Show Me The Treasure

Home Archive for June 2011

at 08:20

Misalignments between Menu and Cutlery - The Spaghetti Tree

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Firstly the image here does not match the text. The piece of street art with its Mexican Day of the Dead look about it, that strange uprising of black lines, which don't seem to be related to each other have nothing to do with the misalignment of menu descriptions and cutlery, other then being a non-matching set -

at 22:22

Taking to Melbourne with a spoon - The Food Report

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Taking to Melbourne with a spoon - The Food Report Image

Three and a bit days in Melbourne gives quite some scope for eating out. My first stop was Hu Tong Dumpling Bar. I had never heard of this place but coming along Market Lane, one look into the window at No 14 at the steamer baskets was enough to convince me we should go in. We get a

at 15:26

A Room with Three Views

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Well, three is an understatement, or more precisely an under-number. There were any number of views from level 13 of the Paramount Apartments on Exhibition Street. While there is no doubt that the interiors of the Paramount Apartments are tired but functional, the location on the edge of china town and the corner of Bourke Street delivers a

at 20:42

Exhorting you to be a better person? Melbourne Duckboard Place

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Exhorting you to be a better person? Melbourne Duckboard Place Image

Like regulations and public opinion, street art is overwritten as quick as a shake of the spray can. Like the oyster, Melbourne accretes a lustre of art work on its many inside surfaces. The hectic overlay is part of its charm, the competition for wall space, the palimpest's time honoured effect. The too-much of everything at once,

at 19:52

A Thousand Moons, a million years [ squared] - brought to you by the Big Bang

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A Thousand Moons, a million years [ squared] - brought to you by the Big Bang Image

Mid-winter Melbourne, and Federation Square is anything but. [Square that is.] The Light in Winter, modern festival of the campfire and homage to the candle, brings you a 'Light Hearted', a thousand moons of light, shades, poems, knitted decals, ripped fabirc, neon built scaffolded into a pyramid. Depending how dizzy you want to be, you can spin the

at 16:22

De- Okratisation at Work

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This double take on okra might just be mumbo gumbo. Up close, really close, the okra are reminiscent, in form only, of chokos. Careful observers of de-Okratisation at work might notice that here are two different pairs of Okra, the sketched in Okra having made its way into last night's dinner, thickening the pot as it were.This double

at 09:02

Writing on the Wall - Commentary on the Economics of Publishing

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Writing on the Wall - Commentary on the Economics of Publishing Image

I photographed this stylish stencil in Lisbon in 2009, just near the Elevator. If the economy in Lisbon - and Portugal - has gone to the dogs, the walls have been taken over by street art. Is there a relationship between economics and street art? I think the author/artist may have hit on something here. I photographed this

at 13:50

Sign Here - Twilight at the Urban Icon

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Sign Here - Twilight at the Urban Icon Image

So, coming around the corner of the Esplanade boardwalk, just after Queenscliff Bridge I spy this sticker poster, which is trademark Shepherd Fairly. This is the fourth of these posters I've seen pasted up the North Shore. Does it mean that Shepherd Fairly dropped by for a bit of past up fun or have these gone viral? The

at 08:07

Keirle Park, 20 June 2011, A Quiet Still Flows Out

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Keirle Park, 20 June 2011, A Quiet Still Flows Out Image

The longest Monday night and least light ever at 5.30, evening really, as afternoon is gone. For the time it takes, ten minutes, to put down this wash of colours there is no-one in the park that I can see, though I can hear, off to my right at the end of the carpark the last of the

at 12:06

Muddled in Translation - -Capa -tulation ?

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Muddled in Translation - -Capa -tulation ? Image

No doubt I am still in the clutch of my Capa phase. In my translating process these people average out, the quirky become less so, the gaunt get more flesh on their bones, the gorgeous babies become just babies. Here the lovely detail of the child twiddling the button of his father's uniform, is unreadable, I couldn't manage

at 20:01

Alternative Uses of the Common Cold

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Alternative Uses of the Common Cold Image

Mostly one would be inclined to feel that having a cold, being under the weather - as the saying goes, is not an optimal state. Sneezing, for example, can be both tiring and disorientating. Headaches can take the edge off getting on with things. But there is something nearly narcotic and indulgent about that sleepy euphoria of a

at 08:41

Seriously Prussian Blue: Engagement with the Camera

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Seriously Prussian Blue: Engagement with the Camera Image

The temptation is to just sit down and keep sketching from the Phaiton's Definitive Collection of Robert Capa's work till I use up all the 40 pages in this sketchbook. The Prussian Blue is sterner, cooler stuff than the previous sketches I've made from Robert Capa's collection in Cobalt Deep Blue. It seems this man looks straight through

at 12:28

How the Outside Works at Night

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Does it seem odd the disconnections between visible things on dark nights, or is the continuity of objects that daylight gives stranger but being diurnal we are innured to it? This, the scrappiest of sketches, documents the disjunction and spaces between objects, appeals to me for some reason I have been trying to figure out since last August.

at 08:35

Headlights, clouds, a host of Catachans.... Oh dear what is Happening to Bart Brassica

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Headlights, clouds, a host of Catachans.... Oh dear what is Happening to Bart Brassica Image

If this looks like a bit of nightmare for Bart Brassica, the ground as soft as underdone marshmallow, and him staring into a dazzle of headlights, that is because it is a nightmare. Those Warhammer Catachan fellows that Frank Winkler was painting at lunch time the last time he worked for Bart seemed to have combined with a

at 08:37

Winter light the colour of rain and clouds

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Winter light the colour of rain and clouds Image

