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Ten years ago, my trip to Chicago was planned around visiting the Art Institute of Chicago. Well, ten years ago I actually planned my trips, bought a guide book, wrote an itinerary, did this in the morning, ate lunch here, did that in the afternoon, ate dinner there, occasionally went to the cinema in the evening. (Actually, Chicago is the only place that I have ever stolen a movie! I am generally a very law-abiding citizen but I went to the cinema and saw The Mod Squad. It was so woeful that as I was leaving I saw that Forces of Nature was about to start in another theatre so I just walked right in and watched that one too. Slightly less woeful and I don't mind a bit of Ben Affleck.)
Anyway, Art Institute of Chicago, Oak Park to see the Frank Lloyd Wright studio and homes, somewhere down south to visit another FLW house - it was a packed few days back then. It wasn't until a few years later that I realised that Chicago was on a lake.
Needless to say, this visit has included a couple of visits to the Art Institute but in quite a different, meandering, 'come away from the fountain!' kind of way. I was trying to do some stuff that I wanted to and still engage little miss bear so we looked at the miniatures collection (well, eight of the fifty odd before attention span ran out), visited the education centre, read picture books and took a bit of a stroll through the galleries. Can't resist including this one:
When I was last in Chicago this painting was not on display because it was away on loan as part of another exhibition. That exhibition was actually at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (where I also stayed on that visit) but had not yet opened. So I didn't see it that time. It's always good to have something to go back for.
And I have something to go back for again now. I had been wanting to revisit Chicago for the past few years because I understood that they had some items in their textiles collection made from fifteenth century brocades, which is just the sort of stuff that I love. Due to the construction of the recently completed modern wing, the entire textiles collection has been packed away to protect it from dust and debris. So Chicago is back on my travel list. I have managed to walk along the lakefront a couple of times this visit - next time I might even get out on a boat.
A day and a half without internet - ouch!
Anyway, another sneakily named 'this is ...' post. This is my favourite movie, Bernardo Bertolucci's Il Conformista from 1970. To begin with, I just love the way that the title rolls off the tongue. I can't even quite remember when or where I saw this film but it had a major impact on me - the storyline, the visuals, the narrative. I believe that this was one of the earliest films to experiment with splitting the narrative's timeline. It's a long time since I've seen it but the film plays forward from the beginning and I think from halfway through the story in alternating episodes.
I won't go into the storyline except that there is a real sting in the tail. A fabulous film!
(Quick note of linguistic interest - those familiar with the Italian language will know that words ending in the letter 'a' are most often feminine and preceded by the article la. Il conformista is an exception and this is because the word is derived from Greek rather than Latin which is the basis of Romance languages.)In other film news, we went to the cinema on Friday evening. The first time on many months and the first time since we came to the US. Joel and Ethan Coen's Burn After Reading - a complete farce but very funny. I laughed a lot, out loud, along with the rest of the cinema which is a good join-in thing to do. But oh Brad - I'm sorry, you don't look so good.Oh and a quick reassurance to my dear readers - I am completely not the Vegas type. Perhaps that's why I'm so excited about going. There will be no shows and no gambling, just the aquarium, some op shopping (what happens to those old costumes, I wonder?) and general shuddering at all the neon of it I expect.
Image details here.
My Janome 720 sewing machine was purchased from Grace Brothers, Parramatta on 3 November 1983. Not by me, obviously, because I was nine years old at the time and at primary school in Melbourne. It was acquired by me some time when we were living in Sydney on hard rubbish night. Well, the day after hard rubbish night actually.
I always love hard rubbish night – it’s a great way to acquire pre-loved stuff and always fascinating to see what people are getting rid of. Disappointingly, City of Port Phillip these days has a system whereby you can book in to have your hard rubbish collected for free up to four times a year so there is no longer a hard rubbish night as such. There’s a wonderful film called The Gleaners and I by Agnès Varda in which the director discusses (the French equivalent of) hard rubbish night with a young man who simply considers it to be a shopping night of sorts.
