Creative arty things

Colour matching the Brisbane River

I own a book titled 'I'd Rather Be In The Studio'.  It describes itself as 'The Artist's No-Excuse Guide to Self-Promotion'.  It encourages you to explore chapters such as defining success, organising information, the power of your artists statement, creating a portfolio to impress people and how to amplify your online presence with social media.  As I said, I own this book.  I have even picked it up and opened it.  Hell, I've even read some of it.  It is full of fabulous positive methods of going out there (beyond the studio) and selling your art.  I often read it in bed at night and go to sleep full self confidence, and good vibes full of great ideas.  Then I wake up in the morning and beat (after dropping Ella and Charlie at school, shopping, buying petrol, swimming lessons, cooking, appointments...whatever else takes up my time) a hasty retreat straight back to the studio.  It is sanctuary, safety from the outside world and somewhere I can be in my creative zone, that currently feels more like a beaten up dog kennel than a palatial retreat for an uninterrupted thought process.

So, if you are wondering how the Siobhan Kelley art market is going...umm.  What I have done is finally unpack some canvases that I sent to Port Hedland three years ago and never unpacked.  That was confusing.  I discovered I owned six small square canvases that were completely blank.  Nothing drawn up, still wrapped in the same bubble wrap they left in.  Why do I own these?  Then weeks later I opened my visual diary, which also has not seen the light of day for an eternity, and I laughed out loud.  There was the plans for a painting incorporating six small canvases 'The Tropic of Capricorn', which spans the invisible line on maps through the three states it passes.  Two canvases for each state.  

I had thought I had moved on from the map paintings, but also packaged in these boxes were the beginning of 'Flow', a painting I had intended to enter in the Wynne.  It also consists of six square canvases - slightly larger than the unpainted ones.  This painting depicts a map of each capital city that has a river flowing through it.  The river is painted in pale blue with a darker blue outline and writing.  The idea is to join the rivers to produce one long flowing river.  Each canvas would be hung at different heights, depending on where the river ends and begins on each canvas.  It has been three years since I last touched any of those canvases, and do you know, I still like the painting enough to want to see it completed.  I actually still have a box with four containers of paint that I was using three years ago.  Naturally, most of it has dried up, so I spent an hour yesterday mixing new containers of paint with the thought that I will continue to work on this painting until its completion.  

I do not have it in me to sell art.  I hate selling art, I would rather give it away.  I would much rather be in my studio than any other place on earth...maybe.  I would much rather vacate my brain of all the useless information it has floating in it in order to fill it with deeply contemplated creative arty things.  Do you know something.  I think I will do just that.  Except for the bit about vacating all useless things.  Unfortunately I still need to know when the shoe sales are on.

Sales pitch

East Cape, acrylic on canvas board, 12.5x18cm

Sailors Grave, acrylic on canvas board, 12.5x18cm

Pearl Point, acrylic on canvas board, 12.5x18cm

Where to begin?  My mind is scatty and all over the place.  I have come to the realisation that in order to make more art work I need to make some money.  This is an incredibly difficult thing for me to do.  The thought of knocking on cafe, gallery, real estate and home wares shops makes me feel nervous, self conscious and sick to my stomach.  I dread it and yet it is the only way I can put my paintings out there on mass for the public to see at relatively no expense to myself.  I have been talking to my husband Nathan about this and am considering employing him to be my spokes person, at some considerable expense to myself.

These little landscapes on canvas board are what I am considering selling.  Fortunately this is something I love doing, small plein air paintings.  And the more I paint, the more competent I feel I become.  Just like knocking on doors no doubt.  The above paintings I had the pleasure of making while on a week long holiday at Cape Conran in far east Gippsland.  For two hours a day I sat on a beach and painted and despite some inclement weather, it was the most content I have been on a holiday. 

The idea is to frame these little gems myself and offer a small group to a premises that will allow me to hang them with the hope that if priced correctly, they might sell.  I call this bread and butter.  What I really want to do is paint leaves and feathers by the hundreds, but in order to do so I require materials (canvas), which is costly and as I have no income it makes it difficult to justify buying anything.

I am vaguely working towards an exhibition, which also incurs costs and, in my experience, results in negative sales.  For me art has never been about the money, it has always been about the making.  However it has come to a point where I need to start selling in order to pursue the ideas drifting around in my head.  So for now I guess I continue painting small landscapes, figure out a way to frame them and then...gulp...hit the streets.

