Inspiration

Above: Works by Anita McIntyre, Vicki Reynolds, Marisse Maas, Kirra Jamison, Robert Boynes, Anne-Laure Djaballah, Mary Sutherland, Nancy Selvin, Susan Joy Share.

I have started thinking about a book or perhaps series of books based on cycles in nature. The sort of things I am thinking of including are the lunar phases, day and night, seasons, insect lifecycles and the stages of a woman's life (woman, mother, crone). The structure I plan to use is the flutter book. If you are unfamiliar with this, it is basically a concertina book, with the covers pulled right back, so the book sits in a circle. Below is the model I made at a workshop I attended last year - of course it can have as many pages as you want.

I want the work to express ideas about nature and time, the way it is cyclical and how we, as humans, are a part of that. I've been looking through images of work that I've collected for ways to express that aesthetically, and the collage at the top of the post shows some works I've pulled out to help me visualize where I want to go. To me, these works speak of time passing and past.

In a way, this is a progression from a triptych of photos (below) I did during the first year of my masters. As a work, they were at a very experimental stage and not at all resolved, but they were the first work I did in Melbourne that excited me with their potential. They referred to ideas of the primordial soup, and I was playing with light as an expressive tool.

I seem to be in a peculiar head space at the moment...quite stressy, quite sleepy but having trouble getting to sleep and sleeping fitfully when I finally do drop off. At the same time I'm having quite a lot of creative ideas, and works I've had in the back of my mind all year long are starting to come together (in my head at least).

Today is the first day of summer here and while the temperatures have been very mild (27-28 deg C) the humidity is often between 50-80%. This really saps me of energy far more than the dry heat I experienced when living in Melbourne. The last two days I finally relented and turned on the air conditioning. It seems unjustified when the temps are so low, but then I realised that I had perspiration on my upper lip and forehead just sitting at the desk. CFS has damaged the hypothalamus, the area in the brain which controls temperature regulation among other things, so my ability to tolerate humidity is far below the norm. I do feel better and more able to work with the A/C on. I might really indulge myself and try sleeping with it on too.

TJBookarts Windfall and other bookarts stuff

One of the things I love about getting home from a trip is going through the mail. Don't ask me why - usually most of it is bills, but this time I was lucky to have three parcels waiting for me!
Inside one was the booty above: a lovely windfall which I won simply by leaving a comment on Jackie Poutasse's website: TJBookarts. Her site has free tutorials and lots of sites of interest for anyone interested in book arts and paper-making. I first "met" Jackie on the yahoo book arts group and have found her extremely generous with her knowledge, and now also with these goodies. Over at TJBookarts, Jackie is celebrating the first birthday of the web site and offering a weekly prize draw. Its not too late to surf on over, check it out and put yourself in the draw. Jackie has also started up the Book Art Forum in the past few weeks and this looks likely to develop into a wonderful resource and space to chat.



The second parcel I opened contained the great book cover start above as well as this start for the "Library" from Jade Pegler. I am a huge admirer of Jade's artwork and feel honoured to be collaborating with her. If you are not familiar with "the Library", but you are interested in doing some collaborative art work which will be exhibited in New York! (YES! I said NEW YORK!) have a look at the Library group on Flickr and see if it is your kind of thing.

My final package was a gift to myself - the Penland Book of Handmade Books. I have been wanting this book for about 4 or 5 months, so when I saw one at a reasonable price on Amazon, I decided to treat myself. This book is full of a great range of inspirational book designs in the gallery sections as well as about ten detailed "how to" sections by established book artists. I love it!

A-Painting-A-Day: Taking Stock So Far

I'd love to be able to say that it was my intention all along to do a big end of month summary of this Painting-A-Day exercise - but the truth is I've been so caught up making art that I just haven't had a chance to update this blog.

