Ghosts of Christmas just Past and Belated Happy New Year

On January 7, Shane Jones and I attended the final performance of A Christmas Carol at the Comedy Theatre in Melbourne. 

We saw the first Australian production a little over a year ago, with Australian actor David Wenham as Ebenezer Scrooge. It was as fine a time in the theatre as we have ever spent, so much so that we were reluctant to chance undercutting a perfect theatrical memory with a revival that might not quite live up to it. In the end, however, a generous offer of two-for-one tickets for the final performances was too tempting to resist - although we still had slight reservations.

We needn’t have been concerned. In the role of Scrooge, Welsh actor Owen Teale was every bit as impressive as David Wenham, which, believe me, is saying something, and the rest of the cast (some of them returning from the last production) were, as before, simply wonderful. I love Dickens and still treasure my childhood copy of the novella on which the play is based.

As in the previous production, just before it got under way, several cast members hurled oranges into the audience with gay abandon and astonishing precision. Shane proved to be as gifted a catcher as they were pitchers, and managed to catch one for each of us and another for the woman sitting next to me. We also scored two mince pies each from a couple of “vendors” moving through the audience. They were the best mince pies I’ve ever tasted.

My orange survived long enough to serve briefly as an additional reference for Orange Tree, another painting that draws primary inspiration from an embroidery designed by May Morris (work in progress, pictured top). The orange was consumed shortly after this photo was taken. It was every bit as sweet and juicy as it looks.

Belated but heartfelt wishes to you all for a sweet, juicy and happy 2024. 

One Hundred Faces launch

 

Here are a few highlights from Saturday’s launch of One Hundred Faces at Playing in the Attic in Talbot. I always look forward to taking part in this annual exhibition, which continues to go from strength to strength. This year I even bought a pair of earrings from Ballarat’s Femxle Experience Art Rebellion to match the earrings in my painting, Orange Tree, on view over my right shoulder in the first shot. (OK, technically the earrings are pumpkins, but I love them and it’s still a pretty close match). 

As always, huge thanks to Trudy McLauchlan for organising One Hundred Faces, including the impeccable hang, and for inviting Shane Jones and I to be part of it again. It was great to spend some quality time with our friends Peter Cooper and participating artist Loris Button, both pictured with Shane in the penultimate photo below, and to meet some of the other artists. It was terrific seeing so many red stickers too. 

The exhibition is part of Tiny Towns Arts Trail, which concludes at 4 pm today. 

One Hundred Faces continues to 31 May. Do get along and see it if you can. My photos don’t do it justice. 

One Hundred Faces 2023

Pictured above: two recently completed paintings, Maid of Honour and Orange Tree, freshly varnished in readiness for the annual exhibition, One Hundred Faces at Playing in the Attic.

Both works take designs by May Morris as points of departure - in the case of Maid of Honour, 2023, her embroidery Maids of Honour, c. 1890, a personal favourite of mine - and both were labours of love.

Maid of Honour, 2023 (study), acrylic on canvas mounted on board, 10 x 10 cm. 

Some developmental views of the work are below.

Serendipitously, I’ve just discovered that the May Morris panel Maids of Honour was originally owned by the artist Marie Spartali Stillman. Her work appears next to mine on the poster for the upcoming exhibitions Pre-Raphaelites, Drawings and Watercolours and In the Company of Morris at the Art Gallery of Ballarat. (See Blog Post Wednesday, April 12). 

The second work, Orange Tree, 2023 (pictured below) is also followed by a handful of process views, including a reproduction of Orange Tree, circa 1897, the textile designed and embroidered by May Morris that was its primary source of inspiration.

Orange Tree, 2023, (study) acrylic on canvas mounted on board, 10 x 10 cm. 

One Hundred Faces is presented in connection with Tiny Towns Arts Trail. The exhibition opens tomorrow, Saturday 22 April, and runs to the end of May.

Playing in the Attic

13 Ballaarat Street

Talbot VIC Australia 3371

Opening hours: Friday - Monday 10 am - 4 pm

Easter Greetings

TO AUTUMN

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness,

  Close bosom-friend of the maturing sun;

Conspiring with him how to load and bless

  With fruit the vines that round the thatch-eves run;

To bend with apples the moss'd cottage-trees,

  And fill all fruit with ripeness to the core;

    To swell the gourd, and plump the hazel shells

  With a sweet kernel; to set budding more,

And still more, later flowers for the bees,

Until they think warm days will never cease,

    For summer has o'er-brimm'd their clammy cells.

Who hath not seen thee oft amid thy store?

  Sometimes whoever seeks abroad may find

Thee sitting careless on a granary floor,

  Thy hair soft-lifted by the winnowing wind;

Or on a half-reap'd furrow sound asleep,

  Drowsed with the fume of poppies, while thy hook

    Spares the next swath and all its twined flowers:

And sometimes like a gleaner thou dost keep 

  Steady thy laden head across a brook;

  Or by a cider-press, with patient look,

    Thou watchest the last oozings, hours by hours.

Where are the songs of Spring? Ay, where are they?

  Think not of them, thou hast thy music too,--

While barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day,

  And touch the stubble-plains with rosy hue;

Then in a wailful choir the small gnats mourn

  Among the river sallows, borne aloft

    Or sinking as the light wind lives or dies;

And full-grown lambs loud bleat from hilly bourn;

  Hedge-crickets sing; and now with treble soft

  The redbreast whistles from a garden-croft,

    And gathering swallows twitter in the skies.

- John Keats, 1795-1821*

*To Autumn was written on September 19, 1819 and first published in 1820. The poem is in the public domain. 

Easter is traditionally associated with springtime, a time of rebirth and regrowth. But in southern climes it falls in autumn, that “Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness”. I have always admired the John Keats poem, which encapsulates so much of what I love about this time of year - although at present it feels more like winter!

The Pre-Raphaelites and their contemporaries, whose works I’m currently revisiting, recognised Keats as a kindred spirit. Several of them, including John Everett Millais, William Holman Hunt, Arthur Hughes, John William Waterhouse, George Frederick Watts and Walter Crane, depicted scenes from his verses. In 1894 Kelmscott Press published The Poems of John Keats with elaborate wood-engraved borders and initials designed by William Morris (pictured below).

I’m flying to London in mid-September, the first month of the English autumn and the very same month in which Keats composed To Autumn. I’ve just remembered that Keats House in Hampstead is only minutes away from where I’ll be staying. A return visit is long overdue.

Meanwhile, Happy Easter everyone.

Pictured top: Deborah Klein, Orange Tree, 2023, (study), acrylic on canvas mounted on board, 10 x 10 cm. The work, which takes an identically titled embroidery designed by May Morris as its point of departure, is part of One Hundred Faces 2023 at Playing in the Attic, Talbot, Vic. The exhibition opens on Saturday April 22 and runs to the end of May.