Studio

Studio desk

Studio shelving with 'Flock'

I am finding this increasingly difficult.  As you may have noticed, but probably didn't, I missed the December edition of my blog.  It was close.  I actually went so far as to open the page, upload an image and begin typing, but found it increasingly difficult to concentrate on what I was typing and eventually gave up.  That said, I have been extremely pro-active in the studio.  Yes, I now have a studio fully set up and equipped and I have to say it is the most wonderful thing to have a space of my own where I can work without distraction, where I can put something down for the day rather than pack it away and mostly wonderfully of all I finally have a place where my mind can wander freely.  I have a place I can switch off and switch over to think about things other than washing and cooking and cleaning and ironing and what everyone is going to eat for lunch.  My studio provides sanctuary, pure indulgent escape, something I have craved for years.

So with my new found freedom an emergence of new ideas has erupted.  I am finding it increasingly interesting the way my ideas are unravelling themselves.  Usually when I start a painting I have a very firm idea of what the finished work will look like.  However, at present I find myself viewing my work from the periphery.  I catch a glimpse, but if I turn to look it vanishes.  I have vague ideas, I have vast collections, I have no idea, I still have vast collections.  I have found my work to be cyclical in that I will pursue one line of inquiry for years until I it runs its course or I run out of momentum.  In this case my last few paintings began a line of inquiry that lead to a logic that required change - of subject matter, of materials, of investigation.

Chance played a wonderfully intervening role in providing me with an idea toyed with but not explored which I began some ten years ago and had since forgotten.  I have found it has taken on a life of its own, yet I only have parts, a glimpse and not the whole picture.  I don't think this is a bad thing, rather I am excited by the possibility of discovery and I am interested to see how the ideas unveil themselves and how the work will progress.  I am in no hurry for the work to be completed, preferring it to take its natural course.  I must say it is a relief after becoming so meticulous about the previous paintings to relax a little and allow the natural flow of creative thought take its course.

Collect, catalogue, classify

Canvas, acrylic, oil, feathers, cotton.

While unpacking boxes containing decades of collected material can be a laborious dust filled task, it was with unexpected pleasure that I rediscovered some little treasures including this one.  I don't recall making it but I know it was in my second year of post grad while studying for my MVA (Master of Visual Arts) at VCA (Victorian College of the Arts).  It is a collection of feathers that have been sewn and painted on to small strips of canvas, which in turn have been sewn together.  I am thinking of adding to it, making it a quite large piece.

This little treasure I have labeled 'Flock' taps in to something I have been thinking about for a while now, that is systems of classification and mans desire to create order and clarity in nature.  I notice that even the humble garden is something that must be orderly, clipped and contained.  I like that man has to document, collect and classify everything in his world and beyond in order for him to understand his position in it.  Of course most of these concepts are relatively new, within the last couple of centuries.  Once man rejected God as the creator of life on earth he looked at the earth itself and discovered science.  This is probably an overly simplistic version of events, but I am interested in that period of change and discovery where man stopped looking to the heavens and began to note the world in which  he lived.

All of this thinking has lead me to examine my own collections and systems of classification and how I might go about my own analysis of them.  Meanwhile I am still in the process of sorting through the collections and wondering exactly how sort, document, categorise and store them.

Positive Procrastination

Tootgarook studio

Well, we are back 'home' on the Mornington Peninsula just south of Melbourne.  This is called procrastination.  I took this photo this morning, and rather than go and attack and sort and record and organise, I am sitting here blogging under the pretence of doing something.  The large paintings in the back left are from my last exhibition three years ago.  The large flat boxes and two large bubble wrapped paintings on the right arrived from Port Hedland about a month ago.  The rest of the work has been residing on level 31 of the Human Services building in Bourke Street, Melbourne for the past 10...12 years.  The Department of Human Services is relocating to the 26th floor and no longer requires the services of my paintings, some of which date back to 1995, my last year as an undergraduate at university.

So now I am waiting for the rain and the wind to stop so I can set up the easel in the back yard and photograph the decades of work.  I am waiting for a set of bookshelves to arrive so I can unpack the 10 or 12 boxes, currently housed in the spare room, full of magazine subscriptions and catalogues of inspiration.  And I am waiting for incentive to kick in.  

I found this in The Good Weekend on Saturday and I am going to quote it verbatim.  

POSITIVE PROCRASTINATION

People who like to put stuff off need feel guilty no longer.  Turns out procrastination can be put to good use: to get things done other than the task you are putting off.  Scientists reason that procrastinators rarely do nothing, so they can still be productive if they do (useful) stuff when they're avoiding doing other stuff.

So if the scientists agree, and I rationalise that what I am doing is useful, I really don't need to sort this studio out for a few more weeks yet.

Hedland Art Awards 2013

'Transit' at the Hedland Art Awards 2013

Well, here she is, Transit at her place of rest in Port Hedland's Courthouse Gallery.  I have to admit to being pleasantly surprised by how finished the painting looked, considering I spent another four hours painting on the day I had to drop her off at the gallery.  For me what was both surprising and delightful  was the luminescence of the work, an etherial quality I had not anticipated.  I'm not sure whether it was the lighting, the two litres of white I mixed with my colours or the thousands of variations of colour.  Maybe it was a combination, but it was the most proud I have felt about a painting and it is the first time I have seen my work in a group show where it seemed to belong.  

