Distant Treasures

The day I had the greatest pleasure in Adelaide was the day that I found the most wonderful treasure trove in North Adelaide, The Fabric of Life. They were unexpectedly open having just had the South Australianv Embroidery Guild through for an advance viewing of the most wonderful exhibition of Turkish textiles which was due to open that evening. My only regret was having had no camera with me that day - the only day of the holiday without one!

You'll be able to get a taster of what I saw thought their website though. The shop was filled with the most wonderful modern and old textiles which the owner, Mary, had bought one her most recent travels. There were magnificent suzani hangings that just glowed on the walls - I had only previously seen photos of them and as always they were so much richer when seen up close.

I really fell for a chair that had been upholstered in kilms but I couldn't quite work out how to get it home on the plane. I'd have happily sat on it in the plane aisle but I thought Air NZ would probably decline on the spurious grounds that it didn't blend with their decor! I am still wistful about that chair...

If I'd had my way I'd have transported almost all of the shop contents back to NZ - instead I more modestly settled for some smaller treasures. A magnificent hand embroidered silk kantha shawl from West Bengal. Its reversible with cream silk on the other side with the gold thread stitching. More subtle that the black, and completely unphotographable on my camera!And then there were the two kutch bags that I simply couldn't choose between. They have the finest silk stitching that would have taken me an age to complete. I'm toying with the ideas of turning them back into flat textiles and mounting them so I can enjoy them ever time I wander past them. I think I'll try it out on one of them, in due course. If it works I may have to procure a third - somehow I always feel things look better in groups of three, and no that's not just due to my having three children! When I think of what I paid for them, relative to the amount of work put into them, I can't think why I decided to leave the third one in the shop!
I'm despairing of my camera at the moment - it never seems to be up to the mark with what I want from it. I feel some strategic reinvestment coming on.... Oh and did you notice I have finally conquered putting proper links into my blog??? Amazing what you can learn to do when you read instructions properly!

And then I found more in Melbourne

Of course these little treasures were in Brunswick Street - we only had 36 hours in Melbourne but I still found time to race around a few of my favourite spots. I'd been to Brunswick Street before but some how I had missed these. I couldn't find the name of the artist on them - but this angel like figure really reminded me of the work of Mirka Mora, a Melbourne artist who's autobiography I finally found at the Art Gallery bookshop, after futile searches in very bookshop I had come across while on the trip.

Since the trip I seem to be spotting lots more mosaics - so there are bound to be more to come.

However the highlight of the trip was undoubtedly the Art Deco exhibition from the Victoria and Albert Museum. It was breath taking.....
and I wouldn't have missed it for the world. There was paintings, textiles, clothes, china, jewels, cars, even the front of a building transported all the way from London. Just extraordinary.