Water Colour

Robert Burne

Unfinished

Here is another attempt with the pinhole Camera — looks a bit like an unfinished watercolour to me!

Ed Whalan: Beyond Border Town

Congratulations to Ed Whalan, whose first solo show opens tomorrow night at 6pm in the Huw Davies Gallery at Photoaccess. Given that Ed has been involved with Photoaccess for the last decade as a board and staff member, tutor, mentor, advisor, event and exhibition co-ordinator, curator, dog wrangler and booze quaffer, this event is going to be huge!

Beyond Border Town is a tribute to Captains Flat, the small village near Canberra in which Ed lives. His images of this rural community are in keeping with the dynamic and super-wide panoramic style he has experimented with for the last couple of years. It's worth noting that the pictures in this show are so wide they had to be cropped in half to actually fit on this blog!

Australian rural life is usually represented, ironically, by city-dwellers, who fall into using clichés — country "folk" are either shown to be backward and ignorant or, at best, quirky. So it's great to see someone who actually lives in a rural area showing us their own community, especially in such a vibrant and sophisticated manner.

Ed's show runs until 11 May. Check out what he has to say about his work here .

Wallow When Life Sucks

Kathleen Fisher
Artistic Inspiration

Okay Betties and Betties fans, it's officially okay to wallow when life sucks.

That's right, according to Alyson B Stanfield, who runs ArtBizCoach.com and ArtBizblog.com. She's written a neat and practical article in the current edition of her newsletter that tells us how to "Emerge From a Slump", which lists having a little wallow in self-pity as the first step in feeling better. Of course, nine other more productive steps follow to re-inspire us and purge the angst.

This is just the pick up I needed today. I've got such a bad cold that it feels like I'm listening to everything underwater!

Check Alyson's article out here.

Smokin' Hot Musicians

Kerry Baylor
Open

I took this photo of King Curly at the National Folk Festival and sent it to them because they are one of my favorite bands. And they've asked to use it on their website!! It is a cool/weird kinda website, so check it out here.

Not Open for Business

Kerry Baylor
Unfinished

This is a subject I have photographed before and thought I should re-shoot for Unfinished. It could probably be called finished as well. It is another business closed down in Manuka.

Duck

Robert Burne

Unfinished

And they have the cheek to say that Henry Moore's works look unfinished!

Sky and Water

Miguel Gallagher

Open

I have been on a few field trips lately and here are a couple of shots from these that I would like to share with you all.

Beauty Vesus Evil

Miguel Gallagher
Reflections

I saw the trees forming a silhouette on the curtains at home. When I was looking at the soft image I thought it was well worthy of beauty in an impressionistic kind of way but after I took the photo I couldn't help myself and all I can see now is an eerie almost evil creature living onthe other side of the window.

Unfinished Business

Miguel Gallagher

Unfinished

Here are a couple of images from yesterday's marathon that some friends and my Mel ran in. At the point where I took these photos they certainly had unfinished business, some 19 kms in fact.

Music in the Vines

Miguel Gallagher

Music

Here is an image or the theme I really struggled with. I am not a very musical person and it wasn't until I saw it on the vines that I realised I had found my musical image.

Entrenched

Ed Whalan
Unfinished

This is the trench that goes to the pole that my new solar system is meant to be sitting on. All the work was meant to be finished 6 weeks ago.

Flushed Away

Kerry Baylor
Open

From yet another Betties trip to the old Kenmore psychiatric hospital in Goulburn.

National Folk Festival 2008

Lorna Sim
Open

Here are some shots from this year's National Folk Festival, held in Canberra from 20-24 March.

Peacock for Dinner, Anyone?

Kathleen Fisher

Food for Thought

I'm reading Taste by Kate Colquhoun, a book that explores the history of Britain through food. I know it's magnificent because I've been obsessively experimenting in the kitchen with tidbits from the Roman occupation to Tudor times. Justin, my husband, never knows what might appear on the dinner table: it could be a buttery pastry filled with sweet potato and olives or a blancmange of rice boiled in almond milk, both Medieval in origin.

Peacock, however, is one thing I certainly won't serve.

The ancient Romans could only stomach the bird's tough flesh by mincing it into rissoles, Colquhoun writes. Medieval lords in Britain had peacocks carefully skinned, roasted with cumin and re-stitched into their plumes for novel table centrepieces. One can only imagine the food poisoning that resulted from the unhygienic mix of cooked meat and raw skin!

Betties in The Canberra Times

Betties on Show

Another review has come in for Kerry Baylor and Susan Stayer's respective solo shows. In The Canberra Times, Charly Ogilvie describes the works as "two affectionate portraits of place", adding that both shows "reflect assurance and skill".

Ogilvie appears to understand Kerry's use of cross-processed film to get a punchy, super-saturated and vintage look. She also seems to view Kerry's tribute to her suburban home of Watson as one of tough love, where life is shown warts and all.

Ogilvie seems particularly taken with what she describes as Susan's "visual love letter" to the beautiful Dunbarton Oaks, praising the photographer's precise vision and careful selection of images.

Go Betties!

Old Stuff and Goulburn

Kerry Baylor
Open

Here are some more TtV shots from a recent Betties trip to Goulburn, an historic town about an hour from Canberra. My camera loves cemeteries, old cars and buildings.

Max Dupain and the Betties

Betties on Show

Very few photographers can say they've been praised alongside Max Dupain, so congratulations to Kerry Baylor and Susan Stayer who shared a review with one of Australia's most famous photographers on the Arts Hub website last week.

Writer Narelle Phillips picked up a sense of urban "detachment and anonymity" in Watson, Kerry's eerie study of the suburb in which she lives. Getting a national review for your first solo show isn't bad!

Phillips was also impressed with the detail in Dunbarton Oaks, Susan's study of the gardens at the historic property and international centre for scholarship of the same name in Washington. The blend of technical quality, antiquity and mystery went down very well.

Kerry and Susan's shows were both on at Photoaccess from March 13-30.

Check out the full review, entitled "Observations on Three Observers".

Susan Stayer: Studies of Garden Architecture

Betties on Show

Dunbarton Oaks in Washington is best known as an international centre for scholarship where academics delve into Byzantine, Pre-Columbian or landscape architecture studies. For Susan Stayer, however, its assocations are less taxing — she has enjoyed many days wandering the historic site's 10 acres of dreamy gardens, which blend the best of traditional French, English and Italian design.

Also called Dunbarton Oaks , Susan's exhibition is fittingly like a languid Sunday picnic, with each detailed tidbit inviting another bite in a totally flavoursome meal.

This show has also just finished at Photoaccess. See here for more about this cool photographic gallery and art centre.

Kerry Baylor: Celebrating the Suburban

Betties on Show

The Betties are making their mark!

Kerry Baylor's first solo exhibition has just finished at Photoaccess in Manuka. Watson explores her local suburb of the same name, providing a wonderful example of how a photographer can find fascinating subjects in the absolutely every day.

Not that such investigations come without a price — Kerry has become known where she lives as the kooky chick with the bag full of cameras!