Gradient Wind Analysis: Heidi

Gradient Wind Analysis: Heidi 120x120cm acrylic on canvas 2012

This my entry for the 2012 Hedland Art Awards.  It is a wind map of Tropical Cyclone Heidi that crossed the coast of Port Hedland in the early hours of January 12, 2012.  My first ever cyclone, and a direct hit.  Thankfully it was only a category 2.  Two months later Tropical Cyclone Lua (seriously, who is responsible for naming these cyclones?  They are cyclones after all, not puppy dogs) devastated Pardoo, some 150km north east of Port Hedland.  It was a category 4.  I remember seeing footage taken by the owners of the road house.  The rain was coming in vertical, forcing it's way through every gap and crack it could find.  Light fittings became water features, bowsers were blown over, as in out of the ground.  Watching it on television was terrifying.  Although there was something of a let down in the community that it missed us altogether - we went to red alert.  The school closed, the shops closed, the port closed.  It is actually illegal to be out of your house on red alert.  Then to have nothing happen (I actually think it's windier today than it was on March 17), was sort of disappointing, but after seeing that footage I was so grateful.  I am convinced our 'house' (fibro shack with gaping holes in both floors and walls) would have resembled a live in swimming pool. 

Heidi was frightening because of the unknown.  It went from a category 1 to a category 2 and tracked from 200km south west of Port Hedland to a direct hit.  I learned of our upgrade from blue alert to yellow alert from the deli staff at Woolies.  Being my first cyclone I was not yet familiar with the terminology or their meaning.  By early afternoon we were on red.  It was windy.  By night the wind had intensified.  We went to bed at 11pm and lay awake listening to the wind.  I kept thinking 'it can't blow any harder', and then it would ramp it up a little more.  It was dark, it was raining, there was nothing to see, yet I had to look out of the window.  The palm trees were bent forward.  There was no gusty, there was just relentless howling wind.  The eye of the storm passed through around 5am, by which time I had finally gone to sleep.  That day was spent in a daze of sleeplessness.  The all clear was given around lunch time.  We had minimal damage.  A lot of leaf litter and puddles, and the back fence which came awry (and six months later is yet to be fixed.  I may have mentioned this in a previous blog).  

So I am grateful my first cyclone was not a category 4 and I eagerly anticipate the opening of the Hedland Art Awards.

shadows and sun

Beacon, Point Samson.  Acrylic on canvas 12x18cm.

I painted this while on a weekend retreat at Point Samson at the start of the month.  I painted without a palette because I had thoughtlessly left it at home.  It put me in a mild panic when I realised what I had done, until I decided to embrace the freedom of being paletteless and paint on regardless.  So I applied paint directly to the canvas - in sparing amounts so as not to overwhelm the tiny canvas, and mixed paint wet on wet and in the tops of lids.  Do you know I surprised myself.  The white at the horizon line glows, and the graduation of colour through the water is seemingly seamless.  I also did a small pen sketch of the beacon before I painted it, which I will try to include an image of.

Can I just say how wonderful it was to walk away from everything for an hour or more and listen to...other peoples children, the silence, the sounds of the beach.  how wonderful it was to sit and think about nothing more than how to apply paint to canvas in order to resemble something of what I could see before me.  Selfish and self indulgent and wonderful.  I started 'plein air' painting when I returned to university, and I hated it.  My canvases were too large for what I was trying to achieve and usually took between 6-8hours.  Obviously within that time planets revolve and shadows move, so what you begin painting in the morning would often no longer be there by the afternoon.

That exercise did make me pay more attention to colour and shape and shadows.  A heightened awareness of my surrounding environment you might say.  I remember catching the train to uni one morning.  After a week of gloomy Melbourne winter skies a sliver of sun appeared.  "Oh, wow, look at that shadow.  Oh-my-God it's a shadow, Oh-my-God the sun!"  But I noticed the shadow first.  Now I paint on postcard size canvases that I can hold in one hand.  They take roughly an hour, which is long enough to sit and focus on one aspect of the landscape without loosing interest or shadows.  And I love it.  I am hoping to do some more 'plein air' paintings before I leave Port Hedland, but it is my desire to return to the Pilbara without children or husband and spend a week in the desert painting...sigh.

