So after you've been wowed by Miyake you may experience a vague queasiness that always seems to accompany inspiration. How can you ever hope to replicate those pleats? Trust us, help is at hand.
The HML team discovered this bible by Colette Wolf several years ago and it is never too far from the sewing machine. Yes we too dream of a life where we have enough time to produce 10 fantastic outfits each season that means we never have to walk into Target for trousers ever again.
The Art of Manipulating Fabric is a no frills instruction manual, complete with grainy black and white photos and line drawings. Like a commonsense cookbook in the kitchen it may be the only textile manual you'll ever need (that and your Readers Digest guide to sewing).
Chapter 6 is all about pleats. Flat pleats, partial pleats, projecting pleats, accordion pleats, wrinkled pleats and double controlled pleats. Not for the faint of heart!
We can't guarantee you'll be able Miyake your frock in the comfort of your own home but you will achieve something magical we promise.
Regular readers well know that we are knee deep in Spod. All roads lead to Spod. Every waking moment is all about getting the Spod show ready.
Spod Spod Spod Spod...
Well except when we take a mental holiday which we did one day this week.
We managed to catch a classic take away lunch in Footscray, consuming probably the finest vanilla milkshake ever made. We did intend to make our way into the city to see the new Marian Hosking show at Gallery Funaki but only made it as far as St Kilda Rd. We got sidelined by two beautiful shows at the NGV:I.
The first was Abstract Mode: Geometric Fashion and Textiles. We never thought we'd see the Mondrian Dress by Yves Saint Laurent (1965) in the flesh. It is more beautiful and more well made than even we could imagine.
The second was American Beauty: Photographs of the American Social Landscape. What an extraordinary show. In the age of digital photography sometimes it's good to go back to the craft as it once was. When the photographer spent time looking. Each one a poem. Like this one by Jose Lopez Southern Illonois 1975.
Tonight team HML is off to the movies to see the latest Yash Raj Bollywood extravaganza Fanaa. Directed by Kunal Kohli it stars Aamir Khan last seen in Mangal Pandey (2005) sporting an incredibly excellent moustache. After his succession of blockbusting historical epics it will be interesting to see how Amir fares back in the modern age and out of a dhoti. Weirdly enough they filmed much of Fanaa in Poland so we'll be curious to see how it looks. Films like this are medicine when life is too hectic and there is no end in sight. For three hours (including intermission) we get to travel.
We promise to get to the Hosking show next week. It runs until June 3
Funaki Gallery website
National Gallery Website
Pom-Pom necklaces...
they say it's best to work to your strengths, and with this in mind our jewellery making this week featured more precious yarn than precious metals... still the results aren't half bad, especially if you're feeling the need for a cheerleader related accessory to finish off an outfit.
This new store up the top end of Brunswick Street is fast becoming the hot ticket in town for new and inspiring contemporary jewelry. We here at HML think their website is almost as good as the shop itself.
Like all good jewelers they paid attention to detail. The end result is pretty flash. The website showcases the work of all the studio designers who are made up of new and emerging makers as well as some more familiar faces. Images of the space itself are seductive enough to make you buy your tram ticket to get there.
We only wish all gold and silversmithing students whose ink is still wet on their degrees had enough nouse to get together, form a collective, create a business plan and get on with making things. There is life beyond the graduate show. The website and the shop is a must see for all new designers. Be inspired. These people have raised the bar. Good on em.
Pieces of Eight
This lovely burnished silver brooch by Melbourne jeweler David Neale came from the Cross Pollination exhibition at Craft Victoria in July-Aug 2004. The show was co-curated by Vicki Mason and Anna Davern, both wonderful jewelers themselves. The show remains one of the finest exhibitions of Australian and New Zealand jewelry in recent memory.
Umbra Sumus
The work of jeweler and taxidermist Julia De Ville is at once exquisite and shocking. Combining her two skills, a tiny mouse becomes a brooch, a baby bird is transformed into a gold stick pin.
It's all too easy to be repulsed, even offended by the work but keep in mind that these little creatures met their maker long before Miss De Ville met them. In creating jewelry around their small forms she goes some way to honouring their fragile lives and tiny deaths.
Her work is highly original and will challenge your expectations of what contemporary jewelry is. It walks that fine line between horror and beauty.
