Art Bazaar

Rodney and I will be stallholders at the annual Art Bazaar held at Maitland Regional Art Gallery on Sunday 10th June. The quality of the arts and crafts on offer is very high as the stallholders are limited to 70 and selected by a panel from the Gallery as the best of the applicants.It is limited to artisans based in the Hunter Valley and Newcastle regions.

Apart from the superb local art for sale it will be a delightful day out (weather permitting!) as the bazaar is set  outdoors in the lovely grounds of the Gallery. So if you haven't yet visited the Gallery this would be an opportunity to appreciate all it has on offer too. The Gallery cafe is offering an expanded menu of choices so altogether this would be a delightful Sunday outing to see the best of local artisan wares, peruse the Gallery and its current exhibition and then sit in the sunshine for a lunch time gourmet treat!

I will be offering for sale all the work I've produced in the last year plus my hand made beaded adornments.

more art from Murrurundi show

Yesterday another trip to Tamworth, another Xray on my ankle and yet another consult with the bone doctor. He said all is looking good and the bone has finally knit together. I was expecting he would then scoot me back to work but he was a little concerned about building up some strength and gave a me a referral to see a physiotherapist. So perhaps another 1-2 weeks before back to work according to how that assessment goes.

I have had a lazy week, not doing much art, though the ideas keep churning away just below conscious level. After winning a prize for my landscape effort I have had to give some serious thought to perhaps doing another! I do love the natural world, Rodney and I are both enthusiastic gardeners, and this is my favorite season of the year in the Upper Hunter Valley area. As I drove the hours journey to Tamworth in the mid morning yesterday I was enthralled with the vistas of yellow, gold and ochre coloured paddocks of dry grass and the pale grey winter skies, tinged with a little mauve or turquoise....

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River Water Hole, 34x72cm, winner of "Pages River Theme" at Murrurundi Art Show 2012

The winner of the Fibres/Textiles section was Charlotte Drake-Brockman, a well established local artist. She wove this delightful little melon basket which contained chook feathers and a tiny blue egg. To the right is another entry which is a larger nest made of leaves and twigs and containing duck eggs. A nest won last year too....so perhaps I see a trend here!

Charlotte Drake-Brockman, Melon Basket, winner in Fibres/Textiles section of Murrurundi  Art Show

In August the Arts Council will host the biennial Norvill Art Prize. It is an award given for best landscape painting. The first prize is a very credible $15,000, a very substantial prize for a rural based competition. I am certainly giving the landscape genre more consideration than usual! Anyone who is interested in checking it out should see - www.norvillartprize.com

Some entries in the Fibres/Textiles section, including the winner on the table to the left 

art of life in Murrurundi

The Murrurundi Art prize opened last night and we got a good crowd attending despite another event being on for the "King of the Ranges". There were 7 sections to enter with a cash prize of $200-400 for the winner and the acquisitive champion prize of $2000. Rodney entered 3 works and I put in 4. Rodney got a highly commended for his Ancient of Days horses in the "Stockmens Challenge Theme" and I got highly commended for Still Life in the Fibres and Textiles section and a First place in the "Pages River theme" The winner for the champion artwork $2000 Enid Norvill Memorial Prize was Nicci Pratten with her oil painting Minds of our Own.

Rodney entered this wonderful portrait of me in the Pastels/Drawing section.

On the right is a self portrait Rodney did about 2 years ago. He made the one of me the same size and in similar colours so we can hang them at home as a pair. Our lucky grandkids will no doubt fight to own them one day!

I was really amazed to win for my work River Water Hole. I only entered it because Rodney insisted and we needed lots of art to fill the walls! The picture was done 18 months ago for an exhibition sponsored by the Pages River committee. I don't have much affinity for rendering landscape and it is the only one I have ever done....sheeesh! I thought my figurative works were much better....

I went down to the show this morning to take a picture but the digital camera went flat so tomorrow I'll publish a picture.

The judge Brad Franks, the manager of the Muswellbrook Arts Centre did a wonderful job giving out the prizes and commendations. It is always great when the judges can make time to give some critique about their choices. I have been entering art shows for less than 2 years, totalling only 6 now, and have learned there is no such thing as a predictable winner!  Never have I been able to predict the winner in any section or overall. Sometimes I can narrow it to a shortlist of likelihoods, but more often than not I have been completely amazed, occasionally completely astounded at the judges choice.

So it was delightful to have an arts professional like Brad, someone whose job it is to work with contemporary and recent Australian art every day, give an eloquent description of why the pieces he chose for recognition were selected. I found it so fascinating that immediately after the awards I went back to look at many pictures I hadn't really appreciated before.