Clothes line in bloom

This is real, it is not an art installation, although I wish it were.  I had a fantasy once, a long time ago when I had my very own Hills Hoist in the back yard, of creating a maze by pegging long plastic sheets to the clothes line.  I wanted to enter in to a sculpture prize - no idea which one, which ever one would accept me no doubt.  I had another art fantasy of covering an entire room in bubble wrap, a sort of interactive art work if you like where the audience were encouraged to pop all the bubbles.  Extra point for the ones on the ceiling - some analytical thinking required there.

But the above image is real.  It is in fact our back neighbours yard (and flowering clothes line).  I'm sure she would be quite horrified if she knew I had taken photos of her clothes line and posted them on the internet.  There is a man coming to slash and burn and sculpt the terrain in to something that looks less like an art installation and more like a suburban desert garden.  (I hope you all noted the lush green and lively looking vegetation that dominates this suburban desert garden.  Not all red dust.)

The reason I have access to my neighbours clothes line is because our back fence partially blew down during our first introduction to a bit of wind in the Pilbara. cyclone Heidi.  The reason the fence remains an invisible barrier is due to the quote to repair it.  At $17 000 (no that is not a typo) neither side of the fence are particularly thrilled to spending that much money on a fence, and considering neither party live in their Pilbara mansions, neither party are concerned about fence that they won't have the pleasure of enjoying.  Meanwhile, we have made friends with our neighbour, whom we otherwise would not really know.

Now to the art.  There has been a bit going on since my last post.  I have been in contact with the Courthouse Gallery regarding the completed 'Pretty Pool Creek'.  Excitingly they are going to hang the paintings for their next exhibition opening in late June.  I have also started a painting for the Hedland Art Awards, which I have titled 'Gradient Wind Analysis, Heidi'.  It's a weather map of the wind the day after cyclone Heidi.  I wasn't clever enough to think about printing out weather maps of cyclone Heidi the day of the cyclone, although I did regular print outs of the forecast tracking maps of the cyclone as it approached the coast.  However, there was something about the wind gradient map that I found more engaging than all of the tracking maps.  I will post a work in progress in my next post.  In the mean time, enjoy the blooming clothes line.

I just remembered another fabulous work of clothes line art.  I'm not sure if I can copy the image without permission, so I will include the link.  Please enjoy.

http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/work/395.1993.a-c/

Holidays

Flinders 12.7x17.8cm acrylic on canvas board

Approaching Storm, Franklin Road 12.7x17.8cm acrylic on canvas board

Sphinx Rock 12.7x17.8cm acrylic on canvas board

Holidays...ahhh, remember them?  We have just returned from one.  Oddly enough, we went 'home' for our holiday - is that an oxymoron?  It was delightful to be able to go outside again without breaking into a sweat just standing still.  In fact we relished the sweet fresh air as the doors parted at Melbourne Airport (that definately has to be an oxymoron).  Our driver apologised for the heat of the car, left sitting in the sun, while we loaded our bags and strapped the children in.

"Oh no, this is not hot", although I did notice a trickle of sweat running from his temple as he drove us away.  "Oh," I thought "Maybe it is hot".

I think I managed to achieve most things on my holiday wish-list.  Shopping: check, facial: check, painting on a beach without children: two out of three.  Can you guess which ones?  The day I painted 'Approaching Storm, Franklin Road' was hot.  So hot in fact that my paint was drying in the palette before I could put it on the board.  It was hot, I was tired, I had two children and a husband to keep an eye on, and the storm was approaching, although didn't reach us for several hours after the painting.  Actually, it looks nothing like an approaching storm.  It looks like a calm, still day.  After I had finished and was in the process of packing to leave my daughter saw it and cried,

"Mummy, that's beautiful"

"It's a bit of a mess actually"

"No, it's really beautiful"

"Thank you"

I can't argue with a five year old, and I might as well take the compliment I thought, although I still believe it is a terrible painting.

So we have returned 'home' to the heat, although it is cooler at night and in the mornings, and my enthusiasm for painting has waned.  Remember the Pretty Pool Creek painting destined for the gallery, only several weeks away from completion?  Nothing.  I feel tired just looking at it.  I am guessing it will return, that spark, but for now painting is a chore. (That absolutely is an oxymoron).

Pretty Pool Creek

Pretty Pool Creek 2012, acrylic on canvas.  Each panel measures 41x41cm.

