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..............................I
........Artists & Authors
Market Eve
at the Glassblowers
Hot Glass by
Evening Light
Cool Climate
Wines
Farmhouse
Cheese.
Start your
Weekend with Style
Experience master
glassblowing by evening light, accompanied
by world class Peninsula wines and fine
hand crafted cheeses from Red Hill Cheese.
6pm - 8pm on Friday nights preceding the
Red Hill Market. Eileen Gordon and Grant
Donaldson introduce you to the unforgettable
experience of master glassblowing. See the
hot glass furnaces up close and experience
the excitement of watching beautiful art
glass being created, even try your hand at
glassblowing! At the evening's end you have
the chance to win one of the beautiful pieces
that you have seen being created.
Visit www.gordonstudio.com.au/events
ADFAS Mornington Peninsula Art Forum
ADFAS is a decorative and fine arts society
providing opportunities to explore the arts through a
series of monthly lectures on art related subjects.
The lectures are illustrated and cover a diverse
range of subjects such as architecture, painting,
sculpture, music, gardens, furniture, glass,
ceramics, textiles and art history.
The lecturers, who are authors, curators and
exhibitors of world renown, are recognised experts
in their field and the majority are selected through
the society’s
affiliated body
in the UK. They
are all skilled
in presenting
informative
and stimulating
lectures with
images and
sometimes
audio and tactile
samples – always
with a good dose
William Eicholtz
of humour.
Sculpture - Bounty Big
There are 30 Australian Decorative & Fine Arts
Societies (ADFAS) in Australia enabling members
to explore the arts whilst meeting others who have
similar interests.
“Australian Art – Setting the Trends” is the
theme for an Art Forum being held on Saturday
13 October 2007 from 10.30am to 3.30pm at the
Peninsula Community Theatre in Mornington.
Five leading artists, painter and digital artist
Stephen Hayley, glassmakers Eileen Gordon and
Grant Donaldson, sculptor William Eicholtz and
artist and weaver Lorraine Connelly-Northey,
discuss the direction their fields are taking. Art
critic and publisher of the Encyclopedia of
Australian Art Susan McCulloch and collector Jan
Clark ask "who sets the trends?" Sydney critic
and gallery director Michael Reid gives the keynote
address on future directions in the Australian art
market and chairs a panel discussion.
The forum is being arranged by ADFAS
Mornington Peninsula. For information and
bookings please ring 03 5974 3691, 9592 5616
or email: adfasmp@yahoo.com.au
Playwright Joanna Murray-Smith is heading
to Broadway again, and this time she's taking
Anette Benning with her. Mornington-born
Joanna was last there in 1998 with her play
Honour; this time it's The Female of The
Species that's doing the honours.
Her new play is a fast-moving comedy that
delves into the world of feminist mothers and the
confusing messages they send their daughters.
The main character, played by Benning, is a
feminist writer held hostage by a teenage 'fan' in
her country home, ŕ la 'Germaine Greer intruder
incident 2000'.
The Melbourne Theatre Company performed
the play last year, but for Joanna, there's still a
lot of work to do. "Production of The Species
in America is time consuming," she says. "I've
already done two trips back, one was to meet
Annette Benning; she wanted to talk before
she'd commit, so I went to LA for lunch, and
lunch turned into dinner and dinner turned
into breakfast, but that's another story," she
says, laughing. And yes, Joanna met Benning's
husband, Warren Beatty.
Last month she was back in Los Angeles for the
first reading with the director, Michael Mayer,
(he's just won a Tony for his Broadway musical
Spring Awakenings) - but her work's still not
complete. She's revising the script, because,
although the play is set "nowhere", it needs
minor changes to appeal to the American
audience. Then, in January, she'll be back in LA
for six weeks of rehearsals.
This takes her away from her husband and
three children (the eldest is in Year 7), and other
mothers might be asking 'how does she do it?'
With her husband working full-time, Joanna is
helped by their long-term nanny, Stella. "She
would never believe it, but she's been critical
to my professional life," says Joanna. "As you
get older, what becomes more important is
not just the kind of status of 'where your plays
end up', but the actual pleasure of the working
experience. Particularly once you've got children,
you feel that whatever takes you away from the
children has to be worth it."
Joanna's own childhood in Mount Eliza
was happy, especially when she hit Toorak
College after 'loathing' Mount Eliza Primary.
She laughs as she recalls how she had red
hat envy. "I wanted to be in a nice, cushy
private school away from all those nasty
savages," she says, in a mock-whiny voice.
Her mother Nita, a former Toorak College
teacher, still lives in the Kevin Borland-
designed house in Mount Eliza that Joanna,
her father Stephen Murray-Smith and her
older brother and sister lived in.
Leaving the good and bad school years behind
her, Joanna has turned Mount Eliza into the
inspiration and setting for at least two of her
novels: Sunnyside (2005) and Truce (1994).
"With Truce I didn't feel like the recreation of
Mount Eliza was at the heart of the story, but
with Sunnyside the place was the heart of the
story. It was the portrait of that kind of affluent
suburban Australian life. Also, I had a very
intense period of living in Mount Eliza (eight
months in 2003). I was writing Sunnyside while
I was there, and I felt Mount Eliza was deeply
imbedded in that book. Going back now, I do
see it in terms of the novel. When I drive past
the house we lived in - also
the house in Sunnyside,
this amazing 1950s white
weatherboard house with
big stone fireplaces - I don't
recollect living in it; I recollect
the characters living in it.
But for now, Mount Eliza is safe
from more stories. London,
LA, and a bunch of men in
their sixties are calling. "I realised the other day
that I've spent the year hanging out with really
spunky male sexagenarians: I was working with
Bruce Beresford last year, then wining and dining
with Warren Beatty, and now working with (Sir)
Trevor Nunn, and I just think 60-year old men are
where it's at!" she says, laughing.
Joanna's also working on a documentary-style
film script about the intense friendship between
Heide's Joy Hester and Sunday Reed, and her
third on-going project is working with Trevor
Nunn, at his request, to adapt Ingmar Bergman's
Scenes From a Marriage. They recently had a
week to work together while Trevor was in town
with King Lear and The Seagull.
"We spent all day talking about Bergman, had
dinner and spent the evening talking about
Bergman. Trevor got back to his hotel, turned
on the TV and Bergman was dead. He died
that day. He'd probably heard I was doing
the adaptation and that polished him off
- 'the woman who wrote Bombshells is not
the right woman for this job!'" says Joanna,
impersonating Bergman.
One thing's for sure, Joanna picked the right job.
by Jayne D'Arcy
Joanna Murray-Smith - the Female of the Species
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