Tuesday, April 29, 2008

a few good distractions

Then it gets sillier. No comment - I won't pick on this any further.

The Sydney Morning Herald's coverage of RAFW is indexed here. I had grand plans to stay informed but it just couldn't sustain my interest for more than ten minutes. Is that bad? (Under other circumstances it might have but at the moment writing and making are bigger priorities.) And where the hell is Patty Huntington? I'm probably hopelessly out of the loop; who does she write for now? None of the SMH reviews I read were by her.

As she had a sale on (I was meant to advertise and forgot), I bought more fabrics from Jill at KimoYES last week. They arrived yesterday, and there are some true beauties. Photos to come. Maybe. I've got a backlog of stuff to get from the camera to the computer to my journal, of things happening in the studio.

I've reread much of the literature on practice-led research in art and design in the past few weeks; my notes on many texts weren't satisfactory to work with for the methodology chapter. It's a fuzzy picture, but some clarity is starting to emerge. Namely that consensus is scarce in the field. But that's ok. I'm still pondering the common practice of lumping art and design under the same roof but perhaps there is value in trying to see the common elements rather than get stuck on the differences.

I do have a growing list of real topics to blog about, but later in the week is likely. A few good things beckon in the studio.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

I agree with you, I had plans to stay informed and keep track of AFW but then after all the hype I was over it before it started! Ah well, there is always next season/year.

Btw Patty's now blogging for News.com.au (http://blogs.news.com.au/fullychic)

Timo Rissanen said...

Thanks heaps for the tip on Patty! I know she's not exactly loved by everyone in the industry but most of the time she's saying what everyone else's thinking but too afraid to say.

Unknown said...

So far from what I have been reading for the past few months, Patty has strucked my attention. It's great how she does have another insightful perspective. Everyone else who is reporting for RAFW seems to just regurgitate what is already known.

Why on earth are those news articles posting the trends at the bottom!

Timo Rissanen said...

Patty doesn't hold back, which is a good thing - she's not afraid to criticise where criticism is due. She may be the closest we currently have to Suzy Menkes of the IHT. In the nineties, it was Jane de Teliga and later Maggie Alderson. Maggie covered the European shows for the SMH until maybe four years ago. Actually, Glynis Traill-Nash from the Sun Herald and Melissa Hoyer from the Sunday Telegraph are good, too, when they get stuck into it.

I do understand that the designers want pats on the back after spending a squillion on a show but half (or more) of the collections really aren't show-worthy (which is what style.com said of a certain Aussie designer in October in Paris). Good, wearable, sellable clothes, sure, but dull-as-dishwater on the catwalk. And a few too many Rick Owens references this year...

Did anyone see Therese Rawsthorne today?