Thursday April 6 dawned with much excitement as I stuffed
the last thing I could fit into my suitcase.
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| I can fit another shoe!!!! |
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| Thank you for flying Bunway Airlines!! Your pilots are Bunnehs Jenelle & Svenja... |
On with the bunneh ears! Bunway
airlines was ready for takeoff to Melbz!!
On arrival, we went exploring Melbz, and discovered a few interesting things. Firstly, this amazing sculpture made out of plastic bottles at the rear of a building near Chinatown.
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| Covered in Beeeez!!! |
Later, this building covered in gold bees - fantastic!
Liquid relief was found at
the Ludlow Bar at Southbank, where a rather appropriate ‘White Rabbit’ ale was
sampled.
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| Mmmm, White Rabbit!! |
Shortly afterwards, there were cries of ‘Bring the Noms’ from some
hungry (not quite hangry!) bunnehs. We selected eggplant chips with yoghurt
dip, expecting thin oven baked crisps, but received deep fried creamy wedges of
crumbed eggplant! Delicious, but not quite on the approved food list!!
Strolling home, we witnessed Elmo playing the trumpet, and then Cookie Monster
playing the bagpipes!
Early to rise, the streets of Melbz were dark and quiet as
the bunnehs emerged from the burrow to set off for their morning exercise.
Coffee was found at a lovely little café called Stalactite, then it was onwards
and upwards to the cemetery for a run around the sleeping folk.
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| Stalactite |
Breakfast noms
were taken at Seasons Providore in Lygon Street, where I had possibly the best
scrambled eggs ever! Not to mention good coffee, AND lovely service! I think our waiter was fresh blood, as yet untainted by the misery of serving and ungrateful general public....
The rest of Friday was spent at the Queen Victoria Markets,
where we very much enjoyed the shopping. Tired out, we headed home with some
sushi for afternoon noms and a much needed rest. For the evening, we headed
back out to SouthBank, but being a Friday night, it was too busy too accommodate
us, so we ended walking back to the Hairy Little Sister, right opposite our
hotel! Here I indulged in a ‘Passionate Kiss’ cocktail, to celebrate the news
received earlier that morning that my entry had been accepted for the 25th
World of WearableArt show.
Saturday dawned early for me, as I soon realised that my
sensitive tummy had been disturbed by something. Four hours and inumerous trips
to the bathroom later, Jenelle packed us up, checked us out, and escorted me to
the local GP. After a short wait in a room, the Dr arrived just as I was giving
a demonstration of what was wrong with me. Jenelle and I have now shared so
much……
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| Sick Bunneh! |
Having had my shot of Maxalon, it was off to Southern Cross
Station to catch the train to Ballarat. I never could have managed this day
without Miss Jenelle. We arrived at Ballarat Grammar and checked in straight
away. Imagine our horror when we had to pick up our bedding and cart it as well
as our suitcases across the gravel to our rooms! Me because I was so ill, Miss
Jenelle because she is used to staying at the Hilton, not making your own bed
at a boarding school!!
I’m afraid I made my bed and crawled into it, leaving
Jenelle to walk into town and collect our supplies needed for the week, like
pillows and bubblewrap. Again, couldn’t have done it without her. I surfaced
for dinner which was hardly worth it – a hideous ‘ravioli’ in true boarding
school style. Not impressed.
I awoke the next morning feeling much closer to human to
find this delightful note popped under my door from my ‘kompanyun bunneh’!
I
had also received a lovely note in my room the day before from its usual
occupant, welcoming me to her room and giving some handy hints. It was a lovely
touch.
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| Hi Nadia - loved your room! |
Breakfast was disappointing – no eggs, no porridge – no protein!!
Bunnehs grumbled their way to class, where J Bunneh was further disgusted to
find that talking was out, and that we would be ‘Tasting the Silence’! Of the
three categories of people that attend these events – those looking to grow
artistically, those there for therapy, and those wanting to just have fun – she
was the latter, whilst I was all three, and felt kind of blissed out with
Marjoleins’ rather spiritual approach. Her restful voice and musical accent
resonated in my head all week, and I found myself even thinking in her
delightful speech patterns!