Girls can do anything

 On location at Newport Lakes Park, Newport.

Ilona Nelson at he conclusion of her performance piece.

When I was in high school our 'career councillor' gave us stickers that said "Boronia High School girls can do anything".  I was in year ten and it was a time when girls were being encouraged to consider careers in the male dominated trades and continue to study the less popular subjects like science and maths.  Of course I chose none of the above, but it was the beginning of a new attitude towards women and careers.  What the governments, schools and career councillors failed to impart on us however, was that girls can not do everything.  

Speculating from my own view point, I wonder whether this push to place more women on career paths within the workforce resulted in many of us not conceiving until much later in our lives while we pursued progress and promotions.  Then we did marry and had families and returned to work as soon as we possibly could, because hey fellas, us girls can do not only anything, but everything.  Which may be the case for the first years of your child, but eventually the dream of being Wonder Woman Super Mum would hit the invisible wall.  Suddenly, for the first time, compromise and concession lead to confusion about identity and idealism.  Suddenly those bawdy broads who could do anything were thrust back in to their tradition roles of being mother and wife, the very kryptonite we had all been desperate to avoid.  

Which brings me to Newport Lakes Park last week.  My daughter and I participated in a performance piece by local artist Ilona Nelson for her upcoming exhibition 'This Place'.  Ilona's work explores the very reality that most mothers, and artists in particular, encounter when a child's survival depends on you and your art studio is left for the spiders to make cobwebs in.  For the performance piece we were asked to wear silky dressing gowns, reminiscent of the 1950s, and adorn her in items such as texta colour, water, sand, oats feathers, stickers and my daughters favourite, tinned spaghetti which Ella delicately painted over Ilonas arms.

The performance concluded with Ilona collapsing into the grass.  For me, this performance was about the burden of motherhood and all of those surprisingly light and unexpected items that piled upon you only weigh you down.   My daughter, who is now eight, kept asking questions as to why we were wearing these gowns and what we were doing.  Trying to explain to an eight year old why I would rather be painting than looking after her is not an easy thing, and inevitably leads to the other culprit I have not discussed with you today, guilt.

"This Place aims to break the barriers of the white cube, create interactive art in a family friendly space and, perhaps most importantly, prompt honest conversations about the complexities of parenthood".  Art Almanac Dec/Jan 2014-15.

'This Place' is showing at Town Hall Gallery in Hawthorn from January 10 to February 22.

http://www.ilonanelson.com/

What difference does it make?

'Oh The Devil Will Find Work For Idle Hands To Do' 1992 acrylic and cardboard on board.

'I Stole And Then I Lied Just Because You Asked Me To' 1992 acrylic, cardboard and paper on board.

Welcome to my youth and the beginnings of my painting career.  You may recall me telling you about  my love of the graphic and Pop Art?  Well no one spoke to these sensibilities quite like Jasper Johns.  I began painting and drawing American flags and targets the year I decided graphic communication was not the career path for me.  

The titles of these works refer to The Smiths song 'What Difference Does It Make?', the lyrics of which I later scratched in to another canvas with a safety pin.  It caused me so much pain I stuck and icy pole stick to my finger just to finish the work.  Now that is suffering for your art.  Actually not sticking the icy pole stick to my finger would have been closer to suffering for my art.  I was in fact suffering from a broken heart and found solace in wise and upbeat lyrics of The Smiths, and anyone who cares to contradict me surely has not suffered a heart as broken as mine.

These paintings have been photographed ''wrapped in plastic'' (Twin Peaks anyone?)  I love the effect.  They were recently unearthed from the cubby house in the back yard of my parents house.  The same cubby house that at least two brush tail possums have called home for the past past million years.  As far as the possums go, they only tried to eat one painting.  Actually it was the pine wood stretcher they either used as a scratching post or a toothbrush rather than the canvas.  One canvas we found had disintegrated so badly there was barely anything left of it.  The rest of the plastic covered paintings had a pleasant aroma of shellac and possum piss.  A smell that would turn even a true nature enthusiast.

While the rest of my angsty Smiths/ Johns ridden youth were duly photographed before hitting the scrap heap, these two paintings I kept for posterity.  They have since been relocated to the relative safety of the garage, where they are now at the mercy of two hatch backs and my parents driving ability.

