November Mailbag No 1: Community and Connections
Before we open the November mailbag we have new subscriber TD in Brisbane to welcome to the AnArt4Life blog. We have had a wonderful year of new subscribers joining us from all around the globe and once more we thank you for your support. Don't forget to send in your interesting items about art for our monthly mailbag.
From the top of the mailbag comes an invitation to work in the United Kingdom's most remote Post Office at Lockroy, Antarctica. Each year the UK Antarctic Heritage Trust (based in Cambridge, UK) advertises for new postal workers to work in the post office.
Before you jump at the opportunity, there are a few warnings: there is no running water, no main electricity, and of course you have to work in sub-zero temperatures. Duties also include running the office, museum and shop (for tourists), monitoring the island's resident gentoo penguin population and cleaning up the penguin droppings outside the building - which the trust admits would otherwise look like "a penguin toilet".1
Digging down into our mailbag there is an email from Trevor in Canberra to attend the Paradise on Earth exhibition featuring the works of artist and architect Marion Mahony Griffin being held at the Sydney Museum.
Imagine a place where the natural and built world exist in perfect balance; where the sounds, colours and smells of Sydney’s bush and harbour meld into a sensual fusion of vitality and mystery. In 1920s Sydney, architect Marion Mahony Griffin, in collaboration with her husband and creative partner, Walter Burley Griffin, created this ideal at Castlecrag, a ‘model residential suburb’ built on the picturesque shores of Middle Harbour.2
And Trevor in Canberra also endorsed Julie's post on Cockington Green as being a wonderful place to visit when next you are in Canberra. And thanks Trevor for a landscape joke and its answer!
And Caroline has also been to Cockington Green. Seems like everyone has been except me!!
Moving back to Victoria we have a lovely email from Greg in Diggers Rest in response to Julie's post More than just a Diggers Rest and Caroline's Birds through the lens of Patrick Kavanagh.
Hello Anne, great story about Diggers Rest. You have cleared up a few misconceptions about Houdini for your members. There is a cairn near the spot where he made his first flight though not Australia's first aviator. I was scratching around the burnt out remains of the Diggers Rest Pub and I reckon I found a cobble stone laid in the very early days. It is only the size of a large fist, like the others in this paved area they all have one flat side. I will be chasing it up with a group that have early knowledge of this area.
Great photos by Patrick Kavanagh, it has always amazed me how two people standing together can take a completely different shot, like two artists painting the same object, the same but different. Greg in Diggers Rest
I know for a fact that many of my ancestors walked over those cobble stones in the Diggers Rest Pub on their way back and forth from Bendigo to Melbourne! (Anne)
D in Bendigo has sent in notice of an exhibition at the Bendigo Visitors Centre for Victorians to take in.
The Greater Bendigo region has a thriving community of First Nations artists. These artists’ cultural histories span the breadth and width of Australia and as such their practices are diverse in influence and interpretation. Sharing Process invites a selection of these artists to reflect upon these cultural influences and celebrate the wide variety of their works and processes.
And John Wylie from Port Elliot in South Australia thanks the Art Gallery of NSW for giving us the high resolution images of the annual Archibald et al winning paintings and congratulates the winners.
Morning Anne…. Congratulations on a great “post” today… about the Art Gallery of New South Wales and the “Archibald Prize” ……
What a tremendous outcome for the four Indigenous Australian ”Award Winners” of the various categories….. an amazing achievement for all the Artists…. and the “proud” recognition of the “creative talent”… that our “First Nations People” have… and so generously contributed to “Australian Arts Community” ….. well done!! Cheers.. John
And also thinking about community and connections is a message from artist and subscriber Kevin McKay.
The connections between artists who inspire are invaluable, especially when we work for so long in relative isolation in the studio. Your blogs are wonderful and remind us we are in service to a cultural activity that is bigger than all of us.
Kevin McKay
To conclude today - from one of our dedicated Facebook followers Rich S - I have learnt that there is a band which is called Capability Brown. Enjoy their singing of Beautiful Scarlet.
And just in case you missed the connection - check out our post on the C18th landscape architect Capability Brown.
We have a second November Mailbag which will be opened tomorrow.
Credit
1. bbc.com
2. sydneylivingmuseums.com.au