck exhibition. I took far too many photos to post (more of them are on my facebook page) and we were also unexpectedly fortunate that the "Mary and Max" exhibition was on at ACMI as well. Adam Elliot is an extremely talented Australian film-maker and the exhibition was a showcase of puppets, props and drawings from his stop-motion masterpiece "Mary and Max". We were all so excited by this exhibition that we went back twice and now Grace has decided that she wants to be an animator! Since we arrived home she has been busy working on the characters and sets for her first animation experiment. We also visited the Melbourne Aquarium, Museum, Luna Park, Lygon Street and Southbank. We took a day to explore the Mornington Peninsula with it's gorgeous coastline and beachside towns and on the drive home went through Daylesford and the Macedon Ranges and stayed (unexpectedly, because Noah became extremely car-sick on the winding roads) overnight in Halls Gap in the Grampians which is the most spectacularly beautiful place I have ever seen.

While it is always nice to come home to your own bed and of course to friends and family who are close by, I would be lying if I said that I wouldn't prefer to live in Victoria....especially if I could bundle up everyone I'm close to here and take them with me! However, we will be back there later this year for the Tim Burton exhibition......!

And so I've been working my way out of my post-holiday 'funk' and have built a new little guy who has just caught a faerie (of the tiny, winged variety) and isn't quite sure what he's going to do with it. I've also posted a drawing of a very 'Froud inspired' goblin which may or may not make it into three dimensional form. I'm trying very hard to incorporate more drawing into my work days and am particularly enjoying charcoal, which is odd because it's a medium that I truly hated in my younger years....the grubbiness used to really bug me, now I love it....strange.

Till next time.