Is this goodbye?

I'm not sure. Is it?

Do I move my blog over to my FABULOUS NEW WEBSITE?

I've started posting over there to see how I feel about it. So head on over to stay in touch.

And who knows? Maybe I'll be back.

I'll have to ask my webmaster extraordinaire how to keep the name Davernator with the new blog.

It's not a name one can give up easily.

Lucky Charm

This auction is an awesome project. Amazing Australian and international jewellers donate beautiful things for you to snap up at bargain prices ($30 reserve)

And all proceeds go directly to the Red Cross Disaster Relief and Rescue Fund.

YOU HAVE TO CHECK IT OUT!! (that's the link)

GO NATALIA!!

fashion

I know it's so yesterday's news, but the Rocks were selected to be in the opening event of the l'Oreal Melbourne Fashion Festival! Michelle Jank, accessories designer and stylist extraordinaire spotted the earrings at e.g.etal and thought they were perfect for the 'Denim Decades' section of the opening runway, Fashion Full Stop. As I can't afford my own photographer, I nicked these images from Fashionising.com and unfortunately couldn't find a photographer's credit.

 

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This should be mine!!

 photo nicked from here

Although I'm really quite glad it's at the Man From Snowy River Museum. Apparently the Australian War Memorial have tried to get their hands on it but the Men From Snowy River have dug their heels in. I love a regional museum.

It was knitted by Jim Simpson when he was a prisoner of war in Germany during the second world war (is that supposed to be in capitals?). On arrival at the camp he was warned that the German guards would take his new naval pullover from him and send it to the Russian front, so he went to the loo and unravelled it! And that was the beginning of the quilt. Jim is the quintessential digger, he retains his humour through adversity and he has some great stories to tell. You can hear some of them in this wonderful 5 min doco produced by Culture Victoria
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New range?

Waltjim Bat Matilda

My mate Mel Robson posted this on her blog and I had to share. It's fantastic.




Waltjim Bat Matilda - Ali Mills from Skinnyfish Music on Vimeo.

Waltjim Bat Matilda by Ali Mills from Skinnyfish music via Vimeo
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If I had a real job...

... I would be happier about this.

I would be happier because I would not be experiencing the combined frustrations of post-Christmas bank balance blues and a New Years resolution to cut back on my art buying.

And I would be exceptionally happy because I would be battling it out in the ebay auction room (one of my favourite pastimes) to procure more beautiful things to surround myself with. And all with the knowledge that my fantasy salary would be supporting a worthy cause.

As it is, I will lustfully drooling over my monitor and dropping hints that my birthday is coming up soon and as I was overseas for a recent milestone birthday, perhaps someone... anyone... might feel the right combination of guilt and generosity and BUY ME THIS...

Marilu Guzman "Box and Vases"
Starting bid : AU $30.00

Earthenware
Hand built, dry glaze
Box - 21 x 11 x 8 cm
Vase - 14 x 8 x 4 cm

Or this...

Kevin White "Vase"
Starting bid : AU $200.00

Porcelain
22 x 19 Diameter cm

Or this...

Ayumi Horie "Crocodile Mixing Bowl"
Starting bid : AU $100.00

Earthenware
6.5 x 20.3 x 15.2 cm

 Or this...

Dawn Whitehand "Fibonacci"
Starting bid : AU $ 50.00

Stoneware
Wheelthrown & manipulated, Volcanic glaze.
30 x 16 x 16 cm

Or this...

Janet Mansfield "Teabowl"
Starting bid : AU $20.00

Stoneware
Woodfired in anagam kiln.
H 9 cm

Or this...

Jane Sawyer "Stretch Series platter"
Starting bid : AU $50.00

Slip coated Red Earthenware
50 x 8 x 20 cm

Or this (Oh Yes! Most especially this)...

Vipoo Srivilasa "For the Future"
Starting bid : AU $ 200.00

Earthenware
H 22 cm

Or this...

Shannon Garson "Paddock Jug and Paddock Bowl"
Starting bid : AU $ 70.00

Porcelain, oxide, glaze, underglaze
Jug - 23 x 10 diameter cm
Bowl - 8 x 12 diameter cm

Or this...

Gerry Wedd “Thylacine Thong”
Starting bid : AU $ 90.00

Glazed ceramic
Cobalt decoration
Womens 9 (25 x12 cm)

Or this...

Kenji Uranishi “Tower Block”
Starting bid : AU $ 100.00

Porcelain
slab
5 x 14 x 17 cm

Such low starting bids!! And so many more to choose from

All the relevant information can be found here. And here's link to the facebook page which seems to be visible to all regardless of whether you are a facebooker or not

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blah blah blah

To start the year off I'm going to do some back tracking and link to a few interviews I did that appeared on the webs last year. Who knew I could talk so much!

Craft on Foot is an initiative of Craft Victoria. It's a podcast hosted by Kate Rhodes and it offers a self-guided audio tour of my hood - Flinders Lane. (although perhaps not for much longer. More details as the year progresses). I talk about my experience of working in Flinders Lane over the last 16 years!!! (listen out for me shooting my mouth off about our greedy landlords - this might come to backfire on me someday)

The Audio Design Museum was put together by Object in Sydney and is a library of Audio tours of the design precincts of Sydney, Melbourne and Brisbane. Vivianne Stappmans, of the Design Guides, came up to the studio and interviewed Nicky, Cass and I and we appear in the 'focus on jewellery' podcast under the Melbourne tab.