Back in Sydney on this particular evening we had a very enthusiastic gleaning friend staying with us and went on a shopping tour of the neighbourhood. He found lots of computer cables but not much else. It was the next day when I came home from work that I saw a sewing machine case on the nature strip outside the block of flats next to ours. Really, my heart rate went up. And lo and behold, it had a machine inside - a Janome 720 - along with a box of accessories, the manual and original warranty card. I was a bit reticent at first and spent a good 10 minutes waiting for the owner to come back for it; perhaps someone had driven away, accidentally leaving it by the side of the road? Perhaps not.
The machine didn’t work of course but that same enthusiastic gleaning friend is also an electrical engineer and was able to pinpoint and remedy the difficulty which was a bent pin in the plug. Runs like a dream, not that I can actually claim to have used it very much but I do have many plans.
I had the fortunate occasion to visit this lovely patchwork/quilt/fabric store a couple of weeks ago. Patchwork on Central Park is located at 148 Burke Rd, East Malvern (tel. 9885 4480) - may you also be so fortunate as to visit!
They have a great website with lots of photos of their stock and on-line shopping. Making a quilt, or at least trying my hand at some quilting techniques, is something that is on my hmm-yeah-maybe-one-day-I'll-get-around-to-that list and I certainly have a number of patchwork and quilt books in my collection to support this notion (it would take me forever to actually try my hand at every needlework technique/craft that I have a book on).
Visiting this shop though made me want to start on one straight away. Whilst there I also came across Childhood treasures : handmade gifts for babies and children by Caroline Zoob. My beloved local library were very prompt in getting it in for me on inter-library loan but I think that it's going to be one of those occasions when I need my own copy. I love this book's aesthetic and need very little inducement to (attempt to) create childhood treasures in my own home.On a more serious note, I saw I Have Never Forgotten You at the spit-the-dummy session at the Elsternwick Classic yesterday. It is a documentary about Simon Wiesenthal who worked tirelessly after the second world war to have Nazi war criminals brought to justice - eloquent and moving.
Ah, the fallibility of memory. It was last Thursday that I saw the lovely children's coat in Armadale and Tuesday that I saw the lovely stock at Cutting Edge and was convinced that they were one and the same fabric. Hmm, not so sure now. Yesterday I was walking down Gelnhuntly Road in Elsternwick and in the window of a children's wear shop saw yet another jacket, but I'm pretty sure that this is the fabric: 
This is the fabric that they have at Cutting Edge:
There is certainly a similarity. Apparently it also came in cream with red and white embroidery but that sold out v quickly.
And the reason for wandering down Glenhuntly Road yesterday? Ah, I took baby bear to the Spit the Dummy session at the Elsternwick Classic Cinema along with a couple of other mums from my parents' group. Black Book was showing and I really enjoyed it. It's a WWII Nazi spy drama/thriller set in the Netherlands. The director is Paul Verhoeven (he of Basic Instinct, Starship Troopers and Showgirls fame) and the film is highly stylised - the glamour is glamorous, the dirt is dirty, the goodies are good and the baddies are bad, but with just enough ambiguity in there to keep it interesting. I hadn't realised that it would be subtitled though - not that I mind a subtitled film at all, it's just hard to keep your eyes glued to the screen while keeping an eye on the 10 month old crawling around on the floor at your feet, heading for the nearest cable and picking up yesterday's lost popcorn. Thank you Elsternwick Classic for having these sessions, I love being able to go to the movies.
There is also a finished knitted item to show but I'm going to save that for tomorrow - oooh, the anticipation!
When I was last in Chicago this painting was not on display because it was away on loan as part of another exhibition. That exhibition was actually at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York (where I also stayed on that visit) but had not yet opened. So I didn't see it that time. It's always good to have something to go back for.
