Well darlings, we’re off in the morning; bound for Myanmar, on the Exotic-Christmas-ca-ca Tour…
The entire Gang is going, so we’ll be off the air until early-ish January (as in delightfully off the grid; no web, no email, no nuffin’.)
Until then we’ll leave you all with lotsa love and best wishes for the incoming santa-fest.
Shazza’s keeping nit at the Hideout and the wild ones are already partying hard…
[See ya’ll in the New Year. n(Ed) ♥♥♥]
Last night the Bega Art Prize 2010 went off, with the first prize of $5000 (non-acquisitive) being snaffled by Raymond Kropf for his luscious abstract, Ancient Sunlight. Second prize went to Stan Squire for his whimsical wave machine, Out of my head…
…while Bernard O’Grady took out the Mailroom Prize with his vertiginous When I was the Sky itself.
The strength of the field was attested by the length of judge Deborah Clark’s list of Highly Commended; Margaret Brown, Tom Bosman, Kay Jensen, Brigitte Enders, Gillian Falloon, Bernard O’Grady, Veronica O’Leary and Tanja Riese.
There’s plenty to love…
The show is up until the end of January, so anybody planning some holiday fun on the Far South Coast should swing by the BVRG for their local culture fix.
More happy snaps here.
Our greatest disappointment for the year is not catching the proppaNOW opening at CCAS last Friday (a work trip to Goulburn Regional Gallery was cancelled at the last minute due to flood alerts, which chopped our intended swing past Gorman House off at the very knees.)
Serious bummer dudes.
We will, nevertheless, endeavour to catch the show before it comes down (12th Feb).
Meanwhile, contemplate this…
(Check the war rugs, Nige.)
And this…
And this…
Too good.
Darlings! We had promised you a wonderful photo journal of the Poo’s grand adventure with Granny on her 80th birthday marathon – but sadly we’ve been stymied. Yes, Granny has let us down. Not that we can entirely blame her.
Remember when, not so very long ago, we were marvelling at how incredible it was that the Poo had been circumnavigating the world in various handbags with nary a blimp on airport scanners? Well, we spoke too soon. At the very beginning of her recent trip poor old Granny was hauled aside at LAX and searched rather too thoroughly after the chaps on the x-ray machine honed in on a curiously shaped item in her hand luggage. They immediately carried out a thorough search of her entire baggage and frisked the poor old chook something savage.
Our enduring disappointment is that, when the security chappie finally liberated the Poo from his little travel sack and – presenting it to her in an outstretched palm – demanded “what is this ma’am?”, she didn’t have the presence of mind to ask if she could take a photograph (of him/the Poo/the situation.) “Blog gold” I berated her afterwards, on the phone.
But anyhoo, given that there was no sense of humour in the encounter, she henceforth banished the poor darling to her suitcase and rarely let him back into the light. (She and her travelling companions, to be perfectly honest, hadn’t been wildly enthusiastic about taking him along in the first place, so it didn’t take all that much to discourage them. It’s probably an age thing.)
Granny did give him a quick run in the safety of Phil’s…
…(above) Golden Haired Turd – our pet name for the little bro – meets wannabe Intrepid Traveller.
And, once, in Sicily Granny smuggled him onto a balcony in Taormina when nobody was looking…
So you could say, all in all, that the Poo had a pretty crap trip.
[Granny has assured us that her friend Nancy did take the odd snap here and there – but we’re still awaiting the proofs… n(Ed)]
Ah, doesn’t matter. The good news is that the Gang’s determined to make it up to him – we’re packing him for Burma next week.
He’s sure to see some action.
Message from Harry…
Matthew and I will be having our open studio day;
Dec.11 th, 10 – 2 pm at our home studio;
114 Uriarra Rd, Queanbeyan
Always a fun day. Get on down…
What an absolute darling!! Just in from Lene, the latest snap of sweetie-pie Selma.
The only art the Gang had time to eyeball in Melbourne this time round was Lorna Crane’s gig in Franklin St…
…chiefly because it’s literally across the road from Grannie’s. We’d actually already hit the sack on our return from Nonna’s when we suddenly remembered it was on, jumped out of bed, chucked on some jeans, grabbed the camera and a bitterly cold beer and wandered two doors down the street to enjoy it…
The Gang made a lightening raid on Melbourne for Nonna’s 100th birthday bash on Saturday…
Those Sicilians know how to throw a good party – La Strada got back together for the night…
…Carmela and Franco led the first dance…
…the kids had a ball…
…the food was fabulous…
…the cake spectacular…
…all our fave rellies were there…
…and Nonna had a wonderful night…
surrounded by 4 generations…
More happy snaps here.
The Gang braved the wet and galloped up the Darragh and across the Monaro for one of our fave highlights of the year, the EASS/Patron’s Day at the ANU School of Art; preview to the annual Graduate Show (this coming Friday night.) It’s always a visual treat, and the perfect opportunity to catch up with lots of our fave peeps.
We scored the bonus of a coupla hours with Babsie as ‘guide’ – quality time if ever there was!
Mugshots that made it through the editing suite here. Managed to leave the catalogue in Pa’s car, so apologies for lack of student/title/workshop data – we’ll do a retro drop-in as soon as it’s to hand.
glass central canberra 
