Congrats Nick, how fabulous.

Meanwhile, Grouse Australia Day to all our beloveds out there. Get a chop into ya.

(above, Juan Ripolles, The Musicians, 2011)

Many thanks to Nige for pointing us in the direction of Spanish artist Juan Ripolles.

Yes, undeniably shades of our Tom (and others), but there the similarity ends. For a start, Tom blows his own glass.

But we do have to admit that it’s not beyond the realms of possibility to imagine an octogenarian Tom rattling around in a g-string!! [Apologies to Rosie – it's not some weirdo fantasy, we promise, just a lead-on from the following vid... n(Ed)]

Ignore the language gap, da nada darlings, and check out Juan’s video here. Too too good.

Jan has just sent through Bob Georgeson’s poster for this year’s Sculpture on the Edge at Bermagui.

Sensational, wethinks. What a fabulous perspective of Randall Sinnamon’s piece from last year’s event!! Br-illiant.

But no. Apparently not. Jan’s committee collectively wet their knickers in horror, pronouncing it too offensive. Omigod – can you believe such a thing? In this day and age? And purporting, some of them, to be contemporary artists!!

SHAME ON YOU.  Get with the program, peeps. The embarrassment is all yours.

They opted instead for the safe harbour of convention…

Now, this second is a fine poster, featuring a fine artist. No argument there.

But one can’t help but feel that it lacks the frisson, the élan, of the original.

If the local arts community seriously wants to play in the big pool then it needs to start cultivating some bone fide vizzarts maturity. As a concept, Vagina dentata has probably been around since the beginning of the art historic time-line – and is perfectly acceptable. In any guise.

Nervous Nellyism be damned.

[Poor Jan - we feel for you big time. Hang in there sister. n(Ed)]

The Gang finally managed to lure Bernie (and Liam and Shiff) to the wilds of Wyndham yesterday for a long overdue  luncheon. We swapped shop/studio talk well into the evening; her steady progress towards a hot shop in Cobargo/our (very) quiet start on Megsie’s shed (just clearing it out is an onerous undertaking…) Slowly slowly catchee our respective monkeys.

We went up to ‘Thornleigh on Newton’ following Margaret Dimoff’s (winner of the Bega Art Prize 2011) floortalk at the BVRG today…

…and can report that in spite of the rather grandiose name it is in fact very sweet, and refreshingly unpretentious.

Cute. A destination kind of place, maybe even shades of dear old Kameruka (though way more casual in the tucker department.)

Only opened yesterday, but we’re fully optimistic …

Now there’s an exhibition worth travelling to.

For a little background muzak on Masa go here.

We can’t bear it – yet another year and we’ve still not made the pilgrimage…

Not a good look.