Some things just have to be shared — a great wine, a delicious recipe, a good joke, and fabulous new books. The appeal of these extraordinary books below overrides the need to be cautious with cash these days. They are worth the price and worth revisiting often.
Two of these books were picked up at my favorite Sydney bookstore, Potts Point Bookshop on Macleay Street, Potts Point. This wonderful intimate little bookstore is filled with well-selected, unusual and interesting fare, complete with padded bench seats for a quick browse (see the end for details).
Beautifully laid out and delicious detailed is The Artist’s Lunch, at home with Australia’s most celebrated artists, by writer and Potts Point gallery owner Alice McCormick and photojournalist Sarah Rhodes.
The Artist's Lunch by McCormick and Rhodes
Not only does this exquisite book take you into the artists’ studios, detailing and showcasing their art work, but it also follows its theme by delivering rich visuals and interviews about the artists’ take on food and friends. And yes, ultimately, there are some recipes, but the real feast is in the visuals and the revealing prose.
Here’s a snippet from an interview with painter Philip Woflhagen:
Before Catherine and I were married and I was living in Sydney, Catherine had come up from Melbourne to visit and I thought I’d impress her with one of my culinary delights: turkey cooked in pomegranate juice, a Middle-Eastern dish rich in symbolism of fertility and love. First I sqeezed all the juice from the pomegranates and marinated the turkey. After cooking it up, I took the lid off the saucepan — it was the darkest meanest-looking purple stew you can imagine. There was really nothing I could do, so I turned the lights down very low and decided not to say anything. I served it up. When we’d finished eating, Catherine looked at me and smiled. Her teeth were completely purple. God we laughed. The acid in the pomegranate had reacted with the cast iron of the saucepan. We got our iron intake right up there that night and had stains on our teeth for days to prove it. So always use an enamel dish when you do something with pomegranate! (p. 84)
On a trip up to the wine country around Stanthorpe QLD, we picked up A Good Nose & Great Legs, the art of wine from vine to table by Robert Geddes.
Also produced by Murdock Books, the superb graphics make the solid information completely accessible without pandering. I find myself using this book as a reference, but get snagged into interesting bits, coming away with more than I planned. Here are some notes on Australia’s world-famous shiraz.
A Good Nose & Great Legs by Geddes
From Chapter 3, Varieties of Wine: Reds and Blends, Geddes writes:
Recent DNA tests pinpointed the birth of shiraz to be around 2000 years ago in the Rhone Valley. Shiraz is understood to be a cross between the now obscure white mondeuse blanche and the extinct dureza. It had limited planting in France, so Australia largely had the variety to itself until France reappraised it and recently planted huge volumes.
Is there any place in Australia that can’t grow shiraz? Certainly there are exceptions but shiraz has shown magnificent ability to adapt to the needs of the industry and the dry, warm Australian climate to consistently produce a distinctive big burst of recognizable flavour wherever it is grown. Australian shiraz delivers like a fast bowler in their [sic] prime with line, length and finish. (p. 90)
Also beautifully produced is the graphically gorgeous Dollar Dreaming, inside the Aboriginal art world by journalist (The Australian) and New York Times art critic Benjamin Genocchio, from Hardie Grant Books.
Dollar Dreaming by Genocchio
There is so much to learn from this book that I find myself reading it in smaller doses, although its style is extremely readable. Genocchio not only chronicles the origins of the Aboriginal art market in Australia, from its inception to the current condition, but he delivers insightful examples of the intersection of the mainstream Australian culture with its contemporary art consumers and the Aboriginal communities as they have are today. One learns about what stories are told in paintings and what is not revealed, about the cultural pressures on well-known artists to produce, on the legitimate and shadow art trade, and so much more.
From Chapter Four, “The birth of modern Aboriginal art” is the following:
The first ‘dot paintings’ had few dots at all. They were, rather, an accurate cursive-style record of cultural traditions, sometimes containing depiction of sacred objects and secret information that were forbidden to the sight of the uninitiated. It is well documented that once these paintings began to see outside the settlement they provoke outrage and anger within the desert Aboriginal community. There was even violence, with Aboriginal people hurling stones and boomerangs at an Alice building housing the first exhibition by Papunya Tula artists.
Forced to respond to these pressures, the artists began to develop a more simplified iconography that was less revealing of secret material. Dots — previously of little intrinsic importance to the designs, though the shimmering effect they created was highly valued as a symbol of Dreaming power — came to dominate the pictures. The colour scheme was also expanded. In short, almost as soon as the artwork began to be sold to outsiders it began to change. (p. 64)
Indulge yourself. Dive into this literary feast. They are easy on the waistline and great for the brain.
* * *
For more information and locators for Potts Point Bookshop, go to www.pottspointbookshop.com.au or call 02-9331-6642. They will order and send books at your request.
The Artist’s Lunch by Alice McCormick and Sarah Rhodes, Murdock Books. ISBN: 978-1921259517. About $60 AUD or £25.
A Good Nose & Great Legs by Robert Geddes, Murdock Books, ISBN: 978-1740458764. About $38 AUD, £17.
Dollar Dreaming, Inside the Aboriginal Art World by Benamin Genocchio, Hardie Grant Books, ISBN: 978-1-74066-609-1. About $40 AUD.
