Places I went. Things I did. Thoughts I had

Last week was a bit of a mish-mash of activities in the studio

1. I sorted through the meter high pile of stencils on top of my plan draws. Then cleaned out the 12 plan draws - I felt concerned that despite the ephemerality of my practice I have still accumulated vast amounts of paper/card and other art making residue. I often ponder a project that would forces me to use up all of the old stencils and drawings. The easiest option would of course be to re-enact Micheal Landy's 'Breakdown' exhibition in which he shreadded everything he owned, in order to explore issues of value and ownership, or I could make use of his Art Bin 

2. Made a paper-mache lions head hat for Brittany's Harry Potter costume, and a death eater costume for Jon.

3. Re-read Terry Smiths 'Provincialism's Problem'. Then read 5-6 articles around the Provincial Problem. Followed by 2 unrelated ABC Artworks podcasts, that both touched on examples of how we still suffer the cultural cringe in Australia.

4. Started doing my tax, whilst watching Gillard's announcement of a Carbon Tax Price. Got a bit conflicted, cause in theory I don't mind paying taxes - especially the carbon tax. Broadly speaking, I use a range of the services that taxes fund and from my egalitarian position I do believe that those who have more, should contribute towards those who have less. However, I spent hours and hours entering in every single receipt, even those amounts less than $1.00, in order to do what? Yep, pay less tax. Why is it so hard to live wholeheartedly without compromise?

5. Dug a whole in the garden to consider new ideas for work. Considered the whole. Thought: that's not a bad idea.

6. Drove to Lorne for the day to do a site visit for the 'Sculpturescape' exhibition. Came back to the cardboard tent idea again! Does this idea keep coming back because its worthwhile, or am i just stuck in a creative bog.

7. Went to the Vienna exhibition at the NGV, with my Dad, and spent several hours talking walking looking and wondering. We each brought our own separate knowledge: mine - the history of ornamentation and Dad's - of travels in Vienna and an understanding of broader world history, and we combined it with a love of talking about, around and through ideas.

8. I ended the week with a call asking if I could teach Landscape Painting and Drawing 1 day a week. This additional work load sent my already soupy head space through the blender, and i found myself initially overwhelmed with the amount of things I was trying to do. So after some cut-throat prioritising and a lengthy family meeting, I have decided to do the following; firstly I'm saying no to all social events, secondly I have decided that I won't be able to resolve my ideas for my trip to the US before I leave. I have a 3 week residency and so I need to rely on my own experience and expertise and trust that I am capable of turning up and creating the work once I arrive. I feel quite liberated by this, not just because its one less thing to do this month but also because I'm excited by the potential to respond more directly with the landscape when I arrive.

David Evans - Internal Temporal Order

Later this year I will be releasing a new website to document the 24 Hr Drawing Project, this will co-inside with another international 24 Hr Drawing Project - an event in which artists start and complete a work of art in a continuous 24 hour period. I'll keep you up to date with applications, website and dates.

But in the meantime, you should check out David Evans album 'Internal Temporal Order'. It's a beautiful and compelling album with quiet ambient sounds, eclectic rhythms, and endless loops of repetition that shift between being hypnotic and being surprising. Some of the tracks were produced during last years 24 Hr Drawing Project and so it's a brilliant example of what artists can achieve during this project.

Read more about it and have a listen here David Evans - Internal Temporal Order in Releases : Mess+Noise

Also note the patterned cover art by Louise Kellermen (another 24hr DP fellow). It is a great visual companion to the music, with its order/chaos and irregular patterning.

More on the cardboard tent.

Once the idea took on some physical form I could see chasm between intention and object - and it was deep wide and vast. The cardboard tent was meant to be a fragile temporary structure in which 2 elements of the environment could be revealed. From the outside the work would appear to be an unassuming banal cardboard structure, but inside it would be a decorated shrine in which visitors could intimately experience the materials of earth and light. But the gentleness of light and earth were quickly becoming overwhelmed by the thick heavy handed clunkiness that the mass of cardboard was forming.

A tent in my mind is a delicate temporary shelter, it yields to the wind, it absorbs the moisture of dew and rain, it reveals the light of day turning into night and then into dawn, inside it you can hear the environment moving and feel the uneven surface of ground and rocks and grass - unlike a building it is not severed from its environment. The mere shift of material from canvas to cardboard, however, dramatically eradicated these sensitive qualities.  In order to make it sturdy enough to withstand the elements, and because I need to engineer it in such a way that the walls could support the ceiling and it could be large enough to stand up in, the tent took on all the insulated presence and permanence of a double fronted brick veneer home.

What became clearer over a beer with an honest and generous friend was that I had created the opposite of my intentions. It was time for the tent to go.

How to find the work

Three Canons

Be still with yourself
Until the object of your attention
Affirms your presence

Let the Subject generate its own Composition

When the image mirrors the man
And the man mirrors the subject
Something might take over

Minor White 1968

Thanks to Art Blart  - Look up this blog if your interested in exhibition reviews

Blurring the line between real life and theatre

Recently a friend sent me this link to a blog about an unassuming public performance project, just had a chance to check it out today and thought I'd share it with you.

Here's the link Momentary Performances: Atlanta

3D printing

I got very very excited recently when I stumbled across Makerbot's Thing-o-matic which is, wait for it...... a 3D printer. Strangely no-one that I have shared this news with has been as thrilled by this new technology as me. One friend said "So, what? You pay $1000 for something that can make plastic ornaments. I don't get it, why would you want one?" Becauuuuuse you can print them yourself, because its not about making ornaments - it has a thousand creative possibilities, because this is the most radical piece of creative technology I've seen, because it's so brilliantly genius that a person could invent a machine that can take a jumble of 0's and 1's and make a real physical object. Imagine the thought process to get there - I stand in awe.

Another friend who I was certain would show at least more than a mild interest, had already heard about the technology and then he told me something which completely blew my mind out the top of my head and onto the ceiling - medical researchers are using 3D printing technology to create organs made from your own cells. 

I gave you a long pause there, so you could take a moment to fully absorb this information. Imagine the future possibilities, you could create a new liver on your computer, pop it on a memory stick, wonder across the street to Officeworks and say "I'd like to print this file, my other liver got used up. Also is it cheaper if I get more than one, cause I seem to go through livers quite quickly. Great I'll be back in half an hour."And then you could go off to the pub. 

Flowers on a flowers grave

These lyrics are on constant repeat in my head tapes - For weeks I have heard the distant gravely voice singing "and tell me who will put flowers on a flower's grave". It's being played on a piano far away in an abandoned ballroom down the end of the long corridor of my mind. 

Flowers Grave (Tom Waits/Kathleen Brennan)