Saturday, January 28, 2012

whats been keeping me busy of late?

In January I could no longer ignore the obvious... if I wanted to feel focused this year the studio required complete reorganisation of all available space. Here are some images from after the clearn-up... no 'before' shots... far too hectic then indeed!


My new scrubbed up table with a basket of macadamia nuts and carved seed pod all the way from Central Australia thanks to the wonderful Candy Herne who lives in the rainforest near Montville, north of Brisbane.


Low res photos...  can see the floor and the table top... pop the cork ... I am celebrating at this point.


Its as if the space has expanded...


A new vista for when working at the desk top computer in the room next to my studio. I'm loving that separation between studio and computer!

I got this already in a hurry last weekend in time for Sundays first workshop here. The walls needed something so I found various pieces that were ideal to place here.


Every book, art material whatever it was found a home... shelves were repacked and anything possible to get rid of was sent elsewhere!


Love these filing shelves


 The tall shelf is where the desk top used to be... but in the end it was just too crammed in and this is neater... so I am very pleased with the new arrangement.



Cup of tea in the studio anyone?


 The nearby kitchen is always handy!


... and a table on the back veranda next to the studio for those times one wanted to sit or ponder or work somewhere more open.


Loved having a small all day workshop here last Sunday...  worth cleaning up the studio for! Messy work was conducted out the back on the grass by industrious participants Sue, Lorraine and Wendy.


This was the day before the heaviest rain we've had in ages... I was glad for the excellent weather... we had a great day!


From outside back into the studio


Two of the class members were continuing ideas stated last year in the Colour workshops. Sunday we worked  on calico rather than paper... it will later be collaged onto canvas. This is a technique Ive been using over the past five years and it worked really well here. I shot a couple of pics... missed out on getting all the work.... must have been side-tracked!


some work was done in journals...


The rest of the time calico was the perfect canvas... lots of experimentation was the order of the day... finding what worked on fabric and how that was different than paper.


Great to see the range of approaches. We looked at diverse artists for inspiration. Brice Marsden's work led to collecting twigs and trying them out as painting tools instead of brushes.


Geometry in various forms of art was another tangent.


 This was a fascinating botanical item we had trouble identifying ... any ideas!


Great rethinking colour and surface...


after the workshop... the table top has disappeared.


The room was well and truly christened for the year's work to take place in. It feels so much better than the highly packed space it was before. I spent the week working on concertina books ...picking up where the class left off.
Photos of that to come next!



Monday, January 23, 2012

the emerging motif


In 2004 I was working virtually full-time teaching, but carried a journal with me religiously and would get it out  in any meeting I was stuck in and begin putting things down. Simple forms and lines... not thinking consciously for the most part. I let the pen be moved by my hand as if the hand was doing the thinking and meanwhile I dipped in and out of the talk from the meetings.






























somewhere in that time I put down the lines that became eventually this form...



and later was put into hundreds of compositions small and large it was such a persistent motif


After a couple of years I was so uncomfortable with this compelling motif which felt like an incomprehensible interloper that I tried to pack it away ... but it would NOT leave!



By 2008 I realised it was here to stay so I no longer fought it and gave it space to emerge in my
work whenever. It evolved into the fully fledged 'homage to the seed' project the following year seemingly as if the motif had been heralding it all the long... seeds within a pod!

I found other drawings from around the time of the ones above in 2004 that demonstrate this clearly. This is why I have so much respect for journals as a way to track the emergent ideas.

Last night I worked in another concertina book and the form that wanted to live in there was once again this ovoid pod form. The feeling I get as I work on this abstracted form is that of something living in me that has to be put out into the light of day... its feels like a story that needs to be told... I actually get that sense of urgency when I work with this motif...even now... in 2012... that's 8 years on from when it first emerged.

This really feels like such a mysterious element in my work...  reminding one that compelling forces are at work within us all and we do have to pay attention!



Friday, January 20, 2012

working in transit... the mobile studio


Last night I returned from time out up the coast and put together a post on that at my visual eclectica blog  this morning.

