Very Like A Whale

Last weekend involved running about like a mad loon at just about every turn (or tern*). There was cleaning. And stocking up on groceries. And baking (more on that tomorrow). And dancing. All before lunch time. Somewhere in all that chaos, time was found to venture over to the Finders Keepers market at Carriageworks.

I was interested to see what Carriageworks would be like, having seen it on TV and in magazines as a venue for all sorts of things. It felt a lot less cavernous than I had expected, but I suspect there must be quite a lot of other sections to it – it was a bit of a rabbit warren. The exterior is the most striking part of the place; inside is similar to a lot of other studios and warehouses.

And the growers market was also on, so it was a bit of a hive of activity (in a good way – I’d actually expected it to be swamped and overcrowded, so finding it just usual Sydney-on-a-Saturday busy was a pleasant surprise). I would have loved more time to have a look round the growers market, but this wasn’t going to be the weekend for it. Instead, there was a quick reconnoitre to establish that the place I really had wanted to check out wasn’t there that month, and then on to Finders Keepers.

Finders Keepers was a lot like the good bits of a usual market collected into one spot. Interesting jewellery without all the mass produced sparkly tat. Papers and cards with unusual pictures and intriguing wording. Hand-sewn and knitted items that didn’t look like you were paying your nanna by the yard. And almost everybody seemed to have intriguing business names (A Skulk Of Foxes might have taken that prize out, as far as I was concerned).

Lots of things jumped out. Angus & Celeste had porcelain bangles with silver spots on, and hand-painted milk bottle vases. Ginny and Jude had silk skirts in interesting patters. Made 590 had dresses with printed silhouettes (and they had jackalopes, too – brilliant!).

My purchase for the day was a pair of Paper Boat Press earrings. I came across PBP online last year (great quotes and wording, and all sorts of interesting things). Up close, they have a mix of fragility and resilience that I liked. And they had earrings in the shape of clouds. All of them, just like real clouds, were slightly different. Unusual, but not hit-you-between-the-eyes unusual. Just quietly whimsical.

Clouds can have so many different sorts of associations. The small neat fluffy sort (whether white or grey) remind me of Winnie The Pooh. They feel like you should be able to tie a ribbon to them and take them around above you. The larger ones that move into ever evolving shapes remind me of Hamlet. As you do.

* Sorry, just had to go there. Should know better than to start a post with a bad pun by now!