Storytime

I am in no way an art person...craft yes. I will tinker and play around with most craft activities however when it come to art I have no idea. I am in total awe of those that take upon artistic endeavours. I am drawn to colours...put a mash of colours that fight each other and I think, wow, want that for my garden. On the weekend I managed to get myself out and about and went to the Red Tree Gallery  for the opening of an exhibition by Yvette Stubbs . I have known Yvette for years (we won't go into how many)..and have admired her work as a poet, writer and artist. I found the exhibition, a solo exhibition, amazing. I loved the colours. The fluidity... the life and movement. I stood in front of each piece of art just wondering how you do this. How do you create a piece of art? Where do you begin? Where do you end?  How do you know which colours to use...and where?  It is something I would love to do, however have no skills in t...

Last week I headed up to Warragul for Arts Merge..this time at Mango Wood Cafe. New intimate venue and some new (for me) features. We had some amazing flamenco guitar from the Travelling Kirkbridges, Peter and Hedy. Beautiful! There was some great original songs from Acoustic Kitchen. and from Wendy Selling, complete with ukulele. I have no musical talent and was so much in awe of all of these acts, and in fact did pick up a few tips on how to present from them. The open stage offered up some great work... and of course there was Yvette Stubbs and her poetry / performance. Watching others perform is a great way of learning more. Of picking up ideas. How they deliver their work, how they even stand, how they notice (or not) the audience. The lead up was great, but dare I say, the main features were amazing. Amanda Anastasi and Anthony O'Sullivan. Very different in their voice and style, their delivery and their topics. They held the a...

Recently I, along with a friend and her grandchild, travelled to the wondrous wilds of Warragul. Not especially wild of course but I liked the alliteration. Why, you may ask, did we travel forth? For 'a night of outstanding entertainment' or so the flyer promised. A new venture  (although she has ran other ventures) run by the incorrigible Yvette Stubbs and the subdued and demure Dollsy G. Yvette is an artist / poet / entertainer and we looked forward to a night of fun. Fun it was.  Featured performers were Wendy Sellings, clad in pink tutu,  playing her ukelele to her original songs (especially loved Blood, Blood, Blood)  Anthea Williams, and her interpretative poetry and out there costumes.  Gerard Lewis-Fitzgerald and his poetry, which made us run an emotional gamut from laughter to sadness, contemplation to sorrow.  And of course there was Yvette... Not only hosting and encouraging, but performing ...

 On Sunday we had the final Poetry in the Hills for 2016. It has been a huge year and we've had some wonderful writers share their work. I'm not going to say poets because we have more than that...we've had singers and musicians, prose writers and essayists, memoir writers and novelists, bush poets and people-who-just-want-to-get-up-there-and-rant. Not only did we have the final gig for the year, we also had a feature poet and the launch (well one of her launches) of her poetry collection. We had the one of a kind Yvette Stubbs launching her collection Barbed Wire Kisses.  She is having a launch at the Dan O'connell on Saturday 3rd December for those wanting to get a hold of this fantastic work. Yvette is a born entertainer and has the great ability of holding the audience in the palm of her hand. She made us laugh out loud, then made us cringe....she made us smile... then squirm as we were witness to pain and loss. The last even for the year is also ...