GEELONG

 Since moving to Perth, I’ve had five trips back to Melbourne with two of them for memorial services. That’s the way of the world from this point on. The most recent trip was just a week after I returned from Europe in late September. Susan didn’t have time to miss me because (1) she was probably very glad not be sleeping in the same room as me anymore and (2) Sebastian joined her for a week. He’s a Lacrosse referee (when he’s not out searching for snakes and other reptiles) and came over to play that role in the Under-15’s National Championship.

My travel reason this time was to join a dear friend, Loretta, and a number of her friends, at the Geelong Fibre Forum. It’s an annual event where a number of different fibre workshops are on offer, all delivered on the grounds of Geelong Grammar School. Courses included machine embroidery, shibori, portfolio boxes , basketry, crocheted portraits, and 3D textiles. Loretta has been going for a number of years and has created some beautiful artworks in the process. I decided to see if those embroidery skills that Auntie Dot had taught me in my youth were still intact so we enrolled in Alison Bogg’s Artistic Stitch course.

And I learnt that my technical skills were fine (I can do a very neat row of blanket stitch) but my creative imagination leaves a lot to be desired. One of those reasons why I’ve been an arts manager and not an artist for all these years.

Before the course started and afterwords, I had a delightful time close to Pascoe Vale South in Glenda and David’s beautiful 19th West Brunswick house. It’s always a place of great warmth and care and I was grateful for their hospitality.

Day 1 in Geelong consisted of stitching. Day 2 was “wet work” i.e. printing/painting images onto fabric in various ways. Day 3 was textile collage. Days 4 & 5 were creating something. The end result of my week's work is not something that I’ll share because I’m going to treat it as a very first step. Think of it as a draft - and I will show you some of the bits and pieces I tried. However, I enjoyed the week. Loretta and her friends were great company – as well as all being very talented at needlework. Sleeping in a student room and sharing a bathroom took me back to University college days. The school campus is impressive with impeccable hedges, oxford-style quadrangles and churches, hogwart-style dining hall and views out to Port Phillip Bay. And the food was surprisingly good for a boarding school (which apparently costs about $90k per year plus extra if you want to stable your horse!) We did have to share breakfast with a group of Asian-Australia kids from Glen Iris on a swimming camp and a group of teenagers on an elite AFL/AFLW camp but as you can imagine, they were all very polite to us old ladies. And that’s what we were for the most part. Only one bloke and only a couple of women in their 30s and 40s.



Would I do it again? Maybe? For the learning experience and the company even if I’ve confirmed to myself yet again, that I don’t have a creative bone in my body.

The trip to Geelong also enabled me to enjoy other people's artistry, including the Archibald Prize exhibition in Geelong (although I wasn't as impressed as usual) and the exhibition of the photographs of Man Ray, Lee Miller, Max Dupain and Olive Cotton. I was reminded of how much I liked Olive's work.


I also had the chance to see the wonderful Pamela Rabe in the MTC production of Daphne du Maurier's Rebecca and catch up with her and her partner Roger Hodgman who was my first Artistic Director at MTC. Loretta was my guest for the night and she was determined to get us in a photo with the Tonks Bar sign at the Southbank Theatre.




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