Tag Archives: art

Spring Surprise in Canberra

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Wednesday 18 September 2024 – Given that we had the day all to ourselves and that the weather outlook was decent, I doubt that many of my loyal fans, such as you, dear reader, will be surprised to learn that we went for a walk. Of course we did.

Jane had, of course, done her preparation, and so we had a general sense of which direction we would head out in without actually having any real knowledge of what we’d see. I’d read and heard that Canberra is an odd place because of its provenance – a city custom-built between Sydney and Melbourne, to shut down the late 19th-century arguments the two cities were having about which should the capital of a newly-federated Australia. Canberra was formally declared as the capital on March 12, 1913. This is going to be a long enough post without my going into its location – where aboriginals had lived for 21,000 years – or how it got its name; its Wikipedia entry is a good source for those seeking details.

I have to say that in the initial stages of our walkabout, the place did feel weird. Looking at the street layout, it’s quite clearly a confected city.

City Centre streets
Government Area streets

It has many architectural flourishes and artistic touches which don’t quite gel into a place with a soul. It’s interesting to walk round, though.

The first place we explored was City Hill (centre of left map above). It’s not much of a hill, but it’s been planted with conifers and a sodding great flagpole, flying the ACT (Australian Capital Territory) flag.

On the hill’s periphery, there’s the Canberra Centenary Column

which contains a time capsule containing 100 representative items of Canberra’s history. A lot of thought has been put into alignment of things.

Wanting to walk around the city, we found our way to City Walk in the hope that it would be helpful in shaping our strolling. To get there we passed the Melbourne Building

which, completely unsurprisingly, given Canberra’s provenance, is opposite a mirror image of itself called the Sydney Building. Both buildings have a nice cloister along the sides

and the Sydney Building even has a Tardis halfway along one side,

though quite why I’m not sure; a couple of locals walking past it were puzzled – clearly not Whovians.

Although most of the people we saw seemed perfectly affluent, it’d clear that not everyone is comfortably off.

Generally speaking, the buildings in that area are functional, rather than photogenic

but we passed many artistic installations of various sorts as we walked along.

Pavement mosaic
Road crossing

We found murals in a couple of places

though there were many unofficial additions to the originals.

There were also many floral touches.

OK, I’ll confess: we did have a specific objective to include in our walk, as the hotel receptionists had told us about it when we checked in. We were lucky enough to be visiting Canberra when Floriade, the biggest celebration of spring in Australia, was on. There were pointers to it all over the place

and so we made our way to Commonwealth Park to see what it was like. It was lovely. If you like tulips, it was positively orgiastic.

There were some non-floral artistic touches on display

An entry into the Gnome Knoll competition

There were various stages (yes, there was a Tulip Stage among them); on one of them, a bunch of kids were singing

to an audience, who were sometimes joining in

each in their own key, of course.

There were many retail opportunities

the most striking of which, for us as UK residents, was

Christmas items. Perfectly normal here, of course, but I don’t associate celebrating spring with celebrating Christmas, so I was a bit startled.

One retail opportunity was, however, right up our street.

so we popped in to try a few samples.

After Floriade, we turned our steps towards what is pretty much the city’s raison d’être – the government centre. We could see bits of it across the lake from Floriade.

Our route there took us past the Cook Memorial Globe

beyond which we could see that, sadly, the Cook Memorial Jet (i.e. fountain) was not operational today. The globe is a detailed piece of work, showing the routes that Cook sailed in his explorations from Plymouth

and around Australia.

The Government Zone has many imposing buildings,

National Library
Treasury

and, of course, the Parliament Building on Capitol Hill (which is not much of a hill either, to be honest)

with its very dramatic, though somewhat leaky roof.

OK, it’s not really the roof, it’s just a, erm, well, how would you describe it? [ An over-the-top flag holder? – Ed ]

We did go up on to the real roof, from where we could see the old Parliament Building

with a bloody flagpole in the middle of the bloody view (grrr!). A further piece of designed city alignment here – as you can see, the route from old to new Parliament buildings aligns exactly with the peak of Mount Ainslie.