The positive of this is that it means the month is going really well. There have been a few changes to the Painting-A-Day "rules" - when you're making it up as you're going along, this is not surprising! First of all, it doesn't have to be a painting. In fact it doesn't absolutely have to be 2-D, although I have tried to stick to this in the main. However, I think that all but 2 works do include paint! Secondly, the daily was never really realistic, unless I wanted to make all the works very spontaneous and quick. Instead I have gone for at least 4 per week and made it to 5 once. By taking it a little more slowly, I think I can get some good "starters" going, things I can return to and look at developing in the future. It also gives me a chance to try out a few different techniques I've thought of or read about in the past 12 months. So the collage above shows pictures of all the works created so far.

Week 1

The first week I made four works, two collages and two mixed media drawings. None of these really work but I did try out some new techniques, including sgraffito using wax pastels and Jonathon Talbot transfer technique which I've mentioned in earlier posts. I've been focussing on developing imagery that I may use in my masters work and there are lots of "bits" that I think I can work with here.

The big disappointment for me was the sgraffito. It's a technique I'm familiar with in ceramics, and while it worked, I just didn't really like the effect - but that may be due to the multicoloured surface I created - you can see it here. It just looks lazy and messy to me.

Week 2

This week was my most productive so far. I was still in an exploratory mood despite my dissatisfaction with the sgraffito, so I tried my hand at a variety of media and techniques. The theme for Illustration Friday was buzz and anyone who knows my work knows I have included a reference to whipper snippers in a past installation - I HATE THEM! So I quickly got the idea to do a Noel MeKenna-esque painting of a whipper snipper in suburbia. I have to say that this was the most fun I've had all month. I had planned to work in acrylics, but was scared off by my total lack of experience with this type of project, so I opted for aquarelles. From a distance I am actually reasonably happy with the result, despite my obvious compositional goof - just don't examine the surface too closely, please!

I also experimented with two ideas I've had for a while. One is using tissue paper to sculpt close-ups of the body, inspired somewhat by Brent Harris - this is harder than it looks, and this one is not really working, but I will experiment further. The second idea shows lots of potential and I am really excited about it. I used Japanese paper dipped in wax to construct a box. I'm really happy with the translucency and am thinking this may be a way for me to work in 3-D other than with clay.

I also managed to complete my "start" for the Library project on Flickr and finished off with a photoshopped work for Artwords, seen in the previous post "graffitti". Okay I know that photoshop is not paint, but it is 2-D and for this one I did experiment with something I've not done before, as you'll see if you check out the post.

Week 3

All right, now we are in the home straight! Week 3.

This week I became almost totally wrapped up in the Library project. I started work on the start that Alex Itin from Brooklyn had sent me. I have to admit that it's been sitting here for 2 weeks and I've been looking at it, coming up with ideas, but terrified of actually making a mark. After all, this is another artist's work I'm about to work on. Eventually I bit the bullet and was able to find some images that I thought suited perfectly, including this map of the world from 1581 in the shape of a flower! (Alex's start included a butterfly with the words "Korea, China, Vietnam, Japan" on its wings.) You can see the completed collaboration on Alex's blog. I also polished off a book page Alex had included, a la the Humument.

By this stage I was really rolling on the collages and dieing to incorporate some of my anatomy imagery. I started a new book cover with the intention of posting it to the Library for collaboration, but was having so much fun that I ended up just continuing on with it myself!

I finished last week with a failed experiment. I had this idea to try a Jonathon Talbot transfer onto Japanese lace paper. Technically, it did work, but the effect is not what I had hoped. Not sure now what I hoped! Well, yes I am. I'm looking to express impermanence, but not in an old moth-eaten document kind-of-way, like this. I'm interested in change, transition. Hence the butterflies, life-cycles and so on. I think the faded effect of the transfer says more about this.

Well that brings us up to date. I am hoping the remaining 7 days will be just as productive. I think I should try to use this last week to experiment some more - then next month I can start to develop some of these ideas. I have booked my first trip to Melbourne to see my supervisor, Kevin White, in March. By then I need to have some solid progress to share.

