There are more than 12 000 species of wild flowers identified in Western Australia and 60 % of these are endemic to WA. From about June onwards we are surrounded by beautiful wild flowers in parks, home gardens and bushland.
These amazing botanical works are created by Philippa Nikulinsky AM, an internationally recognized botanical and wildlife artist. She is currently exhibiting works from the 1970s until now in the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery at the University of Western Australia.
Philippa Nikulinsky has traveled throughout Western Australia for more than 50 years recording, drawing and painting its natural history.
Nikulinsky also designed artworks for the Australian Fine China Company for their crockery.
For many years. Nikulinsky illustrated the cover of the Landscope Magazine, which focuses on conservation, wildlife and parks. There were copies of many of these illustrations as part of the exhibition and they were fabulous!
In 2016, she was awarded an AM in the general order of Australian awards for “significant service to the visual arts as a botanical painter and illustrator, to professional organizations and as a painter.”
At the bottom of the Lawrence Wilson Art Gallery gallery stairs, just before the Sunken Garden, are these wildflowers, all blooming. This bottlebrush is one of many forms of this plant.
These pretty blooms are Hakea laurina.
One of hundreds of types of Grevillea.
Today is the 21st of June, the Winter Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere, so it will be the shortest day and the longest night of the year. Of course, it is the reverse in the Northern Hemisphere, the Summer Solstice.
Finished Latika Bourke’s “From India With Love”, her account of being adopted from India and growing up in Australia. One of many children in a devout Catholic family, her story is joyful and her account of visiting India, which was deeply personal, sometimes harrowing and always interesting. Now a political reporter in Canberra, Bourke has written a lovely tribute to her family, to Australia and to India, as well. A good read.
Also read the very popular “Where The Crawdads Sing”, by Delia Owens. Beautiful descriptions of the north Carolina coast, but I found it unbelievable and the story almost predictable. I finished it, but didn’t find it remarkable at all, but lots of people did, so you must make up your own mind!
My new favourite book was a Mother’s Day gift. It is Alan Marshall’s “The Illustrated Garden”, the perfect gift for someone who paints botanicals and loves gardens and gardening. This book is a collection of garden themed paintings and prints. A celebration of natural beauty but also a showcase for the work of many modern artists in the UK. I find something fabulous on every page.
Paul Torday’s The Girl On The Landing is my bookclub book this month. Utterly reliable, decent and dull, Michael is attractive to Elizabeth for these characteristics, so different from her father. After ten years of boring, predicitable marriage, Michael stops taking his medication and life begins to change for this couple. A rather unremarkable story slowly becomes very gripping! I read this thriller in two sittings and really enjoyed it. Thought provoking, informative ( about schizophrenia) and totally engaging.
MAKING SOURDOUGH
Within hours of arriving back in Perth from Bali I had taken the mother/starter for sourdough out of the fridge to “wake up”. I started the bread making process the next day and finally baked this loaf a day later. I used to make lovely, rustic looking round loaves in a dutch oven but find the rectangular shape easier to fit in the toaster and easier to predict how much I’m eating and when I need when to start the process again. Making sourdough does not happen quickly!
I have reduced the use of single use plastics and was trying instead beeswax covers but they never sealed properly for me and often fell off in the fridge which rather defeated the purpose of covering things anyway. I have ordered a set of silicone stretchy lids but for now I use clear, hotel shower caps to cover the rising bread and a lot of other things in the fridge, too. I can fit them over a number of bowls and plates, wipe them clean and re-use them and I can still see what they’re covering!
WINTER FOODS
This afternoon we have had rain. Apart from the relief that farmers and the garden have had rain, my thoughts turn towards soups, casseroles and, of course, citrus fruit. It is cool enough to roast vegetables and slow cook thick, hearty meals, to throw a rug over our knees in the evening and to put an extra blanket on the bed.
Vegetables for roasting, citrus fruit for jam making and tomatoes and avocados to make salsas to drizzle on roasted vegetables. The rain, which is so welcome, turns our focus on indoor activities.
