As Promised The SNOW

As average Australians we are all thrilled by the look of snow, but not keen to live in it year round. But up in Rhinebeck past Poughkeepsie (pron. Poo kepp see) and Yonkers (love the names!) we were thrilled to wake on the 1st morning to snow everywhere.
For some esp from Queensland it was their first snow, but we all were thrilled.

Pink Lake

Due to a naturally high salt concentration and recent weather conditions the three lakes in Port Melbourne's Westgate Park have turned a shade of lipstick pink. 

The phenomena is caused by  a natural interaction of a harmless, single-cell alga and halo bacterium, increased in the hot weather. It only occurs in saltwater lakes in a handful of countries around the world. There are also some pink lakes in the Murray-Sunset National Park in north-west Victoria.
 They are visible from the Westgate Bridge but  I drove there today to get a better look

Barwon Park

Saturday Sue and I drove down to Winchelsea past Geelong to Barwon Park Mansion where there was an exhibition of wedding gowns Love Desire and Riches The Fashion of Weddings.
Barwon Park was built by Thomas Austin and his wife Elizabeth, the latter who founded The Hospital for Incurables (TB) later to be, Yes you guessed it, The Austin Hospital in Heidelberg. She was inspired to open the Hospital when the only hospital she could find for her Cook who developed TB was the Goal Hospital.
Thomas is rather slanderously labeled to be the person who introduced rabbits to Australia, (He did but was not the only one!)
The mansion house, Barwon Park, at Winchelsea, was built of basalt in 1869. Architects Davidson and Henderson of Geelong designed the 42 room Italianate mansion. The square and utilitarian two storey building is enhanced by a distinctive cast iron verandah, elaborate entry hallway, stair case and high quality crafted interior.

The Exhibition was of dresses and designers including dresses from films television and literature. An appropriate venue (like Ripponlea, where the exhibition was last year) as both are popular wedding venues. The dress worn by Gwyneth Paltrow in Emma, wedding dress worn by Kate Winslet as Marianne Dashwood in Sense and sensibility, Alex Perry's jewel encrusted bodice of Kyly Clarke's dress, and Kylie Minogue's dress in Kath and Kim

Gowns by Mariana Hardwick, Collette Dinnigan, and an installation of the couture workroom.

Detail on one gown.

The dress Kylie Minogue wore in Kath and Kim. developed from a dress bought at Savers.

Paper couture head dress by Christina Re

paper dress by Christina Re

Shibori detail of a Isogawa design

Ivory dress worn in 1957 

detail on the skirt

Collette Dinnigan and Swarovski crystal dresses

The Phoenix

One of Celia's friends mentioned an 'art installation' in the Church of St John the Divine, in Morningside Heights, so, well rugged up, Celia and I  headed out to check it out.
What a surprise Called the Phoenix it is a creation of  Xu Bing a 59 yr old conceptual artist who works in a variety of mediums.

The Project started in 2008 when he was asked to create a sculpture for a glass atrium at the base of a new building designed by architect Cesar Pelli  in Beijings central business district But when he visited the site he was shocked by the working conditions, as well as the low tech they had to use, so he decided to make the Phoenix rising as it were form the debris of the workers tools and what he salvaged form the construction site
The Phoenixes arrived in New York in Late Feb 2014 on 9 flatbed trucks. 
Imagine the traffic when their arrived!!! I think they closed the street at night to bring them in.

So what are they you ask??
Two birds made entirely of reclaimed construction site materials, and hanging in the Cathedral of St John The Divine.

Check out the link from Mass. MoCA where it was initially exhibited in USA, with more detail of it's construction and installation.
http://www.massmoca.org/event_details.php?id=771
The Cathedral Church also has a children's Peace fountain with all these wonderful bronze sculptures around it.

 The Peace Fountain was sculpted by Cathedral Artist-in-Residence Greg Wyatt to mark the 200th anniversary of the Diocese of New York in 1985. The 40 foot-high bronze sculpture weaves together several representations of the conflict between good and evil. Above, the Archangel Michael embraces one of nine giraffes (said to be the most peaceful of creatures) after his defeat of Satan. Below, the lion lies down with the lamb. The fountain’s spiraling base takes inspiration from the double-helix of DNA. On either side of the fountain, moon- and sun-like faces direct their gazes toward and away from Amsterdam Avenue.

Around the fountain’s basin are a series of small bronze animal sculptures created by K-12 students from New York City and tri-state area public, private, and parochial schools. Collectively known as the Children’s Sculpture Garden, they represent the diverse community the Cathedral strives to serve and represent. 

A Wedding and Snow

Once again I was fortunate to join Celia for Christmas in New York
This time was to attend the wedding of  Sue Morris to Bernadette McKinley in January.
First we had Christmas eve dinner, Scrapbooking afternoon, Christmas Day, New Years Eve, THEN the wedding.
After the Wedding we went up to Rhinebeck to have some time in a FANTASTIC house where it snowed the first night we were there.
(More details to follow)

Celia's gifts with hand made tags

Celia's Friends from NY Schools

Aussie Friends for Celia to catch up

Bernadette and Sue 

Snow in Rhinebeck

Walked down to the Lake in -28degrees 

The house after snow fall