Canberra Retreat Part 1
Hello! Or "G'Day" as they say here! I am back from my retreat week in Canberra. Basically, it was a week alone at a wonderful little hotel near the Pariliament building. I could see it from the hotel. I slept in until I woke, spent quiet time with the Lord, worked out at the gym across the street, ate in each night (trying to break unhealthy Christmas binging!) and spent a lot of time alone, which is what I needed. Gave me time to think and process some of the stuff going on in the parish and the friary.
I very much loved Canberra. It's situated up in higher than Kellyville/Sydney and is much further inland. It's about a 3 hour drive from my home. The drive is pretty easy and not too bad with regards to traffic. Being where it is, the weather was a lot less humid and less hot. It was nioce to have a break from Sydney's oppressive summer this year. (I don't remember the humidity being as bad last year as this one.)
My favorite spot on the drive down is this stretch of road that opens up on the East toward Lake George (1). (Lake George is the grey stripe in the distance). The whole area is so flat that it feels like you can see to America. You can get an idea from the panorama. It's breathtakingly enormous space!
A few days into the retreat I was feeling a bit stir crazy and went out, heading to the National Portrait Gallery. They were having an exhibit there of Pet Portraits. This image is of a street near the Pariliament building (the equivalent of our Capitol building) (2). They do a nice job of planting lots of local trees that offered wonderful shade for pedestrians. This next image is a selfie with the Pariliament building (PB from now on) (3). The whole city is like DC in that it was planned by a famous architect. The streets run in a series of concentric circles with the center on the PB. Other streets cross from it like spokes. The PB sits in a big green space at the centre. Really nice. A lovely plan. Lots of pedestrian green spaces and memorials to the fallen. It is said the PM office looks out toward the big War Memorial to remind him of the weight of his decisions.
Here are some more shots along my walk to the Gallery: Some life sized sculptures of the PM and Treasure from ca. 1945 (4). (The only reason I know this is because of the bronze plaque at their feet!). And some photos of a rose garden (5-7), All around Canberra are huge swaths of green space, like this one (8). It's amazing that it is not all full of hotels or office buildings! This is the High Court Building, (the equivalent of our US Supreme Court) (9). Notice the water feature on the left. Very nice. Here is a walkway that goes out to the lake that runs around the Capitol (10).
The High Court building sits right next to the National Portrait Gallery (11-12). Before going in I took a selfie with this big orange blob (13) that sat outside the doors. Fun.
Onto the pet portraits by famous Australian artists. Ken Done did paintings of his pets (14-17). The last two int he series are family pets, but he owned the first couple. I like thier playfulyness. Darren MacDonald painted this portrait of Jane Goodall who visited Australia and
advocated for dingos, the Aussie wild dogs (18). These are painted tiles by Noel McKenna that really captured the animal (19-20)! Look at the joy on this woman's face and the beauty of the birds (21-22). Robyn Sweaney tried to paint pets and their owners from the pets' perspective in this small series of works (each about 8 x 8 inches) (23-25). Not all the animals were dogs or cats (26, Easter Show Cock 2 by Lucy Culliton) (26). This work is called Kangaroos, by Davida Allen (27); can you spot them? And just look at the details of this work by Shen Jaiwei enttiled Xini and Billy (28-29). The girl looked so real! Even more so standing next to the piece called Kangaroos!
These next couple are part of a series done by Nicholas Harding (30-31). They are of pets and their owners. The one done on two pieces of paper was created that way becuase the dog would not sit still with the owner during the portrait. Isn't that funny? You can see the dog's attitude int he work!
Lucy Culliton's sister (Anne Culltin) also did some nice works, but out of clay (32-34). I loved this wombat in water color (35); it made me think of my younger brother who wants me to bring him back one from Australia. Much of water color is accidental. You can't control it too much or it doesn't work. I am inpressed by the skill of these artists from the show (35-39).
From the pet show I went to the other portraits that regularly hang at the National Gallery. I didn't recognize any of these figures from Australia's history but I really enjoyed these works. Deborah Mailman is an aboriginal actor and is captured in this work by Evert Ploegg (40). I loved how the artist used the wood and allowed it to come through in this protrait of a politician from the late 1800's (41). And this woman's eyes would not leave you alone (42). Her whole face seems to turn to you as you can see from this second shot (43). Though these two were not hanging together, they were created by the same artist John Brack (44-45) I loved the use of unusual colors in both of them and wondered about other works.
This is a painting of a famous professor of astronomy and physics (46). And this is of a philanthropist (47-48). It looked like a photograph. You want to know if someone can draw, look at the way they render hands. these are exquisite (48)! Here is an old photo of the famous prima ballerina, Anna Pavlova (for whom my favorite Aussie dessert is named) (49). A big striking image larger than me (50). And a video portrait (51-53). The video was of a scarf blowing in the wind. If you look at these three images together you get an idea of the movement. On the scarf was printed the image of the artist. You could catch glimpses of him as in (53). The video looped for 10 minutes. Interesting. Finally, another wonderful water color of scholar George Seddon by Peteris Ciemitis (54).
Next week is part two of the retreat—get ready for Canberra's Kangaroos!