Sadly we only just discovered the show and today is the last day. We are certain e.g will hold onto several pieces if you don't make it in your lunch breaks.
e.g etal 185 Little Collins Street 167 Flinder Lane Melbourne City
This week we decided to practice our drapage skills on a willing (and immobile) participant in preparation for the SPOD photo shoots. Once confidant we could wrangle the 9 metre beast in public, we headed out camera in hand. First port of call was at the SPOD-PARTY Ramona held for a gaggle of eleven year olds. Here they are trying the SPOD on for size while reading the latest edition of their cutting edge tween tome "Juicy"... Featuring a feminist dissertation on Paris Hilton, and a hilarious collage of Charlie Sheen in regular column 'Really Random Stuff', copies of Juicy are available from the authors for A $1.
we found out that in the middle ages european jewish homes were festooned with papercuts which were used to ward off evil spirits, and keep children and pregnant women safe.
and in poland where folk art continues to flourish we found a wealth of hand colored animal motifs... a favourite of which is the rooster.
This week we managed to make papercuts, without sustaining any.
This weeks website belongs to the UK's Mister Rob Ryan... a cut above the rest, literally. We at hml have given him the exulted title "Papercut Pendragon "it's a title in it's inaugral year, but now we've put it out there it will be interesting to see if the competition heats up.
The imagery in Rob's work reflects both the nature and the method of his art, embodying the attention to detail and nostalgic references of the genre. But Rob twists them with a dark, sharp and cutting humour, often self referential and always slightly neurotic. His work is full of self doubt and wavers between melancholy and maudlin. This could be the outcome of spending hours alone hunched over a cutting matt, scalpel in hand... or the Irish parents. We love you Mister Rob. We promise.
I love you Mr Stanley
Dear readers, we've all got at least three of these little tools lurking about our studios, kitchen drawers and toolboxes. The humble Stanley Knife often goes unnoted, a bit like the phillips head screw driver or the retractable ruler. But this week we honour this nifty gadget as the tool of choice for the renaissance of papercutting currently sweeping the world - well our world anyway. Interesting to note Stanley is just a brand name (like Bic and Post It) and is correctly known as a utility knife.
But to us he will always be Stanley. Always sharp, never dull and the first person to invite to a paper party.
A barn for a goddess and other journeys
We have been fans of Emma Van Leest for some time and have been eagerly awaiting her new show opening this week at Westspace. Van Leest has learnt the age old tradition of paper cutting while on her journeys throughout Indonesia and China. She creates complex and intricate works that are exquisitely executed. Evocative of shadow puppets, medieval manscripts and theatre sets. Show runs til May 20
This week finally managed to get the backing onto the 9 metre beast that is SPOD... it took a lot of back breaking stitching through ridiculously thick layers which really probably stretched the 20 year old Janome to its limit... it started making a weird smell by the last metre, and I think I saw a pouff of smoke or two escape from it's whining engine at the end.
In true HML style MUJI, the inhouse 'Spodinspector' decided to pose for this photo with a color co-ordinated chew toy.
Around Honkytonks for sly pop cultural themes
Hosier Lane, and the back of Until Never Gallery for namechecks and the scenester shisnit, but you'll need to dodge the rubbish and tourists taking photo's (oh hang on that was us)
the lane next to Vanbar where the owners have done a deal with artists, you can go crazy with your spray can as long as the front of the building stays clean... nice.
The kids are busy playing Super Mario and listening to the Arctic Monkeys on their iPods. Don't they really understand just how rockin this stencil plate is? Yeah I'm pretty sure they do but it's a bit of a naff activity in transit...
Later in the week HML are going to get up the courage to hit the streets with spray cans. So if you see this little plane out there, you'll know it's flown by Team HML.
Iron Giants - The Ultimate Battle For Supremacy
This Friday night HML will be hitting the town, well at least in the early evening to see some of Melbourne's great stencil and graf artists hit Revolver nightclub for an iron chef style spray-off to see whose images rule the most. This will act as a great taster for what will be on offer at the Stencil Festival O6 that opens on the 18th of May at Rose Street artist markets in Fitzroy.
Revolver 229 Chapel Street 6-9pm Friday May 12.
