Pussycat Pussycat…

…Where have you been?

We’ve been all sorts of places this past month, enjoying the good weather and festival season of our island home. Here’s a photographic summary:

The Taste of Tasmania Festival, with nosh, nibbles and noms galore (sorry, I was on a roll with the aliteration). Not to mention giant lego, street performances and fantastic buskers.

Mona Foma, or MOFO for short; a super cool music festival run by the Museum of Old and New Art (MONA).

Highlights for me were the Sun Ra Arkestra, (above) an international, interplanetary stage explosion; The Bombay Royale from Melbourne via Bollywood; the tight-as-a-leopard-leotard punkish rock of The Julie Ruin and a mesmerising machine/music installation called The Ada Project.

The festival precinct, by the Hobart waterfront, was also just a really cool place to hang out with other music fans at dusk and beyond.

We took the kids to see the Tasmanian Symphony Orchestra performing music from the films of Pixar and they showed remarkable patience and focus. They are still talking about “the concert!”

We also went, as a family, to see a musical version of Robin Hood performed in the Royal Botanical Gardens by Big Monkey theatre company.

Day trips have included jaunts to the Cygnet Folk Festival and the Middleton Country Fair. We took a ferry to Bruny Island and collected shells and rocks on the sensational beaches.

And in a surprising twist, given my usual relationship with sport generally and tennis specifically, we attended the Hobart International Tennis Tournament (and enjoyed it!). Check out the view beyond the court in the photo below.

It has been a month of involvement, discovery and new experiences.

(And I should mention that while we’ve been visiting all these different places, and more, it has been possible to find me in one “place” the whole time: Instagram. Look me up under the name manychacha if you are a frequenter of that particular social medium!)

Coffin Chasers

Stunning weather to go and see some art at MONA today. But the art is all underground. And a lot of it is confronting, mind-bending and preoccupied with death. (Fantastic activity to do with the kids and a visiting aunt. Really!)

Then it’s a case of chase or be chased… by the chickens on the lawns outside  that is.

Is it just the same with the human preoccupation with death? Is that why we make endless TV shows about it, read true crime trash, slow down to perve at the car wreck? Trying to catch death, somehow, so it can’t catch us…

This is the week of the year when fascination with death and dead people is socially sanctioned and indeed, celebrated in many parts. I’ve never done Halloween but I can understand the appeal. I’m interested in the leftovers of people who have gone before… the remains that can be seen in old photographs. Ghostly faces, frozen moments and smiles from long ago.

On the one hand I’m fascinated by the time distance between us and I wonder about the lives of the people who stare at me from old photos. On the other hand I marvel at our similarities across time. People don’t change so very much (check this out for a lovely example, and the smart alec in the centre photo, below).

If I were really interested in death and the chasing of it, I would travel to Manitou Springs, in Colorado USA, where yesterday the Emma Crawford Festival culminated in the 18th Annual Coffin Race and Parade. It’s part of a “spooktacular” calendar of events based around the creepy story of poor Emma’s remains being washed down the hill by stormy weather, 30 odd years after her death. The festival website features some suitably spooky photos of Emma Crawford herself.

Even if it’s true that each photograph captures a tiny piece of your soul forever, as some cultures supposedly believe, we should pose for as many as we can to leave a trace of ourselves behind. Because as sure as that cheeky chicken is going to steal some of your picnic lunch, death is going to catch up with us all sooner or later.

Hands On Art

Child art is often as good as any abstract art in a gallery, I reckon (no offence to any abstract artists who may be reading) and I’ve been looking forward to framing work created by my own kids. But anticipating the outcome sort of misses the point of children doing artistic activities, doesn’t it?

For kids, the value of making art is in creative play, exploration and discovery. It’s about the process.

We’ve been trying out some new art-based activities lately. Collecting natural materials to use as brushes….

…and painting al fresco…

…which resulted in more paint on our clothes than on the paper!

There’s been lots of play dough (or “fray dough” as it is known here).

And yesterday we attended thINK, a drawing festival arranged by Bradfield Dumpleton, who is an arts educator and illustrator.

