Spring is sprung or “It’s a new kitchen!”

 

New waterlily leaves emerging each day now. What I like about his photo is my “twining's tea” grasp of the iPhone, reflected in the water!

 

I mentioned that I had a busy Spring planned, and it has kind of swept me off my feet.

After a busy and stimulating time in Melbourne, we returned to finalise details of our kitchen renovation. What started with considered review of articles in Choice about cooktops and ovens, gas vs. induction, finished by dragging ourselves into a lighting chain store, pointing disinterestedly at some spotlights and paying up asap.

In between, there was tile dust, jack-hammering, cement dust, a bench top that didn’t fit in the space left for it between the upper and lower cupboards and more. Oh, did I mention the 7am starts? Might sound reasonable to most people, but it means spending the day in a jetlag-like fog for me.

The good news is the main works were all finished within two weeks, and now we have beautiful bamboo floorboards and a lovely new, fully functioning kitchen with a designer space-age extractor, all looking very swish. We still need to sort out the tiles for the splashback, and a few other details, but we can take our time with that.

So here are a few photos:

BEFORE/DURING

What the kitchen looked like before, except that we did have ceramic tiles on the floor, not bare cement!!

 

 THE NEW KITCHEN ARRIVES

 

 

One of the cabinets has this rather disturbing message written on it!

(Never did work out what it meant.)

 

AND NOW…

Do you like the demolition-site aesthetic we’ve gone for with the splashback?

I think it’ll be a new trend.

 

More soon, and I promise it will be more art and book-related.

Exhibitions at Impact, Part 2

Things are rather chaotic here, with the fridge still out on the patio along with half the living room furniture. The good news is that today is the last day of early starts and tradesmen creating clouds of dust. The finishing touches to the new sustainable bamboo floor are happening as I type. The kitchen is in place and operational. There's just the mess to clear up, but first some rest.

 

For now, here's some more photos and links to work I saw at Impact7 in Melbourne.

Clare Humphries: Material Remains

This Melbourne artist was once an occupational therapist and her work relates to very similar interests to my own. I missed her paper, but hope to download it when the conference proceedings are available. Some info about Clare here.

 

Unfolding Projects: Afghan and Australian Artists' Books Collaborations

These beautiful collaborative artists books were in glass cabinets, just near the BAO display. Read & see  more here.

Melike Tascoglu: The H2O Series

 

These prints exploring the nature of water really spoke to me. I'm not sure if they can be read as well from a screen. Read & see more here.

 Janet Bellotto: Finding Juliet

I freely admit I am sucker for a good lenticular print. (You know, the postcards of your youth where the lady winks suggestively etc). This diptych is the largest format lenticular print that I have seen, and it is used to great effect to depict a wave crashing though this scene. I loved it!

The artist is from Toronto, living in Dubai. Her website where you can see more of her photographs, as well as video and installation work is here.