I've been spending time at Von Haus, upstairs, next to the S!X showroom.

We are along the hall from Sarah Scout gallery, where there is a quite gorgeous show on - for one more week. Everything is worth seeing. Come say hi. I will be the one with crumbs on my shirt from downstair's shortbread.

Carolina Barua

Lauren Cray

Alexander Batsis

John Gosper

Bernadette Francis

Shoes - Blake Barnes; dress - Teegan Meade

Details from 'Cloth', an RMIT Fashion Exhibition, which is open daily from 10 to 6, until this Sunday (Nov. 20), at Level One GPO, Melbourne ... I think the set-up is fairly ordinary but there are some great pieces -  see also this week's Michi, featuring Kimbra (following a week-end of unlikely obsession).

Loulou de la Falaise by Helmut Newton

Two recent stories written for Michi - one that's a tiny bit silly, although the bread was excellent - and one that's a tiny tribute to Loulou de la Falaise (1948 - 2011), which happens to be my 50th piece.

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"... her great-grandmother was Vavarina Pike, who ignited County Wexford in ivory fedoras and beige cardigns acquired at the gentlemen's departments of the London stores ..."

*  *  *

"... Wherever it was, she said: "We hit it off straight away because he had a very silly sense of humour. We got into a fit of giggles" ... "

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"Loulou de la Falaise, Yves Saint Laurent muse and collaborator, has passed away... "

Thinking I'd photographed my friends dancing, it was amusing to see afterwards what a great job I'd done of photographing a white chair.

Photography of M-HB by Tana Kaleya

Garden roses at Milly, and a few stories at Michi:

Of recent times ... Camille Bidault Waddington; Gintare Akstinavičiūtė; and She Hunter, who you can listen to here. I believe She creates her own artwork, too.

Also, a note on an old Michi piece... wherein I convinced myself, at least, that Marie-Hélène Breillat wears the outfit described (as above) in Last Tango in Paris. In actual fact, she does not. There is a Focus on Bertolucci screening at acmi at the moment, and I have finally seen the film in full ... I waited for the boater and it never appeared! Great film, much more eccentric than I expected, which reminded me of John Cassavetes and things like Minnie and Moskowitz.

P. S. If I titled these posts, I would absolutely have to call this one Missing The Boater. This is an example of why I don't title them.

Beautiful bows by jeweller Anna Varendorff

Pictures from the official opening of Kristy B's lovely Kuwaii store in Brunswick.

We enjoyed innocent-looking punch at something like 11 in the morning - no wonder I was so overwhelmed by the banksias.

And here is the pink beauty. I ended up back in Brunswick a few days later (visiting my favourite shoe repairs place) and she got me again.

Abundance.

I see it's been a fortnight since I last posted. This comes down to little more than ebb and flow perhaps. Also, I'm disorganised. Also, I've been trying to draw and design.

Also, about ten nights back, I spent some hours browsing beyond my customary blog/web route. I went further than intended and became quite lost in the myriad gorgeous mini-worlds that the internet sustains. I remember, a decade or more ago, when online content was generally ugly; now there is so much that is genuinely beautiful - I wasn't overwhelmed so much by quantity as by quality.

The experience was akin to shopping but even though I was naturally selective I didn't exactly choose or buy anything, and was thoroughly sated. It's not new to recognise that the image is the commodity (rather than the object) - but more and more I sense that the image replaces the object, and that contemporary marketing/product presentation (and proliferation) has the potential to defeat itself, when objects/products are so cleverly and potently contextualized that they can be absorbed and possessed and experienced thoroughly in this alternate realm, such that their tangible existence in RL is (perversely) less vivid and becomes obsolete. An argument, anyway.

And although my average pictures of some very abundant banksias, encountered on the one street in Brunswick yesterday, would seem to suggest that the opposite will always be true - ie. that the image cannot possibly replace the thing and the real experience of being brought to a halt by bright laden trees is more than the camera can capture (and it was, and there was a particularly lovely tree with pink flowers that first made me take note, which I wish I'd had the wits to photograph) - I could also argue that being presented with such a picture allows you to build freely upon the image and imagine a kind of sublimeness and infinity that can be difficult to grasp or feel in the present/presence.

This week for Michi: Isabelle Eberhardt

Nero Infinito by Stefano Curto

More from MONA. The above piece was not a favourite, I just like my photograph! 

I did admire this:

Formations of Silence: Freudian Flowers by Juz Kitson

and loved these ...

Loop Section Quintet by Conrad Shawcross

Tracing Time by Claire Morgan

from Artifact by Gregory Barsamian

Untitled by Balint Zsako

There was/is a better (fantastic) suite of small gouache pieces by Balint Zsako (above), which are indicative of the more modest and 'light' works that counterbalance the many big, bold, bizarre and dark works in the gallery. I'm afraid I just can't begin to name the pieces I liked but didn't photograph, as there are too many in the exceptional space.

