AT YERING STATION

Yering Station, recognized as Victoria’s first vineyard, was established in 1838. The estate is located in the Yarra Valley, approximately 50 minutes from Melbourne, and is known for its cool-climate wines. The winery grounds feature a modern restaurant with floor-to-ceiling glass windows overlooking the vineyards. The property also serves as a contemporary art gallery, showcasing works from established and emerging artists.

The artwork floating in the reflection pool is an abstract figurative bronze sculpture by the acclaimed Tasmanian artist Hugh McLachlan. The "Mother and Child" sculpture is in cast bronze with a deep patina, and is designed to withstand outdoor conditions. It stands as a permanent highlight of the estate's Yering Station Art Gallery collection.

This post is part of the Roentare’s Water Meme

and also part of the Nature Notes meme

OPHELIA

The colorful "Ophelia" mosaic sculpture on the Southbank Promenade in Melbourne provides a lively encounter even on the greyest winter's day. The artist who created this is Deborah Halpern.

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme

TRAVELLERS

This sculpture is part of the Travellers series of public art located on the Southbank in Melbourne, Australia.Titled "Gayip," it was designed by artist Nadim Karam in collaboration with indigenous artist Mandy Nicholson.The artwork is intended to represent the Aboriginal community and their ceremonial meeting traditions.

This post is part of the Travel Tuesday meme

QUEEN BEE

A colony of giant, golden bees designed by sculptor Richard Stringer and commissioned by the building's architect, Nonda Katsalidis. The main hive and large bees are found at the base (ground level) of the Eureka Tower in the Southbank precinct, with additional bees located at the nearby 2 Riverside Quay.

The bees are constructed from anodized aluminum and riveted together using 110,000 anodized rivets. Their gleaming golden colour is designed to match the building's iconic gold-plated glass apex. The installation serves as a gleaming metaphor for a harmonious, high-density city environment and a busy "hive" of frenetic activity inside the skyscraper.

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme

WIRY EGG

Having a bit of fun with some lengths of rusty wire and stones I had found on a walk. I imagined a wiry egg in a stone nest and made it so... I wondered if cast iron ducks lay wiry eggs?

Melbourne is having a severe weather event these past few days - high winds with gusts up to 145 km/hr, wild rain, hail and snow in the mountains, flooding and cold. Winter is leaving us with a vengeance. The days previous to this event misled us into thinking Spring had come early - Wrong!

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

NGV GARDEN

The National Gallery of Victoria, popularly known as NGV, is an art gallery and museum in Melbourne, Australia. Founded in 1861, it is the oldest and the largest public art gallery in Australia. The NGV operates across two sites: NGV International, located on St Kilda Road in the heart of the Melbourne Arts Precinct of Southbank, and The Ian Potter Centre: NGV Australia, located nearby at Federation Square.

The St Kilda Road building, designed by Sir Roy Grounds, opened in 1968, and was renovated by Mario Bellini and reopened in 2003. There is a beautiful sculpture garden in the Gallery, in which this mosaic mural is found. Henry Moore's "Draped Seated Woman" of 1957-58, with the mosaic in the background, a recreation of Fernand Léger's "Grand Parade with Red Background" made in 1985.

In my mosaic below, there is the "Standing Figure 1969"; cast 1984 by Willem de Kooning and also the "Temple of Boom", designed by Melbourne-based architects Adam Newman and Kelvin Tsang, as an evocative homage to the Parthenon of Athens.

This post is part of the Mosaic Monday meme,
and also part of the Blue Monday meme,
and also part of the Seasons meme.

OPHELIA

"Ophelia" is Deborah Halpern’s sculpture inspired by Ophelia from Hamlet and is synonymous with Melbourne. So much so that in 1996 it was picked by Tourism Victoria as the official “face of Melbourne” and appeared all over marketing campaigns for several years. The colourful, Picasso-esque mosaic has been a favourite at Southbank since it was installed in the early ‘90s and, after a major restoration in 2012, was moved to a more prominent position just outside Southgate shopping centre’s riverside entrance.

This post is part of the Travel Tuesday meme.

and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme.

HELLO MINI BEASTS

We were at the Pacific Epping Shopping Centre the other day and we chanced upon the Mini Beasts exhibition, where four tiny critters of the Australian bush were represented by gigantic interactive sculptures - fun!

