During this St Kilda Art Crawl May 25, 26 & 27starting from 10am GAS will be working in collaboration to showcase the works of sculptures, painters, photographers, filmmakers and local businesses in Fitzroy Street. Artists include:
The Alex Theatre – Level 1/ 135 Ftzroy Stree, St Kilda an exhibition by Sculptor Adrian Spurr and Stonemason Calthestoner
At Punchinello Pop-Up – 33 Fitzroy Street St Kilda – Master printmaker & sculptor Adrian Spurr, Stonemason Calthestoner, Salvatori Lolicato with ceramics. Photographer Michael Kluge, painter & poet Tommy Langra and painter & curator Marko Maglaic.
The Linden Tree – 11 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda – exhibits by Emily Humphries and Calthestoner
St Luja – 9 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda a pop-up poetry event featuring Marian Webb, Hamish Danks Brown, Yoram Symons & singer Lisa Wood
HQ Gallery and Bar – 7 Fitzroy Street, St Kilda – A collective Aboriginal exhibition featuring Pop Indigineous artist Dino Damiani
St Kilda seems to have it all, spectacular sunsets and beach side boardwalks. A rich history of vice and crime, art and culture. Trams that connect to the four corners of Melbourne and beyond. Palm trees, parks, lots of heritage buildings, three outstanding theatres as well as eateries, pubs and bars that play live music to a reasonable hour.
Why has the centre of Fitzroy Street turned into a tumbleweed zone? No one seems to be able to pinpoint the answer to that.
Legend has it that when the artists colony that was Chronicles Bookshop was unceremoniously closed down due to relentless external pressure for dubious and nebulous reasons Fitzroy’s street’s soul had been ripped out.
Or when the toilet block was demolished in what was nationally known by the indigenous community as Koori Park a spookily vacuous and resonating effect was left on the street. Who knows for sure?
What we do know is that the culmination of many quickly imposed plans devised to reinvigorate Fitzroy St. have predominantly failed.
Sadly, despite heavy investiture the area still has issues. Many people including local and state governments are looking to local Arts & Culture as a potential remedy..
I asked local St Kilda resident, mentor, writer and visual artist, Emily Humphries to comment on how the area and local Art and Artists might be able to lend a hand, and if she has any insight into a problem that many wealthy residents and investors have failed to solve. This is what she said.
…“ When Dolores San Miguel opened the doors of the Crystal Ballroom in 1978 it dragged St Kilda groaning and kicking from its post war malaise as Melbourne youth awoke with a yelp. What had once been the terrain of wealthy seaside residents, the area that spans from the juncture of Barkley St and Alma Rd. was held high with grand mansions, which scattered like in any European seaside town, over the hill and down to the sea.
The Ballroom was a cultural incarnation of what had been a once vibrant area, yet with quite another face and sadly Melbourne failed to truly celebrate the relevance or recognize quite the qualities of the
power house of talent destined to largely desert not just St Kilda, but our shores. Thus there is no real mystery to its decline.
A failure to support or invest in the arts and artists is deadly. There is the organic folding process of any place or thing as it reshapes into another, as a fairly natural phenomenon. St Kilda has never really reformed since the late 80’s and since the large flight of junkies and drug culture to the North of the river there has been a slow process to rocked St Kilda’s heart.
St Kilda is loaded with potential however sometimes the grander enterprises spit people back onto the street with their exclusivity and frosted windows. The general public walk by with nothing much to grasp onto. Where is the soul in this?
The recent rise of the St Kilda Art Crawl in the city of Port Phillip was a really exciting thing. Despite our craft run along the Esplanade there is a chance here to bring back some of the vitality St Kilda now lacks. Why, because it brings a focus back to the expressive, the ‘street tongue’. If you want the street to resound you need to give it a voice and how better to do it than to support and invest in those who make the area their dialogue not just their economy. I really believe it is in the interest of the local businesses to invest in those who make a kind of “noise” about and around them.
There is a reflective quality to the neglect we have given our artists being played out in our deadly streetscape. We have Rowland Howard Lane but where is Rowland Howard? Despite being one of our precious jewels of cultural input Rowland died way too young and although some point the finger at a kind of lifestyle, artists very often have little choice in how they live as they medicate to navigate a culture which undervalues and fails to support them financially or even expressively.
Often our greatest talents end up in housing commissions on disability pensions or are forced to be educators. Without the support or security to simply weave their magic alight and contribute en force, artists in this country are robbed of their esteem by a culture which puts too much emphasis on convention and economic prowess.