Barry R Tape

Another project in the works.  For years I have wanted to photograph barrier tape in the landscape.  I think it appeals to my graphic sensibilities.  I love the bold red and white stripes that dominate their setting.  For several months now I have been scouring the landscape and roadsides for barrier tape.  I would eventually like to print and frame enough worthy images to have and exhibition.  

I am thinking of titling it Barry R Tape and titling the works with human attributes.  I am still working on titles for the above images.  I am thinking Flourish, Jaunty and Lofty.  I think they display a light hearted sense of playfulness and carelessness.  

My children have helped me collect feathers, leaves and beach treasures.  Now the yell "Barrier Tape" every time we drive past some.  I always have a camera in the car and stop when time permits.  Of course the conditions are not always ideal.  The sun is in the wrong place, the sky is so over cast it creates no contrast in the foreground, the ideal position to be standing is in the middle of a freeway, I guess that's why I have taken over 300 photos already. I have culled that to 37, but even they need to be edited again.

I don't know when, where or if this exhibition will ever take place, but I have certainly been having fun 

with Mr Barry R Tape.

Outdoor Studio

Blairgowrie 12x17.5cm acrylic on canvas

Friday 20x25.5cm acrylic on canvas board

Tootgarook 12x17.5cm acrylic on canvas

As is evident, I have been painting outside again.  My studio is like an ice box at present and completely uninspiring.  I have cut and arranged my leaves ready for sewing...ice box.  It is difficult to want to sit and sew on the floor of an ice box.  While it was still winter when I painted these, the days were windless and sunny.  I packed my paints, canvas, cameras and a toy trolley full of spades, rakes and dump trucks, then Charlie and I headed for the beach.  For this reason I have deliberately painted small.  Although Charlie could spend hours digging a hole six times his three year old self, even he has limits.  And I wanted this to be fun, something we could do together.  

I have also decided all of my plein air paintings, more or less, look exactly the same.  Flat, controlled, motionless, rather like my life I fear.  The more astute of you may have detected a variation in style of the above paintings?  As I have mentioned previously Australian Impressionism/ Heidelberg School is one of my favoured styles of painting.  I have stared for hours and hours in admiration at the swift and deliberate marks made by brush and knife that on close inspection are a blur of colour, but when viewed from a distance merge in to a leaf, or a fold in a ladies skirt.  While sitting on the beach, enjoying the windless sunny weather, I have been trying to channel something of a more spontaneous spirit.  I have been thinking of non-representational colour and I have been thinking about something I heard Arthur Boyd say once.  That the colour of the sky is reflected in the land.  I am not sure I am achieving any of these things at present.   The grand plan of course is to eventually paint on a much larger scale, around 50cm square, which is quite a bit more canvas to cover and will require larger brushes.  The hope is that scaling up will allow for something unexpected to happen.

I am excited by the prospect of painting outside on a larger scale (until the actual day arrives and I find my studio much warmer than I previously thought).  Until then I will continue my outdoor studies on the relative safety of a smaller scale. 

Spontaneity and success

works in progress

There is something wonderful about spontaneity in the studio.  Those happy accidents you can not hope to anticipate.  I have had plenty of these moments recently, especially the morning I walked in and discovered I had re-painted five canvases and left them to dry with the intention to continue re-painting them in the following studio session.  Had it been a week?  I remember at the time devoting myself to the re-painting of these canvases that I thought I could do something far more interesting with.  I had a system. Paint, dry, sandpaper, repeat.  Then when I walked in on Friday this whole system seemed entirely ludicrous so I immediately adopted a new system.  Paint, dry, repeat.  What was with the sand paper? So I have been re-painting.  Some of the canvases are for a future painting, the others I am allowing to mature until that spontaneous moment calls for them.  

This moment presented itself recently on an occasion when I least expected it.  I found some sea grass I had collected from the beach several years ago.  I had bound it together with cotton and placed it on a piece of chicken wire.  I took it from the bookshelves and placed it on the small stretcher I made ten years ago.  Behind it I placed a section of shipping chart.  As I looked at it I realised I had finally found the right combination of objects and solved the problem of how to use these small frames that had been moving around my studio for six months.  It all sounds so simple, but I had literally spent those six months trying a variety of objects in various combinations without success.  The simplicity of the act and the solution make the entire venture all the more satisfying.

The joys of a studio.  The nature of my work has changed dramatically thanks to finally having a space of my own to spread out, create a mess...and leave it.  So I look forward to the happy accident that occurs with the three remaining canvases, and I look forward to sharing that moment with you.