What do you do differently in winter?
World Environment Day 05/06/2019
This day is about worldwide awareness and protection of the environment. The theme this year is Air Polution and what needs to be done to reduce it in industry, transport, agriculture, wastes disposal and households. Search online for detailed information.
Visited iconic Cottesloe Beach on a really hot day to wander around the Sculptures By The Sea. This free exhibition is in its 15th year and exhibits more than 70 pieces.
The sculptures are arranged on the grassed area and the beach so it’s easy to look at them from each perspective. Good access, beautiful surrounds and interesting pieces make this a very popular event. Across the road from the beach there’s coffee shops and cafes, icecream shops, restaurants and fish and chips shops, all with great views of the beach and Rottnest Island beyond.
This is one of a series of textural sculptures, clumped together creating a “cactus” garden. Tactile and not too big, these were very popular with children.
On The Nose, a humorous and clever sculpture. Very popular.
The artists exhibiting come from all over the world, including Japan, Germany, America, Sweden, China, Finland, Austria, Italy, Norway, Greece, England,South Korea, New Zealand and Australia.
The tower on the left is the Surf Life Saving post. This is the state’s coastal safety and rescue organisation. They patrol all the local beaches and provide essential educational and emergency services for the millions of people who visit WA’s beautiful beaches every year.
SLSWA runs children’s programs, too, called Nippers, and the children on the surf skis are practising their surf life saving skills.
Luckily, visitors to Cottesloe Beach to view the Sculptures By The Sea can refill their drink bottles with filtered water from these sources encouraging less reliance on single use plastic bottles.
The leaf sculpture “Ipomoea”to the right, moved on its stem and was fun to watch. It’s the work of New Zealander, Phil Price.
To Albany, down the south coast, to visit the Avenue of Honour.
Field of Light: Avenue of Honour is an installation by Bruce Munro and features 16 000 lights which glow green, yellow then white, representing the wattles, a native bush, common in the area. This immense and extremely moving installation down both sides of the avenue, pays homage to the ANZACS . This was the last sight of Western Australia for the 41 00o troops who departed from King George Sound.
The lights just before dusk.
The lights after dusk. Beautiful, quiet, very moving, a special visit to Albany. I really like this photo because there’s a ship in the background leaving King George Sound, just as the troops left all those years ago. Amongst the beauty, we can reflect on the sacrifice, courage and honour of the ANZACS.
ANZACS the acronym for Australian, and New Zealand Army Corps
Tomorrow, the 6th of April. is Teflon Day, commemorating the accidental discovery of polytetrafluoroethylene, or Teflon. In 1938, Dr Roy Plunkett was trying to make a CFC coolant, but created Teflon.
Making CARAMELISED RED ONION CHUTNEY. So easy! Fry 1.5kg diced red onions in 3 tablespoons of olive oil until the onion becomes clear, then add 150gm brown sugar and cook for about 10 minutes.
The onions will change colour. Lower the heat, add another 150gm brown sugar, 200ml of red wine vinegar, 3 crushed cloves of garlic, 1/2 teaspoon of paprika and 1 tablespoon of mustard seeds. Simmer on medium-low heat, for about 40 minutes, stirring occasionally.
To test for readiness, drag a wooden spoon across the bottom of the pot. If it’s ready, the juices will take a few seconds to meet again.
Allow to cool slightly then spoon into sterilised jars. Seal when cool and refrigerate for up to three months unopened. Three jars of delicious Caramelised Red Onion Chutney, especially good with cold meat and cheeses.
Making MANGO SORBET using the ice cream maker I was given at Christmas time. It is chilled in the freezer then attached to the mixer to beat the fruit and sugar syrup for 7-12 minutes depending on the volume of sorbet made. Result…. the most luscious, smooth, delicious sorbet.
This sorbet was easy to make, involves only pureed mango and sugar syrup and tasted very good.
