Yes, as mentioned, I went from Pittsburgh to Perth in about 6 days, via Seattle (and a few other stopovers of course,) and once I was there I had more work to do!
On Tuesday the 19th of March I gave a lecture on my work at Contemporary Metal in Osborne Park. I completely forgot to take any photographs while I was there, but I spoke to about thirty people on the night and had my work on display in their gallery space for a few days afterwards also.
As I mentioned previously the space has not long been open, though from what I can tell it’s off to a flying start. It is a really lovely, welcoming studio, with lots of room, basic benches and tools around the place as well as a dedicated hammering room, a couple of rather large looking kilns and a dedicated chemicals room. They have now got their website up, and the list of scheduled classes is already pretty long. It includes basic and more challenging courses for beginner right through to experienced makers, and to my eye they are all very reasonably priced.
I also bumped into one of the artists I featured in last year’s Coming Up From The South exhibition on Crafthaus, Sarah Munday. She is recently back from a long trip to the UK and has begun working again, using the studios at Contemporary Metal as her base. She too has recently set up a new website for her work, much of which seems to involve a shiny new toaster oven… Artist jewellers and their tools; there’s a research topic going begging…
Turbo and I had a quick stop through Melbourne too, where I got to check out the the 2012 Cicely & Colin Rigg Contemporary Design Award at the Ian Potter Centre (otherwise known as the NGV Australia), and as luck would have it I also got to see a painting by my favourite WA artist, Howard Taylor. It was being exhibited as a part of the current exhibit The Joseph Brown Collection – staged in the gallery next-door to the design award. I also made it to Craft for the Signature Style jewellery show as well as a bunch of venues around town for some comedy, thanks to the festival. Comedy Festival time is my favourite time of year in Melbourne, so I was very happy with my handful of days.
And now? Seattle. Til next week. The SNAG conference is in Canada this year, don’t-you-know?