Go Vertical

I love the vertical garden trend. Here's a few from around town.

This one is at James St, Fortitude Valley.

And these at King George Square in the CBD.

Check out the creators of these amazing walls.

www.plantup.net.au

Portrait of Spain

On Friday night I was lucky enough to attend the opening of the Qld Art Gallery Portrait of Spain. This exhibition is one of the most prestigious showings the Gallery has hosted in many years. My friend Rachael came along with me. The night started with drinks and finger food and speeches and then we were able to walk thru the exhibition.

There are over 100 paintings loaned from the Prado Museum in Spain. They depict life over a 350 year period. Many portraits of the royalty and nobility show exquisite detail in the paintings. My friend Rachael is an art teacher, so along the way I was privileged to experience my own personal tour thanks to her knowledge.

Some fun interactive booths at the end of the exhibition allow you to place your own image into the famous paintings displayed. Not a great shot, but it was a laugh doing it.

Myself at the start of the night. The opening was staged around the water mall area of the gallery with the walls bathed in red light the signature colour for the show.

My friend Rachael.

Once through the show there is a gift shop at the end selling merchandise specific to the Portrait of Spain exhibition. Rach bought up big! However due to the heavy restrictions on photography I didn't take any pics. This one I've borrowed from off their website. It shows part of the end area set up with kids specifically in mind. It's the area with the photo booths and this bench has all types of food so that you can try you hand at a still life on the ipads.

Portrait of Spain is on until the 4 November.

http://qagoma.qld.gov.au/exhibitions/current/portrait_of_spain_masterpieces_from_the_prado

Wintergarden Queen St.

I finally had a chance to have a proper look at the refurbished Wintergarden on the Queen St mall. I've rushed thru a few times without having the time to browse.

The most outstanding feature I thought was the incredible butterfly/ garden cladding on the Queen St exterior. It's massive, gorgeous in my opinion and would have involved so much work and cost a fortune.

The overcast sky didn't do the colours justice, but I'm sure that people who are lucky enough to have a view from their office buildings, would enjoy a lovely kaleidoscope as the sun dances across the surfaces.

The Wintergarden features a mix of international and upmarket tenants, something that Wintergarden has always prided itself on offering. Since the refurb there are a few new international brands to Brisbane.

The garden imagery is carried through inside in various alcoves.

This is a nice way to dress up otherwise boring hoarding and continue the butterflies.

Aside from the incredible garden scape external cladding, I felt the new look complex fell way short of hitting the mark. I think the massive marketing campaign that they've been running and the actual centre just don't gel. The food court in particular is very dark. While the finishes are modern and contemporary combine those with the low ceiling levels that the centre has always had and now the few extra dead end corners in the layout and I would suspect that the internally located tenants will be voicing their concerns shortly.

Carindale Library

The new Carindale library, constructed in conjunction with the new open dining end of Carindale shopping centre, is worth a visit if your little ones are going stir crazy during our very wet winter.

It's been open a few months and has a great kids corner.

It's tucked in the back corner so that you don't need to worry too much about the noise they make. But public libraries seem a lot more forgiving about that now a days anyway. I guess they've worked out a bit of noise is the price to encourage the next generation of bookworms.

So with my tribe in tow and despite many offers to read to them, there was just so much interactive stuff that they kept busy exploring. This is the lego wall.

The reading box/ stage area.

The individual reading cubes. Note the padding on the top edges for the vertically challenged- in this case the adults.

The colouring bench.

Reading cubes in the stage area

Soccer projected onto the carpet

Wall boxes filled with books and toys.

The time flew by quickly. My reading services were not wanted, but the kids had a great time playing. Then upstairs to find something for morning tea.

I'm Floored!

Yet again the sensation of being a child in a candy store hit me today when I visited one of my favourite local tile suppliers- The Edge at Capalaba.

Over the years I have always found them to have exciting tiles and very interesting ones. Their buyer has a very good eye for different things.

This product while not actually a tile, is something that The Edge have taken on the distributor rights for. It looks exactly like slabs of stone and has the same gritty texture. It's actually a canvass that comes in large 3m lengths. It's then stretched around the frame or substrate- a bit like if you were stretching a canvass to do a painting on. Then a liquid sealant finish is applied to make it rock hard.

This is the range available and it has vertical and horizontal applications, as well as interior and external. It looks amazing.

Amazing Bamboo look tiles with glitter grout!

These are from the same supplier too.

I also liked these stone look tiles with the chipped edge. Available for floor and wall usage.