It was so nice to not have an fixed plans this weekend. I even had time to sit with a cup of tea and read the Sunday paper – something I haven’t done for ages. Before that though we headed over to the Dowse Art Museum in Lower Hutt, where I am ashamed to say, we had not been to before.
There were a number of exhibitions on, ranging from textile artist Malcolm Harrison’s family of dolls, dressed in a range of costumes to Peter Robinson‘s installation ‘Tribe Subtribe’ and ‘Everyday Fiction‘, a group exhibit where the artists work imagined “the detail of everyday life in times and places beyond here and now”, as it says on the website. One section that I particularly liked was ‘See Like Your Hero: Artist Models’, a selection of works from the Dowse collection designed to make you consider what the artists were seeing and thinking, and take a bit longer to consider each work. There were a variety of works here from photography to painting to installations, each accompanied by a question to make you think.
Me inside the ‘Apocalypse Tent’ by Andy Irving & Keila Martin, 2011
Next to the Dowse, sit the Horticultural Hall and Town Hall. The two halls are part of the Lower Hutt Civic Centre which is a registered historic area. However, they are not earthquake compliant, so there are moves afoot to demolish the buildings, or at least part of them, keeping the facade.
Horticultural and Town Halls before the sun came out
It had also been ages since I had done any baking, so I rustled up a batch of blueberry and dark chocolate chip muffins.
And then there were muffins…
Thistles and Kiwis 