I packed up some ink, watercolours and various journals and found some space to work sitting in cafes as well as at the holiday apartment. Hers a few mages from a cafe setting.


This is cotton rag paper ...a khaki journal i've been using lately... figuring out the best ways to enhance the qualities inherent in both paper and materials.



This concertina book is a really engaging surface to paint on... 


If i tire of a section i rework it or introduce other colours etc


that can mean adding or subtracting in a way that one regrets at times


but in order to give life to something that is par for the course!


In a way there are a lot of ideas stored in one small series of works in this concertina book.





Back to the cloth journal ... simple mono-prints




 and these are  a few images of the other side of the concertina book...


I started this journal at the Kew Mlllennium Seed Bank and have added to it now over several work sessions in the past few months. Ive got 4 more concertina books to use at some point and am looking forward to seeing what is generated by using this format.






mono-printed page in the cloth book



mono-printed pages



 working with textured marks




More work from Journals: 2008

                                          2011
                                         
                 and November 2011

I could post pages of journal images. Much to do... I'd best get moving now.



Friday, January 13, 2012

ideas emerging...


Yesterday I went along to GoMA for the afternoon to see Matisse: Drawing Life. I just found this bloggger's impression of viewing the show.... I never thought of bringing my camera! I was simply keen to see his work!

     

Sometimes I am put off the big block-buster nature of these shows, but on my mind was the thought it would be foolish indeed to miss out seeing an artist whose work I have long considered of major importance to my own thinking on art, quite apart from his international stature!

My enthusiasm to think about this artist revives periodically... always there is a freshness of seeing that astounds me... the other thing I enjoy is the fact of his dilligent long career and continual effort at drawing and painting. Hilary Spurling's thick and extremely well-done Biography is two parts has forever planted many an image in my mind. They gave rise to a great deal of thinking and add greatly to why his story as well as his work has resonance for me. Something about the nature of time especially is all the more vivid for this reading.

The exhibition did not disappoint.... I will likely to return for such a treat it was to cast my eyes over each work and drink in the lines, the nuances of each. His boldness was immense... the readiness to lose control in the effort to make an image that was animated struck me. Frequently drawings were un-beautiful...  and then they were astonishing beautiful like this one below.

Far more so in life. When I later looked at a reproduction after having viewed the work I was stunned at the difference...at my memory of the glow from the paper. Such purity of line and perfection of composition... economy of line.



Henri Matisse | France 1869 — 1954 | Fée au chapeau de clarté. Souvenir du Mallarmé 1933 | Drypoint on Velin Arches paper | Collection: Bibliothèque nationale de France | Réf Duthuit : 234 | © Succession H Matisse/Licensed by Viscopy, Sydney, 2011



The fact that there were numbers of Matisse's books featured made the exhibition all the more intense and rewarding. As I am currently thinking about the next book I will be working on I looked keenly to see what I might learn.

books

Matisse in the James C Sourris, AM, Collection of Rare Books - via here.

On display in the exhibition ‘Henri Matisse: Drawing Life’ until 4 March 2012, are rare and important books, journals and exhibition catalogues from the James C Sourris, AM, Collection of Rare Books. Held in the Queensland Art Gallery Research Library, these publications dating from 1936 to 1956, offer contextual background and a glimpse into Matisse’s oeuvre of the time.
A highlight of the collection is Verve. In December 1937, Tériade (Efstratios Eleftheriades 1897—1983) established the journal Verve, which he would edit until 1960. A quarterly review of arts, letters and literature, Vervewas noted for its high production values and lavish design, having been ‘conceived as a work of art in its own right.’1 It brought together the art of diverse countries and eras and featured numerous texts by both artists and writers, including Henri Matisse, Ernest Hemingway, Albert Camus, James Joyce, Marc Chagall, Jean—Paul Sartre, Man Ray, Pierre Bonnard, Pablo Picasso, Henri Cartier—Bresson and Joan Miró.
Matisse designed the cover of the inaugural issue for his friend Tériade: a nude drawn in Indian ink within a composition that is effectively his first paper cut—out, with the journal’s title appearing along the edge in calligraphic script. Matisse also contributed linocuts and lithographic prints for the third and fourth issues, such as a green, red and black variation of La Danse 1909—10, framed with pieces of paper painted with blue, yellow and black gouache.
For the eighth issue (summer 1940), entitled ‘La Symphonie chromatique’ (Symphony of colour), Matisse composed a cover using 26 differently coloured papers, ‘at once realistic and symbolic; it conveys the impression of multicolored precious stones strewn across a black cloth’,2 necessitating 26 passages through the lithographic press — an extraordinary feat for a printed journal. Tériade edited three special issues of Verve on Matisse’s paintings of the 1940s and his final paper cut-outs.