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| J Bunneh losing her s#$t.....!! |
The first day was a rather hard slog of layouts, and I was
glad to get moving again with a walk around the lake after class. The lake has
a circumference of 6 kilometres, and has a beautiful wetland area and parkland
named ‘fairyland’. We were amazed at the amount of water birds, many of which
looked related to the NZ Pukeko.
There were very small ones there with lovely
velvety looking heads that I suggested could possibly be strapped to my head as
earwarmers on one cold morning. Instead, I wore an ever changing array of head
attire, ranging from a jacket wrapped around it, a large pink silk turban, to a
small purple top…….
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| An acorn! |
Each morning started with a walk or run around the lake,
after a surprisingly good macchiato from McDonalds, followed by another caffeine
boost on the return trip. The crisp mornings and the beautiful tree lined streets were lovely, as were some rather run down old buildings complete with lichen which I fantasized about having a lakeside studio in!
Having confirmed that neither eggs nor oats would
ever be produced at breakfast, we would pick up bread from the dining room on
our return, and boil up eggs in the common room each morning, with many a
jealous glance from our housemates!
One lovely thing about the event were these delightful book sculptures which popped up all over the place, and moved during the week. Often found outside doorways, their simple yet striking forms would be in a different formation every time I saw them, as if they were like hermit crabs, slowly moving their shells in slow yet systematic dance....
During the class, we explored the use of resists to create
sculptural works. I was familiar with the concept, having used them to make
hats, but I certainly learned a lot about how to extend their use by layering. I
learned how to make neater seams, and many different ways of doing things, from
wetting down the wool to massaging the felt through the bubblewrap between
rolls and patting it down to further assist felting. I also learned to keep
going until the felt was really hard, and had shrunk a lot!
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| Stage 2 - stitching on prefelt |
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| Stage 1 - prefelt |
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| Stage 3 - Sea Urchins! |
I quite enjoyed Marjoleins’ method of teaching - she didn’t
show us how to do exactly what she does, but she taught us to think our way
down the same path. We were working blind in the most part, not knowing what we
were making at all, and I understand this was because explanation would no
doubt have led to mass confusion, however, it would have been nice to have a
visual idea of where we were going.
Before we knew it, it was the end of the week, and it was
time to dress up in our matching glitter lycra frocks, which stimulated a round
of applause as we entered the dining room!
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| Pink & Purple Bunnehs!! |
The tables were charmingly
decorated, and everyone scrubbed up to a very different version of what we had
seen during the week!
Dinner itself however, was unspeakably bad, being a
choice by the time we made it to the kitchen of veal, veal or veal, which was a
hideous concoction of some kind of processed meat in no way resembling veal, with
a different kind of ‘meat’ placed on top, with cheese, and covered in breadcrumbs.
Thank goodness for roast vegies!
After this, it was time to see the results of all the weeks’
classes in a display showcasing all. There were some lovely examples, and this
one from Ann Small of the UK displayed the concepts behind her workshop Stack,
Stitch, Slash and Show.
There were some less spectacular ones too – like ours!!
However, hideous as some of our samples may be, it’s all about the concepts
that they represent, and the journey of discovery that we took to explore them.
Yes, Jenelle – the Journey!! Thanks for sharing it with me, and for looking
after me when I was incapable of pretty much anything.
Tired Bunnehs board Bunway airlines for the last leg in this adventure.We’ll do it all again
(well, maybe not all!) in next years’
SvenJen adventure #3!!
I'll be working on this during my week of solitude at the Sunshine
Coast - a much needed opportunity to de-frag!! Seeing as I just can't
NOT do things at home, I need to escape even that lovely oasis to let
myself truly relax. I have almost finished moving into my new
purpose-built studio, and I'll be sad to leave this new toy for the
week! It will be featured in a blog soon - I have to get my industrial
machines serviced before they grace the studio with their presence. Here it is about a week ago - already it has been completely transformed, and now almost everything is in there!! 
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