I did a graduate profile interview for the School of Performing and Creative Arts at Deakin University. I'm not a graduate of Deakin but I'm a graduate of somewhere so they used me as an example of a successful (cough, cough) arts business! It has a kind of business focus so is less interesting than the other two.

And here's a picture...

Humph was chasing the rats in the lane behind the Nicholas building and was spotted by a professional photographer, PJ Santiago, who wanted him for his portfolio.

Chadwicks here we come.
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Bad Beasts...

... have entered my head. I can't believe I didn't post about this before and now it's finishing!

If you haven't seen this exhibition currently showing at Craft Victoria then I highly recommend that you get along to it before it closes on the 16th October.

Natalia Milosz-Piekarska and Karla Way have created a very haunting installation of jewellery and objects in gallery one at CV.

(both images nicked from Natalia's blog - I hope that's ok?)

I initially thought that the installation might have worked better in a more intimate space like gallery 3 - creating a kind of protected hide-out. But when you walk through the space with these numerous talismanic pendants you become aware of the spacial limits of their protection more profoundly. It kind of reminded me of certain horror movies but in a good way.

And, of course, the jewellery is beautiful.

And in breaking news... The exhibition is to travel to Metalab in Sydney next year.

If I was in Budapest

I would definitely be going to this....

I don't know whether I have any Hungarian readers but if I do, I encourage you to go have a look

Flora Vagi was Manuel's assistant at the summer academy but I had admired her work long before I met her. Indeed, I own one of her brooches!

Jet lag has released it's grip on me but the PAED (post amazing experience depression) is lingering
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Enmore fundraising auction

To all my Sydney readers: Git along to this...

wow. I'm renowned. I'm chuffed
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vernissage

Great word vernissage. It means: "a private viewing of paintings before public exhibition.
ORIGIN French, literally ‘varnishing,’ originally referring to the day prior to an exhibition when artists were allowed to retouch and varnish hung work." from the dictionary on my computer's dashboard.

If I didn't think I was going to sound pretentious, I would start to use it from now on instead of "opening".

This is just a photo of Flora's shoes. And of the floor in the studio where the landscape architects were working. It was the old smithy and I thought the floor was beautiful.

And this was the entrance to the room where we were exhibiting. It's a time-line of the process of the workshop. If you look closely you can see the bright red Australia from our first project.

I know it all looks kind of empty but I was taking photos very early on and then forgot (had too much to drink) to take more photos when the crowds turned up.


Here is the set up for the still life workshop that I mentioned in the previous post

and a close up:

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The End

You might have guessed that I am post-posting.

Yes, I am back in Melbourne and as I was lying awake at 4.30 this morning, I thought that I might as well use my extra jet-lag time to my advantage and catch up on the blog.

The intention project was our last project and the one that we got the most time to work on. It ended up being only about a week as we had to allocate 2 days to setting up our exhibition.

At the end of the summer academy there is an open day with all of the studios open for the public to come and have a look at what we've been doing. It is not supposed to be an exhibition as such, more an open studio, but a lot of the courses set up exhibition style displays. We thought it best to put on an exhibition as a studio tour wasn't really a great way for people to see what we've been doing - our work being so small and all. One of the painting courses was about still life and they had left the still life props set up surrounded by the large canvasses that the students were working on (I've got photos for another post).

The room we used for the exhibition had wooden slab lined walls which I thought was going to be problematic but we managed to put together a cohesive and elegant show (if I do say so myself!)

This is Sooyeon Kim's work in the foreground and the photo gives you an idea of the space. That white stuff in the background that looks like snow is a huge pile of salt!

A close up of one of Sooyeon's pendants - leather, gold, thread and pearls

Peter Sahle's work.

and a close up of one of the brooches - silver, gold leaf and coral (?)

Satita Rojpojjanarat

and a close up. This is a bangle. We are doing a swap.

Elisabeth Reichl - laminated paper neckpiece and acrylic ring with gold tag. The neckpiece was bought by a collector which we were all very excited about.

yours truly.

Jacqueline Santos

and a close up - paper and paint.

Yamuna Valenta - textile and marbles

Yamuna again - copper.

Lucia Rizzieri - silver, copper, textile and paint

and another close up. You can see that we were quite creative in overcoming the problems with the wooden walls.

Anja Eichler

one of Anja's morsels - silver, gardening gloves and something spiky!

Samira Götz

and my favourite work of hers - felt, silver and thread.


Melanie Sinnhofer's work was a display of photographs as her work wasn't object based...

false eyelashes

silicone

And Wolfgang Löffler

press the button and...

various materials

and the guillotine ring. If you tap the red bar on top, the razor chops down and shazam! No finger!

Not really, there's a stop built into it but it was quite difficult to release it while you were wearing it.


More photos can be found over at the Jewellery and Other Stories blog.
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