Have you ever walked through spider silk?

Along a sidewalk?  In the woods?  In your garden shed?  It feels a bit sticky, is translucent.  Now imagine that thread is still sticky but is gold----it is from a Nephila madagascariensis, a female Golden Orb spider from Madagascar.  And imagine you had dozens of people collecting a million of these spiders from around the city and countryside over the course of four years.  And then another few dozen spider-techs "milking" the spider silk for a few hours before releasing her, the spider, back into the wild.  And then you took hundreds of individual silk strands and twisted them to make a single thread.  And then you wove those golden threads into a cultural tapestry 11 feet by 4 feet in dimension......

Wouldn't you then have something of singular and mystical beauty!?!

You can see this one of a kind shawl at the American Museum of Natural History in New York City-----and watch a video about its story here.

From the MNH website:  "This unique textile was created drawing on the legacy of a French missionary, Jacob Paul Camboué, who worked with spiders in Madagascar in the 1880s and 1890s. Camboué worked to collect and weave spider silk but with limited success, and no surviving textile is now known to exist. Previously, the only known spider-silk textile of note was exhibited at the Exposition Universelle in Paris in 1900, and it was subsequently lost."

Which brings us to the second episode of my fabulous new TV show, America's Most Wanted: Arts and Craft Edition......in case you missed the first episode, click here.

M. H. Baillie Scott, Art and Soul

Baillie Scott was one of the most well-known architects of the British Arts and Crafts movement, along with Voysey, Gimson, and Mackintosh, and most certainly studied the work of William Morris.  In 1906, in his early forties, he published his opus, Houses and Gardens, which carefully and systematically laid out his philosophy of architecture and interior design, complete with dozens of drawings, floorplans, photographs, and his own watercolor paintings (some of which are reproduced here, all click to enlarge).

I particularly enjoyed this passage from the book's Introduction:  "And so the art of building as practised in modern times is not so much an Art as a disease.  In the early stages of the Victorian era it took the form of a pallid leprosy.  Nowadays, it has become a scarlet fever of red brick, and has achieved a development of spurious Art expressed in attempts to achieve the picturesque, which in its smirking self-consciousness has made the earlier candid ugliness appear an almost welcome alternative.  There is no town or village but is being gradually disfigured by this plague of modern building, and one has almost forgotten that houses have been and may yet be an added beauty rather than a disfigurement on the land."

Nothing like a good rant, eh?  I am reminded of all the quarter acre lots across our country upon which the ugly McMansions of our day have been built.  Will these houses seem much more attractive, even sought after, a century from now?  The leprosy and scarlet fever Baillie Scott alludes to above are now our gorgeous old Queen Anne, Italianate, Stick Style, and Mansard Victorians.  Does time heal all wounds, architectural or otherwise?

(Dan, thanks for lending me this beautiful book.) 

 

The House as True Romance, M. H. Baillie Scott

From Houses and Gardens, Arts and Craft Interiors, Chapter 17 - The Soul of the House, published 1906,  by M. H. Baillie Scott:

"A house too may possess that strange inscrutable quality of the True Romance.  Not shallow, showy, and pretentious as most modern mansions are, but full of a still, quiet earnestness which seems to lull and soothe the spirit with promises of peace.  Such a house is the greatest achievement possible to the art of man better than the greatest picture, because it is not a dream alone, but the dream come true - a constant daily influence and delight."

This quote reminded me of two previous posts, the first one about Edward Burne-Jones's view of art as a dream of something too impossibly beautiful to be real and the second post about "gesamtkunstwerk", a perfect synthesis of all the arts.  Having a Burne-Jones painting in your Baillie-Scott house would make for good gesamtkunstwerk I reckon.

 detail of stair risers in house above

 

The house photographs are from a beautiful book, Baillie Scott, The Artistic House by Diane Haigh.  I'll write more about Baillie Scott, and his interior work, in a day or two.

Green and blue never looked so good together....

 Circe Invidiosa by J. W. Waterhouse, 1892

(in the Art Gallery of South Australia)

One of the first images from the NASA Solar Dynamics Observatory, launched in February on a five year mission to study Sun's magnetic field (false color image, blues and greens above 1 million kelvin in temperature).

Perseus and Andromeda, 1876, Edward Burne-Jones

 (in the Art Gallery of South Australia)

Aurora borealis over Eyjafjallajokull volcano/glacier in Iceland....possibly even caused by the solar flares seen in sun picture above?  Photo by Albert Jakobsson.

Ten Things I Love About Australia

Back home to New England....will greatly miss....

