Gigi Laidler's Blog

2007-12-01T20:02:00.000+02:00

Western Cape Woodturners Association Exhibiton at Kirstenbosch
26 - 28 November 2007

It was a bit of a spur of the moment decision to make enquiries about holding an exhibition of turnings at the Conference Centre at Kirstenbosch National Botanical Gardens, but as luck would have it, the venue was available for a three-day period at the end of November, so the project was handed over to the committee, who did a Stirling job of organising people to bring pieces, and setting up the venue.

Here are a couple of impressions of how the exhibition looked in this most stunning venue.

The Western Cape Woodturners have a poster depicting the "birth" of a wild olive natural edge bowl, illustrating the process from log to finished article - which holds pride of place next to the poster

A set of nested bowls by Dennis Laidler

A vessel by Peter Nicolle

The "wormy" bowl by Peter Nicolle attracted a lot of attention. The piece in the foreground is by Gert Ferreira

A vessel by Dennis Laidler that is now in France

Gert Ferreira often uses sustainably collected porcupine quills to decorate his work

Another winner by Gert

A Norfolk Island Pine vase by Thys Carstens

Sven Karth applied his imagination with this piece of sleeper wood

This large Norfolk Island Pine vase is by Dennis Laidler

Bert Parker is well known for his lovely segmented work

A first impression of the exhibition

This very large natural edge cork oak bowl by Dennis Laidler caught everyone's attention

Two examples of piercing by Peter Nicolle, with a natural edge piece by Thys Carstens in the foreground

Some more examples of Peter Nicolle's piereced work

A wild olive natural edge bowl by Ken Pilkington

"does it hold water?" Some challenging work by Gert Ferreira

Some resin-inlay work by Thys Carstens that grabbeda lot of attention, with a decorative rice bowl and chopsticks in the foreground by Peter Nicolle

As you can see, I have not had a lot of time for blogging over the past couple of months - I still have an ambition of completing the blog covering our wonderful trip to the USA in June/July 2007 ....

The last time I had "spare time" was when we were stranded in JFK on our first night in the States!

2007-06-24T08:34:00.000+02:00

The Great USA Adventure June / July 2007

A chilly Cape Town winter's morning saw our departure on Saturday, 16th June

Bye-bye, Table Mountain,

Bye-bye!

This was a different view of Milner Peak Ridge, where we had climbed with Andi at the end of October 2006

and there was still a smidgin of snow on the Matroosberg

I found the aerial views of irrigated lands fascinating - there are some cool "landscape designers" out there

Twenty eight and a half hours, three airports and two different airlines afforded us a first "stolen" glimpse of Manhattan - we did not have window seats, so had to lean across the guy next to us for these shots

With about five hours to spare before our connecting flight to Salt Lake City, we decided we had to see something more of New York, than Terminals 2 and 3 at JFK, so we ventured forth on the Subway

We took the Subway to where the action is - Times Square and Broadway

The aspiration for many dancers...

and there was plenty of action on Times Square

In Times Square, everyone takes pictures....

"I'll take one of you, if you take one of us.... "

Then we encountered our first obstacle... The flight to Salt Lake City had been cancelled. Our luggage was well underway already, but we had to spend the night in JFK. Delta Airlines was able to book us on a flight via Baltimore the following day, and would accommodate us at their expense for the night at one of the Airport hotels.

This caused us a little stress, as we didn't have a cellphone number for Andi, who had travelled to Salt Lake City in order to be there to meet us on arrival and take us to Provo, so we decided to head for the hotel and muster all our resources to get a message to Andi. Luckily there was high speed WiFi in our room, and through the wonders of modern technology and a network of helpful friends, we were eventually able to get hold of Andi on a Skype call to let her know of our amended itinerary.

Therefore on Monday, after being subjected to a thorough search at airport security, including being patted down, and with "sniffer pads" passed over our shoes and carry-on luggage, we eventually boarded our flight 45 minutes later than scheduled. With barely two hours between arrival and departure for our connecting flight, things were a little tense, especially when we still dallied about another half hour on the runway, before finally taking off. We landed with scarcely 15 minutes to take off, and as soon as we were allowed off (apparently luggage must be removed before passengers can deplane), six of us sprinted across the tarmac, into the airport, and just succeeded in joining the last of the boarding passengers - to a special welcome from the crew.

Our first impressions of Utah and Salt Lake City

2006-06-01T00:05:00.000+02:00

A Scrapbook of impressions of London and Chelsea Week

(best viewed with Windows Explorer)

Catching the Underground at Gloucester Road Station and travelling to Sloane Square Station

From Sloane Square Station we walked round the corner to catch the 137 bus to take us up the road to Lister Hospital, where we alighted to walk down the road to the so-called "Ambulance", or "Bullring" entrance to the Showgrounds, in the grounds of the Royal Hospital.

