Out and about in Brisbane

During my weekend break in Brisbane, despite being bogged down with a winter cold, I did manage to get out and about quite a bit and have a good look around at all the things I wanted to see.  One of which was the Ron Mueck exhibition at the Brisbane Modern Art Gallery.
Ron creates amazing life like sculptures from fibreglass and resin, and places each hair into the sculptures one by one ... its hard to believe they're not real.

This man perched on a chair is enormous - you can see the size of the "real" person behind him.  Every wrinkle in his skin is lifelike, every hair looks real ...

if you look at the photo below you will see that Ron has even recreated the goosebumps on his flesh.  It was mind blowing.  If you get the chance to go and see any of his work, I would recommend it to anyone.

Hubby and I spent Sunday morning at the Eagle Street markets in town, and it was great to meet this lovely young man from Panama, selling his wears created from Mola's.  I used the Kunin Indians of Panama as my artists for the module on reverse applique, so it was wonderful to see the real thing and meet this fella.  He made all his goods himself, and was gracious enough to let me take his photo, although hubby declared later that the chap would have been happier if I'd bought something !

At Surfers Paradise was another talented artist, making sand sculptures on the beach.  He'd spent 3 hours getting his elephant to this stage.  Unfortunately we didn't stay around long enough to see the finished piece but I'm sure it would've been awesome.

We also went up the Q1 Tower, the 20th tallest building in the world.  77 floors and it only takes the elevator 43 seconds to get up there ... I think my stomach was still on the ground floor.  Its a brilliant view of Surfers ... this view is south, with Cooloongatta in the far distance on the left hand side and the border of NSW over the ranges in the distance.

Of course my first day in Brisbane was spent at the Textile Fair, getting idea's, buying supplies and just feeling warm and fuzzy amongst all the things that please me.  The dress below is knitted and looked amazing.  Unfortunately I didn't get the names of the artists who created these works, but credit to them all for doing a great job.

This was one of the "Art U Wear" pieces in vivid lime green felt,

and this was created like a blackwork piece.  There are some very talented people out there.

And then there were the funky and quirky tea cosies

 All in all, a good break away, and lots of things to see and do, now my minds whirling with ideas.  Since being home I've not done a great deal, thanks to the cold, but I've been slowly getting into the swing of it and spent Saturday doing another batch of felts.  Now I've cranked the fire up and will spend the rest of the afternoon designing my accessories with the plan of getting Module 9 in the post by next week.