the beauty of bold colour and resin

Resin!

I'm very excited to be rediscovering the beauty of resin. It really is such

a delicious material to use, its so generous with its chunkiness and translucent colour, and some of the opacity is so hearty and strong too. Its so much nicer than plastic!

And this isn't even the lovely organic style of Dinosaur designs, its flatter and

probably mass produced, but I am excited about how its giving me a sculptural layering ability.

I can go crazy with the colours. I love the way jewellery is now becoming acceptable as 'big' again.

I got so bored with all that girly-wirly ubiquitous silver charms look...

Woman need to start wearing their power really now..and colour, shape and

boldness is the way in my opinion anyway!

the sub-tropical pool

The warm sensuality of slipping into a pool in a sub-tropical rain forest....

Alber Elbaz at Lanvin ~ such a master

The Fall/Winter 2011 collection at Lanvin, is such a beautiful mixture of structure and flow. I always find something which makes me stop in my tracks. He somehow captures that formality of Lanvin, and yet the feminine and intuitive flow of fabric and colour together, which I think is a rare feat.

Helen Frankenthaler and the magic carpet

When I was at art school one of my hero's was Helen Frankenthaler, American abstract expressionist, and later married to Robert Motherwell.
Not only was she one of the few women working in this genre who was as renowned as some of her male colleagues at that time, but her works have a luminosity and vulnerability I've rarely seen elsewhere.

Whenever I've seen some of these huge paintings, my heart has skipped a beat, as I breathe in the courage and power in front of me.

I am so grateful for her work, she continues to inspire me and nourish my apetite for new frontiers of colour usage and expression.

the beauty and sensuality of Saida, by Kees van Dongen ca 1913

Kees van Dongen (image here) who I got re-acquainted with recently on my visit to Amsterdam and The Hague, was a Dutch painter born near Rotterdam, who's earlier works were way ahead of their time. He was a fauvist, one of my favorite groups, because everything was about colour.

I didn't see this particular painting, but the paintings I did see inspired me deeply. I haven't put them here because the ones I saw are ubiquitous, you just have to google his name and up they come. I haven't seen 'Saida' before, and it did indeed remind me of an earlier time in my life in Morocco where I met one of the most beautiful women I've ever seen, even to this day, called Saida, who was the daughter of a family in Rabat where we were guests.
This Saida pictured here has the same quality of serenity, yet sensual femininity, and depth of gaze.

flower from out-a-space?

This is an African daisy and I just searched online for it, because I was looking for something outrageous from Nature, a statement about how innovative and out-of-this-world she can be.  I wanted colour and dynamism. This picture delivered!

Hermes - fall 2010

At Hermes, Jean Paul Gaultier brought his humour and street sense and married it with the classic style of Hermes. There was a lot of leather, a la Emma Peel and the Avengers, and the hats and tailoring alluded to the very British way of referring to historic notions and rituals.

Jean Paul Gaultier AW10

 

Jean Paul Gaultier showed his universitality in Paris this week, with his latest A/W collection.

There ethnicity, a Chinese influence, and yet always style, timelessness, and his own take, his signature, which I find one of the more consistently alluring and inspiring...

where can our imagination take us?

I picked up this image from a blog I'm enjoying at the moment called: Pretty things. There are many pretty and lovely images and sayings here, I find it a soothing place to go. I find it allows my imagination a license to float and roam...no conditions...
In Melbourne the temperature is virtually unbearable at the moment, so we need to float into other realms to cope. Our body temperature is 37.6 degrees I think, so anything above this, must mean we've started to 'cook'.

Christmas fruits

Here's one of the fruit salad I made for Xmas! Some people laughed when they lifted the lid off the bowl...(must be with delight!).

timeless colour gets to us all

Oh I remember coming across Sam Francis when I was at art school three hundred years ago. I found this beautiful work this morning at MOMA. I always thought his work was a little underrated, I guess he was around with those stellar painters like Rothko and Pollock. But his use of colour has always inspired me so much.

Helen Frankenthaler - painter

'Southern Exposure' Serigraph 2006.

I was thinking about women painters who have influenced the way I look at painting, and searched to find Helen Frankenthaler. I was glad to see she is still alive and active. She was married to Robert Motherwell, and influenced by Jackson Pollock. Whenever I come across her work I go 'aaahhh....yes, I've come home', I can sense the feminine Spirit, the languid strokes, lush and sensual, the intimacy of the colours and the open spaces in which your eye can linger.

Egon Schiele

'Nude with Violet Stockings and Black Hair'
By Egon Schiele (Austrian 1890-1918) This is a drawing by Mr. Schiele at MOMA. He is one of my favorites. He was only 28 when he died. The life in the lines, erotic and vivid, the natural colours and always slightly disarming compositions, take one beyond expectations...

yellow shoe coincidence

Over the period of two days, I spotted two people wearing bright yellow shoes..must be a trend?
Admittedly, they are each wearing their shoes in a totally different sort of context, but hey...I thought it was extraordinary...

Bather,by František Kupka

Bather by František Kupka.
I found this on the MOMA site, where I love to visit from time-to-time, especially when I'm in New York, its my first point of call. I get very emotional there for some reason, and have been known to weep in front of a large Matisse painting of the dancers. This artist is so adept with that watery moody thing. I'm inspired by that today, as I gaze out across a watery grey sky here in Melbourne...

whatever happened to Rebecca Patterson?

I found this picture in a book I have from 1985, called: 'Australian Fashion Design' by Elina Mackay. Someone gave it to me a few years ago. I am amazed at how few of the designers seem to be around anymore..And yet there was/is great talent. The above picture comes under the title Di Marzio Line. Rebecca Patterson came from Perth to Sydney to create this label along with Nicolas Pando. I love this, because it stretches its big wings between art and fashion. She said: "My clothes are full of symbols, contrasting images and statements expressing a certain uninhibited style."

Autumn rose

Yeah I know its a bit corny...but how about that delicate transition from pale cool yellow, to frosty sweet pink, and that slight wind and angular light..I just couldn't resist! I took it with my phone camera (quality isn't great) yesterday in Preston. Poignant and sweet...

from Paris Vogue 1974

Wow! I have a large pile of French and English Vogues dating from 1974. Some of them are falling apart at the bindings, they have been leafed through so much; and then moved from one place to the next over the last 35 years. (I have moved with all my things about 18 times in this period I think.) I have used them ruthlessly at times as the pillars of shelves or they have been left in cardboard boxes in the shadows of their former selves. They are fantastic, and I love them. I don't look at them very often these days, but today decided its time to dip in again..(stay tuned)

'Rushes' cuff - vintage Candy Spender!

I made this about six years ago out of a couple of vintage necklaces from the sixties..the colours just hit a spot in me. I wired them onto one of those stretchy stainless steel rah rah cuffs (which sort of look like old fashioned watch bands), along with some shiny gold-plated German box chain offcuts. The tiny green beads were beautiful glass seed beads, which I found in an old metal lolly box.
I sold this as soon as I'd finished it, and I'm glad I took this picture, because it still inspires me..the beads, the colours, the idea...

Tibetan dancers in Dharamsala

I look at this picture a lot. I took it in Dharamsala when I was there a few years ago. Somehow the colours remind me of the people I saw in the Andes when I was growing up in Columbia in South America. Only here are Tibetans in India! I love the echos of these saturated colours...