This post is part of the Travel Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme.

NEST EGG

"The Nest" is a sculpture made by artists David Bell and Gary Tippett from recycled materials and is located in the Darebin Parklands, in suburban Melbourne.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme

AT THE NEST

"The Nest" is a sculpture made by artists David Bell and Gary Tippett from recycled materials and is located in the Darebin Parklands, in suburban Melbourne.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme

GREY SKIES

Autumn is well and truly with us here in Melbourne, with low temperatures, rain, turning leaves and of course grey skies. The grass is green though and that makes all the difference!

The sculpture is called "The Nest" and more information about can be found here.

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme.

"THE NEST"

"The Nest"  is a sculpture in the Darebin Parklands, which was made by artists David Bell and Gary Tippett from recycled materials. It is a $75,000 public art sculpture installed in October 2012 in Darebin Parklands and has divided residents, with some saying the egg-shaped work looks out of place in bushland. The artwork itself has been praised by residents, but some have  criticised the location chosen.

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the My Corner of the World meme,
and also part of the Nature Notes meme.

FED BELLS

Federation Bells is an installation comprising 39 upturned bells. Located in Birrarung Marr, Melbourne, they were created for celebrations of the centenary of Australia's federation in 2001. They were designed by Anton Hasell and Neil McLachlan in collaboration with Swaney Draper Architects.

To achieve the acoustical tuning of the bells, Behzad Keramati Nigjeh, an aerospace engineer also cooperated in this project. The bells' vibration modes were modelled and optimised using a sophisticated Finite Element software developed by Dr Joe Tomas. Federation Bells.com.au allows the public to compose music for Melbourne's Federation Bells.

Using an intuitive drag 'n' drop timeline, would-be composers can create original compositions for the bells and submit them for playing to the curator. During special events the bells are also hooked up to a MIDI keyboard the allow passersby to play the bells in real time .

This post is part of the Skywatch Friday meme.

QUINN

Edmond Thomas Quinn (1868 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – September 1929 in New York City) was an American sculptor and painter. He is best known for his bronze statue of Edwin Booth as Hamlet, which stands at the center of Gramercy Park in New York City. His larger-than-lifesize bronze bust of Victor Herbert stands near The Pond in Central Park, New York City.

He studied painting at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts under Thomas Eakins. Following Eakins's February 1886 forced-resignation from PAFA, Quinn followed him to the Art Students League of Philadelphia, and later became that short-lived school's curator. In Paris he trained for a time as a sculptor in the studio of Jean Antoine Injalbert.

He exhibited regularly at the National Academy of Design, showing paintings in 1891, 1893, 1905, 1906 and 1907. He first showed his sculpture there in 1908, and annually for many years, usually portrait busts. He won a silver medal for his bronze sculpture of model Audrey Munson at the Panama-Pacific Exposition, San Francisco, 1915. He also exhibited at the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts (paintings: 1891, 1894, 1897; sculptures: 1899, 1901, 1905–06, 1908–10, 1914–16, 1921, 1923, 1925–26, 1928, posthumously 1930), and the Art Institute of Chicago.

He was elected an Associate of the National Academy of Design in 1920, and was a member of the National Sculpture Society, the Century Association, the American Academy of Arts and Letters, and the Players Club, for whom he executed his statue of Booth. Quinn was recognized as being a fine portraitist whose work "shows taste and conscience." His portrait busts include Franklin Hooper, Sylvester Malone, Edwin Markham, Vicente Blasco Ibáñez, Padraic Colum and Eugene O'Neill. His half-length, oil-on-canvas portrait of Attilio Piccirilli, the sculptor whose studio executed many works of American Beaux-Arts masters, is in the National Academy of Design, as are his painted portraits of Furio Piccirilli and Sherry E. Fry The National Portrait Gallery has a large number of his portrait busts.

Quinn was found drowned off Governors Island, New York City in September 1929, a suicide. Quinn had tried to kill himself four months earlier by drinking poison. Quinn's papers are at Yale University.

This post is part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,

and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.

L: Edwin Booth (1926), Hall of Fame for Great Americans, Bronx, New York City.
R: Victory (1921), World War I Memorial, New Rochelle, New York.

