pina

Talk about colour!

Sorry Ive started in the middle again...lets rewind a little....

Hi everyone! 

Hope you're enjoying a Monday that is a prelude to a great week! If you came a' knocking on the tinytrappings door last week {thank you if you did!}, you would have noticed that every post through the week was about light + dark. Light, as in the natural and unnatural light that you find when the day is fading..... and Dark...as in the darkness of night and all that you find lurking within it. 

On Saturday I said that I would start the new week with some more colour... and lucky for me it found me. Beautiful fluid moving colour in the form of Wim Wenders 3D movie called Pina, that Ive just seen... 

And all I can say is wow wow wow...

What a beautiful and inspiring documentary to German dance legend Pina Beasch, who recently passed away. In tribute to her life's work, Wim Wenders and her company of dancers have created a film that is more like an artwork performance piece than a film, as they give us light, colour and amazing movement through the streets of Dusseldorf and Wuppertal. And with the movie being in 3D they really do fly at you!

We learn how inspiring Pina was as an artist by the way each dancer emotes to screen through movement, but also through their personal interviews to camera, which let us hear such inspiring quotes from Pina as....  'what are you longing for?' + 'Go on Searching'.

Oh its SO great that this beautiful art piece had finally made it to our shores...

loved it.

the plus one

{It had been a while since I had been asked me to be a plus one. 

And what I lovely surprise it was too.}

As you may know through my little hints here and there, Ive been an unwell bunny these past two months, finding it difficult to venture much further than my front door. Not fun I can tell you... It has been a winter of true hibernation for me, with my only link to the outside world being this tiny blog! 

However a few weeks ago I had a lucky breakthrough {yay}, and since then Ive taken some tentative steps into what you may call a social life...well.... a life beyond TV, walking my dog, and looking at blogs and art books! Don't get me wrong I love my quiet time, but it is nice when the outside world comes a-knocking and as I mentioned yesterday a few people came out of the wood work last week holding invitations to some lovely events, things that I normally miss out on. And one such event that I went to last Friday was a Sydney Design event called Design in Motion. 

Design in Motion is a film screening night that happens annually as part of the design festival, and it is curated and hosted by Eskimo, a creative design agency based in Surry Hills. The night usually centres around a screening of an independent film, and this year the feature was called Press.pause.play, a documentary about the digital revolution in all things creative, such as music, film and art....

The big screen seen in these images, above and below, is where we watched this film and a collection of other shorts that proceeded the main event. 

As you can see, the venue was one of the main events for me. 

I had never seen the city lights from this vantage point before and it was so so beautiful.... every light was captured, even the stars as we stood in the dark, outside the marquee where everything was taking place...

And even though the film was brilliant, I could not get over how lucky I was to be a plus one and experience this clear, cold night, after spending so many on the couch! 

taking flight...

I just HAD to do it!

I know you're not surprised...

Anyone is Australia or in fact America

must have seen the posters

for the new Australian animated movie

Legend of the Guardians:

The Owls of Ga'Hoole

by now!

My owls!

Taking flight!

I haven't seen it but the trailer

demonstrates the beautiful way

these lovely birds have been rendered

by the Sydney animation studio

Animal Logic.

I'm sure anyone who loves the books

will be happy to see these characters on the big screen...!

I mean...

Ive fallen for just the posters!

Have great weekend everyone and I hope you enjoy some down time and have a hoot of a time!

Oh dear... Im losing it!!

Bad jokes on a saturday morning... not good!!

f l o c k e d ....

Typical....
As i start to get my head around this week, I'm treading through the inspirations, thoughts and events that happened last week. There were many inspiring moments and creative energies that I am taking with me into this week as I start to focus on all my new projects...
On the weekend I caught the brilliant Australian movie, The Waiting City, which I LOVED!! The colours and textures of India are always great source of wonder and delight to me; so seeing this movie on the big screen let the senses go wild... and I was a pig in mud!

The second event would have to be my trip out to Cockatoo Island and the many images I took out there last Monday... Many of which you have seen in the last few posts! One recurring feature that I was drawn too was the wallpapers on the walls of some of the old cottages on the hill...I had not seen them on my last trip out there, so I was so excited to find so many great examples of 19th and 20th c. prints.

This was a beautiful room...which was originally a room for one of the daughters of a guard on the island way back when.... The pink was so intense and a little garish... But you know me... too much colour is barely enough!

Clash!

