It's nice to go away but good to return home again. We had a wonderful time with the highlight being the visit to the National Gallery in Canberra to view the Ballet Russes exhibition. We saw the exhibition when it was on a few years ago but they have continued conservation work on more pieces from the collection with videos showing how the painstaking work is carried out so this was a much bigger and more detailed exhibition with a really good catalogue. My niece Debbie is Head of Conservation at the gallery and textiles is her main area so it was good to see she had an essay in the catalogue.
My sister, Debbie's mum has over the past eight years been slowly succumbing to Alzheimer's and in August last year was admitted to a nursing home where her husband visits every day even though she no longer recognises him. I thought my threads of feeling piece will be for her and my inspiration will be the Ballet Russes collection. At this stage that is as far as I have gone as I have covers to make for a visitors book and an artist profile folder needed for an exhibition that the Smart Arts group I belong to is having.
It is so interesting hearing everyone's news about what they are up to and look forward to seeing images of work in progress.
Marj
sounds like you had a really good time - there was a ballet russe exhibition in london recently but i couldn't get there so i've had a look at the canberra museum site, it looks like i've missed a real treat - i'll pop a link into "on our wavelength"
ReplyDeleteThanks for the link Eva. The costumes exhibited were from the Australian National Gallery's own collection and there were 50 more costumes displayed than were displayed in the previous exhibition in 1999. The V&A has a large collection too so probably those were the ones that were exhibited in the UK. It was facinating to see the fabrics used and the different methods of applying colour.
ReplyDeletein the 70's and 80's a friend of mine used to work with russian ballets touring in the U.k. - i remember him telling me how many of the costumes were in dreadful condition due to the wear, tear and stress they were subjected to in performance and in transit, although they always looked fabulous on stage (from a distance and under the lights)- the seamstresses where constantly struggling to keep them wearable
ReplyDeletethe ones in museum collections must have undergone an awful lot of restoration and conservation to make and keep them fit for close inspection!
i would love to know more about the work of fabric/costume/textile restoration and conservation - one of our recent talks at emb.guild touched on the subject but it wasn't nearly enough for me
thank you for the two articles on conservation, they were both very interesting so here are the links in case chris or wendy want to take a look - http://nga.gov.au/Conservation/textiles/Sari.cfm
ReplyDeletehttp://nga.gov.au/Conservation/textiles/Charina.cfm
i think it's great that museums and galleries are making information like this availble to us plebs! it certainly helps to explain just how much goes on behind the scenes