In my last blog I spoke about my own reticence with having ones art framed by ideologies, themes, messages, narratives, whatever...that I consciously eschew adopting symbols, iconography or images that feel contrived to suggest narratives.... (which is not to say other artists can't do this without great and authentic gravitas. It just doesn't work for me) So it was utterly fascinating when Brad described his response to Still Life something like this "suggestion of religious themes perhaps Mary Magdalene, containing great sadness, the cloth suggests a shroud perhaps implying suffering or grief of some sort" Golly! It was lovely to hear it could evoke such emotions but when working on it I never felt sad or wanted to say anything about grief or religious themes (I'm an atheist) It just felt very still and meditative.

River Water Hole he described as "an iconic image, something almost spiritual or metaphysical in the way the depths of water are suggested" Wow, more astounding and wonderful words! Though the truth is the focal piece of layered embroidery was created about 8 years ago and had no reference to water at all. 18 months ago I decided to use that fragment to embellish around to make a larger work for a Pages River art show. I did appliques and embroidery around the focal piece to suggest rocks and water running over them and used felt and shreds of light reflective fabrics to suggest reflections. But the central focal piece was only chosen because it had lots of green in it.

a head full of bright ideas

Things evolved with my last painting. It was so annoying that the black headscarf I had initially surrounded the face with immediately categorised the image as "muslim woman"....and that lead to whole lot of assumptions that completely hijacked any narrative the picture instigated. If the scarf had been painted on it could been changed but I had used draped and stiffened fabric so it became an unremovable feature (like being a muslim/woman)

I feel an instinctive resistance to contriving narratives for my images. That is why I found that one I did a month ago really irritating. It's called "Dreaming a place" and its the one with the gothic arch and doorway in the background (changed it from "Golden Pierrot") If I wanted to tell stories I should have been a writer.

Is this a bit of a conflict maybe...? that I want to show you something but not tell you anything? Isn't a picture supposed to be worth a 1000 words? People do art for a lot of reasons and that is undeniably a good thing because lots of people look at art for different reasons. So there is always going to be some artists and some viewers who find their reasons for doing it and looking at it are compatible.

It is very difficult to become accepted as a serious, credible and professional art practitioner if you don't have a theory about why you make art, what it means and (therefore) why you have something important to say. There are some artists who do this with absolute conviction and many of them make art I find deeply compelling. Truly awesome. And then there are some others I find utterly unconvincing!

So I think its a problem for me that I just like making pictures. So far I haven't been able to find or construct a theory that sounds credibly profound. Serious people in the artworld disparage art for arts sake. The best justification I can find for myself is that I find the surfaces fascinating to create and beautiful to look at. Professing a desire to make "beauty" in art is even more anathema to "serious art people" (I'll just annotate that to SAPs in future)

So before I get any further with shooting myself in the foot I'll just unveil my latest effort. This one will be called "Wrapt: head full of bright ideas" It will be my entry in the painting section of the Murrurundi Art Prize.
You can see it really doesn't look too much like a muslim woman anymore...I hope!

Wrapt: head full of bright ideas

Art and ANZAC

face detail of Still Life

I've been working all week but feeling frustrated and anxious because I'm not getting the results I want from the art. Still Life is finished and I've entered the work in the local Murrurundi Art Prize, which opens Friday 3rd of May. I have also entered 2 other works in the Currububula Art Prize, opening Thursday May 10th. I sold 2 of the 3 works I entered into the Currububula last year.

Still Life, the whole picture

Still Life measures 40cm x 95cm

During the week Rodney and I went away for a day to Nelson Bay and stayed overnight in Newcastle so I could visit my son, daughter in law and granddaughter. My one darling granddaughter Trinity Pearl turned 5 in January, so has just started school and had lots to tell Grandma and Grandpa. Rodney and I both needed to buy more art supplies so we did lots of shopping and returned home with a carload by Saturday night.

Above is a picture of the current work in progress which is what I'm really struggling with at the moment. I want to enter it in the Murrurundi Art Prize and because I don't have enough time to start and complete  another work (unless I do it in acrylic) this is the main reason I haven't set it aside and started something less challenging. The face is much larger than life size, on a canvas measuring 60x80cm.  I regret doing the head scarf. It's not intended to be a muslim woman but this is what viewers tend to assume.

I'm following my usual routine for ANZAC day, which means ignoring the whole thing. I think my grandad may have served very briefly in New Guinea for a few weeks before the war ended but never saw any action. I don't have any significant memories of my own relatives or any people I know who fought or were involved in any way with the second World War. War commemorations, whether they are purportedly to honour the "dead" and their "sacrifices" make me feel uneasy and ambivalent. I always wonder what the "losers" do and say on their days of remembrance... I would assume they probably do similar rituals and observances, i.e. god was on our side, we did the right thing, they died for their country and our freedom, etc. To me wars are the worst excesses of our species and at the basis of every single one of them is racism, greed, ignorance and/or nationalism. I would rather hear and celebrate the stories of the conscientious objectors and the people who "fought" for peace.

