Yellow Room Triptych

It is rare for our small town to make a splash in the Australian Financial Review, our main business newspaper. It did today because the local art gallery, one of the best in rural Australia, has just splashed a lot of money on a lovely painting by one of Australia's leading artists who died just recently, Margaret Olley. She liked it so much among her entire oeuvre that she refused to part with it, although widely admired by the art-world. With her death at age 88, those constraints were removed and Armidale's New England Regional Art Museum beat Sydney's Art Gallery of NSW to the punch. Margaret liked the New England district and our gallery, so it has found a natural home along with another major work gifted by the artist. I subscribed to the purchase fund.

Here's a picture of The Yellow Room Triptych. It could almost be a van Gogh! The picture measures 1.2 x 2.75 m.

AS

Wild Weather

Armidale's temperature range yesterday (25 June) was amazing: -9C to +16C (or 16F to 61F), a range of 25C (45F). This was a bit like deepest winter to almost summer in one day.

This happens because the air is crystal clear with little or no wind. Heat built up in the day dissipates quickly at night, and we are 1000m asl. During the day however there is brilliant sunshine which heats the ground rapidly. Even in mid-winter here, the angle of the sun is still quite high unlike in the UK where it barely 17 degrees above the horizon in December.

However, I don't like the cold mornings - and they're terrible for cycling!

AS

Rather Old

At the risk of duplication for some of my readers, I'm writing in connection with some recent dating of Aboriginal artefacts - the subject of my recent posting to Facebook. 

              

Australians travel widely in search antiquities, but tend to ignore our own. The pyramids, Parthenon and the Great Wall of China are incredibly recent compared with the 28,000 y.o. artwork in the cave pictured here. It's the Narwhal Gabarnmang Rock Shelter near Katherine in the Northern Territory.

Because the artists used charcoal for at least part of their work, the paintings and drawings could be dated accurately by radio-carbon means. There's evidence that the cave itself has been occupied for 45,000 years and other artefacts have been estimated at up to 35,000 years old.


Now for the sleazy bit! According to Britain's masterpiece of journalistic integrity, the Daily Mail, "these Australian cave paintings show [that] it's certainly not a modern thing for an artist to use his skills to portray sex and pornography"! Look closely, according to that Tabloid, and you'll see a couple in the act. Moreover, "Other sections of the wide-ranging artwork in white and red shows (sic) other figures engaged in some form of prehistoric porn”.
Read more at: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2161118/Aboriginal-erotic-rock-art-proves--28-000-years-ago--men-ONE-thing-minds.html#ixzz1yDmK1co4


And here's roughly where the artwork was found: near Katherine Gorge in the Nitmiluk Nation Park. Very remote!

AS

Fololi House

Embedded in the gardens you have just seen is the US equivalent of a stately home. It's only perhaps a century or so old and built on the back of a gold mine, and not even in the same league as Mount Vernon, the home of George Washington, which I have also visited. However, I think it more akin to the British idea of  a stately home than Hearst castle I reported on earlier this year. Have look at these pictures to verify my claim! The house, incidentally, was described as being as being 'Georgian' style - not a bad description, but maybe a century too late.

A lovely screen in the lounge.

A smallish, but well appointed, dining room.

A sitting room.

The library.

Another small lounge with the wine collection in a safe-room!

The ball-room with a grand piano at one end.

The ball-room had numerous murals like this one depicting scenes from Ireland - I presume the original owner's home country.

Nice isn't it?

AS

Filoli Gardens

I have visited many National Trust properties in Britain and Australia, but never one to my recollection in the US. That was remedied today by a trip to Filoli near Menlo Park, Palo Alto (Tall Tree) and Los Altos at the western end of Silicon Valley. The weather was glorious - sunny and warm - and the destination amazing. Indeed, it left in the shade several UK NT places I have visited. Perhaps the following images of the acres of landscaped gardens will illustrate my point.

Need I say more. It's well worth a visit, especially on a good day like today.

Party Day

Ella had her big party yesterday when many of her little friends (of about the same age) came around to celebrate the occasion. Her parents did a marvellous job preparing the excellent food and drink, arranging the seating, setting up play equipment and so on.

The cake was an elaborate affair in the shape of the number one and one candle was duly lit. Ella had no chance though of blowing it out as it was a windy day. I was lucky to get a picture when it was still burning!

The little wading pool has filled with plastic balls and these seemed popular, though the balls wandered. Ella, for one, loves dropping objects from her stroller or high chair ... or on this occasion the 'pool'.

Actually, the water action surrounded Ella's new water-works. The item shown below receives water deposited by a kind parent or scooped from the bottom reservoir with the cup provided. It then drops down through a water wheel on one side or a slide on the other into an intermediate level and this, in turn, lets the water cascade down a slope into the reservoir. The idea is simple, but provides the first scientific insight for one-year olds about gravity, flowing liquids and alternative sources of energy!

All told the party went on for over 4 hours with lots have happy children and their parents who, in silicon Valley fashion, had several different nationalities. It was highly successful!

AS

Ella's Tricycle

We gave Ella an up-market tricycle for her birthday. It's nearly all pink as the pictures show and has a cup holder and mobile phone (only a toy one), as well as a steering handle for the responsible adult doing the pushing. There's also a hood which flexes up and down to shield her from the sun. At her age when when she's still not walking, Ella cannot be expected to pedal - that comes later.

For now, she's infatuated with the freedom that the trike seems to bring and loves being pushed around while seeming to steer the thing. The trike also also gives Ella much more opportunity to see what's going around.

AS