Tulitha King

Tag: Canberra ACT

  • Canberra City Planning – cycling

    I get on my bike as often as I can. This can be tricky with three kids but my older two are competent cyclists and my youngest is very easy to put into either of my three options – front seat, back seat or trailer.

    Having a bike trailer is a game changer for a mum – probably for anyone, but it makes a family so much more portable on bikes, increasing crucial lugging capacity, and, I have found, is well worth the investment!

    So, we cycle around town as much as we can.

    This is one benefit of living in the inner-north that I would not want to give up in order to settle out in one of Canberra’s sprawling suburbs. Being able to cycle to events, the pool, the library, the supermarket and friend’s houses enhances our lives is worth the sacrifice of extra space for a large garden. We are satisfied with our small one (which is jam-packed with veges) and more than satisfied with being able to walk and ride to close-at-hand amenities and luxuries, rather than guzzle up fossil fuel (and extra time) to get there.

    So my cycling around town is an urban planning matter. It is closely linked to how we build our cities, how we are building Canberra.

    Canberra is about as good as it gets for commuter cyclists in Australia. This is unfortunate because Canberra could be better. Fortunately, from what I can gather, ACT’s current government does seem to be pro cycling and active travel, pro medium to high density in parts  (personally I am more in favour of medium density over high density in this city) and, I am hoping, also in favour of creating human scale, hospitable, fun and friendly public spaces. These things are all key to creating equitable, friendly cities where people do not have to rely on a car to get around.

    In my cycle from Dickson, through O’Connor, into Civic and on into the Parliamentary Triangle and back again I encountered a range of cycling conditions. From my house I have to cross a busy intersection. This can be a little frightening with a 7 year old dare devil who loves to scream down the hill, “check your brakes!” I often call to him, not that it makes any difference. Then it is a squishy ride down a narrow but fairly quiet path to the main riding throughfare which runs from Dickson College right into The Australian National University, and on to Lake Burley Griffin, where offshoots can take you into various southern suburbs along idyllic rides by the lake. This path took me just a few block from the city centre where, after navigating a couple of less than desirable paths (caused by tree roots, so I won’t complain, I’d rather have the trees) I easily parked and did some grocery shopping.

    This leg, my friends, was a journey easier than a car trip in peak hour and having to find and pay for parking in some of the storied car parks attached to the shopping centre. It included the added bonus of feeling the wind in my hair and a particular feeling that I was truly alive! If there is any feeling closer to flying than actually flying do tell because riding on a hotmixed Canberra bike path on a bike feels as much like it as I’d care to know!

    After this we went on to the triangle where I made sure to take the Eastern bike path along Commonwealth Avenue bridge so that I could slide off onto the bike path taking me (along with twenty-odd mums with prams and various joggers and people in business attire) right to the back end of the National Gallery where I parked my bike and took my bonny daughter in to their excellent play space.

    Canberra-Cycling-Mum (1 of 1)

     

    Truly, being a mum of a little one in Canberra does feel positively utopian at times!

    The journey back home again was equally straightforward, except for finding a new, quieter, route home through Reid, which is yet another joy of cycling – adaptability and adventure.

    There is certainly room for improvement in Canberra, living location is certainly one important factor to being able to make this choice. My point is that it is definitely, in my eyes, a choice worth choosing. I prefer this mode of travel above all else!

    As Steve Jobs is attributed as saying: A bicycle is the most efficient form of transport. It is also, I argue, the most fun.

  • Linburn Handmade

    I interviewed ceramicist Georgie Bryant on her work under the label Linburn Handmade, a copy of which appeared in Canberra City News (21/02/2018).

     

    In her lovely backyard in Canberra where she works out of her home studio Georgie tells me that her ceramics studio, Linburn Handmade, is about providing functional, domestic ware that is contemporary, earthy and honest.

    “My focus has always been that ceramics can be beautiful but it is also really useful. I like that clay is so everyday and functional. It’s practical, and what I want to give people is something that looks good and that they can use all the time,” she says.

     

    “I wouldn’t say my pots are heavy and hefty, but there is a strength there, without them being too fine, I always try to balance beauty and function.”

    Turning her ceramics practice into a business was an organic process. After moving to Canberra for work she took up a pottery class at the Watson Arts Centre. She was struck and developed a passion for pottery which soon saw her working with a production potter before starting her own business.

    “I quite enjoy getting the detail right, the size and the form, which you need to do if you’re going to do production pottery,” she says, telling me that it becomes quite rhythmic over time.

    The name, Linburn, is a nod to her childhood home near Mudgee, NSW, where she was surrounded by her mother’s cherished porcelain and learned to make things with her father.

    “My dad is probably at the root of all this, unknowingly. He’s a really clever guy who can manufacture anything. He’s a farmer, and learned to build all sorts of buildings around New South Wales with his father when he was a young man. I couldn’t help but learn from them that I wanted to make beautiful and useful things.”

    The location still features in her practice, as she has been known to dig clay from the area to use in her pots, “there’s some nice clay out that way,” she states and I can tell that this passion for good clay and fine pots runs deep, as her eyes light up as she speaks.

    With a few large commissions in recent years it seems that interest in local, handmade ceramics is making a resurgence, something that could be related to a change in how food is thought about.

    “Food has gone from being something that we eat, to something that we talk about, look at and photograph. It seems to be everywhere and – I would say this as a potter,” she laughs, “but it seems that the natural progression is to ask, ‘if we care about what we’re eating, what are we eating it off?’ It could sit anywhere along the spectrum of being something mass produced overseas or handmade locally”

    I agree and we talk about how the slow food movement seems to have instigated a slow-made movement and we laugh over how this has almost intersected in our very plates as handmade ceramics merges with locally and mindfully produced food in our restaurants and cafes. It appears that Georgie’s work is an allegory for our times.

    Canberra’s dining scene is replete with passionate foodies, something which resonates with Georgie as she matches her passion with theirs and has no problem meeting their creative ideas with their own to come up with the perfect, unique solution for their tableware.

    “The creative process is kind of fun. There’s a hunt for the right design, the right glaze and how it’s going to look.

    I’ve stood in cool rooms with chefs, looking at pork knuckles, to understand what is going to go on the plate. They are all about the food being right and I’m all about the plate being right and then we have an overlap where we have to be right together which is not just technical, it’s got to be affordable, I’ve got to be able to reproduce it, it’s got to be attractive and it has to make sense with the food.

    “It’s like a puzzle and I enjoy working with others and challenging myself as well.”

    In the end, she says, “It’s sheer delight when I wander past one of the restaurants where my plates are and see people having a nice time, maybe not everyone is thinking about the plates, but it’s all part of the picture.”

    Georgie can be contacted for commissions and sales through www.linburnhandmade.com, she also stocks ceramics at the Watson Arts Centre, www.canberrapotters.com.au.

  • Photography Basics Workshop

    Photography Basics Workshop

    As many good things do, I began running these workshops entirely unexpectedly! Friends asked me to run one…many unconnected friends…and I realised there was a need! “Well, if people want it and I can provide it, why not do it!” So, it kind of just…happened.

    Now I’m rolling with it and it’s rolling well with me. I really LOVE teaching this course! And while I will continually refine it, I really can recommend it as a step up into your own photography. It’s relaxed, we work through our cameras step by step, we start taking photos and, hopefully, by the end you’ve got a kick start in your photography endeavours.

    I also have several ‘interested persons’ on an informal kind of waiting list, so if you’d like to be contacted when I run a third course then please let me know so that I can contact you directly and you won’t have to miss out (there are no obligations of course).

    Here are some pics from the course I ran a couple of weekends ago, some by me, some by the participants.