Shadows in winter seem colder, here it is almost as if these daffodils had forgotten their sunny colouring, the one coloured daffodil, looking on from the margin, an interloper and afterthought. Shadows in winter seem colder, here it is almost as if these daffodils had forgotten their sunny colouring, the one coloured daffodil, looki... Shadows in winter seem colder,

at 16:04

Time you thief, who loves to get sweets on your list

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Time you thief, who loves to get sweets on your list Image

In a mischiefous misappropriation of a line from Leigh Hunt's famous poem "Jenny Kissed Me", the title of the blog really subverts Hunt's list to the many jobs of both time and DNA. These lollie watches have been configured with more than a nudge towards that helical hard working molecule, the home of both the body clock and

at 09:00

Something Fishy about the Bananas

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The underlying enquiry in this double-take on bananas, of what is more real once a copy and an original are copied is a question that continues to intrigue me, with its implication about the realness of both visual and written work. There seems to be differential value, sometimes we want the picture of the real banana, and sometimes

at 12:16

Brusselling with Winter - How to Succeed when Trying

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Brusselling with Winter - How to Succeed when Trying Image

The Brassica family are something of a recurrent theme on Show Me The Treasure, though, and this is an entirely personal view, I am not quite sure if Brussel Sprouts are treasure. An indicator species for winter, a diminuitive satire on the cabbage, these two speciments packed an olfactory punch well above their weight, a condition I had

at 09:43

A Stunning Result for Bart Brassica

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A Stunning Result for Bart Brassica Image

You may recollect that the last time we saw Bart Brassica he was head-high in his Daffodil Crop, suspended not by his britches but masking tape to a bamboo pole. Hetty Egg had been watching Bart through what all her family call her Spy Glass, which is a $45 brass and faux woodgrain SkyMaster telescope she bought from

at 08:17

Further Capa- talisations with Gary Cooper

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Further Capa- talisations with Gary Cooper Image

Yes, one has to use quite a bit of imagination but the model for this really did come from Robert Capa's photograph of Gary Cooper, nimbly making his way across a fallen tree fording a stream (not of consciousness). A few posts back there was one of a racing track official in a Gogol-esque coat. Now the puzzle

at 08:05

Keirle Park, June 2011, Voyage of a Beagle

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Keirle Park, June 2011, Voyage of a Beagle Image

Winter in Keirle Park, the trees at the edge are charcoal green and the sky more black than blue. These two smaller boys, under the impression they were in charge, followed in the scratch and sniff wake of the beagle.Winter in Keirle Park, the trees at the edge are charcoal green and the sky more black than blue.

at 11:15

Daffo- downs and the Dodgy Elevation

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Daffo- downs and the Dodgy Elevation Image

Bart Brassica is trying out a new crop of Daffodils, which has the one half of the neighbourhood talking about just what set off this rush of interest in daffodils, and the other half, his Farmer friends, saying what the dang hell is Bart doing working up high, his head way up in the blooms, taped to a

at 10:11

Plumbing Fixtures and False Cognates of the Physical World

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Plumbing Fixtures and False Cognates of the Physical World Image

This tap at Moore Park Tennis Courts had a neat edge of moss. I am not sure if my prediliction for taps and hydrants is because they are inherently interesting and often overlooked, or more prosaically don't involve landscape and perspective and are therefore easier to draw. The paving pattern here added that element of perspective which very

at 13:36

Cobalt Blue - After Robert Capa

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Sketching people in photographs must be cheating? The Phaiton complete works of Robert Capa is mesmeric and sketching things from it a way to see the images more clearly. Setting off with an oversize brush, Cobalt Blue Deep, (why don't Winsor & Newton say Blue Deep Cobalt?) and new "Draw & Wash' Art Spectrum 210gsm paper ( I

at 08:28

The Crab Series - Ibsen-esque & Under Water

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The Crab Series - Ibsen-esque & Under Water Image

This scanned collage is from The Babies series. The people in the local fish shop needed a bit of convincing as to why I wanted that dimunitive crab but it seems, like the gelati cups, once you say 'For art.' they go a little blank, like perhaps you have said you've a loaded gun in your bag, and

at 08:57

Mr Midas's Dream Girl - Ms Goldi Locks

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Mr Midas's Dream Girl - Ms Goldi Locks Image

You might remember Mr Midas, similarly brought to life from an assemblage of peanut flavoured, peanut shaped, chocolate sweets? Ms Goldi Locks is the result of Confection Currents, and in her past life actually was Mr Midas, giving an illustrated example of how sooner or later, using a cosmological time scale, everything is merely a remix of shiny

at 23:18

Two Sided Eggplant - or Aubergenetics

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Two Sided Eggplant - or Aubergenetics Image

What happens when you cross an eggplant with a pencil? The answer might be 'colouring in" or as in here, a kind of pugnacious egg fruit, rotund with colour. Under the varied purples ( in case you're wondering, it rhymes with whirlpool) you can see the egg shell white peeping through. Tomorrow night this subject will reappear in

at 08:27

Beanie & Gold Longhorn on a Bolo

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There was a sense of occasion in this bus traveller last Saturday, his wheelie bag, black suit jacket and bolo tie with its golden longhorn cincture, implying that he was going somewhere special. The beanie was pulled down past his ears, a little over his forehead, and he was wearing what I call Steptoe gloves which might be