Womadelaide 2015 - the final flashback

Vic Simms and the Painted Ladies.
This is the kind of interesting act that keeps me coming back to this festival. Vic Simms recorded the first black protest album in Australia, The Loner. It was 1973 and he was serving a 7-year sentence in Bathurst Gaol at the time. Simms was permitted to record his album because it was to be part of a PR exercise and he was subsequently sent on tours of prisons and shopping malls. (More about the album here). He had previously been discovered by Col Joye as an 11 year old singer, and released a single at 15.

The album and Vic's career sort of disappeared after that - maybe in part because he refused to continue be used as a kind of tame black prisoner for positive press.

A couple of years ago the album was remastered and reissued. And a musician called Luke Peacock became interested in re-recording the songs, getting in touch with Vic and involving him in the project.

Now, revisiting this story has reminded me that I ought to get hold of the original for myself, and maybe have a listen to the remake too.


Brazilian Flavia Coelho, not totally my thing musically but fun to be there/listen/watch/shoot.


Canzoniere Grecanico Salentino
Folk music and dance from Southern Italy - these people have been doing their thing a long time and they really know how to put on a show. Very enjoyable.


Che Sudaka
From Spain - got together in 2002 as illegal immigrants from Argentina and Colombia. Super high-energy 'Mestizo' punks.

I was so excited about Buffy Sainte-Marie. Native American singer, star, activist and all round icon. She was awesome.


And lastly, Sinead O'Connor. I loved her set, her voice was fantastic, and I was inspired to buy the album - though musically its a bit middle of the road, I really like her songs. They are really full of pain and trauma though, and it's even more of a sad listen lately, given her recent mental health troubles. Great to see she's been out and about recently, with a moving if rough Bowie tribute performance.

Let it fly in the breeze and get caught in the trees

It's only a few days until we'll be at Womadelaide again!



So here are my photos from when we saw First Aid Kit from Sweden, at Womadelaide in March last year.



Sisters Klara and Johanna Söderberg were charming, talented and a lot of fun. And between them they had a lot of hair going on.



Especially Johanna

Island of art

When we were planning our two weeks in Japan, one thing we all agreed on right away was that we had to visit Naoshima. An island, with modern art all over the place? Considering we all love MONA, and the Sydney Biennale a few years ago, this sounded like it had to be a win.

No apologies - this post is going to have a lot of photos. And that's without really any photography inside any of the museums and other buildings.



We arrived by ferry from Uno into the main port, Miyanoura, and then took a taxi to the village of Honmura where we were to stay for two nights. As this was one stop on our small tour through selected parts of Japan (Tokyo-Kyoto-Hiroshima-Naoshima-Tokyo), naturally we had all our luggage with us. My suitcase is quite small really but I still felt self-conscious, as other visitors and tourists arriving on the ferry seemed to have small weekend packs only. I probably pay too much attention to these things.



Once we had found our B&B style accomodation (friendly people and basic facilities - a nice big room for us to share, and even a washing machine and hanging space outside! My jeans finally got a wash) and settled in, it was time to find dinner. So no serious art-hunting that day.

There are a number of art galleries on the island and with only one full day to really look around, we made it through just a couple of them. There are also a lot of outdoor works/sculptures - from charming more modest things like this string art found throughout Honmura, to massive pieces by international artists like 'Frog and Cat' by Karel Appel - pictured at the top of this post.



This kind of juxtaposition is not at all unique to the island. Vending machine next to shrine, vending machine next to absolutely anything actually.



There were little cute touches like this around Honmura. Not sure if this bin is functional, but cute so who cares!





We started out in the morning by exploring Honmura, hunting for each of the houses in the Art House Project. Of course we also stopped for essential morning coffee in one of the tiny unexpected cafes found halfway down a small street.



The Art House project involves artists converting empty houses into works of art (and spaces for works of art). Most of them are old houses that have been unoccupied for a long time, as the island gradually lost a lot of its population. 'Minamidera' - no photo, sorry - was custom built to house a James Turrell work. Turrell is one of several major artists that have a close relationship with Naoshima and some other art islands nearby. Though I liked a lot of the Turrell works I saw in the recent Retrospective at the National Gallery and I love the skyspace 'Within Without' permanently installed there, this one didn't really do it for me. You line up and then shuffle into a pitch dark space, waiting several minutes for your eyes to adjust and for a faint light form to appear. I may have been feeling impatient that day? Maybe it was too subtle and meditative for me....



