Autumn has arrived

The arrival of autumn means that winter is around the corner and it is not a season I particularly enjoy. Give me ten days of thirty-five degrees compared to a single winters day. Although I'm apprehensive about the colder days ahead, it does herald the beginning of stews, slow cooking, home made sausages and mushrooms - and that my dear, I can get excited by. So I'm hoping to get out there in the great outdoors over the next few months and forage for mushroom with an older sibling who knows quite a bit about the right ones to eat. I've bought a few cookbooks in the last few months including the new Rose Bakery book How to boil an egg and I can't wait to try out a number of recipes. If you haven't checked out the book, please do. The drawings by botanical illustrator Fiona Strickland are jaw dropping. 

My camera has been getting a protracted check up so I'm sharing a recent Instagram photograph. I'm so addicted to playing around with filters, effects and being a little bit of a geek about it all. As teaching work has been scarce, I'm working full time on some new woven work which I'm quite excited by. I'm also about to have one of the sample artworks from Significant Others included in an exhibition that opens this week titled Home Reframing Craft and Domesticity. There are a few interesting workshops and events that coincide with the exhibition that sound great, so check out the link above if you're in Melbourne. Although I don't know much about the artist Mervyn Napier Waller, my pick would be the tour of the home and studio he shared with his artist and illustrator wife Christian. Promise I'll have new samples in the next few weeks.    

My Instagram profile is carla_grbac for those also keen on the app... I always love making new friends!

Art letter for Saan

Two friends - Jade, Saan and I are exchanging Art Letters over the coming weeks. This is my first for Saan. It has been addictive playing around with different mediums and getting messy with paint. I haven't used acrylic for quite a while and I'm loving the plasticity of it and the ability to layer paint and colour. They are all sketches or ideas and certainly not resolved but it was in an attempt to get some creative stuff happening. The most exciting thing of all is knowing you are sending something off into the world and offering it up to someone else with no agenda or idea of what they will do with it. There is something quite liberating about this whole process. I'm excited to see what I will get in return. Happy Friday!

Morning beach walks

Gleaning for now

Finally I feel as though I have room to breathe and the energy for creative pursuits. I feel excited by the possibilities. I have a few projects on the go and I know this year will be filled with plenty more. I'm thankful for the opportunities that I've had with teaching and I adore so much about the job, but there isn't much room for anything else in my life when I'm working every day of the week. Perhaps it was a little serendipitous that my contract ended late last year. I'm ready to give myself the time to get creative things happening. Argh! What? At the moment, my mind is pulled in so many directions. Sometimes I imagine the random brainstorm at work in my brain a little like a scene from 'Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind' - the connections and words and lines I follow to a point before veering off to random others and others and others.

When I was still at uni studying for my degree, I saw a documentary called 'The Gleaners and I' that quite resonated with me. Traditionally it means to gather the left overs after harvest. This is what I've been doing these past few weeks. Looking at old photographs that I've discarded and notes in the margins of my sketch books. I've always found the process is as engaging as the end product so this is the plan - to surround myself with books, other artists and designers work, photographs, brainstorms, ideas, work, samples, yarn, colour, paint, brushes, pens, pencils and anything else I can get my hands on. The hope is that from these sources, a plan and workable idea will emerge.

A note about the map of the world - yes, the original etching is not mine. This is a silver gelatin print made from some microfiche film I specially requested. It has been printed just as you would a normal negative in the darkroom onto photographic fiber-based paper. It came from a rare book of maps I found in the State Library over ten years ago. From memory, the book was about two hundred years old. 

Of late

Life has been busy of late. Full of packing, eating and making. Putting away my teaching resources gathered over the past two years of work was rather difficult. It is amazing what you can accumulate in a short time frame. Into storage for now and onto other exciting things. I'll still be teaching next year but I think I've neglected my own creative pursuits for a little too long. Have a wonderful evening, see you sometime in the new year xc 

A collage

Basket weaving workshop with Maryann Talia Pau

I was pretty chuffed to spend a day learning traditional Samoan basket weaving techniques at Harvest Textiles yesterday. I've always wanted to turn my weaving into three dimensional objects, and here was my chance to learn from someone I have a bit of a art crush on - Maryann Talia Pau. She is totally humble, funny, enthusiastic, energetic and full of passion for what she does and the life she chooses to live. I've felt a little overwhelmed by work lately, so it was absolutely heartening to sit and talk textiles with other women in the workshop who love it as much as I do. Discussing cultures that pass on knowledge to children and how important it is to retain those links with our pass and draw them into the future with us. Using Harvest Textiles scraps and raffia, I ended the day with one small basket and the beginnings of another. My basket didn't quite sit flat enough, but I plan on practicing over the next few months and hopfully mixing things up a little. Check out Maryann's website and Plog (no typo) if you haven't yet. Her writing is just as inspiring and I walked away with renewed energy. I'm thankful for that.

 

Something from today

Tasmania part two

Tasmania really is so beautiful and my photographs don't really do it justice. We travelled to Huonville and through a number of sweet towns like Geeveston where we stopped and turned around to head north. I wasn't really kitted up for serious hiking but the walks around the Tahune AirWalk were easy enough with plenty of information about different plant species and plenty of furry green trees. I swear, there must be fairies there - it must be quite magical in Summer. There were lots of moments of sunshine and no serious rain to dampen our spirits - I think we were pretty lucky. On our way back to Hobart we drove through Cygnet, Kettering and Snug and ended up in Richmond on our last day, eating more pie for lunch and wandering around the quaint township. 

Thanks to those people who gave their recommendations - freely or unwittingly - of where to go and what to do; Saan and Rowan, Jade, Ryan and Elizabeth. It was certainly worth getting out of Hobart and taking a drive. Next time it will be the coastal beaches that I'll have my eye on.

Hobart part one

It's rare that an artwork gives me that exhilarating heart thumping moment, but that happened a number of times at MONA. I felt rather privileged to stand among some interesting and confronting work and be inspired by it all. Especially great was their display of barkcloth from areas such as Fiji and Papua New Guinea. This space also displayed one of Alberto Giacometti's standing bronze figues. I loved the Sol LeWitt wall piece, the old treasures in their new exhibition, Theatre of the World, Rafael Lozano-Hemmer's Pulse Room, Julius Popp Bit-Fall and too many others to name. I can't wait to go back again.  

Here are a a few things I got up to... Dinner at Garagistes. Breakfast at Pigeon Hole. When asking, we found that Pigeon Whole supplied quite a few of the places we went to with delicious sourdough bread. Sidecar for their pickles and hand made chips and the intimate little bar space. Bruny Island cheese at A Common Ground. I wish I wasn't quite so full when we tucked into coffee at Tricycle. I really wanted to try their food. Jackman and McRoss bakeries make a mean meat pie. We wandered around North Hobart and bought a few things from Sweet Envy. I tried one of their desserts that I can't stop thinking about. Covered in chocolate and sandwiched between two layers of thin chocolate cake, was a delicious chocolate buttercream and gooey salted caramel. On this occasion, we found our way here on the way home to Melbourne, but would have loved to have turned around for more delicious treats. Perhaps next time!