The inside of the new Parliament Building is quite impressive,

(I sneaked a look through an open door and saw that there was a massive piss-up on the cards in the near future)

and, outside, the alignment and symmetry continue.

We had passed by the Old Parliament Building on the way to the New One, but its rather lovely garden was full of schoolkids on an outing. In fact, I think that Wednesday must be National Schoolkids Visit Government day, because there were several parties of schoolkids all over the government estate. However, they’d left the gardens by the time we passed by going back, so we could see (and smell) the fantastic wisteria that was blooming there.

We saw some birdlife in and around these gardens.  One bird I saw walked like a pigeon, but Jane thought it couldn’t be one because of its crest.

Google Lens showed us that there is, after all, a (rather alien-looking) bird called a crested pigeon. Sulphur-crested cockatoos were in abundance – probably loathed by the locals, but for us a lovely sight. We spent several happy moments stamping around after them to try to get one to show us its crest.

Hurrah!

And so, some 11km later, we arrived back at the hotel, having had a very engaging walk around Canberra.  Yes, the bits we saw felt a bit odd, because it’s a confected city, but it was very interesting to see it; and Floriade was lovely.

We only have the one full day here. Tomorrow we travel to Sydney.

Well, we might.

Virgin Australia, who have managed, in ways both large and small, to bugger us about for every flight we’ve taken with them so far, have warned us that high winds are expected and this might affect our travel.  Listening to the wind whistling round us on the sixth floor of the hotel, I wonder indeed what outrages outages we might expect tomorrow.

Diversion: The Henry Jones Art Hotel, Hobart

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Sunday 8 September 2024 – I promised earlier (and earlier) that I would write about the hotel we stayed at in Hobart, the Henry Jones Art Hotel, because it made such an impression on us as we arrived a couple of days ago. For a first impression, the only place to have exceeded it was the Singular Hotel in Patagonia, and for a similar reason – the elegant reuse of a historic space as a hotel. The Singular saw the transformation of an old lamb canning factory; the Henry Jones was a redevelopment of a waterfront warehouse that was once used in the whaling industry and then repurposed for making jam. Henry’s story is a remarkable one; he started in the jam factory, sticking labels on tins, rose through becoming foreman to buying a controlling interest in the business and reconstructing it in his own name, with the “IXL” (“I Excel”) brand name.

Like so many waterfront properties the jam factory fell into disrepair and was practically on the point of collapse when the current owners rescued it a quarter of a century ago and reimagined it as the hotel it is today. The construction of the hotel preserved as much of the surviving jam factory as possible, with only four beams being replaced for safety.  So the fabric of the building exudes the history of its links to its jam-making past.

And the connection with the art world? From the 1970s through to the 1990s, art students from the adjacent Tasmanian School of Creative Arts partied (and maybe lived) in the dilapidated building – and photos we saw of that time show that it looked more like a multi-storey carpark that had been destroyed by fire than anything else. The once-students were subsequently invited to walk through the new building and create art based on what they saw. This art became the first art displayed in the hallways upon opening. Ever since then, the hotel has been a living, breathing art gallery. So its charisma comes from the combination of its historic fabric and its unique art displays.

Its fabric: the corridors are redolent of its warehouse origins.

Its walls betray some of its origins: in the mortar, one can see traces of possum hair (compare the use of horsehair in old European buildings)

and fragments of shells, originally taken from an indigenous midden and ground up to use the calcium in the mortar.

There is a great open area, under a uniquely-designed roof, available for conventions and other gatherings

and the hotel’s other spaces have wonderful decor.

Some of the original equipment is used for decor touches

or just pictured

and some places betray its history, such as this leakage of ancient jam down a wall as it was released when the room was warmed up.

What adds to the impact of this fabric is the art on display. We went on an official Art Tour of the hotel (led, it has to be said, by a very irritating lady, but revealing some great stories). Everything in the hotel is available for sale, which means that the pieces around the place do change over time; and there are specific areas which are dedicated as galleries.