We chatted to Jane Brown, who worked with Bradfield to make it all happen, while the kids scrawled all over the paper table cloth and got a grip on the different kinds of drawing implements. Jane explained that the festival was as much about creating connections as creating art.

The idea was to get imagination juices flowing by exploring lines, links and the workings of the human brain.

The gallery of drawings completed by (mostly school-aged) participants was cool and inspiring. Better still was the opportunity for our little guys to get their hands dirty and have a go themselves.

The Quirks of Quark and Pretzels

Thinking about Germany the other day, I headed down a trail of research as twisted and twirly as a knotted pastry. I learned a bit about European dairy products, something of the history of pretzels and not much at all about physics.

Nope, it wasn’t that the start of October reminded me of Oktoberfest, that seems so obvious. (Plus, while I like beer and have consumed plenty of it, something about the phrase “the biggest beer festival in the world” just sounds messy).

Instead, Germany came to my mind because I happened to be seeking a quick snack and stumbled upon The Brezel Bäckerei. They serve all sorts of German delights, including some fat salty “brezels” (aka pretzels) which come in a cigar shape, rather than the traditional knot. In addition to the pretzels, which are very popular in our house, I scored a portion of poppy seed and quark cake that can only be described as a slab. It was a creamy, indulgent treat and I wondered: what on earth is ‘quark’?

Quark, it turns out, is an unfermented cream cheese, sort of like crème freche or ricotta, which is obviously ideal for desserts. It is unrelated to the building block of universal matter which physicists call by the same name.

And pretzels have been around for hundreds of years, having originally been a reward offered by monks to Sunday-school students who turned in their homework. Apparently it’s the holes that are symbolically relevant in the traditional shape: they represent the Christian holy trinity.

Since Oktoberfest is wrapping up in Munich today, if you do choose to indulge in much beer I recommend some plump salty pretzels as an accompaniment. You can be sure that even if the beer leads to bad things, that the pretzels will be good (in the godly sense) as well as tasty.

(The image at top can be found at the Morgan Library and Museum).

Pirate Allies

It was Talk Like a Pirate Day last week, the equally fun and silly “holiday” whose profile and popularity increases each year, despite it having no apparent purpose.

We were confronted by some pirates on the day, no higher than my waist but twice the size of my two boys, it seemed. One brandished a plastic sword, flourished a cape and repeatedly yelled “Imagine That!” (is it a quote?). The other *kapowed* and *boomed* a toilet roll/musket at us with one hand, and hiked up his striped boxer shorts (worn on the outside of his trousers, with red galoshes) with the other.

“Only pirates are allowed here,” we were told. I was proud at the defiance shown by my kids in the face of such formidable and flamboyant danger. Or perhaps they just didn’t understand. They simply stared while I got them off the hook by pointing out various clues that they were pirate allies. Spotty pants, skulls on sneakers, the usual. Since then, whenever the little guys are dressing up in their most crazy combinations, they shout “argh!” and declare themselves as pirates. They seem to have missed the real point of the pirating business.

Their dad took them to the Tall Ships Festival, which is taking place on the Hobart waterfront. It’s like days of old down there at the moment; masts and flags standing tall and dominating the skyline. In addition, and coincidentally, I have been reading about treasure-hunting in old National Geographic magazines.

And all this led me to researching real pirates like Blackbeard, Spanish shipwrecks with New World riches and imagining what it was really like in the Bahamas during the 17th century.

These images of glittering skulls, dreamy beds on boats, military jackets, puffed sleeves and scarlet heels are probably quite far from the mark. But if you’re going to miss the point of the pirating business, you might as well be glamorous about it.

Top image: Stuart Weitzman red and purple shoe, Comme Des Garcons jacket photographed by Paolo Roversi for Vogue.

Centre image: Marc Jacobs ensemble from some years ago (I think the bed is on a Kerala houseboat).

Bottom: Nicholas Morley Swarovski-crystal skull featured in In Style, August 2007, photographed by Tony Amos.

(Click on images for greater detail).

Killing Time or Filling Time

Our car was being fixed today and so we had a lot of time to kill whilst waiting. But that’s such a negative expression, and in fact we had a pretty good day exploring and playing.

