SHOW OF THE WEEK

just our type

The ladies of hml have been busy so we have pulled what is now known as a 'Bettina' (those of you that watch mediawatch will understand). Mind you the real Bettina wouldn't tell you that the below is lifted straight from the press release. We promise to return to our regular and original rants tomorrow! xxx-

The Tokyo Type Directors Club has been in existence for the past 20 years and has consistently challenged what is thought of as typography, typo-graphics and type design whilst remaining a bastion of the more traditional craft of typography. The aim of the Club and the Award is to firmly establish the field of type-direction in the visual expression of letters, reaching far beyond conventional character designing. The exhibition reflects the different categories of the award with design raging from posters, editorial/book design, moving image, packaging/signage & display, typedesign and experimental work and is both designed and curated by John Warwicker of the London-based design collective and club member, Tomato.

The exhibition, +&-=X showcases 20 years of typo-graphics from the Tokyo Type Directors Club, and will expose Australian audiences to recent and past prize-winning designs from around the globe.

+&-+X twenty years of typo-graphics from the Tokyo Type Directors Club

Faculty Gallery, Monash Art & Design,

900 Dandenong Road Caulfield East 3145

t: 9903 2485 e: www.artdes.monash.edu.au/gallery

Monday to Friday 10-5 saturday 1-5 until the 5th of May

earthly paradise

CRAFT FIND OF THE DECADE ok, so regular readers will know that the hml ladies can often be seen at Savers buying raw materials for our projects. It was in fact this time last year we were collecting fugly jumpers for our Spod project. We always have a peruse of the ceramics first as we both have a penchant for cheesy figurines and 70's earthenware.
Those of you that know savers are aware that they sort ceramics into groups - plates on one shelf, bowls on another etc. I was scanning the bowl section when I spotted a set of 4 lovely soup tureens - all very commonsense cookbook - and was thrilled to see it had the potters mark underneath. Just then Beck sang out that she'd found some excellent plates, 4 of them in fact, in mint condition...that matched the tureens.
We both got that wild look in our eyes - you all know the one - when you've found treasure and you are terrified someone else is going to cotton on and nab key pieces. So we quietly went from shelf to shelf and got dinner, side and dessert plates, cups and saucers, bowls, and one very cute candle holder - all in perfect order, all from the same pottery and all for the princely sum of

$28.50

a great day at the office...
Different potters for different plates, does anyone know these chaps?

the ladies who lunch, well morning tea

STAFF MEETING PART TWO:

As we mentioned last week we planned a studel fueled staff meeting and we're happy to report that the apple filled pastry dish worked a treat. We managed to whip up three new product ideas, a scarf festival workshop and world domination all by 11.30am. On the inspiration-o-gramme we give the strudel a 7.5!

pot heads

CRAFT FINDS OF THE WEEK

As you all know, while Ramona collects the fine ceramic wares of such craft luminaries as Sue Robey, Gerry Wedd and Biggi Spiro, I am a complete victim of my teak sidetable and macrame upbringing and cannot go past the west german lava glazed stoneware pot. This is the lastest addition to the collection. I was pretty happy with it, even kind of cocky in my trash and treasure find, that is until my brother Matt walked in with this amazing haul.

The scene was set for a family showdown of epic proportions, until we came up with the excellent notion that instead of a german pottery death match we we would share the collection, each pick a color scheme and in future only collect within that palette. Crisis averted. So now i'm now all about the browns and greens and he's all about the blacks and oranges.

AND more importantly, i've managed to snaffle a few of his, and he's managed to pick up a few of mine. Genius! Grover would be proud.

Innovation revelation

SHOW OF THE WEEK


We were intrigued by this buttoned and bedazzled bird that graces the invite for the latest show opening this week at Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts. After a little investigation we discovered that this group show will have other treasures in store. Colin Duncan's lollypop forest last seen at Tarrawarra Museum and Del Kathryn Barton's beautiful and complex paintings are worth the trip. We aren't quite sure what constitutes innovation in contemporary art - perhaps fresh ideas, a sense of humour and beautfully finished work? We may get lucky.