From the Gallery I went on to the State Library where I found refuge in the Asia Pacific Design Library  with its wonderful adjacent reading space.... not shown here.



With the temperature outside 37 degrees I was glad to stay till 8pm closing. I browsed the collection of books and magazines and will get back there soon to read other publications of interest.

I also picked up copies of Art Forum Magazine from 2011, musing over various artist's work ... particularly that of Philip Taaffe whom I posted on at my other blog last night.

Something was triggered seeing the Matisse show that I picked up on afterwards reading about Taaffe. A number of elements... the most obvious was the decorative theme of both, which in both cases has far deeper significance than is sometimes acknowledged. I will need to come back to this as its late and its worthy of more focus.

It is certainly timely to be reconsidering what came up yesterday as I am getting ready to embark on the next phase of painting, having reorganised my studio from top to bottom. A few days to chew over what to push ahead with in the next series of artworks is helpful ... also thinking about the book which is on the agenda for this year. I want to work visually for awhile before getting bogged down in words and ideas.

Sunday, January 1, 2012

a fresh start... a new year

Happy New Year everyone!

Ive not had my camera out of its case much in the last month... first it was the catch up on all kinds of tasks after a huge year and OS travel... then it was writing the E-newsletter. After all that it was the need to get stuck into the paints in the studio again.

I have so many photos from the trip Ive not posted...so I might work on that  next. It was fun creating a new header for this blog a few days ago. The image is from the greenhouse at the Millennium Seedbank.




I turned my attention to creating a new header for this blog (below)... not sure how long this one will last here... but the good thing about the casual nature of thus studio archive blog is that it is a place where I am happy to plant around. Its not a website... theres no formality here. I like that I can try things out and write down odd thoughts....much like one does in a journal!




The image below was on the header till recently ... this is where I was mid-year!




And before that was this header... the residency year.... seeds everywhere...and the oval paintings!



This one below reflects 2009.... its actually a painting turned on its side that I did with collaged fabric. I remember enjoying the colours in this one...it was called "coastal reverie" and does capture the moods for me of this region at the coast.




Well.... lets see what 2012 brings ... may your year be filled with enriching journeys of whatever kind you find yourself taking! 



PS:
I wrote about my trip to St Ives in Cornwall in October at this blog... and the lovely Carolyn, the blogger I introduced in that post, wrote a little also about that visit here in her wonderful blog. 





Carolyn Saxby has a thing for colour that many admire... this reflects her way of working. She walks daily if possible in her wonderful hometown of St Ives in Cornwall ... collecting things as she goes... perhaps making a drawing ... definitely takes shots... and later she works at bringing the colours to life!




Thanks Carolyn for sharing your wonderful stories and showing me around. My visit  to St Ives was brief but the memories are long!

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About Me

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Blogging for me is an extension of keeping a journal which I have done in various forms over the decades. The difference being this is not a closed book! I like that it offers an opportunity to explore that which concerns me as an artist and as an individual about living and participating in this vastly complex, unquestionably exciting yet unnerving time in human history. Through the blog I hope to increase the possibilties for cross-pollination which I believe can strengthen the sense of being part of something both personal and universal that is vital, expansive and refreshing.