The work goes on

Still Life, 4th day of work

Work continued on Still Life today. The figure has been mounted on a backing board and a first coat of gesso applied over the fabric draperies. Then I had to set her aside for some drying time and decided to start a new work because I still had half the day left.

I cut out a canvas about 60x80cm and prepared the surface and blocked in a face with acrylic paint. It is developed enough that tomorrow I can work over it in oil paint. The chin looks unnaturally pointy at this stage but that is because the face will be swathed in a scarf around the head as the work progresses.

The Quiet Place, day 1

I have obviously moved away from the really florid, highly embellished works I was doing all last year and up until a few months ago. I'm a little concerned that for the August exhibition I'll be presenting a really broad range of work that doesn't have a single unifying theme. Rodney is creating a much more themed body of work. But we have called our show "Murrurundi Mixed Media Marriage" so I hope that my rather loose and varied collection will seem passable under that descriptor of "mixed".

I am starting to give some thought to doing a new body of work for an exhibition in 2013-14. Next time I would work within a more tightly defined theme and unifying aesthetic.

Its more than likely I'll be back to work in the second week of May after I see the doctor for the next appointment on May 8th. My ankle is healing well and feeling almost back to normal.

progress on Still Life

Sally Alden, my photographer friend, picked up Peacock Feather yesterday. The day before I couldn't resist putting a bit more paint on her face. I thought the whole composition was bit dark so painted some brighter  highlights into her hair and face. I found out the models name is Erica and I should meet her at the exhibition opening on Sunday. Sally showed us an absolutely awesome selection of photos of Rodney on a montage board.  They were taken during a session she did with him a month ago and one of them is on the left side of the leaflet I published in my previous blog. She really is a fabulous photographer!  www.sallyaldenphotography.com

In the afternoon I went back to work on Still Life. The figure was draped with cloth that will harden. Then a few layers of gesso over that and I'll paint the surface. The figure is almost life size, measuring 95cm in length. The picture shows just the figure on my easel at the moment. When the hardening medium has dried the figure will be adhered to a backing board.

More finished art

Here is Peacock Feather stretched on a frame, measuring 38x60cm. Sally Aldens original photo is to the right. There is a little too much light reflecting on the face in this photograph, unfortunately. It was really, really nerve wracking embroidering over the finished painted face to do the peacock feather detailing. Absolutely no margin for error! The stitching has been accented with a metallic iridescent embroidery thread but it isn't possible to see that in the photo.

Below is some information about Sally Aldens photographic exhibition which is at the Willow Tree Inn, opening on Sunday 22nd. Rodney and I will be there for the opening at 1.30pm in the afternoon. Look at that wonderful picture of my gorgeous husband featured on Sallys promotional flyer! There will be some other photos of Rodney that Sally took in this series on display...eat your heart out Brad Pitt!!!

Autumn has arrived

Hi Maude, lovely to hear from you. I'm just about to go down to the home studio to finish work on Peacock Feather right now! Rodney is teaching his Wednesday art class down at the Upstairs Art Studio this morning and will be home after 1pm. He plans to get out the framing equipment and build the board I need for Still Life and stretch Peacock Feather over a frame....so I hope to able to show the finished work on my next blog this evening.

The weather here is definitely changing to cool and autumn like. This weekend we put 2 blankets on the bed but I was cold last night! It seems a little early to be putting the doona on, but I shall be! We even made some tentative jokes about lighting the wood stove last night. We  have a functioning wood stove in the kitchen and use it every day for 5-6 months during Winter.

The studio is wonderful for Summer, with my double plantation shutters opening onto the garden, but its very cold over Winter. The last couple of years I usually bought my work up the house and didn't spend much time there. But with our exhibition at Muswellbrook Gallery coming up in early August I need to keep on producing new works. Last year we bought a small gas heater that I used with a gas bottle but I was always very nervous using it, with the amount of textiles and paint mediums, such as turpentine, that I always have around me. So my wonderful husband, who is my greatest supporter and facilitator! has gotten me a wall mounted gas heater and plans to get the gas bottle installed on the outside wall of the studio with a proper regulator and piping. At the end of this week he is planning to pick up some window glass at Tamworth to cover the open slats of the plantation shutters. I'll be a snug bug all Winter!

Still Life

Yesterday I finished painting Peacock Feather and set her aside for a few days while the oil paint cures until  the canvas can be handled to put it under the sewing machine for embroidering.

Today I started work on a new canvas. Below is the work started on the face as at the end of today. To start the face was blocked in with acrylic paint. Then I did some free motion machining on the hair. Then the face was over painted and almost completed with oil paint. There is a little more finishing work to do on it

Still Life, face on the first day

At the moment the face is on a scrap of canvas about 40x50cm. I have a rather ambitious concept of doing quite a large scale whole figure, possibly the largest work I've done recently....

Unfortunately, I may not make much progress tomorrow. We need to go to Scone to do some grocery shopping and I need Rodney to build a backing board to mount the finished to work on.