VICTORIANA

Melbourne's rich architectural heritage from the Victorian era can still be found in some pockets of the City and suburbs. Such heritage is in real danger of encroachment and destruction by new building developments that are choking our once beautiful city. Enjoy while we still can...

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme.

CITY OF ART

Among Melbourne’s over 100 outdoor sculptures are these brass ensembles next to the Arts Centre’s Theatre Building. The man and woman in the foreground are Family of Man I. The abstract trio in the background is Family of Man II. This public art by Cole Sopov was commissioned as a gift to the City by John and Agita Haddad and erected in 1984.

Greek-born Sopov arrived Australia 1971 where studied at RMIT 1973 to 1974 before going on to lecturer in Fine Arts at Chisholm College. In 1984 he was the Head of Chisholm Sculpture department (later Monash University) from 1977 to 1995.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,

and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

REMEMBRANCE

Sunday, 11 November 2018 marks the 100th anniversary of the Armistice which ended the First World War (1914–18). One hundred years ago, on 11 November 1918, the guns of the Western Front fell silent after four years of continuous warfare. With their armies retreating and close to collapse, German leaders signed an Armistice, bringing to an end the First World War.

From the summer of 1918, the five divisions of the Australian Corps had been at the forefront of the allied advance to victory. Beginning with their stunning success at the battle of Hamel in July, they helped to turn the tide of the war at Amiens in August, followed by the capture of Mont St Quentin and Pèronne, and the breaching of German defences at the Hindenburg Line in September.

By early October the exhausted Australians were withdrawn from battle. They had achieved a fighting reputation out of proportion to their numbers, but victory had come at a heavy cost. They suffered almost 48,000 casualties during 1918, including more than 12,000 dead. In the four years of the war more than 330,000 Australians had served overseas, and more than 60,000 of them had died. The social effects of these losses cast a long shadow over the postwar decades.

Each year on this day Australians observe one minute’s silence at 11am, in memory of those who died or suffered in all wars and armed conflicts. The Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne is a fitting monument to the memory of our fallen.

Lest we forget.

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme,

and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme.

ATLAS

Atlas once perched proudly on top of the original Atlas Assurance Company building that was constructed in the late 1800s, on the same site where he now resides, on Collins St, just up from Queen St. During the 1950s a new Altas Building was constructed and the statue was moved the front of the new building at ground level to be admired by all who passed. During the 1970s the building was again demolished to make way for the latest structure that occupies 406 Collins Street. This once proud statue now sits high up in a corner, where he is ignored by most rushing past below him...

This post is part of the My Sunday Best meme,

and also part of the My Sunday Photo meme,

and also part of the Photo Sunday meme.

FACES

Victorian buildings in Melbourne are often adorned with faces. Took a photo or two and then played around in Photoshop. Here are the results.

This post is part of the Our World Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Ruby Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Travel Tuesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme.

DONCASTER LIBRARY

Doncaster is a suburb of Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 17 km East of Melbourne's Central Business District. Its local government area is the City of Manningham. At the 2011 Census, Doncaster had a population of 18,359. The suburb, locally known as "Donny", just as its namesake in the UK, is situated on 8.9 km2 of land, around the top of the 120 m high Doncaster Hill.

The suburb consists of a central area along the top of Doncaster Hill, which includes several historical buildings along Doncaster Road, the Westfield Doncaster Shopping Centre and surrounding high-rise apartments, while the rest of the suburb is typical of many of Melbourne's eastern suburbs, with extensive low-density housing. Today the suburb is perhaps most notable for its shopping centre, one of the largest in Australia.

The modern MC2 (Manningham City Square) building complex houses the Doncaster City Library, which is well appointed and offers many services including book, DVD, CD lending, a home library service, free WiFi, computers and printing facilities as well as meeting rooms for booking. Material in several community languages is also available, including Chinese, Greek and Arabic. More information is available from the library website.

The sculpture outside the library is by Deborah Halpern and is the 2006 "Water Creature" in ceramic mosaic, fibreglass and steel.

This post is part of the Outdoor Wednesday meme,
and also part of the Wordless Wednesday meme,
and also part of the ABC Wednesday meme.