Last Friday was one of those days chocka with cultural smatterings all over town. The Gang kicked off the morning with the launch of Robert Rauschenberg at the NGA; a stars’n stripes spangled affair opened by the American Ambassador and wife Mimi, and attended by a crowd of predominantly NGA staff by the looks of it. Plenty of suits, but that may have just been the secret service detail. The Gang high-tailed it the moment security moved in to curtail the activities of a fellow snapper – try as we might we didn’t quite have the accoutrements of an approved and accredited photographer…

So we beat a hasty retreat to Luna Ryan’s studio out at Mitchell where we’ve spent the last few weeks making work for an upcoming show at CraftACT, Settings (opening this coming Thursday 6th September at 6pm).  It’s been rather jolly out there, lots of glassy activity. Luna herself is frenetically finishing work for a show at Craft in late October  – and as she’s taking off to Europe for a month next week she needs to have everything ready before she goes. Jay Kochel’s been there as well, casting the most adorable miniature crystal boots. And you’ll see what the Gang’s been up to soon enough, don’t worry about that (though it doesn’t quite come under the category of ‘adorable’, we must admit…) On the day, however, we were just steaming moulds out, ready for one last casting.

In the early evening we took ourselves off to Helen Maxwell’s Gallery for the double serve of Sally Robinson Portraits and Other Paintings and a breadthy collective of self-portraits (by-too-many-local-artists-to-possibly-mention-but-you-name-’em-they-were-there) myself by myself. It’s a very cute show, actually – sweet, even.

And then we were off to ‘Mest’ in Manuka – a hair salon with artful attitude if ever there was – for the Make Your Mark tattoo-a-thon. Another event in the CLAW program, ‘Mest’ put on a gob-smacking evening of superior nosh, endless  champagne, temporary tatts, in situ body daubing and…(drum-roll, maestro)…industrial belly-dancing! What a hoot. We were particularly charmed by the guy in the Harvey Norman jumper – “I’m with the belly dancer”, he said, on enquiry. Well, of course he was.

A veritable salon of flicks await on…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glasscentralcanberra/sets/72157601819362465/