26.6.09

TOOL OF THE WEEK

hunka hunka burnin' love

Beck's mile-stone (or is that millstone?) birthday last week provided many highlights: a magnificent 'choc'embouche cake mountain, some top drawer OPC embroidery,a bevy of floral tributes and a choice browny-orange West German ceramic vase. However the pick of the day was this most excellent wood burning tool she received from Ramona. Every ready to doodle, she's already started illustrating the teak salad bowls at hml headquarters with all manner of dumbstruck animalia. And hey, call us crazy, but it seemed important to talk up another 'tool of the week' so soon after Ramona's interview with 'Stubbsy'.

25.6.09

INTERVIEW OF THE WEEK

This afternoon Ramona will be chewing the fat with Stubbsy on ABC radio 774. Talking up craft, handmadelife, making stuff and, knowing local radio, giving a traffic report and taking calls from listeners. crikey!

23.6.09

I MADE IT MYSELF

Somehow, amidst the chaos Ramona managed to get these little fellas done this past week. She should have been packing boxes for Beck and The Architect, not to mention the mountain of work for Design Made Trade...
Instead she found herself spending some quality time with these furry people. They are now on the wall of the Brunswick Street Gallery - along with 3 million other paintings - as part of the Small Works Prize show.
Big opening on Friday night if you want to say hello. She promises not to talk in the third person.

22.6.09

SHOW OF THE WEEK

Dear readers, our apologies for the lack of posts last week. It's not that we don't love you. We have been beset, besieged and beleaguered by illness, exhaustion and general malaise from work, babies, moving house, bad weather, lack of funds and looming deadlines.
But this week promises to be better. We'll be ticking things off the to do list like there is not tomorrow! Including busting our way into Craft Victoria to see these amazing knitted forms by Alana Clifton Cunningham.
there is nothing we can do to improve the weather. sorry. 16 and showers all week.

15.6.09

SHOW OF THE WEEK

The ladies of HML don't often venture in to Sutton Gallery. Which is dumb really given its proximity to our abodes. But we will make the effort in the next week to see the new show by Helen Johnson whose work we've always really loved. Acrylic paint, pencil, collage, pop culture refrences and social strains make her shows always a content-rich experience. And then we can go to Babkas for some soup!

9.6.09

VIMEO OF THE WEEK


Fluid Sculpture from Charlie Bucket on Vimeo.

We thought this piece was just mesmerising. And we dug the crochet stylings of this little sculpture. Think of it as meditation and watch it on your tea break. Anything by a guy called Charlie Bucket is worth checking out no?

8.6.09

SHOW OF THE WEEK

objet d'art
The ladies of hml thing it's important that when you see the work of Meredith Turnbull that you come to it with a fresh pair of eyes. Her CV reads like a veritable wish list of ace jobs/projects/bits of paper. Lesser mortals may feel intimidated (us included). So ignore all that and look at the work first...
curious sterling silver objects that turn in unexpected ways - part organic part machine. Elegant and hardcore at the same time. Sometimes, in the sea of cozy craft out there it can be a relief to indulge in capital C craft. You know the kind you turn over and the pieces are as beautifully finished at the back as they are in the front? her show Some Become Strangers will be on at Pieces of Eight until the 20th of June. Highly recommended.

3.6.09

SHOW OF THE WEEK

coming round the mountain

This week is going to be all about mountains, apparently. We've just had a peek at the new Paul Pirie show "mountain rituals" on at Kick Gallery, imagine a hike to the top of the Andes, Staedtler pencils and sketchbook in hand, taking magic mushrooms with a crazy bearded mystic, coming over all crazed forth world supernatural insights and drawing for 36 hours straight. In short... quite a trip. In a far more lengthy explanation Pirie describes his current body of work as a series of “…abstract compositional paintings and drawings, delving into the relationships between naive shapes, imperfect lines, and organic painterly expressions.” While Kick Gallery tell us "Pirie's work contains ghetto influenced graffiti elements, lettering, characters and shapes, while combining his deep interest in abstract composition. The jagged, clashing aesthetic that this combination achieves is constantly pushing a juxtaposition of obsessive black and white pattern and line work, with flat daubs of loose, extravagant colour. The works convey a musical element, subconsciously achieved through aural influences of metal, rap, and punk music, creating a form of visual representation arrived at through musical inspiration. Thematically Mountain Rituals reflects a refined interest in hallucinogenic drug culture, Greek and Mexican myths and legends, as well as the relationship between humanity and the natural/supernatural world. Pirie’s works are filled with abstract monster characters, animated mountains, acid tripped landscape visions and magic spells that spill out to form a sub reality which allows the artist to create and explore a world of slow moving furry monsters, bad ass sperm eye balls, floating laser beam monster faces, and an orgy of magic words, repetitive patterns, and mountain rituals."
Whew... like we said people... quite a trip.

Which of course got us thinking more about trips in the mountains ... and after we'd stopped singing "Rocky Mountain High" (ahem) our first thought was of the super cool and kawaii hiking bear and crazy squirrel from Japanese design company mountain mountian .

The Japanese connection logically led us straight to the Mel Robson and Kenji Uranishi's Little People from Sandwich Mountain .

Which finally, via the touring rock dinosaur connection (note acca dacca tees), led us straight back to Janes Addiction and the fabulously anthemic Mountain song...

For younger readers we've given a link to the old school version of Janes Addiction we enjoyed back in the late 80's rather than the cleaned up contemporary incarnation... not to say that we aren't going to be there whooping it up with a few hundred of our fellow antiquarians at festival hall come July 30.

Mountain Rituals is on at Kick Gallery until June 13, Mountain Mountain is available at In the Woods in person and online at Giant Robot, Sandwich Mountain adventures can be seen on the Sandwich Mountain blog, and Mountain Song will most probably be the second encore song at Festival Hall on July 30.
Happy hiking people.

1.6.09

BAKE OFF OF THE WEEK

go pies!Ok so it is now officially winter here in Melbourne. And boy does it feel like it. I'm typing this at 7am in the dark in my very unflattering dressing gown drinking a bucket of coffee and worrying that the intern is going to be warm enough as she braves the two trams to school. At least in her brown bag today she's taking one of my home made meat pies for lunch! Yumbo in my tumbo!