Yes back over the river we go, we are becoming quite the seaside tourists aren't we?

www.lindenarts.org

let me spell it out for you

WEEKEND WARRIORS

This weekend saw one member of the hml team fly out on a 'business trip' to Perth while the other one took a tram to Jeff's shed to battle it out over white goods at Designex. Hats off to Buro North who again come up with a witty and clever reworking of everyday materials in the deisgn of the Latitude stand where we also found the work one of our 'Fresh o5' hit-pics Miss Eva Lee. Top job people.

staff meeting

WE MADE IT OURSELVES
At the start of each month we like to bunker down in hml headquarters and try and nut out the next four weeks worth of stuff (although it's taken until mid month to organise it) As any crafter worth their pin-cushion will tell you this is always made easier with a french toast breakfast with lashings of maple syrup straight from the log cabin homeland. A super sized strong coffee is also pretty helpful. If we get through all this and still can't come up with any good ideas we like to go in for second helpings of both. If that fails we like to delve into the collection of Golden Hands, Marthas or Japanese craft books, and if we still cant find 'the vibe' we usually give up and either head to the movies or take a nap. Actually we highly recommend the nap for creative inspiration. Especially with a belly full of maple syrup.

warm and fuzzy

CRAFT FINDS OF THE WEEK

Well another week and another new project started. This one is going to take some time to get together so we wont reveal too much right now. We can say that it will undoubtedly take far longer than we imagine, will be much more difficult that we envisage and will involve long weary nights in front of the sewing machine and many needle pricked fingers.

Still we're really very excited, and really who could blame us. Just wrap yer eyes around this lot of raw materials.

and no its not another spod!!

poster notes

SHOW OF THE WEEK

Longtime fans of Glaswegian artist David Shrigley have reason to celebrate this week with the opening of his Poster Project show at the difficult-to-find Kings ARI gallery. The HML team had to make harried phone calls back to head office to google directions to this outa the way space (because lets face it, we haven't been in King Street since the Smiths tribute night at Inflation in 1993). Shrigley's work is simple, sad, funny, and sharp - bit like us on a bad day we think! There is no clue at the gallery as to whether this collection of posters detailing birthday parties, farewell gatherings, gigs and exhibition openings are real or imagined - we suspect it's a mix of both. Watch for hml shrigley inspired posters later this week!

On a more personal note the hml team would like to extend a warm welcome to all our new readers and also shout out cheerio to our regulars. We've been getting lots of lovely feedback 'out in the field' and it's makin it all worthwhile peeps!

David Shrigley The Poster Project & Who I Am And What I Want

gallery 1,2 and AV, Kings Artist Run Initiative level 1/171 King St. Melbourne

www.kingsartistrun.com.au

open 3-6 Wed- Fri and Sat 12 -6

Freidanian slips

WE MADE IT OURSELVES

WOO-HOO we did it! On Saturday we made it all the way over the other side of the river to Sarajo Freidan's opening at Third Drawer Down Gallery HQ. Boy oh boy was it worth it. Not only did we meet the uber talented and excellently coiffured artist de jour-who we are happy to report is a complete delight, that's her on the left in blue, with gallery owner Abi Crompton in the middle pressing the flesh with Ramona. We each also managed to snaffle one of her truly terrific paintings... and we didnt even have to lie about the price when we got home to our families EXCELLENTO! Really people do yourselves the proverbial Molly and check this show out... it is incredibly inspiring and quite possibly the pick of the year so far.

Now readers a warning, you may notice that there is some unusually hazy photography in this post. David Wlazlo (aside from sporting a most excellent chux-wipe cravat) was juggling in house photographer duties with those of bartender and Beck fell victim to a bout of champagne fueled over excitement resulting in some decidely shaky camerawork.

The only drawback of the show was the fact that some of the pieces we liked best had been painted directly onto the walls... meaning that short of some major structural renovations we were going to have to stick to the works on paper to satisfy our buying frenzy.

Thankfully there were two wee paintings that suited us to a 'T'.

Ramona's ship finally came in and Beck at last got herself a tall boy.