This one I really liked. 'Haisha' is the former residence and office of a dentist, converted and decorated thoroughly inside and out by Shinro Ohtake. Can't remember for sure but I think photos weren't allowed inside.



Which is a shame, because there is a two-story statue of liberty in there.



Not part of the Art House project - just a private semi-hidden garden. After seeing at least one charming enough house with a 'no photography' sign, presumably a resident who'd had enough of gawking tourists, I felt slightly sneaky taking this shot even though there was no sign here expressly forbidding me.



Naoshima is quite small and all of it is quite accessible on foot. There are also bikes for hire all over the place. After we explored Honmura and the Art House Project for the morning, my sister took herself off for a bike ride and Mum and I took a short bus ride towards the Bennesse House Museum. The large, sprawling site around the museum has several sculptures and installations.



'Frog and Cat', Karel Appel



Pumpkin by Yayoi Kusama



I don't have the name of the artist who made this double-planter sculpture, but standing in front is my lovely mum.



Selfie stick



Honmura drain cover to add to my modest collection.

The Bennesse House Museum was fantastic - a pleasant building to be in and move through, and an impressive collection of modern art.

In the evening we all wanted to visit another Shinro Ohtake work, the communal bathhouse, 'I Love Yu' a pun based on the Japanese character used here for 'yu'). This deep into our stay in Japan, we had had a couple of bathing experiences with various elements of awkwardness and thought by now we knew what we were doing. However. The people working here didn't exactly make it easy. First we got there and learned that even though there was a person at the counter, you had to buy an entry ticket using a vending machine. The person on the desk kindly told us this, though he seemed to think our floundering around was pretty funny. It would have been nice if he had also mentioned that you had to bring your own towel. Other bathhouses we had used - including one very large commercial one in Tokyo and one at the ryokan in Kyoto - provided towels. It wasn't until we were all in the bath that we realised there weren't any towels. We had to draw straws to see who would be the one to get dry and dressed, go back out to the entrance and buy three very small souvenir towels.

So that was a bit weird, given that it was clearly a tourist attraction, part of the art trail and not just a traditional bath house that would be mostly patronised by locals. I guess there might be a bit of tension in some quarters between locals and the 'art world' that has descended on their island. There seemed to be gentle laugh being had at our expense.

In any case the bathhouse is small but pretty spectacular (worth clicking to have a look - I didn't get any good photos outside and obviously you don't take photos inside). The men's and women's sides are separated by a wall with an elephant on top. On certain days the sides are switched so that everyone gets a chance to view the elephant from the other side.



Miyanoura Harbour was beautiful in the evening light, and also quite lovely the next day when we returned for our ferry back to the mainland.

It was absolutely worth visiting Naoshima, we had a great time. If it went back I would try to time it for the Setouchi Triennale - maybe in 2019?

Are your prayers in the morning just squeals of delight?

This scarf was with me for a long time. It started in August 2014, on the trip to Melbourne to see Queen.

Just beginning - I think I ripped and restarted at Canberra airport before leaving. Later I made some good progress with a quiet solo beer before the momentous life event that was QUEEN. (That's the same link, sorry, just had to throw it in again).

If you've been here a while you may remember that once upon a time, I started a red merino Orenburg lace shawl. Although it looks quite simple on paper, I found it quite a tricky pattern to keep straight and to 'read' which row I was up to. There were many bouts of tinking back over the years I was working on it (on and off - mostly off). The last time I mentioned it here, I said "it will be beautiful if I ever finish it". Hmm, ominous. At that time I had finally decided it wasn't going to he intended recipient, and knit something else for her, a shawl that came together much more easily, in the end, and was actually probably more fancy-looking.