I believe, with all my heart, that local business would benefit by investing in local Art & Culture artists that live in every St Kilda block, our heritage alive yet buried,
If we bring in some respect, some heart back into the heart beat of our culture of our area the vigor will return and our street and geography will not be left desolate and reflecting a kind of grief that no end of designer shops or fancy restaurants can stuff”…
St Kilda Art Crawl is set to shake Melbourne up this September 21 – 24 with it’s inaugural Art Crawl.
Inspired by other notable international events, such as the Venice Art Crawl and Bohemian Ateliers d’Artistes de Belleville Paris, local artists are opening their studios to the general public for a follow-the-map event, which includes the chance to interact with artists directly.
There will also be vibrant and associated events such as music and food.
Emily’s St. Kilda Studio, Temperature Vermillion, upstairs, 42 Chapel Street. St Kilda launches at 7 pm Thursday 21 September with a curated exhibition DIVERSITY. There are, multi-platform works by St. Kilda musician and artist, Geoffrey Hales, prints and projections by Adem Jaffers, 3D work by Anita Lane as well as painting and illuminated sculptures by Emily Humphries.
Temperature Vermillion was opened by Emily to fulfil a need for people to connect with themselves and others.
It’s a hard road for most artists, they make sacrifices for their inspiration and beliefs often working extremely hard to end up in the social security system. The frustration of seeing their voice as less important than other socio-political platforms can crush; wherein reality a good artist can be a genuine voice for the people. By the laying down their sensitivities and experience, they can offer something deeply moving or visceral, inspirational.
St Kilda Art Crawl is a much-needed promise to deliver up an exciting bridge to celebrate and perhaps even debunk a myth.
Event: Diversity exhibition
Where: Temperature Vermillion Salon, 42 Chapel Street, St Kilda
Lured from a sojourn in the cool Tasmanian rain forests, national Icon and veteran art collector Barry Humphries who is lovingly known around the world as Dame Edna Everidge housewife superstar did not miss the preview launch of St Kilda’s Temperature Vermillion art gallery; created and curated by his youngest daughter artist, poet and entrepreneur Emily Humphries.
Earmarked to be one of St Kilda’s hottest and most sought after art spaces, Temperature Vermillion’s preview launch hosted the works of three unique and talented artists, Tasmanian born photographer Lucia Rossi, Melbourne’s own painter Dylan GeorgeStatham and UK artist Jayne Wilton; whose extraordinary experimental art captures everything from cosmic rays through a diffusion cloud chamber with the aid of physicists, to making visible song breath in an installation piece soon to be mounted.
Temperature Vermillion art gallery is part of The Blue Curtain site which also host’s Hidden Mirror Art house, Salon-style Cinema soon to be officially launched.
Titled The Temporary Nature of Objects this exhibition and extraordinary avant-garde art space is a must experience for serious art collectors, artists, film buffs and the general public alike.
Temperature Vermillion is open for viewing Thursday – Saturday 1- 5 pm from 20 Nov – 20 Dec.
For viewing appointments outside of those times contact: ehumphries@temperaturevermllion.com
Feverstone is Renn Barker, retired salvage diver, co-founder of bands Bloom and Screwtape, White Gloves Film Festival Director and word spinner – and John Philips, co-founder of Not Drowning Waving, acclaimed film and TV soundtrack composer and sonic wizard.
Trewlea Peters – Director of Summonings Marian Webb – Director of Possessionings Loki – Sonic warlock Greg Bead – Electrical Manipulatiste Eve Gilbert – Mise-en-scène rapporteur Tania Smith – Apparition de la Bearbrass Isabelle Bertoli – Apparition EmilyHumphries – Apparition Janet Watson Kruze – Apparition
Max Stephens – Apparition
Tatiana Doroschenko –Guest apparition & Séance Chatelaine Ian Buckland – Consulting magician Juliet Foss – Consulting composer RMIT School of Media and Communications – Technological support
The first two decades of the last century were charged by a terrible war driven by new technologies, lost and curious souls seeking others through spiritualism and the electrification of cities like the energetic Edwardian metropolis of Bearbrass on the banks of the Yarra River by Phillip’s Port.
For one waxing gibbous night, electrical explorers Feverstone (with special guest apparitions) will summon the spirits of Bearbrass from then to now, employing sounds, visions and patented electrical apparatus.
St Kilda seems to have it all, spectacular sunsets and beach side boardwalks. A rich history of vice and crime, art and culture. Trams that connect to the four corners of Melbourne and beyond. Palm trees, parks, lots of heritage buildings, three outstanding theatres as well as eateries, pubs and bars that play live music to a reasonable hour.
