I spent the weekend hibernating, doing very little but sleeping and pickling my guts with lots of wine. It was great.
A couple of things have brought me out of hibernation. One is a touch of Folk housekeeping:
If anyone from Western Australia is into the idea of attending the National Folk Festival this Easter, they are featuring WA as their special state (it rotates each year) and Westralians are offered free season and camping tickets if you register before February 2. They recognise that flying over is enough of a monetary commitment! If you know anyone who would be interested in this offer, spread the word. For anyone else interested in going, Feb 2 is also the cutoff date for the most discounted tickets. After that is goes up by ten dollar increments every month or so.
The other thing is finding out via For Battle that Aveline had died of a massive stroke a few days ago. For me this news is not the grief of a passing friend or acquaintance, but the kind of sadness and shock you feel at the death of a celebrity or the end of an era. Aveline was living in Canberra for a fair while; my experience of her was as a life model. In the words of a friend who hired her a lot for her drawing classes, Aveline was the most a-live model we had. At that time Aveline was very large, with myriad piercings and tatts, and always amazing hair. Students just didn't know where to start drawing, and it says a lot about our attitude to 'difference' that they would see (and be intimidated by) the outside embellishments rather than the shape of the woman herself (which was a fantastic shape to draw). Of course, once you worked up the courage to talk to Aveline, she was lovely.
I'm very sorry to hear about her death. Again, as listed at For Battle, you can see the post-nuclear effect of Aveline's passing here.
I'll be posting more regularly soon. I'm feeling a bit like fluffy, except that the log-jam of ideas is also being dammed by the pile of work sitting on my desk. I'm slowly working through it, but it's frustratingly slow. I'm just making a little list of wish-posts as I go...
7 comments:
It really *is* a small world hey..
And getting smaller the more I blog! Heh.
I feel very sorry for Aveline; an aneurism isn't the best birthday present, but hopefully she didn't suffer.
hey Ducky - I wondered if you might have met or at least seen her around. she spoke of the drawing classes with so much enjoyment... several people gave her their drawings and she kept them, she thought they were marvellous. Ave really was a magnificent phenomena :)
I too say small world. Once you mentioned on For Battle about the drawing classes I remembered her saying how much she enjoyed them and being a different shape really was unique. Tres cool.
Aveline should have been the poster child for a new and better modelling industry. She knew what she looked like, was pretty cool with that - though not above making a few alterations where it twisted a fancy. The closest she could manage to giving a damn what anyone thought was enjoying watching the norms twitch. I'm among those who wishes I had known her better, but I always liked hanging out with someone who so exuberantly enjoyed herself.
Thanks for posting about her life modeling, I found your post through bunnikins set of links. Aveline started life modeling a little while after me and I loved the sense of theatre she brought to it, a lot of stamina too. I modeled with her once (some amazing wierd drawings from that, in one I look like I'm about to gnaw off her ankle while she's reading a book) and it was such hard work to keep up.
I love the creative space of life modeling, she had this great idea of life modelings running classes, I guess a proletariat takeover + really throwing out the window the idea of the model as a passive object.
... I try to model once a year, just to keep my eye in, it's nice trade to have. I may have to incorporate bodypaint in memory of her. If you don't mind me asking who was the artist friend you spoke of? my mind is rusty and I'd be interested to know if I'd ever worked for them.
My friend's name is Fiona. She's a statuesque amazon with a great attitude and is a fabulous teacher who embraced everything Aveline had to offer.
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