SHOW OF THE WEEK part 1

all in the family
ok so a little vain and flagrant self promotion is in order this week as Ramona is opening her show 'Family Values' at Imp Gallery (above Greville St Bookstore) in Prahran. It's a small affair but from this end of the week seems a tad overwhelming (photograph work, finish embroidery, make up catalogue, drive Beck insane during installation, have nervous breakdown, make cupcakes...)
Opens on Saturday afternoon but we are going to give you a hml exclusive sneak preview all week. We hope to see all our blog universe friends there xxx

CRAFT GIFTS OF LAST WEEK

Happy Birthday - the redux

It's been over a week, but we've both been incredibly busy, Beck with finishing up at work, and Ramona slaving over a secret project that will be revealed next week. There was a birthday at hml headquarters last week, but in a disturbing precurser of what is to come with with two rapidly approaching birth dates - it kind of slid past us without much pomp, fanfare or in fact chocolate cake. Still some excellent things did happen, most of which were decidely crafty in tone.

first, there was an excellent poached breakfast at The Postal Hall

then these incredibly delicious spotted stoneware breakfast sets from the fabulous Five Boroughs arrived...and that afternnon this long coveted Florence Broadhurst book was delivered courtesy of the inhouse DJ, which of course has been drooled over ever since... the architect even managed to unfold himself from the previous nights first time yoga class to put together the widgets wardrobe!all in all nothing to sneeze at and quite a lovely day, although both of us are now looking forward to having a massive HML post birthday bollywood movie and cakeathon, once we've fully recovered from Miss PenPen's afternoon tea of course.

SHOW OF THE WEEK

art imitating life
Beck once made the fateful error of encouraging the lovely Ramona to accompany the architect and the dog camping. Despite her protestations Beck managed to convince both Ramona and the intern that a couple of nights under the stars in a tent by the seaside would be a great way to spend New Years Eve. What she didn't count on however was the fact that they would be staying in the dirtiest (sausages and dogs in the showers), noisiest (absolutely rubbish covers band playing all night across the road at the pub) hovel of a caravan park on the face of the planet, and that this particularly horrific weekend would scar both Ramona and the intern for life. She's never lived it down, and even now even the mere mention of a tent makes Ramona queasy. Still we both saw that David Frazer had a new show on at Dickerson Gallery and even with the nightmare NYE lingering in the back of our minds, we both instantly clapped our hands in glee at his brilliant, hyper-real rendering of the striped canvas and guy-roped splendour of suburbia's favourite getaway. Ah the restorative powers of a good painting...

David Frazer's Lost at Dickerson Gallery Melbourne

http://www.dickersongallery.com.au/

2a Waltham St, Richmond

until July 20.

STITCH UP OF THE WEEK

Cottage Industry Working Bee
The ladies of HML are always up for a colloborative craft effort so when the Queen of Craft invited us to paticipate in the lacy frocking of the Magnolia tree that graces the path outside Cottage Industry on Gertrude Street we were thrilled!
It took 9 of us nearly 2 hours to lovingly dress the four trunks. Not much discussion as to methodoly, just one doily after another. Passersby stopped to offer ladders, laugh, give advice, take photos...

The orange pieces were much prized and magically appeared on each trunk...

The base and the high bits were a little tricky and required some dexterity that we left to the younger members of the team (can you spot Beck and unborn in the background!)...

As you can see Ramona and unborn took it all way too seriously (we might add the HML trunk took twice as long as everyone elses!) In the end it looked magical. We hope it brings everyone who sees it enormous pleasure.

Of course it wouldn't be a trip to Durstonia without a bang up afternoon tea! Ginger Fluff Sponge, lemon tart, choc chip cookies, crumpets, rasberry friands, date and walnut slice, currant rock cakes and real hot chocolate - all home made by the hostess with the mostest.

Art events - it's all bad chardonnay and incovenient night time gatherings. Craft events - there is always cake. We know what camp we live in. And happily where will stay...

installation of the week

build 'em up
The ladies of HML can be a bit cynical when it comes to installation art. We're all for public work but we only respond when we are engaged in an inclusive not elitist manner. that's why we had to show you this supercool work by artist Jan Vormann. He 'repaired' sections of the ancient Italian town of Bocchignano with duplo lego blocks. Regular readers know how gaga we go for lego!

