Do you ever grow out of exploring rockpools? The discoveries that can be made at low tide. My first attraction is usually the lovely worn rocks that are the structure & house for the creatures, broken shells, seaweed trapped fish, crabs, starfish, anemones. They are little worlds of wonder that house an entire universe.
For women in particular, the plant-hunting phenomenon (including the Victorian Fern Craze) became a hugely popular & socially favoured pastime. It allowed women some aesthetic & scientific pursuit otherwise denied. Although it was considered a leisure activity rather than a ‘career’, they did contribute to the advancement of study & understanding of botanical nature through handmade, mounted & illustrated albums, most notably of seaweed, algae, fern & wildflowers. These books were one-of-a-kind and often with little regard for Linnaean specimen order or categorisation.
Considering this fieldwork was taking place in the countryside & at the seashore, it was mostly conducted by the educated middle-class who had leisure time for ramblings & combing their locale.
As research for my next book, Biography of a Bowerbird, I spent an afternoon pouring over & conversing about women’s works at the Caroline Simpson Library: pressed fern albums, scrapbooks & handmade albums containing cursive handwritten poems, sketches portraits, watercolour flowers, pressed flowers & other musings. A variety of seaweed collecting manuals as well as the very personal albums are reflective of the time & creator. All housed at the resourceful library where I enjoy the treasures that unfold with the help of librarians, Matthew & Michael.
Top favourite pastime in the world, hands down. These are the things that fascinated me today-
Whilst designing & installing an event for the new LV flagship store in Sydney, I had the luxury of playing with these beautiful vintage trunks from their collections.
Enjoy.
It’s the first workshop of the new year!! So excited to get back into it. There are still tickets available for COMMERCIAL CONCEPTS Wednesday 8 Feb at 6.30pm. See below for details and get tickets here!
Come & experience the in’s & out’s of designing a commercial space. Sibella will hold court in one of the spaces she has designed. She will discuss the entire process: coming up with a brief, concept development, colour palette, furniture & finishes, installation & final touches. You will be able to understand how commercial interiors come to be through physical examples of the space that you are in. Chat with Sibella about how research & history creates a strong conceptual foundation & how the steps that follow are all based on this. Shopping, sourcing, creating a colour palette, applying an idea to space, considering seating & floorplan, arranging furniture & art installation & styling will all be discussed to show you how Sibella makes a commercial space work.