Very focused on colour now and doing a painting every day with these water colour pencils my son gave me. It’s taken a few days to master them as they’re neither coloured pencils nor water colours and there’s so many variations in each colour.
Influenced by another blogger’s goal, I am doing a picture/painting every day. It is good to sit and draw and paint and really focus on the subject and the colours to use. These quick and simple works will keep me drawing and painting until I return to my water colour course in February.
More colours, this time gel pens. Lots of fun, especially writing Christmas cards.
The Children’s House, a beautifully written story by Alice Nelson, is about families and love and the damage caused by neglect. I nearly abandoned this book at the first chapter as I’ve read enough about the Rwanda Genocide, but I am glad I persisted. It was necessary background to this beautifully told story. Nelson writes with such empathy and charm, and shows the kindness of people in unexpected places.
This is a lyrical and heart warming story about families and what makes them warm and loving but also highlights the damage done by institutionalised childcare, dysfunctional mothers and absent fathers.
Thought provoking with wonderfully drawn characters.
Our family like to celebrate birthdays with yum cha brunch. Lots of steamed seafood dumplings and fritters and I had turnip cake, too. Above left, sui- mai, one of my favourites.
Continuing on the colour theme, a bloom in the garden. So pretty, such vibrant colours.
Today is Winnie The Pooh Day, celebrating the author’s birthday. A.A. Milne’s famous bear is everyone’s favourite. Seems a good reason to go on a teddy bears’ picnic. Start by packing the honey……
To Bunbury last Sunday to stay with my mother who lives nearby and to attend two Summer School sessions at the Stirling Street Art Centre. This was a nostalgic moment for me as the building was originally the Bunbury Infants School and I attended there in Grades 1 and 2. We were too far out of town for me to go to Kindergarten and I was the second youngest in the class, so I think it took me a while to settle into the business of education! Luckily, one of my brothers was also at the school. An hour and a half bus ride every morning and every afternoon probably didn’t help. After being dropped off at the front gate, we walked for about fifteen minutes to reach the farmhouse until my older brother was old enough to drive the farm “bomb” to and from the main road.
The first session I attended, in the room where I was in Grade 1 so many years ago, was Colour Connections with Dr Paul Green -Armytage where we looked at colours and considered how they were related. We talked about Primary Colours and he introduced us to the Swedish concept of Elementary Colours, which also have red, blue and yellow, plus black and white.
Then we each added a coloured shape to a 3D model using the Natural Colour System, with the hues graduating from white to black. We did another activity to show how colour can create an illusion.
This was a fascinating and thought provoking session and I’m still talking about ideas we discussed and looking closely at colours.
On the second day we went to Busselton, another town on the coast south of Perth, and really enjoyed it. There is a vibrant arts community, Art Geo, down near the foreshore and we wandered around, looking at paintings, sculpture, glass blowing and listening to a ukulele band rehearse.
A few years ago,to celebrate their 175th anniversary of European settlement, the Shire of Busselton commissioned a Fremantle sculptor, Greg James, to create four life-sized sculptures to represent early settlers.
Above is the Whaler’s Wife. In the 1860s the American Whalers would head out to sea leaving their wives in Busselton, where they would often teach the local children in exchange for food and accommodation.
This is a Spanish Settler. The Spanish settlers, the first immigrants to the area, arrived in the early 1900s and were known as hard workers. They introduced wine and olive oil, which are still major industries in the region.
John Garret-Bussell. Recognised as the founding father of the settlement, Bussell represents the four original families. The main town in the region is called Busselton.
The Timber Worker, still wearing his Christmas tinsel! Timber milling was one of the earliest industries in the region. The timber worker is portrayed using a broad axe to hew jarrah railway sleepers to be sent to London.
The next morning I visited the South West Migrant Memorial in Queens Park. The structure is shaped like a tree, the trunk representing the early settlers, the branches are what grew from that trunk and the leaves represent new growth and prosperity.
The “tree” features over 500 family names of non-English speaking settlers who arrived in the south-west of Western Australia. It is a remarkable memorial to all the early settlers in a beautiful setting.
