Tag: architecture
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Grains for the Dead
If the spirit of the ancestor is happy and peaceful then they will look after the living. So best to feed them lots of grain.
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South Yarra Colours
| Julia Ritson, South Yarra, Raw Umber, 2012 | | Julia Ritson, South Yarra, Cadmium Yellow, 2012 | | Julia Ritson, South Yarra, Dusty Pink, 2012 |
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Ellsworth Kelly’s Facade
Ellsworth Kelly, close to 90 years old, recently completed a striking sculpture for Matthew Marks Gallery in Los Angeles. He placed this huge structure onto the building facade. | Ellsworth Kelly Sculpture, 2012, Matthew Marks Gallery, Image: Joshua White/Matthew Marks Gallery, 2012 | Ellsworth Kelly continually re-works his ideas and this sculpture was inspired by one…
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Activating Surfaces
As a young man, Ellsworth Kelly was a bird watcher and then a camouflage artist with the US Army. Looking and hiding. In this work Kelly uses chance to create a collage. | Ellsworth Kelly, Spectrum Colors Arranged by Chance II, 1951 | Not dissimilar to the choppy marks of Cézanne, representing a new way of seeing.…
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Cézanne and Kelly
Ellsworth Kelly said ‘The most pleasurable thing in the world for me is to see something and then translate how I see it.’ Similarly Cézanne’s paintings were made after periods of looking long and hard. Both artists start with a concentrated response to nature that is then transmogrified into form and colour. Katherine Sachs talks about the link…
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Godfrey Miller’s Counterspace
| Godfrey Miller, Still Life, Fruit and Flower, 1957-61 | John Henshaw, a close friend and former student of Miller’s, wrote about this painting in his 1965 book on Godfrey Miller. ‘Innumerable pencil sketches from objects which lay about on the kitchen table, fruit, comports, vases, flowers, fill notebooks. They furnished a world, sometimes in…
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Anchorite Godfrey Miller
I remember trying to paint like Godfrey Miller in the 1970s. Not very successfully. | Godfrey Miller at 54 Young Street Sydney, 1949, photo by Kerry Dundas | Miller’s experience of lying wounded for many hours on the battlefield of Gallipoli was to change him forever. From a vigorous, athletic boy to a reclusive painter.…
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Iona House Green
Iona House was surrounded by our busy dairy and potato farm. Along with raising seven children, the garden was to become a very big part of my mother Hayden’s life. And constant maintenance of the house. When the time came to re-paint the house, green and yellow tones were chosen. | Iona House , c1968…
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Iona House Red and Blue
Iona House in all its glorious Kodak Instamatic colour. There’s the old bank/playhouse on the left. Looks like we had visitors that day. | Iona House, 2066 Main Drain Road, c1960s | The architect of the Iona House, John Davidson said “Your parents were looking for a contemporary statement, not an imitation heritage, or pseudo…
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Iona House Features
In the black and white days of the Iona House at 2066 Main Drain Road, Iona, family and possessions were falling gently into place. A whole new world of light filled, curtain free spaces and a plan for a really big garden. | Iona House c1960 | The stairway up to the more formal lounge room…
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Iona House Family
| Iona House, c1960 | I contacted architect John Davidson and he kindly corresponded with me about the “Carlowrie” house at Iona. I have always loved the ramp device on the house and John mentioned it was my mother Hayden’s idea to make it easier to get the prams into the house. At this stage,…
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Iona House Beginnings
As the grand-daughter of a Koo-We-Rup East Iona pioneer, my mother Hayden Ritson (Kavanagh) inherited all sorts of land around Iona. In the late 1950s, my parents decided to build a brand new house in the modern style. It would be right next door to the Iona Post Office. They called it “Carlowrie” after the…
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Kavanagh and Featherstone
My great-grandparents, Owen Kavanagh and Catherine Featherstone, were early pioneers of Iona. | Owen Kavanagh with grand-daughter Eileen Kavanagh, 1920s | After all the hard work of digging the Main Drain and clearing the land, a real community began to grow. “The Pioneers of Koo-Wee-Rup East Iona Group (1892 to 1919)” was formed to proudly…
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Swampland
I’ve always had an uneasy relationship with Australian land. I’m sure it’s got to do with my ancestors and their struggle with the land and the obvious question of what happened to the indigenous people of the area. | Unknown, Aboriginal Australian shelter in bushland (Gippsland?), c1883, State Library of Victoria | In 1892 my…
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Lina Bryans Richmond
Lina Bryans met a lovely architect Alex Jelinek in the 1950s and found a really large house at 39 Erin Street, Richmond. Jelinek took this great shot of Lina doing her thing. Lina is painting a portrait of Brita Sievers, the wife of photographer Wolfgang Sievers. | Lina Bryans, 1958, photo by Alex Jelinek | Architect…
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Unfinished NYC by Joseph Brennan
Upon his first visit to New York City, early 20th century novelist O. Henry commented; “It’ll be a great place, if they ever finish it.”
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Tessellating Rooftops by Claudia Brennan
In the both universal and sheepish pursuit of metropolitan voyeurism, windows seem to garner the bulk of attention.
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Hampton Strangeness by Claudia Brennan
I only spent three days in East Hampton, Long Island but it didn’t take long to be struck by the strangeness of it all.