10.  Ordering coffee --- short black, flat white, long black, etc.

9.  Being called "mate" by a guy with an aussie accent.

8.  Outback vehicles and 4-wheel-driving.

7.  Kangaroos, emus, and all the other wacky and colorful animals.

6.  That every town, no matter how small, seems to have a museum of local history.

5.  Old stone buildings with corrugated iron roofs.

4.  Time zones that are 30 minutes and 45 minutes off the hour.

3.  Desolate beaches.

2.  Aboriginal art.

1.  The OUTBACK!   Hope to be back soon......

Vernacular Architecture of Australia

Favorite Minerals of the South Australian Museum, Adelaide

Imagine my glee upon seeing this piece of the Mundrabilla Meteorite as the very first thing upon entering Adelaide's South Australian Museum!  You may remember it, and Mundrabilla, from this earlier post.  A fellow nerd pointed out later that I should have put a pencil down next to it for scale----it is about the size of a large coffee table, maybe just under two meters across.  It is an iron meteorite and this piece weighs about 2500kg.  It is one of the largest and most famous meteorites in the world.

While this is kind of like a librarian sorting books by color, it is so much more aesthetically pleasing than sorting by, say, lattice structure or chemical composition.  I'm sure this display has inspired many a budding geologist.

Amorphous silica in main stairwell.  Always beautiful.

Streaky Bay, South Australia

A typical late 19th century small town hotel/pub characterized by overhanging eaves, upper veranda, railings, corner brackets, wooden "fretwork" (often this is iron filigree). The hotel was established in 1866 but I don't know if this is original building.

 

I wonder how many people have fallen over after leaving the pub through this front door?

The town jetty...do you see the small black bits in the water on the right side of far end of jetty?

I ask an old man who was fishing at the end of pier what the pen was for---being from New England it reminded me of a lobster holding pen but I'm thinking it was way to big for lobbies (I'm practicing my aussie lingo there).  The man replied "swimming".   And because the penny still hadn't dropped I said, "yes, but for what?", "People....so the sharks don't get you."

Emu Mob at Watering Hole, Roe Plain, Australlia

Yes, a flock of emu is called a mob.  Who knew?

WWMD?

What would William Morris drive if he lived today? I think it would be either a Volvo wagon or, more likely, a posh Range Rover. The back would no doubt be filled with fabric samples, pear wood wallpaper blocks, jars of dye powder and the like…namely, a mess…and the car would be suitably beat-up to boot.

In the last three weeks we’ve driven over 5000 km and I’ve heard much talk of gas mileage, head winds versus tailwinds, hubs in or out, cost of diesel, the advantages of turbo-chargers, gear ratios, tire pressure, and the like from my two Australian colleagues. After three trips to the Outback, I have no doubt that Aussies do four-wheel drive vehicles better than anyone else on the planet and it has been my great privilege to spend nearly a month in a car with the “Click and Clack” of Down Under. I’ve learned a lot. During this and my last trip, I’ve also taken pictures of my favorite Outback vehicles. Here they are with guest “vehicular analysis” by Mick, the Map-Wizard, born and raised in northern Queensland (my translations in parentheses ;-).

Land Rover Defender “County”, has a bit more mod cons (modern conveniences). Serious roo bar in front. I had a “TDI” (turbo-diesel injected) late nineties model…you can hose the inside out….totally unreliable but loved it.

A Toyota Land Cruiser….in the U.S., the current “FJ Cruiser” (those multi-colored car that are appearing everywhere lately) are modeled from this car…this one stretched but with original front end. “Checkerplate” sides a bit (la-di-da) No scratches? What is it doing in Eucla? What is it used for? These cars go forever, half a million miles on the clock, no problem.

Toyota, 80-something old-school Hilux ute. Space cab (two seater with a bit in back of cab), snorkel, big fat tires. Really light, no weight on the back…the ideal vehicle for driving on sand. He has hit a tree in almost identical spot as (Rock-Whisperer). Almost certainly diesel. Hilux is the perfect toy, light, flexible, nimble that will go over anything….can be very bouncy but can climb up a cliff. Number one 4WD in Australia. Finding an early 90’s space cab Hilux is gold.

Toyota “Troopie” (Troop Carrier) police…a “divi van”, short for divisional so you can put crims (criminals) in the back. HF aerial, “spotties” in front for extra strong beams for driving at night.

Another Toyota Land Cruiser ute (pick-up truck). Typical snorkel, roof rack, roo bar, winch. Rusty as well so obviously spent a lot of time near the coast….water tubes with taps on top. (Added by me: What is hard to tell from pic is that there are small red lights in the eye sockets of the skull….this car looked spooky in the dark parking lot with its red glowing eyes.)

Darcy’s (of Cocklebiddy) Hilux twin cab (e.g. four doors versus two door space cab), so smaller tray (truck bed) in the back, hydraulic crane to lift drums on-off back of ute. 

Old school Mitsubishi Pajero, 1988-92, roo bar, kind of car an old fisherman guy would drive….side rails helps with tree collisions, sun visor….great for bush camping, fishing. Designed to be abused.  Did you know that pajero in Spanish means wanker?

None of these vehicles are very expensive…..all are reliable, usable 4WDs. Unlikely to be carpet in any of these….would all be vinyl inside. 

(Finally, I just have to add that my 4WD-ing lessons have been in full swing over the last two weeks. My favorite nugget of advice from MW: “Try to just miss the trees on your side, then my side will be fine.”)