As promised, here’s a quick peek at Rose Montebello and Gabrielle Powell’s exhibition at the Bega Valley Regional Gallery. We missed catching all the excitement of the opening, but managed to snap Rose again on the swing when she was back down to participate in the Gallery’s public program – the Arts Café.

FYI – the accompanying didactic…

This exhibition, featuring the work of local artist Gabrielle Powell and Canberra-based artist Rose Montebello, explores the fertile narrative vein inherent in the dutiful execution of repetitive labour – women’s work, in the parlance of a previous generation. Plumbing a well-spring of metaphoric homilies, these works represent a contemporary take on that ‘rich tapestry of life’, and the inescapable feminine imperative to preserve, nurture and regenerate. Women’s Work is about the perennial constancy of emotional reparation.

For Gabrielle Powell the seemingly prosaic chore of basket making (one of the oldest crafts practiced by women across the breadth of the globe) represents women’s universal solidarity; a humble occupation with a strong uniting force. It’s a therapeutic practice that allows her to unwind from professional stress (community welfare work) by weaving the thoughts of the day into a semblance of tangible cohesion…with a lid as, perhaps, closure or a symbolic gesture of discretion and privacy.

These baskets, often made with found and recycled materials, are objects of proverbial ‘good wifery’; a stitch in time… waste not, want not…practice makes perfect, even! They connect us to all the granny’s of recorded time and remind us of our continuing obligation to conserve not only the heritage crafts but also the associated moral observances.

Rose Montebello’s extraordinary hyper-real dioramas are a construct of both personal and universal social narrative. But while the earlier works hark back to an era of nature prints and pastorale tranquility (staple fodder in the conservative domestic aesthetic of the mid 20th century), the terrain is grave, with an over-riding sense of melancholic foreboding. For here, in this silent wood, is a very grim tale indeed; of dread and loss and inconsolable sorrow.

Here lurks the ghost of serial narratives, repeating. Montebello’s European landscapes are a physical manifestation of an oral family history. A lamination of pieced together information, hushed stories, a latent search through Freedom of Information files (exposing the atrocities of war). Layers of background delivering a facsimile of truth. Handed down through generations, the keeping of these memories is women’s work. The wonderful methodology of her practice, the painstaking deconstruction of images and the consequent reconstruction into the 3-D tableau, adds exquisite drama to what is essentially a contemplation of life, death and the intractable universe. [Megsie loves that phrase!! n(Ed)]

More goodies in from Klaus…

…the new installation at the Kaplan/Ostergaard Glass Center at the Palm Springs Art Museum…

Fantastic schnapps! Have to say that mobile phone-mail technology is quite fantastic. We might have to get us one of them thar i-phone jobbies. 

Thanks Klaus! The work looks stunning. See ya when you get back. ♥

Big congrats are in order for Jas Hugonnet who’s just been appointed Manager of the Gallery of Australian Design at Commonwealth Place, aka the former Oz Portrait Gallery down by the lake. [Super work venue!! n(Ed)]

Meanwhile Jas has coincidentally launched his latest artist on-line at Jas Hugonnet Gallery…

Richard Blackwell, turn a corner, 2009, digital print, synthetic polymer paint, Californian maple on board. 50 x 90 cm.

Busy times ahead, darl.

Just in from Klaus, via mob. mail…

Richard Lindner, The Gambler, c.1952,  at the Chicago Art Institute.

Jacqueline Gropp, Winter’s Growth, 2008, borosilicate glass (photo: Stuart Hay, ANU Photography)

Inverlochy Castle, Scotland (photo: Rudolph, via Granny)

We loved the latest bulletin sent around the office yesterday…

New information has been added to the intranet. You can now look up contact officers for Justice of the Peace and Workplace Bulling and Harassment.

Moo!!

We can barely begin to convey our utter relief to have escaped the hellish crush that serves  as Melbourne Cup Day at the Canberra Racecourse. How dreadful it has become in recent years; all those suited public service bogans and their tarty bints and the frustratingly impossible queues…and let’s not even think about the pack of vicious Serbs that harassed us one year (straight out of Russian Doll they were – quite terrifying. No kidding, even the coppers hung back when we called for help.) So you can imagine how happy we were today at Kalaru with nary a wait for the bookies nor a gnarl in the loo. And everything so pleasantly, unconsciously daggy.  Just the way we like it.

We particularly enjoyed the idiosyncracies of the call – ‘and they’re past the Bega Cheese sign now’ – and there was plenty of entertainment dished up throughout the afternoon…

…and a slew of wasted debutantes and sozzled yoofs by the end of the day. But it was all pretty harmless really.

The Gang only managed one minor win (Gun Runner in the first local race - for a princely sum of $2.30!!) but Ginger had Shocking in the Cup, so she was laughing.

For an abbreviated squizz at the day go here.

Alone at Wymess Bay (photo: Nigel Woolford)

[BTW, what perfeck synchronicity - this arrived just as we settled down to watch Gilbert and George on the ABC Sunday-Yarts programme yesterday arvo. No surprises, perhaps, that here at the hide-out we love G&G. n(Ed)]

Hallelullia, the Gang’s back in the swim!! Candelo pool was glorious today…