Thus, it seems more appropriate to say we filled time. Here are some small things that captured my attention and “made my eyes happy” today.

A spider has found an unlikely place to make a home.

Labels on an old trunk.

An overgrown bathtub in the garden of a derelict house.

The broken old sign for a Chinese restaurant with a very westernised name.

An impromptu moss garden growing under an abandoned old car.

A 1960s power station, I think, with Mount Wellington in the background.

Spring begins to make an appearance in a bamboo grove.

Textural, stone, house foundations.

Curvaceous architecture from 1949, with a tiny stained glass window embellishment.

Once I’d set my mind to looking out for attractive details, the time went so much quicker.

 

Travel at Home Tip #5

“Travel at Home” by climbing to the top of a nearby hill, mountain or tall building to survey your town from above.

Rolling Like a Stone

I visited a local Jewish cemetery today and I placed some stones on one of the graves: it is one of my favourite Jewish customs.

There are a variety of understood reasons for the tradition, but the purpose seems intuitive rather than rational. Pebbles and rocks are sturdy, weatherproof, solid, heavy. By placing one on your grave I am marking my respect in a tangible way, I am adding to the monument of your life, I am letting future visitors know that you have been acknowledged by me.

(Henrietta Moses died at age 13 in 1853, around the time when the Jewish population was at its largest in Tasmania).

The cemetery at Cornelian Bay is located on land that was once government farmland, and it has been used as a burial ground (on and off) since 1872. Many of Hobart’s original cemeteries became health hazards because it wasn’t possible to dig deeply enough into the rocky earth to make suitable graves.

I gather that the old Jewish cemetery, used from 1828 to 1871, had a block of apartments built upon it but was exhumed in its entirety once the building was demolished. The human remains and some salvaged head stones have been reinterred at Cornelian Bay and a lovely garden space has been created as a memorial.

I wasn’t able to linger long over the graves today, but I did reflect upon the contribution of these long-ago people to the development and culture of the place that I now call home. There were Jewish convicts and free settlers in Tasmania, and the plaques in the cemetery dedicated to infants are a stark reminder of the harsh conditions in which these people attempted to raise families. Meanwhile, one of the plaques names 89-year-old Sarah Moses, who died in 1861; she must have been one tough cookie.

Having been at this place and thinking about these things today, I was particularly struck when my husband received news this afternoon of a family member’s pregnancy, while another beloved relative is very near death.

The cycle of life and death is a mystical, but somehow also very ordinary, thing. All we can do is roll with it.

(The photographs feature all the Moses graves that I could find for a writer and archaeologist on the other side of the world, Lois Elsden, who has ancestral links to early Tasmanian settlers).

Love and Clutter

With a name like “Love and Clutter” — which I recognised as the name of a book by one of my favourite Melbourne icons, artist Mirka Mora — this shop was destined to catch my attention. I gather from my limited time there that it was just my kind of place.

Sadly, it closed a few weeks ago. We barely got to know one another.

(Mixed media piece, above, by Christina Romeo).

Even after it had shut its doors for good, this shop had style. Hobart, and especially its town centre, has only a few retail gems so this is a real loss.

Note to self: treasure and give patronage, when possible, to the special places before they all shut down and leave the streets soul-free.

the market

Hobart’s the market is so friendly that it has a welcome sign saying “hello” at the door.

The organisers advertise upcoming dates with little cards and posters like this all around town but I always forget to go.

Until today.

The foyer of the Masonic Hall featured a sneak peak of what was inside, for snoopers.

I really loved the attention-to-detail of some of the stalls, such as Weeping Willow, where Jess sold tribal style trinkets and flowy dresses to die for.

And Marley and Lockyer, by Ness, who infused all of her (white!) creations, including her business cards, with creative passion.

Even her gorgeous hand lettered signs.

(Every element was inspiring).

I was also a fan of Miriam’s stall, where she sold screen printed clothing, hand knits and other lovely stuff under the name Nara Design.

Upstairs was a pop-up shop.

Nooks and ledges featured sweet little displays.

And decorative touches.

All bound together with a cool philosophy inspired by Kevin McCleod.

I mustn’t forget to visit the market ever again.