Gales & Galleries on the Mornington Peninsula

This morning I was fortunate enough to be dropped at the Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery while hubby hit some golf  balls nearby.  The gallery is set in beautiful parkland: this is my first visit although it is ten minutes from where we live and I drive right past at least once a week.  There is a lake in the grounds, as you can see in the pic at the left and when we drove in there were children feeding ducks and geese.  I will have to go back again to take some photos.
The gallery had too exhibitions on today.  One is the National Photographic Portrait Prize 2010 exhibition.  Some of it was really moving.  The  other was the Recycled Library: Altered Books.   It was very interesting but I must admit I feel quite ambivalent about cutting up books in the name of art.  Some of the pieces were quite amazing though.

After the gallery we went for a drive further down the peninsula to Arthur's Seat.  This is a well known tourist area and in the past there was a chair lift operating from the top to the tea rooms halfway down.  It is not operating at present and the tea rooms are closed.  Up at the top there is a lovely cafe/restaurant called Arthurs (original name) and as it was so cold and windy we decided to pop in for a coffee and scones with jam & cream.  So much for the diet today.  I managed to take a few photos and although it was gloomy I think they look fine.  This first shot is looking back towards our house.  The second one is of the general area.  Yes it was a gloomy day.

Arthurs Seat VIC - Google Maps

have a look at the links if you are interested in my outing today.

MPRG Exhibitions

Now to the stitching:  

I have started filling in the gaps in my "SPEAK" project.  

One section is french knots done in 

2 strands of variegated silk thread,

in a gorgeous coral colour.

Another is thread painted with a hand dyed cotton that reminds

me of autumn leaves.  

This is a project that I will work on when I have nothing else I want to do.