Craft Victoria, 3 November - 3 December 2005

I was surprised how different an experience living & working in another country was to being a tourist on a brief visit.
It was not as if I had never been to Britain before – I had even twice visited the studio where I was to work. Maybe it was some to do with the fact that outside working hours all my time was completely my own, no partner, no housework, no deadlines with exhibition work, I had time to really look. Most of my spare time was spent looking around & recording images on my digital camera - I took hundreds of images. I felt like a sponge, soaking up images.

Being a 4^th or 5^th generation Australian of British decent (how can I deny it anyway with a surname of smith !) the culture was generally the same to my experiences here, but it was all the little details & subtle differences that fascinated mehe pebble beaches, villages/houses, animals, pub culture, the seasons & the gardens…

Bobbins

Bobbins are the tools used by tapestry weavers. They carry yarns which are wound around their shaft & beat these yarns down into place to form an image based fabric. I was fascinated with the difference in shape, weight, length & varieties of timbers used. A well designed bobbin balances in the palm of ones hand in a very pleasing way & is so pleasant to use that it becomes a natural extension of ones hand. I feel that my favourite bobbins meet a high design criteria where good design should not only ‘work' well, ie be a useful tool, it should be beautiful to look at. These utilitarian tools are quite desirable as beautiful objects.

Topiary

Amongst the neat orderly houses & gardens – whether big or small, topiary with its sometimes precise geometrical shapes or more madcap organic shapes (that seem like they would move when you look away), were a relief to me. I felt that the British in their gardens were allowed in a very ‘monty python' way to express their artistic bent.