Inspiration Part 2 - End of Year Review

Well here are the artworks that formed the collage in the previous post. The artists are: 1. Timothy McDowell; 2&3 Marisse Maas; 4. Darlene O'Connor; 5. Nancy Selvin; 6. Martin Puryear; 7. Steve Briscoe; 8. James Casebere; 9. David Prifti; 10. Aparna Agrawal; 11&12. Sally Smart (BTW, I have no idea why this collage has January 2003 on it - Picasa just did it automatically!)


It's interesting to view them all in one place like this and see what stands out to me. As I mentioned in the last post, I've set myself a challenge for the month of January. Other than photos and digitally alterred images, I really haven't done that much work on paper. I've spent the past year learning some techniques - some home printmaking, some transfers, collage, a little mixed media and a little encaustic, but I don't really feel that I have a "style" or direction. I am hoping that by working intensively (well, for me) for a month something will begin to emerge that I can continue to develop. It always amazes me when I look at the work of other artists and their style is so recognisable. I feel I am still in an experimental stage, trying this and that, and really don't have much of an established aesthetic or way of working on paper.

I selected the works above because they all really speak to me aesthetically and I want to try to identify colours, marks, etc to work with over the next month. So I'm going to try to identify what it is about each artists work that I respond to....

When I came across Timothy McDowell's work on the net I had an incredible reaction to it. I just find it soooo beautiful. I love the antique paper he works on, the fine pencil and watercolour work and the vintage nature-based imagery he uses. I also love that style of composition - sort of a cross between a collage and a mosaic in an integrated piece.

Marisse Maas is one of my favourite Australian painters. I love her use of line - not quite outlining the object and sgraffito. As a potter, this is a technique I know well. Her compositional style is similar to McDowell's.

Darlene O'Connor and Nancy Selvin are American ceramists and they don't have a huge web-presence, but I stumbled on their work while researching print and ceramics. Although I am looking at doing mixed media work now, I can envisage transfering some of the ideas into clay when my energy improves. The fine printed line work on O'Connor's work appeals strongly to me and I love the rough slip finish on Selvin's terracotta bottles.

Martin Puryear does wonderful etchings that demonstrate the beauty of line, texture and pure forms - a good lesson for both ceramics and 2-D work. I've only found this one series of Steve Briscoe's work, focussing on text and bunnies! I love text and I'm a sucker for cute animals! Will I be including any cute animals in my future artworks? Who knows, but never say never!

James Casebere is a photographer who has a series on water-filled interiors. This is not something I think I'll be pursuing soon, but it does relate to a recurring dream from my childhood, so I included this image as a reminder for the future. David Prifti uses light-sensitive emulsion to "transfer" his photographic images onto all sorts of objects. This relates closely to some work I've been doing for my Masters, so Prifti was included here as another "note to self".

Aparna Agrawal is another artist whose work really excites me. As a ceramic artist, I find it much easier to think in 3-D than in 2-D. Agrawal has made sculptural works using paper with wax and thread, and I am hoping these media might work for me too.

Sally Smart is another terrific Australian artist. I love her style of working with cut-outs on the wall. This is something I have been thinking about for over 2 years. I envisage a giant collage - where the wall operates as the support surface. I also like the strong black silhouette style of Smart's imagery. It relates to shadows which I have often included as part of my own work with objects. If I do create 2-D work, I'll like to integrate it into this type of larger work.

Finally, the colour scheme seems pretty obvious - I've worked a lot with greys, blacks and whites in the past, and I also love sepia and brown. I see there's a touch of red in there too - sounds perfect!

I hope you have enjoyed this little trip around these favourite artists of mine. It's certainly been useful for me as a precursor to spending a month exploring a new direction. Stay tuned to see what comes of it all - if anything....


and I want to take this opportunity to wish everybody who has visited my blog a safe and happy time in 2007. I am especially grateful to those who have visited more than once and those who have left comments for me. Blogging has become a genuine source of friendship and a wonderful way of reaching out from our little boxes in the suburbs. You have all touched my life in a way far beyond my expectations. Thank-you!