Paintings for slow looking, an art deco beach, and a little wool history

With the opportunity to travel this week, I squeezed in a quick trip to Geelong (which happens to be a UNESCO City of Design as part of the Creative Cities Network). The trip brought lots of fun things!

🎨 I finally got to see the Clarice Beckett Atmosphere exhibition at the Geelong Gallery. There were many familiar works, including several from the Art Gallery of South Australia, which has (I think) a fairly decent collection of Beckett's work. There were also lots of pieces from private collections, so it was nice to see these alongside paintings I know. The different sections of the exhibition were structured around paintings with similar themes and, as the exhibition introduction suggested, 'reward[ed] considered, slow looking'. There was so much nuance in the tones and it's almost hard to think that some of these paintings are a hundred years old, because they still look so fresh.

⛱️ Strolling down to the sea, we came across the Geelong Waterfront Makers & Growers Market, where we stopped for a Turkish lunch. I had an eggplant and capsicum borek, which is a stuffed flaky pastry. So good!

🦀 Further along the beach we found the art deco promenade. It's a kind of semi-circular jetty that encloses a swimming space, but it's also nice to walk around. While out and about I spotted a few crabs, we visited Cunningham Pier (where the view over the water reminded me of a Clarice Beckett painting), and we also came across many of Geelong's bollards that are painted to look like people.

🌴 Climbing the hill from the beach, we visited the Geelong Botanic Gardens (which also has a couple of bollard people). A quick tour revealed a mix of new and old garden elements, including a Chilean wine palm and a conservatory. I also learnt about the Wardian case, a box that allowed plants to be kept alive and transported around the world.

🐑 To round things out, we visited the National Wool Museum. Housed in one of Geelong's former woolstores, the museum includes a working Axminster Jacquard Carpet Loom (although currently out of action due to a shortage of suitable jute twine, apparently). I found some old advertisements for blankets and, as you would expect, there was lots of information on the history of the wool industry in Geelong and around Australia. In the shop, I bought an art deco postcard of Geelong to add to our collection.

Overall, it was a nice little trip. We stayed in a converted warehouse, and we managed to avoid most of the rain on our walks. I'm looking forward to more art and history trips I have planned to share with you soon.

In the meantime, I hope you find lots of fun things, wherever you are 😊