Some beautiful little stores have opened up all over the country … and, as well as all manner of fine goods, they’re also stocking Dumbo feather. If you live in these parts, by all means pop into;

QLD – Reap N Sow – a new retail artspace in Burleigh Heads on the Gold Coast
VIC – Orlando & Ivy – Ming-Zhu has wonderful taste, and her store in North Melbourne is the perfect extension of it
VIC – New Leaves in Woodend, is owned by the lovely Claire who’ll help you find something special every time
WA – B&M Store – for ‘crafty bits & bobs’ in Fremantle
TAS – Hobart Bookshop – Tassie’s best bookstore
Wellington – Minerva – a haven for textile lovers … which also has a damn fine mag selection

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Last year, Dumbo feather’s founder and editor, Kate Bezar, was asked to be part of a very special revolution, a revolution spear-headed by a very special man called Jono Fisher. Jono has made it his mission to bring together like-spirited people, to inspire them, to get them thinking and to get them doing … He calls it ‘Wake Up Sydney’. A couple of times a year Jono pulls together a fantastic evening with inspiring speakers and performers … wine, chocolate … seriously, who could want for more? Next month he’s holding another event, this time in the Sydney Town Hall. It’ll be very special, cross our hearts … All the details are on the Wake Up Sydney website.

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Hey crew, we’ve got some great tickets to give away today to current Dumbo feather subscribers.

2 x double passes to the Sydney Theatre Company’s upcoming production ‘Stockholm‘
5 x double passes to the next major ACMI (in Melbourne) exhibition, ‘Tim Burton‘

Stockholm (17 March – 24 April) is performed by groundbreaking British physical theatre company, Frantic Assembly, and Sydney Theatre Company. It treads a fine line between fantasy and reality … a mesmerisingly powerful piece of dance-theatre which reveals a relationship that is founded on co-dependency, obsession and abuse. To win a double pass, be one of the first two to email comps@dumbofeather.com with Stockholm as the subject and the name of the person who wrote Stockholm.

From June to October 2010, ACMI will host a unique exhibition direct from The Museum of Modern Art, New York. An Australian exclusive, Tim Burton: The Exhibition is a landmark retrospective charting Burton’s creative vision and process from his earliest work to the spectacular Alice in Wonderland. To win a double pass, be one of the first five to email comps@dumbofeather.com with Burton as the subject and the name of the exhibtion’s curator.

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[L is for Lover, not Loser]

To me the word ‘amateur’ has always had negative connotations. If I described someone as “such an amateur” I’d be implying that they didn’t really know what they were doing. But did you know, the word ‘amateur’ actually comes from the French meaning ‘lover of’? If you think about it, in sporting circles, ‘amateur’ is used to describe someone who plays for no pay ie. for the love of it. We should be amateurs with pride! What do you do ‘just for the love of it?

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It’s rare that a press release makes us stop to think, or even laugh for that matter, but this morning we received one that did both. Here’s how it went;

“In the 1950s, novelist Kurt Vonnegut was fresh out of university. Wondering where his career was headed, he took a job at ‘Sports Illustrated’ magazine, where his first assignment was to write an article about a horse that had jumped a fence during a race in an attempt to escape. The story goes that after staring at the blank piece of paper in his typewriter all morning, Vonnegut wrote, “the horse jumped over the fucking fence” and then left the building. Disillusioned, and on the verge of abandoning his art altogether, Vonnegut took a teaching job at a writers’ workshop. During his time there, his thesis became a bestseller, and he began the novel ‘Slaughterhouse Five’, which would go on to become one of the most popular novels of all time.
Vonnegut’s story is dramatic, but not terribly unique. Many artists leaving university find themselves questioning their practice, their industry, their peers, and their professional identity. Each year, LAUNCH brings together a group of recent graduates whose work in part forms a response to these questions …”

Thanks Brunswick Arts, I’m sure the exhibition will be fantastic.

Some more Vonnegut-isms …

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Our latest stockist is the best darn ‘corner’ store on Waiheke Island (just off the coast of Auckland, New Zealand). It’s called Waiheke Fruit & Veg, but generally goes by its nickname ‘The Top Shop’ and its owner Emily MacDonald is a pretty top lady herself. Not only is she still in her twenties (maybe even early twenties), but she’s transformed what used to be your pretty average shop into something really special. She stocks the best organic produce and gourmet goods (local if poss) like I love Pies, No. 29 Olive Oil and Cable Bay Wines, all the produce is labeled with its English AND Maori names and now it stocks Dumbo feather!

Waiheke Fruit & Veg is also the base for an incredible project Emily’s set up. Two years ago she visited the war-ravaged province of Gulu, Uganda and was inspired to do something to help the children there. In 2009, TheVillageProject raised over $60,000 from the sale of limited edition t-shirts and artworks. This year they’ve already raised half that again, this time by selling over 1,000 stainless steel water bottles too … Emily’s also on a mission to make the island plastic water-bottle free! You go girl.

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