public art safari

Today the obsession that Ma and I have had all year with art and galleries and whatnot collided with the continuation of last week's digital camera training...

First we did our usual Random Shopping Adventures™... although a touch later than usual due to Ma's haircut... and there wasn't really anyhing of interest to report there, although I did get two more pairs of the Bonds trunks, since the first two pairs I got last week were quite comfortable, and still on sale... as well as the blue version of the jacket I bought last week, so that I can replace the rather styleless black sweatshirt I have been wearing in the mornings to keep myself warm.

Anyway, after all that, we grabbed the copy of the Public Art Walking Guide that we'd snagged somewhere along our travels and headed off to the Festival Theatre/Convention Centre/Hyatt area down by the river to tour the public art.

I'm not sure we actually saw everything, but according to the guide map there's supposedly around forty different bits and pieces around that area, some of which I've seen about a billion times, others I didn't know even existed. The one up the top there is actually in the Hyatt forecourt, and it's part of Elements and Being by Akio Makigawa... although honestly, some of the names they give these things... you look at the guide, and you look at the art, and if you're not exactly sure what it what they on occasion you get a bit lost...

Then, since we were nearby, we decided to head over to the Lion Art's Centre since they had this "bubble" art installation... don't ask me why, I have absolutely no idea what the point of it was or anything... but it had obviously taken some engineering... the bubbles were actually coming up through holes drilled in the pavers, and there must have been some kind of machinery or pump or something connected to it to make it all work. It did look funky though... weird as all hell, but funky.

And of course, because it said in the article that I'd originally cut out of the paper that it was a whole "barefoot experience" or something similar, I just had to take my shoes and socks off and go wading through the bubbles... probably not the best weather for it, but it was amusing... at least until I got busted by a tribe of about ten early teenage skateboys... how embarassement... at least I was actually putting my shoes and socks back on as they came around the corner rather than still wading through the bubbles though.

After that we went into the Jam Factory for a while to take a look in their shop and whathaveyou. They have some GORGEOUS stuff in there... incredibly expensive, but then most of it are one off pieces of art. And since we were already in there we decided to go up to the workshop viewing platform thing and watch them blow glass for a while. It was great for two reasons... the first being it was very toasty warm in there, and secondly I could just watch them make things out of glass like that all day. There was actually two different artists/teams working while we were there... the larger group was making something that I initally thought was going to be a much more practical kind of shape, a tall, cylindical vase... but in the end turned out to be a tall cylindical vase with a top like a teeshirt (and seeing them turn an open cylinder into the neck and sleeves of a teeshirt was a hell of a thing to watch). The other artist was much more "traditional", in that I knew that was she was making was going to turn into a pretty stripey glass bowl while she was still in the early stages... but again, it was amazing to watch her work.

By that point we were starting to get hungry, so we decided to take a slight detour and go and visit Saldechin, this new yum cha tea house that opened recently in, I think, an old bank building.

And since we were both playing with our cameras while we were waiting for the dumplings to arrive I decided to pull an Eddy and take a shot of the interior... okay, just one corner of it, but it's pretty impressive in there.

The dumplings were okay, but, really, they're dumplings, it's not like you can really screw them up too much... and we had a range of flavours, and some Peppermint Oolong Tea, so all in all a pleasant little afternoon lunch interlude...

A pleasant day overall really... although perhaps a little more sunshine would have helped photographically speaking.

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