Rummage

This is Lanyon Homestead which is under the direction of CMAG an excellent Canberra cultural institution that punches well above its weight, both in the exciting content that they are generating and in the stewardship of both Lanyon and Calthorpes House, another hidden Canberran gem.
As with many historic houses, I am most interested in the areas where the work was done. Sculleries, stables, smithies and tack rooms; these are the areas that resonate.
Completely worth a visit.

Ponying up on the promise to write about my workplace. Bossy signs like this make me want to go through these doors. Curiouser and curiouser.

There's the French in a nonchalant pose on a chaise lounge in our room at Hotel Hotel. I surprised him with an overnight stay in one of their Meandering rooms last Friday in our home town to check out this new exercise in a curated sleepover.

Hotel Hotel's pitch is that it is for People People and without labouring a speech impediment too heavily it was super super. From the well considered cocktails (Friday exorcism anyone?) to the bar snacks with a serious emphasis on oozy cheese and books to borrow on guerrilla gardening, there is much to satisfy your inner hipster (don't pretend you don't have one).

Ilse Crawford has long talked about the importance of meeting emotional needs as well as satisfying our aesthetic sensibilities in the places where we lay our heads. What do we require in a hotel room? Intimacy with a designer edge, a place that doesn't treat us like a non-entity, that trusts us with a handmade object and a wall of art? Yes and yes.

I liked making up stories that connected the pictures on the wall. I liked the complete silence (when I shut up long enough to hear it) and the blockout shutters that kept the room in deepest velvet darkness tricking even my pesky body clock.

I was not enamoured with the mood lighting that seemed stuck in seductionsville and could not be turned up to anything resembling light to rouge ones cheeks by. Neither was I taken with the lack of in room movies. Given the curatorial direction of the room I was expecting a retrospective of Stanley Kubrick instead of a channel 9 rerun of Sleepless in Seattle. Nevertheless, these last two couldn't take away from a deeply restful and delicious break from the everyday.

We may not be people people but I don't really think you need to be to enjoy Hotel Hotel. And then there is always the joy of returning home to a certain canine who spends every day in a boutique hotel.

Back here. Must be the seasonal change. Things are good, albeit crazy pants busy. Small people getting less small, French being, as always, exactly who he is. I've been thinking that maybe this should morph into more of a place where I can bang on about what I do? Maybe I will hang out here more often if I get to talk about the good stuff I am involved in. Maybe that sounds about as interesting to you as fingernails on a blackboard, unfollow at will.

Four years ago I started working in a museum and haven't looked back since. Creative and all consuming, I have found a home in the cultural sector that suits my kinks. Right now I am working on some pretty exciting projects including redeveloping a permanent children's exhibition.

I'd like to share some of these ideas here. Museums are changing, and it's a bloody interesting time to be in the sector. Perhaps a show and tell is in order next time. Hope you are well. x