I’m not a great one for spending time wringing the meaning or significance out of artworks, but some were very impressive pieces of work.  This one, for example, a photo-realistic depiction of an indigenous woven basket

is not, as you might think, a photograph; it is done in, of all things, crayon on sheets of black paper.

This picture of woodland after a forest fire

was created from its actual ashes, individually selected, mixed and dropped in specific patterns – nine months’ work.

Many of the other pieces have political or historical significance; some are winners of the John Glover Art Prize, a competition sponsored by the hotel.

As well as all that intellectual and historical stuff, it does other good hotel things. There is a good bar

where chief cocktail wrangler Jenn will give some good cocktail theatre;

and, in the room, some good attention to detail in little extras provided: a trawl through the historical records to see if there were family connections to the convicts who were transported here; and I draw your attention to the bottom left of this drawer, which was next to the thoughtfully-provided kettle and fridge.

We enjoyed our time in Hobart immensely, and the unique nature of the Henry Jones Art Hotel added unique memories for our time in the city.

OK, then.

Back to the mainstream of our Australian travels in the next post, as we travel across Tasmania to the west coast. Do come back and read about that, won’t you?

Anne Interesting Tour

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Tuesday 20 September 2022 – The weather forecast for the day was gloomy, and the reality out of our hotel window

didn’t give huge cause for elation.  So, by an accident of fate, our plan to be on a bus for most of the day looked pretty sound.  There was a little uncertainty about precisely where the bus would stop, as a result of which we failed to be first on it and therefore to get the prime seats at the front of the upper deck.  This was a little bit of a shame, as the front windows actually boasted windscreen wipers, and so would have been clear for taking photos.

The driver, Dan, gave an interesting and folksy commentary as we went along and we tried to grab photos of the things he was talking about – never easy on a reasonably swift-moving bus on a rainy day, but one or two are worth sharing.

The route went north-east from Québec City, along the north coast of the St. Lawrence river.  This is the area where original settlers, erm, settled, and it seems that it took a few years for them to find the best area: at first they made homes on the banks of the St. Lawrence, but these got washed away by the unexpectedly high tides; so the next attempt was on top of the cliffs that bordered the river, but these were subject to the  bitterly cold north-easterly winds; finally, the best location turned out to be at the foot of the cliffs, out of the reach of the tides and sheltered from the winds.

By this stage, the settlers had learned about the potentially 12 feet of snow that could be expected during the winter, and so the houses tended to have steps up to the entrances.  We tried to catch some pictures of these houses as we went by.

 

On thing that we noticed was the colour of the roofs, many of which were (like that church spire I mentioned in my last post) silver in colour.  It turns out that these are tin, chosen because it is reasonably long-lasting and also fire-resistant.  Many have brightly-coloured roofs.

The reason for this is historical, as there’s no real need for the colour now.  But in the days of the original settlers, with houses relatively few and far between and 12 feet of snow on the ground in winter, the coloured roof was perhaps the only landmark a person could see.  The house in the photo immediately above features a “spring kitchen” – a place where folk could gather as the weather broke after winter, to celebrate the arrival of spring.

Houses that were farms tended to a strip of land that stretched back to the banks of the river – that way it was easy to understand land ownership.  Some of the farm houses are very handsome

and some of the older buildings show , from the reduced height of the door, that people weren’t as tall then (late 16h and 17th century) as they are today – perhaps as much as a foot shorter on average.

The tour made its first stop in St-Anne-de–Beaupré, a small town of perhaps 3,000 souls, but home to an astonishing Basilica.  The first church was built by sailors, seeking protection against shipwrecks off Ile-Oeuf on their way upriver to Quebec City (Saint Anne, the mother of the Virgin Mary, is the patron saint of sailors).  But the church has grown and grown, and has a reputation similar to that of Lourdes as a place for the sick to come on a pilgrimage and be cured.

It is huge

and ornate, both outside

and inside.

The doors are covered in beautiful copper, both outside

and in.

and there are extraordinary stacks of crutches and other mobility aids

which have been left here by people who have been cured of their illnesses.