Inky goodness

SHOW OF THE WEEK

Ok so we have been banging on about the (not so new) Third Drawer Down Gallery for some time now. We know it feels for those of us on this side of the River that St Kilda is as far away as Nebulon 5 but really...it isn't. We've cajoled, we've recommended, we've bullied, we've begged you to go. Mind you we haven't actually managed that magical journey on the 246 bus down Punt Road yet either but we are big fans of Sarajo Frieden so this is it kids, we are on our way! For those of you cashed up there is a master class this Monday - for the rest of us we can gaze lovingly (and with a fair degree of envy) at the inky goodness on display www.thirddrawerdowngallery.com

hopping mad

CRAFT FIND OF THE WEEK
This one's for you Miss Chinchilla...

Last year we'd found the chocolate brown bunnies of the apocolypse so this poor fella didn't get a look in. However the ladies were warned that if this somewhat disturbing black velvet rabbit didn't feature over the easter break we were going to be in some serious trouble. So here he is. Called both Snugggle Bunny and Leather Eye depending on his quixotic stare and found at a high street festival market stall many moons past he is owned by no-one yet belongs to us all, an enigma wrapped in a riddle with a side order of strange.

thank god it's friday

HE MADE THEM HIMSELF

Last night saw all the ladies out on the tiles at Tim Fleming's opening... top job done by our humble plyman and big props for pulling a solo show together while editing a film full time and keeping up with production work! Utopian Slumps proved an interesting new space with plenty of scando ceiling action lending it's retro vibe to Tim's timber pie charts. Of course we were happy to see that the obligatory crowd of PYT's didn't disapoint, and found some excellent outfitting vying for our viewing time and critical reviewing...
not the least of which was the excellent footwear stylings of the hml mother and daughter team.

Here's the artist himself talking up the merits of his one off timber finessing vs the more commercial pre cut pine ceiling boards of the gallery space.

... and while we enjoyed the sergio tacchini sportswear styling of the wall mounted work we were most intrigued with the table of not so random chaos where things fell apart.

off with the pixies

SHOW OF THE WEEK PART THREEWeeks and weeks ago the ladies of hml hobbled their cash and contacts together and managed to hook themselves up with some pre-release tix to the gig of the year. The Pixies. Ah how many, many, many years have we waited to see them in the flesh, and although one of us had to sit through staff planning meetings at work rather than the front bar of the Northcote Social Club while they played their 'secret' show (bugger!) we're still very very excited. One of the best things about this gig is that there'll be people both on stage and in the audience older than us. YAY! And who knew... Kim and Kelley Deal are avid knitters andwe've heard tales of wool throwing on stage. Really could there be anything better. Oh yes, that's right, yes... us, seeing the Pixies tonight, with Jarvis Cocker, Phoenix and in a late and unexpectedly enticing addition, The New York Dolls.

Anyway with luck we'll be recovered enough by Thursday to attend Flemo's New Values opening at the intriguingly named gallery Utopian Slumps, which by Thursday night might also be a good description for us...

as promised here are the details for the show... see you there.

NEW VALUES by TIM FLEMING

5th - 29th April... Opening 5th Alpril 6-9pm

@UTOPIAN SLUMPS 5/25 Easey street collingwood

enter via side alley Hours: Friday - Saturday 12-6pm, Sundays by appointment.

utopian slumps.org

Where for art thou

CRAFT FINDS OF THE WEEK
Ok so while we are waiting on the details of Fleming's show (today we promise) we ran around hml hq and found some vintage Flatland - the world that Tim created and that many of us occupy alot of the time.

For some reason the youngest member of hml sometime around the age of 9 became obsessed with all things dairy...this was a special commision that now sits up high in a very white kitchen:

This little forrest gets moved around the house quite a bit. Sometimes lego men can be found trimming the hedge...
We are pretty sure this is Tim. He wont confirm or deny. He's elusive isn't he...

we also found our Flatland safari scene... a favourite gazing distraction in the studio

and the Flatland championship fire brigade playset
and the newest and most highly prized piece in Beck's collection, the freshly minted 'norwegian wood' mirrored mayhem masterpiece...