The overall show is one of the best I have seen in the gallery.  There is a clarity to it, a sense of place, a very distinct place.  There is an intensity of colour and a sense of quiet energy within the works that I have found unique to the Pilbara, yet the gallery maintains a calm that allows the viewer to engage with each piece individually.  

It is with great disappointment that I have to depart the Pilbara.  It will be a place that I will continually return to.  I will be interested to see how my experience translates in future works and how time and memory play out against each other in the following years.

Farewell dear Pilbara.  It has been a pleasure to know you.

Cyclone Tracy

I have just found this wonderful image painted by Rover Thomas, titled 'Cyclone Tracy' 1991.  The image depicts a black void as the cyclone gaining intensity as it makes its way towards Darwin and the resulting winds kicking up the red dust, which feed into the void.  Cyclone Tracy is both sophisticated and simple.  The black void allows for quiet contemplation of the wake of the devastating and destructive winds and emphasises the scale of the event that occurred.

This is what a cyclone painting should look like, something organic, imposing and encompassing.  It is not green.  Nor is it a literal reproduction of a computer modelling system.  It is time for me to move away from the literal and in to something much more intuitive.  I am in immense anticipation of once again having a studio in which to spread out and allow ideas and concepts to ferment, develop and grow without having to pack them away every afternoon.  Rather it is time to pack away the projector and allow the imagination to run rampant.

http://nga.gov.au/federation/Detail.cfm?WorkID=148012

Before and After

Transit (before)

Transit (after) 120x120 acrylic on canvas

Oh the dilemma.  Just looking at these two images I feel I made have made a huge error of judgement.  For whatever reason, this painting just didn't come together for me the way they usually do.  Looking back now I think that the error may have been in trying to make green the dominant colour rather than blue.  In the original that yellow is screaming while the white insisted on pushing itself forward.  In short my colours were all fighting each other and I wasn't sure which one to listen to.  I almost regret my decision not to persist with the original.  I can see now all it required was to pull that blue forward, push the yellow and green back and allow the white to be a space of quiet contemplation.

Instead I woke one morning and in hast changed white to green and green to white.  It was a decision that left me both uncertain and out of time.  On paper this was a dynamic composition, and one I laughed 'This will be easy', to which my husband replied 'Yeah, right'.  He was also horrified when he realised I was painting all the white spaces green.  'I thought that was the best painting you had done until now'.  Gee, thanks.  

Anyway, the painting was delivered to the gallery on Sunday and will await its fate in the Hedland Art Awards which are announced at the opening on August 30.  I am looking forward to seeing the exhibition and attending the judges walk through the following morning.

Cossack Art Awards

A selection of paintings in the Pilbara Landscape category

Sunday July 21 we again drove the 200km to Cossack.  Two days earlier we arrived back from four nights in Perth.  The gloss of the previous journey to Cossack had definitely worn off.  Even the landscape looked washed out and lacklustre. On arrival at Cossack we were greeted by a stream of cars and more people than I have ever seen at an art exhibition.  It appears family day at the Cossack Art Awards is an event not to be missed.

So after spending two hours in a car and meeting Dorothy the Dinosaur we were finally ready to tackle the three hundred paintings hung in the restored Post and Telegraph Office and Bond Store.  (The Bond Store is the blue stone building we my team of well trained painting handlers are standing in front of in the previous blog.)  To say the whole experience was overwhelming is an apt description. After traversing the eight rooms of the Post and Telegraph Office we made our way to the Bond Store.  It is a large building that was lined with paintings hung three high.  We had to have lunch and go back to take it all in.  And there, among the hundreds of paintings, was Rusty hanging the most popular category. 

I have to admit to being a little disappointed.  I don't often have the opportunity to view my work in a group situation, but every time I do it always makes me feel awkward.  After driving through the washed out landscape, Rusty appeared far too bright.  After considering some of the other paintings in the exhibition it occurred to me that cyclones are not luminous green, but shades of grey.  After seeing all those other paintings I began thinking more deeply about my own work.  I am beginning to feel that after spending the last six and a half years painting in a corner, that I had finally painted myself in to a corner.  

Seeing Rusty hanging on the wall ad mist all those other paintings set my mind reeling.  I am thinking of horizon lines and vast landscapes once again.  I am eager to once again take up the challenge of painting outdoors with the heat, the bugs, the constantly changing light, mixing colours to their likeness, and accurately capturing the essence of the land rather then merely reproducing it from photograph.  I have started sketching the landscape again.  I have to admit I find it deeply satisfying, being out in the land has a calming effect on me.  I usually stop on the way from school drop off in the morning on the days I spend painting.  Rather than racing home and anxiously slapping (precisely applying) paint on the canvas I find I breathe before I begin my painting day and approach the canvas having already achieved something for the day.

Although the travelling to and from Cossack is a process in itself, it was definitely worth the trip for all the insight and inspiration it provided for my corner bound mind.  Stay tuned for the Hedland Art Awards due in only eleven short days.

Oh, I forgot to mention, the painting that won the $8000 Pilbara Landscape Painting category was Celia Sandy for her work titled Hamersley Ranges, pictured top right in the photograph.