This was in a small cottage where the work of New Zealand artist Yvonne Todd was displayed for the Biennale... Yvonne exhibited photographs right on top of all these prints, and again it was a little hard to see for the trees... I was drawn to the house and not the artwork! Oh dear...

Love it!

The green strip at the end of the roll is perfect!

It is truly like a op art mural on the wall...

I loved this...

It's the pattern of the wallpaper being stripped off the walls...

Looks like a tropical plant motif!?

Well to me anyway...

After all of this I had to explore the suppliers to see what I could buy in the way of pattern...

And by a stoke of luck these amazing flocked papers were on sale at Oxford art supplies on Victoria Avenue in Chatswood! So I had to make a sneaky purchase...

They are beautiful... are they not?

Have NO idea what I will use them for but ill keep you posted...

the jazz singer effect....

It was a lazy Saturday and I was a tired tiny.
It had been a busy week and I was in that all too familiar position on the couch, with the remote happily placed in my hand. I was flicking through the channels and then I came to a stop. It was Gene Kelly in a beautiful white trench coat and hat, re-inacting the opening scenes from one of my favourite movies of all time, 'Singing in the Rain'.
I was happy...

If you remember the gist of that Hollywood classic, Singing in the Rain is based on the moment when Hollywood discovered The Talkie - a movie that had sound. Before then movies played out in silence with a piano in the corner providing the accompanying soundtrack to the black and white images flashing onto the silver screen...

And then in 1927 The Jazz Singer revolutionised movies forever more. What a moment that must have been for the average Joe-blow in the audience? Actors actually talking in synchronicity with the images...
It must have seemed like....
Magic!


Well I feel like I had one of those kinds of moments; a moment where Ive peered into the crystal ball and experienced history in the making.

The revolutionary of film making...

Alice in Wonderland in 3D!!

I was blown away with the experience as I sat in the theatre with those dinky 3D plastic wannabe Ray Bans on, watching objects gravitate toward me like they were suspended in animation! It was fantastic! And even though I was not so keen on Tim Burton's take on the Alice tale I was keen on the way I was viewing it! Like my old father who is like a little child when he is in the presence any iPhone, I was giggling in my seat!



All the colours, sounds and now 3D imaging, combined beautifully in this feast for the senses...
What is next?
Smellovision or taste-o-sensation as I watch my Saturday afternoon matinee??!
Who knows what the future holds, I just hope I'm here to experience more of this magic!

new year new beginnings...

Happy new year everyone.....

I hope you had a lovely time no matter what you were doing - and that includes sleeping! I was out of it when the clock struck twelve last year, only managing to see the 9pm special... so I do understand if you couldn't make it to the final act!!

I hope you did however catch the the beautiful big blue moon that was smiling down at us in the last few days of 2009? I had a good look at it on the 30th when the streets were painted silver and there was not a noise to be heard on the streets.... I know Im sounding alittle poetic and I hope you will forgive me...

As I went to see Bright star a few days ago and the images and ideas are still lingering on i feel....

It is such a beautiful film by Jane Campion who has created a poetic world filled with such a romantic light, colour and mood that it is hard to not be seduced!

I wont rabbit on any longer but I will let you know of a brilliant website that goes further into the making of the film and of Jane's creative process....

It is called The Anthropologist and it is all about the process of inspiration....

the website takes you on a journey of discovery and details the many facets and intricacies that make up the overall composition to the film. Like a piece of poetry each image or note adds to your understanding of how bright star was envisaged by Jane and all her collaborators.... I particularly love the images by Greig Fraser - the director of photography....

Its such a beautiful website in its own right with its light and airy aesthetic and use typeface... Its the creation of the brand anthologie, an overseas company that has the most amazing products and stores... I have recently seen some of their window displays from their London store over Christmas and they are truly beautiful...

Worth a snoop....

But I hope your finding many creative ways to spend your holidays, as it is definitely not beach weather that is for sure! Ive been getting down and dirty in the studio, and in the next few days ill give you a guided tour...

but for now

take care....

The monthly review...

I just posted on the art studio blog and have posted up some images of the commissioned piece that I talked about the other week! So if you re keen to have a swizz...check it out!
Hope you all enjoyed the rain ... I of course got caught in it! But it was lovely to smell the wet grass and earth... Love that smell!

And on a wet wet day what would I be if I didn't have a movie to recommend?!!

Just saw Balibo and what an Australian movie!! It is controversial, moving, tragic and gives a new point of view to a news story and a country that we don't fully understand - even after 30 years! I'm so glad I went to see it...

Worthy I tells ya!