Art for arts' sake.

Ethel Carrick's 'French Flower Market, 1909.

There have been thousands of opinions expressed about art but I like this quote by John Updike, American writer and Art Critic...

What art offers is space - a certain breathing room for the spirit.

Chantal taking in the space of the outside area.

And so with a need to breathe, just for a few hours, we made our way to the Art Gallery in Brisbane.

The exhibition was titled, Art, Love and Life, the works of Ethel Carrick and E. Phillips Fox. What a gifted couple, studying at the Paris and London Academies, mixing with the impressionists, what a bohemian life, living in Paris at the turn of the 19th Century, painting the market and beach scenes, the flowers, the children, traveling around Europe, they had marriage, love, art, adventure and space for the spirit....but only for ten years, when sadly and to soon Emanuel passed away at age 50.

In summer the tree on the right is abundant with frangipanis. 

The Arbour. E Phillips Fox. The little boy in the sailor suit, Len Fox,  was his nephew, well known Australian Journalist, Artist and social activist who lived in Kings Cross with his wife for 50 years.

I loved the furniture exhibits, Chantal loved the sculpture gallery and Alexandria loves, loves the masters.

When our senses had had a little polish and our need to paint was at it's peak we sought out the shop for my little passion...bookmarks. The shop has jewellery, books, stationary, cute things, ceramics and glassware, fragile and delicate, the purest of colour, truly objects to be admired if not used.

Lunch in the cafe.

I don't know if any other teenagers do this but whenever we are out, at lunch, sitting quietly, the girls make up stories about people who walk past, a serious looking young man in dark jeans, dark bomber jacket and thick grey scarf was to Alexandria a highly intelligent Romanian orphan who teaches the violin and who seeks out art to satisfy his love for it, inherited from his grandfather,who was a famous portrait painter,  a 50-something couple in stylish clothes were to Chantal fashion designers from Copenhagen, she an ex-model, who live in a minimalist apartment, here in Australian to arrange an exhibition of their innovative designs at the gallery and possibly to purchase some property...etc, etc.  Imagination is a great thing!

  

...then home to the paints...we had a good time.
Thanks for visiting
Vickixx

A Day in the Life.

These days are always bright and sunny. They start off early, end late, in between morphs into a timeless mass. Sometimes I get to visit the library at the girls school and read, all the interesting books, my favorite being in the education and medical sections. If I'm treating myself I'll stay a long time.....

Drop daughters at school

quick visit to library to read for an hour

To the market

What's for tea?chose away.

Real bread

Real coffee

Orchids in the shopping centre.

Into the paper shop for some white willow branches

Baby rockmelons and passionfruit

Reply to my dear friend and a new bookmark swap.

If I ever wonder again what I do with my days I'll just take some photos. Work for family is very gratifying and I love being a cog in the wheel of the last two at home. With some flown the nest I know how quickly this time will go so I'm enjoying every day, every week and storing lots of memories.

 I'm becoming aware of not wasting time, someone said to me last week, a person who had been in a wheel chair for 24 years due to a car crash...I've been sitting down for 24 years....those words still resonate within me, I can't get them out of my head, Wayne said, I'd just like to get up and walk again, sometimes it's the most unexpected encounters that reach the heart.

Thanks for dropping in,
Vickixx