That’s not a typo. No, it’s a reference to a fantastic exhibition at the Powerhouse Museum called Love Lace which celebrates the International Lace Award.

“The exhibition ranges from bold large-scale installations and sculptures to intricate textiles and jewellery. Materials include gold and silver wire, linen and silk as well as mulberry paper, tapa cloth, horse hair, titanium and optical fibre.”

The works are amazing in their creativity, variety of materials, and the range of techniques used from traditional to modern. Quite a few pieces explored the similarity between traditional lace patterns, and street maps, underwater creatures, or science. Particular faves for me were the metallic pieces – fine copper wire woven into lace – the more traditional or indigenous compositions, and the digital installations. That’s most of the exhibition actually! Light and shadow is used throughout the exhibition to great effect. Well worth a look.

The overall winner of the Award was Detroit’s Shadow, by Anne Mondro who “used wire to crochet a representation of Henry Ford’s first four-cylinder engine housed in the Model N.” Pretty neat, huh?

How fortunate that I can pop over to the Powerhouse in my lunch hour! I became a member last year and intend to pop over regularly as a way of batting my terrible habit of dining al desko.