Next was the second session I’d enrolled in, Go Green: House with Nirala Hunt. Although my main focus continues to be replacing plastics, I found every activity really engaging and liked the basic ingredients used to make them. Typically, for these sort of activities, it’s not only the presenter but often other participants who share great information. Nirala wasn’t at all extreme but had solutions for so many household products which contain harmful chemicals and come in plastic. Most of the products are also fragrance free, although you can add essential oils if you choose. The mixture in the bowl above is liquid hand wash, a blend of two ingredients.
I am already using this hand wash as it replaces the soap at our hand basins which I was finding messy and the bars crack. I have diluted the mixture a little as it was too thick to pump out. It is very mild and effective, I will re-use the same, refilled, pump bottles and I can make it in bulk.
This is a fermented Lemon Power cleaner, a clever way to use up surplus lemons and have a versatile and effective cleaner, either poured on a cloth or using an old spray bottle. It smelt really good, too, being made of water and fermented lemons.
Waxed covers, bees wax wraps, are intended to replace plastic wrap. We grated wax from a block, added a small amount of coconut oil, put it on the fabric then ironed it, sandwiched between baking paper. We also used a sandwich press for a larger cover.
The wax covers are reusable and can be wiped clean. They last about twelve months and can then be composted. I’ve tried mine on two containers, ceramic and glass and they don’t seal well and were knocked off easily in the fridge. My son suggested securing them with a rubber band but I am now investigating silicone, re-usable wraps to replace plastic wrap.
Try YouTube for more information on how to make bees wax covers.
From the left, Easy Liquid Soap, Lemon Power, Washing Powder and Grease and Grime Fighter. We were also given the recipes for so many other everyday products, such as Bug Repellent Cream and Hair Conditioner plus a list of local resources.
Please feel free to leave a request in the comments box if you would like the contact details for either Dr Paul Green-Armytage or Nirala Hunt, both of whom run a range of learning activities from time to time.
After a week of wonderful day trips around Ipswich we set off for London. When we had dropped off the car we went to our hotel in Cromwell Road. Our room wasn’t ready as we were early so the staff cloaked our bags and suggested we go to an Italian Restaurant a few blocks away. It became our favourite restaurant.
Good, traditional Italian food in a nice environment and great service.
Bought some tulips for our hotel room and borrowed a vase.
Years ago I saw an article about the Garden Museum in a de-consecrated church, St Mary-of-Lambeth near Lambeth Palace and have wanted to visit ever since. When we were in London two years ago the museum was shut for renovations, so on our first full day in London we went to the Garden Museum.
What a disappointment. I expected gardening implements through the ages, home made and rustic, bee keeping artifacts and general garden equipment such as traditional fly traps or papers, wicker tripods or traditional iron garden frames. What was on show was very limited. There were no special exhibitions and no activities in the studios and only the shop seemed alive and cared for in any way. Bemused, we took stock in the cafe and left.
Remnants of its previous incarnation as a church have been incorporated into an atrium garden, Sackler Garden, designed by Dan Pearson.
Pretty garden but not the amazing or innovate plantings I expected at all. The front garden was designed by Christopher Bradley-Hole.
The National Gallery was as always, wonderful. There was an Impressionist Exhibition charting the development from Impressionism to Post Impressionism. We enjoyed the Turners so much we were there again early the next morning and when the gallery opened we went straight to room 41 where they were and had them to ourselves for about ten minutes before anyone else got down that far. Then to the National Portrait Gallery. Also wonderful.
Eventually, the sheer number of amazing artworks became a bit overwhelming and if I was going again I think I’d divide each site into four days and spend an hour or so a day there and then do something else such as a garden, walking around Westminster Bridge or shopping!
Lunch in the Crypt of St Martin in the Fields. Very atmospheric and good to sit down and people watch for a while.
The courtyard at the Victoria and Albert Museum. This is an enormous collection of treasures and I decided to be selective about where I spent the most time.
