ART FESTIVALS
For an artist Adelaide in South Australia is a wonderful place to live, it is a buzzing metropolis for the arts with various festivals and exhibitions and excitement. We just manage to get over Christmas and then it starts again with the Adelaide Fringe which is the largest annual arts festival in the Southern Hemisphere. It’s on for 24 days and nights and starts in the middle of February and spills into March – March itself is known as mad March as we then also get the WOMAD ADELAIDE which is a world music festival and also the a tad more highbrow Adelaide Festival where you can catch a performance like The Ring Cycle by Wagner. Added to the mayhem of March is also Symphony under the Stars and the annual Clipsal 500 which sees the racing car drivers from all over the world descend on little old Adelaide to go round and round and round. Mind you they arrive hot on the heels of the Tour Down Under which saw all the bikers fresh from Tour de France, who always seem to have to slog their way up impossible hills in 40 degrees of burning sun, their reward is to be celebrated and join in to all the festivities the city has to offer and that is plenty.
The Last Catch
This photo was taken at the SALA award night by talented Adelaide photographer Julie Camilleri from Captured in Time Photography.
THE ADVERTISER BUSINESS SA CONTEMPORARY ART PRIZE
This sculpture is called “The Last Catch” and a little unusual for me as normally I am always doing colourful ARTwork, but sometimes it is nice to surprise the audience a little. It was selected as one of the finalist in The Advertiser Business SA Contemporary Art Prize for the most outstanding work in any medium in another of the famous Adelaide Festivals called SALA which stands for South Australian Living Artists – so it is for those among us that are not dead yet! LOL and if you want to find out more about that Festival here is a link:
FRINGE FESTIVAL
In any case one of my personal favourite is the Fringe Festival, it is a little more grungy, less high brown and more edgy with performances from artists of all kinds from all over the world. It usually features over 4,000 artists with more than 900 events that are staged in pop-up venues lanes, unused buildings, warehouses, parks, restaurants, theatres, hotels, art galleries and cafes. What is on offer is EVERYTHING, you name it is there!
The only fish left!
ART FORMS GALORE
Adelaide Fringe starts of with a free street parade and opening nights celebrations and parties and then you can choose from all sorts of contemporary work in all the art forms such as circus and physical theatre, dance, film, theatre, puppetry, music, visual art and design, cabaret and of course comedy. I have previously told you about “The Old Fellow” Rod Gregory: and now let me tell you about the young fellow Jon Bennett. He is actually the son of our children’s school teacher Mr Bennett (as he was known to them) they both had Ray as a teacher in primary school and a sweeter are more caring teacher is hard to find. Ray and his wife Mary are lovely people, very religious and always care for the underdogs and take in foster children and try to make a difference. But as things happen in life things don’t always go according to plan and that is where Jon Bennett comes in – he is a master of storytelling and has you spellbound with his recollections of his life during the bad times and the good, all whilst having you doubled over in laughter.
COMEDY WITH A HEART
So below is my take on seeing his show the other night and if you get a chance to catch his show when he turns up in your part of the world I highly recommend it.
“Home grown comedian with HEART”
I was busting with pride the other night attending the packed out performance of comedian Jon Bennett son of local couple Ray and Mary Bennett of Pinery. The show was called Fire in the Meth Lab and yes for some of us who know the history of that event it does sound very controversial and if you are easily offended it is best not to attend. However for everyone else I really urge you to go as Jon has an incredible knack of taking you on a journey laughing most of the way but also tearing up which usually does not go hand in hand with comedy. Jon whilst being small in stature has an incredible stage presence which has taken him across the world performing in New York, Chicago, Seattle, Portland, San Francisco, LA, Vancouver, Montreal, Edmonton as well as touring all around Australia Apart from having had a wonderful night what I took home from his performance was the fact that Jon loves his family very much and I hope they are very proud of him, they certainly should be.
Talented comedian Jon Bennett
Here is a quote I think fits well here by Mary Hirsch;
“Humor is a rubber sword – it allows you to make a point without drawing blood”
Till next time happy painting and sculpting and laughing.
Love Marie xxx
Why not come and have a look at Marie Jonsson-Harrison’s PAINTINGS FOR SALE, GICLEE PRINTS FOR SALEand SCULPTURES for sale or WALLBASED SCULPTURES. Enjoy an original artwork on your walls or perhaps one on your bed ARTnBED.
There are no comments published yet.