A walk in gloomy weather alongside the Showgrounds to the bus stop

Waiting for the 137 Bus after a loooong day

The fast food outlet during build-up, and by contrast, the crowds when the Show was open to the public

Then came the relief of being awarded the Gold Medal (held here by Collette and Gigi)

On the Friday of Chelsea Week, David kindly took me to visit Wisley Botanical Garden, where my very first impression was of colour, as we walked in to the Garden Shop

Several familiar South African species are housed in the Alpine House

In spite of the rain, Wisley looked lovely - well worth a visit

David "sticking is nose in everywhere" ....

The RHS Bicentenary Glasshouse is making good progress

All good things come to an end, and Breakdown began with the sell-off of flowers on Saturday afternoon

It was sad to see the stand gradually "melt away"

The Breakdown team taking a coffe break, while David seriously chills out

Until finally all that remained was a pile of "hard landscaping" ready for crating, and an equally large pile of rubbish

The "Dirty team" at the end of a hard day

and the Show is now over.......

.....till the next one

2006-05-14T14:01:00.000+02:00

Chelsea Flower Show 2006 - an impression "from the coalface"

The lead up to Chelsea Flower Show involves a huge amount of preparation, and things really start to come into focus when the model is "unveiled" to the media. This year, that happened on 26th April.

This was followed by the shipping of the hard landscaping on Friday 12th May, and commencement of building the stand (buidling the screens and putting together the structure of the stand), on Saturday 13th May, when David Davidson and Raymond Hudson arrived in London. A team of volunteers, both from South Africa and the UK assisted with building the stand and putting together all the components that had been shipped from SA. The aim was to have all the hard landscaping in place by the time the flowers arrived.

The next major milestone was the "send-off" of the flowers, on Wednesday 17th May. Prior to departure the flowers were fumigated and subjected to intense scrutiny in order to qualify for a phytosanitary certificate - their passport of clear health to allow entry the UK. The blooms were shaken out, and any goggas that fell out were examined to ensure they were dead, otherwise that box would be discarded.

After the phytosanitary inspection, the boxes were loaded into a container, which was flown to London, to be delivered to the Showgrounds at the Royal Hospital in London, on the Thames Embankment, about 24 hours later.

Once the flowers were delivered, David and Ray set to with creating the arrangements.

My involvemnt became real for me when I departed for London, together with two colleagues, on Friday night, 19th May, and my Cheslea 2006 experience started to properly become a reality.

After clearing Customs on Saturday morning, we were met by an airport shuttle at Heathrow and taken to our hotel to get changed and leave our luggage in our rooms, before joining the rest of the team at the Showgrounds and start working on the stand.

A first impression of our hotel, taken through the window of the shuttle

A long day was followed by a short night and an early start in order to set to work, as deadlines were looming, and we only had this day to complete building the stand, as Monday would be "judgment day".

We eventually were able to call it a day and departed the Showgrounds close to midnight on Sunday night.

Monday morning again saw us at the Showgrounds for final touches to the stand, labelling the exhibit and making sure the judges would find no fault with our exhibit.

Monday was also Media Preview Day, when exhibitors showed off their handiwork to the press. Many invited celebreties to visit their stand - a useful ploy to attract additional media attention... We were delighted when Emma Thompson accepted the invitation to visit our display, which drew the expected bevy of camera-clicking media. She spent a fair amount of time at our stand, and showed great interest in the theme that was the underlying inspiration for the design of our stand - the fires that had occurred in the Western Cape, dealing a severe blow the the protea cutflower industry, that lost huge tracts of cultivated protea fields to fires that raged out of control, fanned by strong windss for days on end. The destruction of fynbos placed thousands of jobs under threat, until someone was inspired by the stark beauty of the burnt protea heads, to launch the initative of producing "Fire Flowers" - burnt protea heads mounted on a restio stem, using beads and wire.

These "Fire Flowers" attracted a lot of attention.

The other feature that attracted a lot of attention was the "waterwise water feature" - a screen of stones, strung up on steel cables, with water dripping down on them

The Royal visit took place on Monday afternoon, when the Flower Show was closed to the public, and only invited representatives from the displays were allowed to be present. Our Kristenbosch South Africa was visited by the Queen and various other members of the Royal entourage.

Judging took place on Monday, and results were made public on Tuesday morning, so we had a tense night of anticipation - but were jubilant on Tuesday morning, when we received a phone call, confirming we had been awarded a Gold Medal. The other encouraging news was that we were in close consideration for the "Best on Show" - the so called President's Award - and many people who later visited the stand voiced their disappointment (disagreement) with the choice of winner.