This is a sneak preview of my most recent painting destined for the walls of The Courthouse Gallery gift shop.  It is still weeks from completion, and although I continue to measure each line to the millimetre, I have relaxed a little.  Some of the purple outlines are less than perfect, but there are so many of them that I am prepared to let them slide.  What am I talking about?  There are many small lines covering the canvases and yet I am obsessively trying to paint each one completely and perfectly straight, which is difficult given they are only 3mm wide.  Recently I have been painting until I have pain in my hand and shoulder and obliques while meticulously painting each one of those little (expletive) lines straight.  Oh the joy of painting.  

On the up side, my husband finally conceded that he liked the painting (all three of them - it's called a tryptic).  I also invited a friend over for water, muffins (it was 40C and hot beverages were just out of the question) and painting critique.  She also sided with the affirmative.  

"Why don't you like them?"

"Because I have been looking at them for so long I have become blind to them."

"Just finish them and send them to the gallery."

"Oh I will.  They only need a few more weeks and then they'll be finished."

"What?"

So then I preceded to do what I was once taught to never do, show all the faults.  

"Look at this line here, and this bit here..."

"What?"

"I couldn't possibly sign my name and ask people for money for a painting that looked like that."

So I guess it's back to the table and easel for a couple more weeks of side numbing pain.  

Oh, and in case you're wondering, I haven't asked the octopus (the one who resides under my easel in the painting corner) his opinion yet.  I feel he is going to be a tough critic and refuse to seek his advice until I am satisfied this painting is complete.  

Studio Corner

These are two images of my palatial studio/ toy box, where I try to spend as much time as I can painting.  The images on the wall and easel are of Pretty Pool Creek and are destined for the Courthouse Gallery gift shop, which I view as a practical solution to having paintings for sale in the gallery without the stress of painting for a show.  This way I can also gauge feed back, which I am eager for as so far the only people to have seen this painting have been my family and unfortunately their feed back has been less than helpful.  

Conversation with five year old daughter:

I like the one that says 'Creek'

It's one painting

Yeah, the one on the end

No, it's one painting.  It's three panels that make one painting, it's called a triptych

Well, I like the one on the end

Conversation with husband:

What do you think?

Which one don't you like?

It's one painting, three panels, one painting it's called a triptych, what do you think?

Why don't you just keep going, or start another painting and then see what you think.

ARGH!  Sometimes I miss the interaction of other artists in a communal studio space.  Sometimes I yearn for a conversation about line and colour and composition and application.  Sometimes I would just like a simple answer to the question, 'What do you think?'

Anyway, I believe I have reached a resolution of the painting (all three of them).  I will post an image of the completed work before it hangs on the walls of the Courthouse Gallery.

Courthouse Gallery

• 

The Goodbye Storm

Artist: Melissa Sandy
Arts Group: Yinjaa-Barni Art
Title: The Goodbye Storm 
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

• 

Tableland Slabs

Artist: Clifton Mack
Arts Group: Yinjaa-Barni Art
Title: Tableland Slabs
Medium: Acrylic on Canvas

Without wanting to sound like the Christmas Grinch...Hooray, it's over.  I am excited by the fact for two reasons.  Firstly we have our shoe box mansion back.  (Apologies to our visitors who graced us with their presence over the month of December).  Secondly, the Christmas tree took my corner (read studio), which I was deeply upset about.  Happily I packed it away in it's box again today and, with a little reshuffling, have reclaimed my corner.  

Despite the Christmas shenanigans, I have managed to do some paintings on paper.  Little experiments for canvas paintings that will go in the Courthouse Gallery gift shop here in Port Hedland.  I have been told that anything with Port Hedland on it sells, which I thought rather odd considering it's usually only tourists that go gift shopping for memorabilia of places they have been, until I realised I too had began buying 'Port Hedland' paraphernalia.  My guess is because it is a transitory town that people like to buy little memories when they find the things they like.

The two above paintings are my favourite currently on exhibit at the gallery.  I have been thinking how I might be able to incorporate some of the repeat patterning of the landscape that occurs in both nature and these paintings.  I am excited by the prospect of something new in my work.  I remember people saying to me before moving here, 'It'll be interesting to see how the move will effect your paintings', and I thought 'It won't'.  But I shall be a nay sayer no more.