Meanwhile I had this Schoppel-Wolle Lace Ball that I had bought as a souvenir one trip to Melbourne. I had been thinking of it as a rainbow colourway, but it's only almost a rainbow: R-O-Y-G-B-I....no violet.  It's called tropical fish, and I love it anyway.

So I thought with all these colours it could do with a simple lace pattern. And I kept thinking that I could probably find an easier honeycomb stitch than the Orenburg one. I didn't save the link, but I'm pretty sure it was this or one very similar to it.



The new stitch proved much easier to keep on the straight and narrow. Then it was just a matter of knitting until it was long enough - and until the colours were nice and symmetrical, with red at both ends and in the middle. I finally finished it a couple of months ago when it was already far too warm to wear it. So now I have a new jumper and a new scarf ready for next winter.

Moondust will cover you

In addition to the plant hanger, I've done a few other bits of crochet lately. I had had the pattern for the Little Spring Mandala printed out and ready to go for months, waiting for the right moment to concentrate on something unfamiliar.

I decided to try it in 8ply cotton (Mostly Lincraft, some others from the stash and from a generous donor), in the hope that it might end up big enough to serve as a wash cloth/face washer. I had to google instructions for just about every round, even a video for the magic loop to start. Watching the video lead to the strange experience of somehow forgetting that I am decidedly left-handed when it comes to crochet. This is crazy, but not quite as crazy as it sounds, as I and do some things with my left (writing, eating with a fork or spoon, cartwheels) and some with my right (throwing or kicking a ball, handling scissors and other tools). Nothing ambidextrously, though.



After a few rounds of slow, clumsy frustration, I started again with the left hand and it mostly went smoothly from there. Once I'd made one (on the left above, with the orange centre) I concluded they probably weren't going to be suitable as washers. But I went ahead and made a second one anyway. I wanted to try a more planned-out and harmonious colour scheme. And also there is just a lot of satisfaction in making the second one of anything new - it's so much faster and easier the next time around.

I was showing them to my grandmother (a wonderful knitter who only crochets edgings when she really has to) and she came up with a use for a pair of them - basically as doileys/mats, as a gift. So I had an excuse to go one more time, this time a matching colour scheme, but swapping the yellow and the blue.

I was still looking for a nice crochet washcloth pattern. There was another one I tried, and I struggled with it for a while, unable to figure out what I was doing wrong. There seemed to be too many stitches as the rounds increased - it was so ruffly I couldn't see how it would ever lie flat. I realised that I was treating it as an American pattern when it might actually be using the British definitions of the terms. Or was it the other way around? This was all before Christmas, I can't remember now. In any case, when I tried the other option, it had the same problem.

This is an annoying thing about crochet, especially if you like to source patterns online. The terms are different, but only just. Actually some are the same or similar terms but they mean different things! A US single crochet is a UK double crochet. Double crochet in the US is treble in the UK. Triple in the US is double treble in the UK. I still have to look up almost every stitch to be sure I'm doing the right one.



Anyway I couldn't get that annoying pattern to work either way, so I gave up and moved to another one I had stashed and ready: the 'Starfish Washcloth' by Deta Jetmir. This one was well written and the designer has made videos (both left and right handed!) which are very helpful.



I made a set of three for a baby who will be joining my extended family in a few months. The two pastel ones are in 4ply baby cotton and I added a few extra rounds of the pattern to get a good size. As it's written for worsted, I think I also needed at least one extra round when using 8ply. The purplish colour is an 8ply from the Bendigo Woollen Mills back room. (I finally got there for the first time, late last year!) It is delightfully soft and seemed to be too fine to really be an 8ply. No regrets though, it's lovely stuff.

Below, the blue one with yellow edging is all Lincraft 8ply. And the yellow-green might be my favourite, in Katia Degradé Sun.

Pot plant hanger

This was a gift I had planned for a little while but actually put together the night before Christmas. Isn't it good to have a stash, and Ravelry available for a last minute pattern!

I modified a free pattern from Craft Disasters and other Atrocities, using the same waxed cotton I've used before for various jewellery projects. The one I used here is actually purple, not that you can tell easily in these photos. I was a bit worried about the slightly weak jump rings I used, but I closed them slightly overlapped, and I guess they won't ALL fail at once!