Instead a quick Hobart dish:

MONA aside, and Mount Wellington aside - I really did love an afternoon traipsing around the Royal Tasmanian Botanical Gardens (lunching on the beautiful balcony of the somewhat dated café, eating roast vegetables, and a buttery potato and pear soup) ... A very good morning is to be had, choosing a loaf of bread and exclaiming over the cleanest and prettiest purple carrots, silverbeets, radishes and such in the world at Salamanca Market, and coming across the little Hobart Book Shop inside Salamanca Square ... The one cute clothing and accessories store I saw in Hobart (and I wasn't looking) was also in the square, called Maro (I'm pretty sure that's it) ... From Salamanca, you'll naturally find yourself walking a loop up the hill to Battery Point and Hampden Road, where there are a couple of other second-hand book and bric-a-brac shops - as well as some highly recommended cafés (inc Jackman & McRoss), and bars ... 

Lark Distillery (near the waterfront) is an early evening treat (leading to an early night in) ... I wish I could nod to the best fish n chips joint in town but we didn't find it! I also wish I could recommend the Museum and Art Gallery on Argyle Street, but I'm afraid it's a sad old place. Even exhibits that are surely very valuable (such as the significant collection of preserved indigenous birds, bugs and mammals) are terrifically outmoded - thank goodness, it's about to undergo substantial renovation and, oh, I just read that all of the creatures from the Zoology gallery have been recently removed and 'gently' prepared for storage! ... In the area, Franklin Square held some strange charm for me ... Elizabeth Street is a central thoroughfare that boasts the underwhelming Mall (with a convenience store that opens lateish); follow it to North Hobart to find a good strip of restaurants and pubs, and the State Cinema. Sadly we didn't go, but my friend Jo loved Ethos café on Elizabeth, and Jo also suggested that the nearby Sunday morning farmers' market might just be the best thing ever. Oh dear, we also didn't go to Pigeon Hole café out west, favoured by my friend Nicole ...

...  merci/x x Pen & Emina, who visit Hobart relatively regularly and pointed in these and other directions, + bon voyage/x x Lana & Jill, who venture there soon...

I could be quite wrong but I think the highest peak in this photograph, taken on the ferry to MONA, is Mount Wellington. If you click on it you might be able to discern the dark snow-free face that I think is Wellington's 'Organ Pipes' - wonderful 'columnar' dolerite rock formations that 'happened' in the Jurassic period, when 'Tasmania' split from Antarctica. !!!

Some days later, two of us would be tiny dots surmounting that peak. !!! Having just this weekend given life back to the boots that almost didn't but did get me there, I decided it was time to post some pictures of the Hobart adventure.

I didn't take zillions of photographs of the artwork inside MONA - only bits and pieces, including the foyer ceiling, the fishies inside the curious wunderkammer, some artifacts, and 'Bit.Fall' by Julius Popp.

One of the other best things we did was spend an afternoon at the Botanical Gardens.

Last week for Michi: Rickie Lee Jones, and a jacket from a great little vintage shop in Clifton Hill called Bruce (there must be a story there, too).

#3 neckpiece by Michael Bruton

Last week for Michi: a story about Lin Moniang inspired by an exquisite piece seen at the Love Lace exhibition in Sydney.

My visit north was short and fraught with misfortune - by the time I was blown into the Powerhouse, nigh closing hour, I was unable to form ... words ... and was waved down the ramp with a concession ticket, having accidentally passed myself off as a pitiable young foreigner. Looking through the online catalogue, I can see much that I missed - but I did happily see:

Arcadian Brooch by Stephen Gallagher

Lacqueus mask 2 & gloves by Cherelyn Brearley

[A cast of my left hand in the shape of a] glove by Nava Lubelski

Bone by Kate Campbell Pope

(F) Detroit's Shadow by Anne Mondro; (R) Shadows of Memory by Michelle Eastwood

More photos and plaint at Milly.

Another look:

Poster design by Katsumi Asaba

This Issey Miyake postcard, which arrived chez moi from Tokyo via Sth Yarra, related to an exhibition of garments/textiles/technologies produced with/for I. M. by artisans from Tohoku. The Spirit of Tohoku was arranged earlier this year, following the series of catastrophes in Japan that hardly need naming.

"KAMIKO" by Issey Miyake, 1982; photograph by Eiichiro Sakata.

This site gives a good sense of the exhibition, and the feeling with which it was conceived and assembled. The 'message' from Issey Miyake is very touching, I can't read it without tears. I particularly admire his description of tradition, which, he says, 'does not imply formalities or manners'.

Photography by Eijiro Morri, taken Sept. 12, 2011

The symbol of the spirit of Tohoku, has become the lone surviving pine on Takata Matsubara beach, and the people's efforts to employ their craft and tenacity to save it. 

Unfortunately, the pine is not doing well, which is a reminder that even though the disaster is no longer news, blank blank blank - you understand.

More from my postcard collection:

A work by Benjamin Russell for Marc Jacobs, from NY.

A work by my excellent friend, Manabu Iguchi, from Tokyo!

A 'souvenir' postcard from an Issey Miyake exhibit, also from Tokyo.

A 'small-scaled tree pangolin' of the Congo, from Dublin.