Taking a few days away from writing was never my intention but that’s what happened. Life, as they say, gets in the way. After Nanowrimo, I felt a needed a couple of days off and I’ve probably earned them!
It’s been a few years since I’ve been to Sydney so I had a good list of places to visit on the weekend. It was a stinking hot weekend and I had a head ache when I got home. It was a lovely weekend and the wedding was beautiful. Sydney is a stunning place! Despite the heat, I felt I was getting a little taste of Europe!
My city is a very young city in a young country. Of course the land and her people have been here long before the invaders and later settlers came. (I make the distinction between invaders and settlers because people have been coming to this wide brown land since before it was brown.)
I’m rambling.
Heading to the southern capitals gives those who live in the northern cities a chance to soak up a little old world ambiance. The grand buildings, public sculptures and parks with fountains are fairly thin on the ground where I live on the Gold Coast.
Visiting the Art Gallery of New South Wales has been on my agenda when in the city since I was 16. On my first visit, as a wide-eyed teenager from a small town, my non-art loving parents dropped me off saying “be out the front in two hours”. I was off and running.
Sadly I missed the John Russell exhibition. (Google him, he was a friend to Van Gogh and the Impressionists.) I did catch the European Modern art masters from the Hermitage exhibition. I was thrilled to see an old fave of mine. Oh my god, I am such an art nerd!
Pissarro pretty much invented the cityscape. Here is his Boulevarde Montmartre. I think he was a hero because he painted to market, creating works that his dealer knew would sell easily. Sound familiar?
I found this gorgeous work by an artist I’ve never heard of! It’s mesmerising. 
Afterwards I popped downstairs thinking I would see the John Russell show. Argh. But I caught another artist who is new to me. William Kentridge, a South African artist. His videos are something else. 
And here I am again, at a point where I have raved about artwork all made by men. I look over at the book I bought at Gertrude and Alice bookshop (AM I the only person in the world who goes to Bondi and doesn’t see the famous beach…? Probably) Anyway, the book I bought is also by a bloke. Argh, I need to make more effort to at least go 50/50 male/female on my art consumption. sigh… Maybe I’ll only read women’s fiction next year…
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