spending saturday with art

The plan for today was to avoid the shops as much as possible (well other than the usual morning stuff), being the day before the shops are closed for three days straight, which always makes everybody crazy... but it ended up being a little bit of the old adage, "the best laid plans of mice and men"...

I was at a little bit of a loose end when I got up this morning... I did all the stuff I would usually have done (ie tidy up the apartment) this morning yesterday morning, so other than putting some stuff away, I just played with my phone instead.

And the supermarket wasn't as crazylike as I was expecting it to be. In fact it was downright civilised!

After the supermarket, we wandered around Target... which led to much spending... I choose to blame Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows (Part 1) two disc special edition being so damn cheap... and a big bag of 10 pairs socks for $13.50... which led to buying two new shirts...

Oh, and some of their cheap Easter eggs too... I always say that the best day to buy Easter eggs is Easter Saturday!

Anyway... if you spend a bunch of money that you may not otherwise have spent just because what you spent was less than what you would have spent if what you bought hadn't been on special, that's good right? Wait... I think I lost myself there...

Once we got back here and did the usual unpackery, we decided on what shows we're going to see at the Cabaret Festival and when, so now I just have to go and buy the tickets on Wednesday.

Our next stop also involved a big whack of cash... although not for me this time... Ma wanted a new dryer, so we headed off to The Good Guys to find one (and there just happened to be one right in the doorway when we got there. I was kinda hoping to find a microwave that I liked... I'd like a stainless steel one... ideally I'd love one without a revolving tray, where you just put stuff straight on the base... or if not, then maybe one of those ones with a circular cavity... and I'm kinda leaning towards an LG... oh, and it should have a timer... but unfortunately any that met some or most of those criteria were ugly... and I want a pretty microwave. Or at least one I'm not going to be disappointed in every time I look at it.

Then we headed into the city, to go and see the Patricia Piccinini exhibition at the Art Gallery...

As I've said before, I LOVE Patricia's work... sometimes it's not easy to look at, and I can understand why it would freak people out, but I just think that so much of it is so incredibly beautiful.

This time not only were her biological creatures on display, but her automotive creatures showed up too...

I really just want to touch her work, whether it's biological or automotive... although I think that the automotive work would feel like I expect it should, whereas the biological work I always think should be warm and feel like skin, but I kinda doubt that it does.

Couple of cases in point, the large image in the centre of the montage, Litter, and the baby creature in the carrier on the left hand side, Foundling, I just wanted to pick them up and cradle them... especially the Litter baby on the far left of the image... it was so adorable. And just looking at Foundling, I had this visceral "muscle memory" of what she (she was wearing a pink beanie in the exhibition) would feel like if I held her... I knew pretty much how heavy she would be... it was odd.

Actually, Litter was one of my favourite pieces in the exhibition, along with Bodyguard (for the Golden Helmeted Honeyeater), which is the second from the right on the top row. He looks fierce and dangerous, but he had this beautifully soft looking fur and these gorgeous armoured backplates.

The other thing that I realised for the first time seeing this much of Patricia's work in one place was the incredible leather upholstery work that often accompanies them... I'm guessing she uses it to draw parallels between the skin textures of the animals and the texture of the leather, but it looks beautiful (and according to the exhibition guide, the upholstery work is thanks to James Thompson and Tim Ward).

Interestingly, the guide also talks about "animatronics"... but I don't have any memory of anything moving... although I have said before that if she could make the biological creatures look like they're breathing, they'd be amazing, and freak people the hell out.

We ended up wandering through the exhibition twice... and I can't recommend it highly enough... that is if the genetically engineered critters and pseudo humans don't freak you out.

After we left the gallery we wandered across the road to grab something to eat underneath David Jones and then wandered across to Borders.

Today is officially the last time I'm going into Borders before it closes. Seriously, I don't care if they get to 60% off or 80% off (okay, maybe if they get to 90% off), I'm done in there as of today. Partly because there just isn't anything left in there that I would want to buy... but also because as I said the other day, there's something so sad about a bookshop going out of business... the books have all been moved away from the top and bottom shelves, certain sections are completely empty and blocked off, and stuff has been moved around filling completely new spots.

I did pick up Paul Freeman's Outback though, and got it for 40% off...

And that was pretty much it... other than stopping off at the North Adelaide Village on the way home to pick up some bagels and some cold meat for Monday and Tuesday's lunch.

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