Why has the centre of Fitzroy Street turned into a tumbleweed zone? No one seems to be able to pinpoint the answer to that.
Legend has it that when the artists colony that was Chronicles Bookshop was unceremoniously closed down due to relentless external pressure for dubious and nebulous reasons Fitzroy’s street’s soul had been ripped out.
Or when the toilet block was demolished in what was nationally known by the indigenous community as Koori Park a spookily vacuous and resonating effect was left on the street. Who knows for sure?
What we do know is that the culmination of many quickly imposed plans devised to reinvigorate Fitzroy St. have predominantly failed.
Sadly, despite heavy investiture the area still has issues. Many people including local and state governments are looking to local Arts & Culture as a potential remedy..
I asked local St Kilda resident, mentor, writer and visual artist, Emily Humphries to comment on how the area and local Art and Artists might be able to lend a hand, and if she has any insight into a problem that many wealthy residents and investors have failed to solve. This is what she said.
…“ When Dolores San Miguel opened the doors of the Crystal Ballroom in 1978 it dragged St Kilda groaning and kicking from its post war malaise as Melbourne youth awoke with a yelp. What had once been the terrain of wealthy seaside residents, the area that spans from the juncture of Barkley St and Alma Rd. was held high with grand mansions, which scattered like in any European seaside town, over the hill and down to the sea.
The Ballroom was a cultural incarnation of what had been a once vibrant area, yet with quite another face and sadly Melbourne failed to truly celebrate the relevance or recognize quite the qualities of the power house of talent destined to largely desert not just St Kilda, but our shores. Thus there is no real mystery to its decline.
A failure to support or invest in the arts and artists is deadly. There is the organic folding process of any place or thing as it reshapes into another, as a fairly natural phenomenon. St Kilda has never really reformed since the late 80’s and since the large flight of junkies and drug culture to the North of the river there has been a slow process to rocked St Kilda’s heart.
St Kilda is loaded with potential however sometimes the grander enterprises spit people back onto the street with their exclusivity and frosted windows. The general public walk by with nothing much to grasp onto. Where is the soul in this?
The recent rise of the St Kilda Art Crawl in the city of Port Phillip was a really exciting thing. Despite our craft run along the Esplanade there is a chance here to bring back some of the vitality St Kilda now lacks. Why, because it brings a focus back to the expressive, the ‘street tongue’. If you want the street to resound you need to give it a voice and how better to do it than to support and invest in those who make the area their dialogue not just their economy. I really believe it is in the interest of the local businesses to invest in those who make a kind of “noise” about and around them.
There is a reflective quality to the neglect we have given our artists being played out in our deadly streetscape. We have Rowland Howard Lane but where is Rowland Howard? Despite being one of our precious jewels of cultural input Rowland died way too young and although some point the finger at a kind of lifestyle, artists very often have little choice in how they live as they medicate to navigate a culture which undervalues and fails to support them financially or even expressively.
Often our greatest talents end up in housing commissions on disability pensions or are forced to be educators. Without the support or security to simply weave their magic alight and contribute en force, artists in this country are robbed of their esteem by a culture which puts too much emphasis on convention and economic prowess.
I believe, with all my heart, that local business would benefit by investing in local Art & Culture artists that live in every St Kilda block, our heritage alive yet buried,
If we bring in some respect, some heart back into the heart beat of our culture of our area the vigor will return and our street and geography will not be left desolate and reflecting a kind of grief that no end of designer shops or fancy restaurants can stuff”…
Kissed by a Deer – A Tibetan Odyssey by author Margi Gibb is a story about East and West.
It is a passionate quest for the personal and intellectual truth that only comes through lived experience.
Gibb’s story gives us amazing places, and wonderful characters, people we come to love and care about despite their failings. In its pages, wisdom searchingly finds its humble roots in the connections of heart, imagination and mind; in the midst of the act of living.
TIM MCKEW‘sperformance art extravaganza ‘Come Down With Us’, at William Mora Gallery in Richmond, reprises shows held at Tolarno Galleries in St Kilda, 1979.
On Friday night, Mckew proved that three-and-a-half decades and a dose of laryngitis could not tarnish the sparkle of numbers like ‘Sailor Boys, Sailor Toys’, ‘Tuna – Full Sirena’ and the spooky ‘Night Porter’; his mellow tones and clever, cowardesque lyrics were a delight.
Mckew wore a smart white naval uniform, set off by a series of striking hats by Graeme Hare and Carol Murphy. He lamented a fit of born-again Christianity that saw him throw out the mermaid tail to go with his stunning mermaid hat.