Really loved the Architecture Exhibition. This is a model of The Tempietto, featuring the balanced proportions and pure volumes of Renaissance architecture.
A model of a courtyard in the Alhambra Palace. There was so much to see at the Victoria and Albert Museum and I really enjoyed it all but especially the Architecture Exhibition. It was half term in the UK and the museum was packed!
London, near Victoria Station.
Modern Art in the Underground.
Enjoyed visiting Liberty. I bought my first pieces of Emma Bridgewater crockery here 25 years ago and have collected it ever since. Nostalgic shopping trip.
More treasures at Liberty.
Spent a morning in the Silver Vaults looking for a silver water jug. I’d admired one 25 years ago but didn’t want to spend the money. Still didn’t want to spend the money!
Pretty window boxes near our hotel.
Streets of London.
Traffic, statues, red buses and crowds….very London.
The entrance to the Gloucester Road Underground near our hotel.
Armistice Day services. We also went to a piano performance at this Church one night and really enjoyed it. They have regular performances and almost daily Church services.
How to dine outside when the climate doesn’t really accommodate outdoor dining!
Our first meal in London was at this restaurant and so was our last. Will miss eating there!
Adored by children and adults, the famous British novelist, poet, screen writer and fighter pilot Roald Dahl died on this day in 1990. His books sold more than 250 million copies worldwide. Labelled the most popular writer of childrens’ books since Enid Blyton, his “Revolting Rhymes” delighted children and adults alike.
Artist unknown, after Giovan Francesco Barbieri, known as Guerano after 1648
The Corsini Collection, portraying 600 years of the family history, left the Corsini Palazzo, a magnificent Baroque palace to travel to Auckland, New Zealand and then Perth, Western Australia for the first time ever and is currently on display at the Art Gallery of Western Australia.
PORTRAIT OF BIANCA CAPPELLO, MORGANATIC WIFE OF FRANCESCO DE’MEDICI
Alessandro Allori after 1579
Featuring artworks by Botticelli, Mantegna, Tintoretto, Pontormo and Caravaggio and many others, the collection is a snapshot of an eminent Florentine family history from a time when Florence was the centre of culture and the arts during the Renaissance.
Morganatic relates to or denotes a marriage in which the spouse of lower rank, or any children, have no claim to the possessions or title of the spouse of higher rank. No, I didn’t know, either!
HOLY FAMILY
Fra Bartolomeo 1511
The family agreed to the exhibition leaving the palazzo to travel to the antipodes as they felt they owed a debt to the allied forces of Australia and New Zealand who forced the German troops from their part of Italy in World War II. The family also benefits from curatorial research and restoration of some of the works prior to the exhibition.
PORTRAIT OF MAFFEO BARBERINI
Caravaggio 1597
As the Germans approached, the family drove the artworks to their country villa for safety. The collection was concealed behind a rapidly erected false wall with the portrait of Saint Andrea Corsini at the front. A German lieutenant, smelling the fresh plaster, shot into the wall. The bullet holes remain, unrestored, in the Saint’s forehead.
The collection included decorative objects and furnishings from the Corsini Palazzo, a hand written recipe book, kitchenalia and textiles plus designs for ceiling frescoes and the chapel dome.
The dining table is set just as it was for a banquet held at the palazzo in March 1857.
Recipe book “Recipes for Tidbits” written by Antonietta Corsini 1864-1881
PORTRAIT OF PRINCESS ELENA CORSINI Pietro Annigoni 1950
Princess Elena Corsini was responsible for saving the family collection from the German Armed Forces 1944. Traditionally the men were collecting these artworks, but during the twentieth and twenty first century it’s the females who are responsible for the collection. Both Countessas Livia Branca and Elisabetta Minutoli Tegrimi traveled to the opening of the exhibition.
PORTRAIT OF COUNTESS LUCREZIA MIARI FULCIS CORSINI
Luciano Guarnieri 1964
Today is Teach Your Children to Save Day intended to encourage children to develop the regular habit of saving money.
