sculpture

Wandering

Posted by hil

I’m lucky to be in Paris for a month, over half gone now. We are living a 15 minute train ride out of the city, and I love my Carte Orange transport card. Once paid it has basically given me free range across the whole city by whichever public transport suits best. It is really efficient for me, except when there are rail strikes. I gather this is relatively often – there was one day this week when the trains weren’t running.

I’ve been doing a lot of wandering on foot, too – through various districts like the M’s – Montmartre, Montparnasse, and the Marais – and others. The other day I walked from the Arc de Triomphe back into the centre down the Champs-Elysee, through Place de la Concorde, and Jardin des Tuileries.

Today I satisfied my curiosity about La Defense, the modern financial district, spending the afternoon there, looking at all the amazing architecture, glass reflections and contemporary sculptures that are dotted all the way through the buildings and walkways there.

Place Igor Stravinski

Posted by hil

Here are some photos of the playful fountains just to the south of the Centre Pompidou, in Place Igor Stravinski. Most of them move, for instance the big lips make a slow mechanical nod, and others turn while spouting water. They were created by Niki de St-Phalle and Jean Tinguely. The graffiti snake was high up on one of the walls surrounding the square; I like that it reflects the snake in the fountain.

When I was there, aside from the coffee drinkers, lots of people were sketching, a bunch of boys were playing football, and some other kids were playing an elastics game.

Jean Dubuffet

Posted by hil

I’m seeing and liking quite a lot of artwork by Jean Dubuffet here in Paris. This kind of cave of his, called Le Jardin d’hiver, took my fancy, and I spent a while in it. It’s lumpy and bumpy and the lines don’t always go where you might expect them too. The little girl in the photo was really enjoying it.

The bride

Posted by hil

This was the most intriguing sculpture I saw in the Centre Pompidou the other day, La mariee, by Niki de Saint Phalle.

Rhinos

Posted by hil

Two very different rhinos! The shiny red one is by Xavier Veilhan, and is presently in the Centre Pompidou. The other is outside the Musee d’Orsay.

Pacific School Games bunyip mascot

Posted by hil

Pacific School Games bunyip mascot

The Pacific School Games will be held in Canberra this year, from 30 Nov to 6 Dec. About 5000 primary and secondary school students from Australia and Pacific countries will be competing. I made their mascot, a bunyip, which was launched a few weeks ago. Here is a photoset of the making process. I like the way its tail waggles the best:

Studio pics

Posted by hil

Photos from my studio yesterday, and the elephant drying by the fire overnight.

Bunjil

Posted by hil

In late 2002 on a train in Melbourne I caught a such a fleeting glimpse of this amazing massive eagle sculpture that I almost wondered if I had imagined it. Its air of keeping a brooding watchful eye over the docklands was arresting and exciting, and it was one of the the things that made me want to blog. There was little information and fewer images of it on the web at the time. Tim was down in Melbourne last weekend and had a similar experience, but was able to stop and take this cool photo of Bunjil the Eagle by  the sculptor Bruce Armstong.

In between then and now my desire to blog Bunjil had been assuaged by reading Lucy Tartan’s excellent post about it in 2005, in which she  writes about its appeal much better than I could. The post is one in a very enjoyable series which explores statuary in Melbourne.

Fail whale widget

Posted by hil

Here’s a widget made from the video of my fail whale sculpture. My friend Amy rendered it for me – thanks so much, Amy.

Here is the code you can use to put it on your website. You can change the height and width to size it how you wish, but it is designed to be fairly narrow for sidebars:

<div><iframe src="http://spiritsdancing.com/failwhale/whaget.htm" width="185" height="225" frameborder="0" name="whaget"></iframe></div>