The tail, however, and other pieces of costume history are preserved in photographs by the likes of Rennie Ellis, collages by Vanessa Bianca Harrow and light-boxes by Peter Haffenden. These are exhibited in the gallery floyer.
Friday night’s full house was thoroughly entertained with a tantalizing slice of late 1970s underground theatre. Long may it play.
Painting by fine artist Emily Humphries titled ‘Inclination’ part of an open studio (click for detailsErotica and the Muse on Sat. 29 Nov. 10-6pm and Sun. 30 Nov. 2014, 10-3pm
Emily Humphries fine artist and second child of Australian icon Barry Humphries is opening her home and studio to the public.Emily is a well loved Melbourne Artist who has been exhibiting professionally since 1986. Her first exhibition seeing her placed alongside leading artistsRick Amor andBrian Dunlop.
The 90’s saw Humphries specialise in Printmaking at the VCA where she received a National Gallery Trustees Award in her first year. Emily then went to exhibit with Stuart Gerstman Galleriesin South Bank.
After marrying Melbourne film composer and co founder of 80’s group, Not Drowning Waving, John Phillips, the couple and their three children moved to Europe where they worked independently predominantly in France and Italy.
Emily works across media creating magical canvases and illuminated sculptures, spaces which inhabited and build in the imagination. Her sculptures read like little stages on which still lives and symbolic narratives play themselves out.
A committed painter Emily says, “the most challenging and captivating of arts is when one can inspire a relationship or narrative within a single two dimensional frame,” Emily’s recent journey into film echos this rather alchemical idea where she asks of the viewer to try to distil what consciousness they may wish to find in their own lives through the arc of fantasy whilst she reflects on the utility of art in this regard.
In 2010 Humphries exhibited in Italy on an Artegiro Galleria award, where she was supported for three months to work beside the volcanic lake Bolsena where she ultimately mounted a show in and around notions of the Sublime.
In 2012 still with Artegiro Emily exhibited a series of photographic works captured serendipitously on her Samsung Gallaxy mobile where she explored Paris as a visceral city treading within it’s well worn romantic cliché of romantic love.
She is also working on a documentary project around how we utilize fantasy to construct our realities where she traversed Europe interviewing those she found most fascinating, including her self declared mentor, the French film maker Agnes Varda.
This Year has seen Emily publish her first Poetry cycle, The Divining Tower, written between 2010-2013, and published here in Melbourne by Little Fox Press. For her poem, Melbourne, which is contained within this collection she received an award in the Doris Leadbetter Poetry Cup 2012, which is quite an honour in the contemporary writing scene. This book will be available too at her open studio to where it is a great opportunity to get hold of one signed.
There is much more I can say about this artist but it would simply take too long. You can visit her site at www.emilyhumphries.com for more details.
This Open studio will show her most recent suite of etchings available framed or unframed and are formed around notions of the erotic.
Her South Yarra residence will be open from 10 am – 6 pm on Saturday the 29th of November and again on Sunday from 10 am -3 pm. It is a rare opportunity to get a glimpse into the more intimate world of one of our fine artists.
Powerfully emotive, Every Grain of Sand is currently playing at Chapel off Chapel, but you better be quick as this season finishes next Sunday.
My dear friend Emily Humphries who I know to be an exceptional and extraordinary poet, painter and thinker illuminated me to this play and it’s multi-faceted and talented playwright Neil Cole and director Don Bridges. Both have very rich pedigree careers in Australian theatre, film, television and politics. Both currently invest their time and energies, among other pursuits, in passing on their expertise and life experience as educators.
Even though my friend knew little of the theme of the play other than being staged around sports and politics she assured me that anything Don Bridges is working with has to be above and beyond good. Yet, again she was spot on…
This story is about life on life’s terms when four hardworking citizens unite for a common cause. We witness the rise of political ambition morphing into addictive desire for the spot light and the need to win; combined with unabated capitalism, manipulation and socialist ideology. But most compelling and emotionally charged is the deep support and compassion that carries these individuals through their daily trials and tributions. I was literally brought to tears by the authentic and often diverting performances by this amazing cast.
Presented by Melbourne Jewish Theatre Trust Written by Neil Cole Directed by Don Bridges
6 March – 23 March
Times: Tuesday – Saturday 8pm, Sunday 6:30pm
Tickets: $35 (+ Transaction Fee)
Seating: General Admission. Please make sure you arrive a minimum of 15 minutes prior to the performance start time.Latecomers will not be permitted.
Please Note: If you require wheelchair access please call our Box Office on 03 8290 7000.
Duration: 90 mins (no interval)
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