SHOW OF THE WEEK

get thee to a nunnery We know we've been sending you up to RMIT gallery alot recently but we had to let you know about this lovely show that's travelled down from the NGA. Black Robe White Mist -which displays a collection of work by buddhist nun Rengetsu and her collaborators who hung out in the mid 1800's. She was one of the most succesful artists of her time and her poetry,calligraphy and ceramic work is much prized both in Japan and in collections around the world (our very own Hamilton Art Gallery has quite a few pieces).
Loyal readers will know the ladies of HML have quite a fondness for simple rustic ceramic work. We also have quite a taste for Sake. Shame it's off the menu for a while. We'll have to content ourselves with some green tea instead.

I MADE IT MYSELF

poppy love
This simple toy was whipped up for a very stylish girl called Poppy who miraculously arrived five weeks ago. She's the bees knees and the ladies of HML welcome her into the world. Given that her mother is a genius (really) we wait with anticipation for Miss Poppy to amaze us. Actually she's sleeping through the night already - told you she was good!

SHOW OF THE WEEK part 4

energised
Counihan Gallery in Brunswick is an interesting space - ideally suited to group shows. The ladies of hml have seen some corkers there and so we think the new exhibtion Embodied Energy will be a sure thing. Especially with the likes of Chaco Kato, Ilka White and Mary Louise Edwards (who constructs her work out of...cork). There is some waffle about sustainable art practice on the invitation that caused our eyes to glaze over a little. Craft has always been about using whats available, reusing what has been discarded, rethinking material, so it's a bit like preaching to the converted. We plan to pop into Savers on the way home to scramble for lost ceramic treasure, nanna blankets and mystery tapestries. How we can sustain our need to hoard we'll never know...

SHOW OF THE WEEK part 3

in with the in crowd

The ladies of hml are taking a mental health day today. This means no emails, no phone calls, no technology unless acccompanied by a choc top. We aren't even going to venture to the outskirts of the CBD to see this who's who of contemporary jewellery show at RMIT - Beyond Metal is on until the 28th of June so we have plenty of time. While we envy their skill we are glad not to have to compete in such a hardcore sector - we came up with another 10 names no less that we thought could have been in this show! We are most excited about seeing more work from Elfrun Lach, Vicki Mason and Stephen Gallagher. Hmm, it is just a short tram ride from HML hq. What good is a day without Craft anyway?

SHOW OF THE WEEK part 2

colourways
The ladies of HML tire of all the chic muted palettes around. Sometimes we just want to go technicolour. We are intrigued by these wooden assemblages (above) by James Rogers now on show at Christine Abrahams gallery.
They reminded us of one of our all time favorite things - the embroidered artworks of Takashi Iwasaki.
Sometimes you see someones work and you just push yourself away from the desk and say 'well that's it I'm done'. The work is so joyful, so well crafted and so seductive we can't get enough.
Next trip to the land of the rising sun Beck is in charge of procuring an orginal for the staff room wall.

SHOW OF THE WEEK part 1

WINTER WARMER
There is so much going on at the moment the hml office is in a bit of a spin. We'll be giving you a new show to see every day this week as well as bits and bobs from around the staff room. We were most taken with the invite for a news show on at Sturt Gallery in Mittagong NSW - a long ways away for some of our readers but for those of you in the vicinity the palette looks warm and the printing techniques of artist Annie Trevillian are seductive - on both paper and fabric. The invitation alone is inspiring from a textilers p.ov. The website provides some nice images too.

On the home front there's been a lot of click-clacking at HML headquarters of late as we two ladies hit the wool pile hard and started actually making some stuff ourselves in the hope of keeping our families warm ... because let's face it , despite global warming it seems like it's going to be absolutely freezing this winter.

Beck has been busy knitting an appropriately gender neutral baby blanket for her widget in utero... which is actually turning out to be much harder than she first thought as far as colour choice goes and increasingly the palette is being based around green and orange. While Ramona has been busy knitting a birthday scarf for the silver haired historian and father to be. Shame the birthday was three weeks ago and she still isn't finished.