There are no fewer than three other religious establishments immediately around the Basilica,

a couple of churches and, above, a commemorative chapel  of the third church.   On the gentle slopes of the hillside behind the chapel and beside the Santa Scala pictured above it are twelve bronze statues of the Stations of the Cross.

All in all, it is clear that Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré is a very significant religious centre.  There’s something excitingly called a Cyclorama

which is not, after all, a wall of death for daredevil motorbikers to whizz round, but actually a 365-ft representation in the round of Christ’s crucifixion – sadly closed since the pandemic and not yet re-opened.

After this stop, we retraced our journey back towards Quebec City. Driver Dan described the next stop as a “Copper Shop” and I wondered why we would visit a police station.  At first, it seemed merely the sort of retail opportunity that is often an unwelcome intrusion into a tour, as we were ushered into the lobby lined with works of art made from copper.  I was wrong to misjudge it, though.  We were at Cuivres d’Art Albert Gilles Boutique et Musée. Our group was given a short demonstration of how sheet copper can be transformed into a work of art.

although what we saw was a mere illustration using thin sheet metal; the real material is five times as thick and takes real skill, dedication and time to make into a final sculpture.

The studio, which was started by Albert Gilles who has passed the flame to daughter and grand-daughter, also hosted an exhibition, including Albert’s work to create silver representations of the life of Christ,

a project which took him 15 years, as well as some other lovely items.

The key thing that prevented this from being an unwelcome attempt to sell us stuff came with the knowledge, imparted by Madame, that Albert Gilles had created the copper doors for the Basilica at Sainte-Anne-de-Beaupré (along with work at some 60 other churches).  We left with a great, erm, impression of the man, his work and his art.

We next stopped at the Montmorency Falls.   These are 83 metres high, thus higher than Niagara, although not as powerful.

The falls are impressive enough from ground level, but one can reach the top for a different viewpoint.  You have a choice: walk up steps to the right of the falls as you look at them – 487 steps, we’re told, since we didn’t take this option (not enough time) – or a cable car to the left, which is quicker, less work but costs more.

The cable car is unique in my experience in two ways: the cars are clamped to the cable and it’s the cable that moves; and each car is clamped to two cables, which (obviously) both move. From the top of the cable car, you go past Montmorency Pavilion

and can take a couple of viewpoints, the better of which is ruined, in my photography-solipsistic world, by zipwire cables spoiling the view.  There’s a suspension bridge across the falls, which is quite exciting.  On the left from this viewpoint you can see the steps which hardy souls can climb and which would probably give the most satisfying viewpoint.

In the distance, in the upper of these two pictures, you can see a much larger suspension bridge. This leads to – indeed is the only road access to – the Île-d’Orléans, which is where we headed next.

This island is home mainly to farms, as building regulations forbid the creation of any other kind of industrial construction.  It produces mainly fruit and vegetables – strawberries, apricots, potatoes and apples. There’s a 9-hole golf course, a couple of churches and a decent selection of very handsome (and expensive, obvs) homes.  There’s a Nougaterie, and a blackcurrant farm, Cassis Monna & Filles, which Ian Burley recommends for its gin, but rather than go there, we ended up at a chocolate shop, right at the western point of the island, where you can actually see back over to Québec.

If you look carefully, you can even see the central tower of our hotel, just above the left-hand cruise ship.

The chocolate shop is very obviously a popular place for tours

but we resisted the urge to dash in and stuff our faces.  Instead, since this was the last stop of the tour and we were back at the hotel shortly afterwards, we headed to a hotel restaurant called Sam (for reasons we discovered the next day) where, by virtue of force of personality, or perhaps just plain luck, we just managed to squeeze in for a late, and very good, lunch and a couple of cold, and very welcome, drinks.

Was this a “Fabulous Country Tour”?  Well, not really – and of course the dull weather didn’t help – but it was interesting and we learned quite a lot about early settlers; and the Basilica was a truly remarkable place.  We enjoyed the day and could now look forward to our second and final day in Québec.  The weather outlook was rather better, so we could expect to have a good chance to explore this fascinating city in more detail.  Do come back and find out, won’t you?