Advanced Diploma: Inspiration.

Four weeks holiday down the track and here we are ready to tackle a new brief. This semester promises to be exciting as it it culminates not just in a body of work of our own choosing but also a group exhibition - focusing on the creative and logistical skills needed for putting an exhibition together. As usual I am excited but daunted.....

So a fun start - gathering pieces of inspiration. Thinking about what inspires us and how we use that to spring board to a new work. This is pretty much my hobby - gathering inspiration. I wish someone would pay me to do it. Here's just a fraction of what I gathered from the web.

Starting with  this crochet anatomical piece by Cecile Dachery which works for my interest in textile based art and another interest - anatomical subjects.  I love this contrast of the cosy comfort of crochet and knitting with something which is essentially (to me at least) grissly. Grissly in a good way.

More fron Cecile Dachery....

And more...

I can't get enough of all this subverting of traditional craft. The above is a far cry from traditional knitting and crochet (they don't call them granny squares for nothing). Something really feminist about these two above. What do you think?

Next inspiration: text based art. I like this from Mike Monteiro which seems to me to be about power dynamics and manipulation. Or what? It's stayed with me quite a bit today anyways.

Then how to go past Banksy? He just gets it so right. 

I'm also constantly inspired by Egon Schiele's drawing style. Strong unsentimental linework. They make me want to grab a sharpened pencil and get drawing asap.

As I say this is just a mere fraction of what I gathered but had fun doing it. Look forward to seeing what others are getting into.

1950s Fashion Print.

Was nearby my most favourite bookshop the other day and couldn't resist popping in and adding another ten books to my wishlist. Every where I turned was another title to drool over (not counting Boganomics which, while making the list, was an exception for not being in the Art and Design section). If I had to choose just ONE of those books for my family to get me for Christmas (and I do, since we're on a the "Life's Not Just One Big Bookshelf" budget) it would be 1950s Fashion Print by Marnie Fogg. In addition to the beautiful quality of the prints and literal feast of mid century textile design  the cover is cloth bound. Do I need to say more????

Images Via.

Oh, I forgot to mention Marnie Fogg's campanion book to this (just in case some rich relative secretly finds my blog entertaining and is loitering here) Fashion Illustration 1930s to 1970s. It's cloth bound too. Like I say, just in case....

Kokeshi Doll Chandelier

Bigger than than the sum of it's parts? For my daughters bedroom I made this chandelier, combining two of our favourite things - Kokeshi dolls and an old chandelier -a lucky junk shop pick up for $5. The kokechi dolls were a fair bit more expensive than we would have liked but by then we were fixed on the idea and just had to run with it.... 

Tracey Emin Lite.

Tracey Emin was my chosen contemporary artist for Contextual Studies last term. I didn't know a lot about Trace before that choice, only that she'd made some pretty cool quilts which had subverted the idea of traditional quilt making by appliquéing her thoughts and messages onto them in large felt letters. The subversive bit coming from the nature of her thoughts - angry, tormented recollections from her difficult upbringing which included several incidents of sexual abuse by her mum's boyfriend, a stranger and then a rape at age 13 by an older boy from school. Then the promiscuous teenage years ending in her reputation as a the town slut. I love that quilting is such a traditional female past time and that women throughout history have probably stitched away as therapy for whatever was going on in their lives - their anguishes and joys somehow being stitched in as they went. However here Emin actually spells it out in uncomfortable truths that meet the viewing eye. See more of her work here which includes everything from textiles to drawing, installation art and photography.
As for the CRAP quilt up top, part of the requirement for the presentation I gave on Tracey Emin was to produce a small sample of our own inspired by the artists work. I have never quilted or done any patchwork before and had only half a day spare to do this but I was driven on, I have to say, by the fun of the subversive element and the excuse to avoid writing said presentation. Alas I can find no further need for the CRAP quilt but if you think you might have a use for it let me know. More than one will result in a "giveway" style draw. Less than one will have it donated to the school fete later this year where it will be snapped up by a cheeky second grader....

Sculpture Gone Surreal.

 

         

    

Ifanyone remembers my efforts earlier this year at sculpting my own head  - with exact measurements - and plenty of struggle along the way (getting each degree of 360 accurate was a headache - no pun intended!) then this is what became of Part Two - abstracting the finished head in line with an art movement or some other element of inspiration. I chose Surrealism because I wanted to explore a recurrent dream I'd been having about houses - dreams where I 'd be in a familiar house that would suddenly reveal itself to have an unfamiliar room, doorway, hall etc. There were many variations but the constant was a sense of discovery. Sometimes it was disturbing. Sometimes it was exhilarating. I'd expressed this a while before in some of my illustrations, finding that my figures were ending up with houses atop their heads. It's a classic dream I suppose but what I didn't know while I was doing this part of the sculpture was of an amazing exhibition that had taken place in London at the Barbican about a year ago called The Surreal House which explored the relationship between Surrealism and the House - something I had naively been unaware of and thought was MY connection!!!!!

Hardly. The Surrealist Declaration of 1926 states: 

We have no intention of changing men's habits but we have hopes of proving to them how fragile their               thoughts are and on what cellars they have erected their unsteady houses.

The house was the Surrealists preferred metaphor for the psyche and unconscious as well as holding much  symbolism for Freud who put this to great use in his psychoanalysis.Once I had discovered the Barbicon exhibition and all the traditional connections between the house and Surrealism the exercise became so much richer. I ended up getting a lot out of it and maybe even decoded my own 'house' a bit along the way. Particularly fun was making the new eyeballs to reside in my 'unconscious' house and creating the 'blind spot' in the consciousness! The only down side? I've stopped having the dream.

PS A fantastic 30 second video for the Barbican exhibition is on You tube and worth watching here. It so wonderfully captures the eerie place of the house in dreams.

Canberra Zine Fair

A couple of weeks back now but here are some photos of my very first Zine fair. A lot of fun given I didn't know what to expect and only had a few cliches in my head styled mostly from the movies Chasing Amy and Ghost World. I had wondered  if sellers would be getting out their sketch books during quite moments and indeed some did. I myself arrived a little under prepared. You may be able to see that from my minimalist display (will know to bring a table cloth next time at the very least) and also was still sewing buttons on throughout the morning. In fact one potential lady customer asked if that (ie. me with my sewing kit attatching buttons) was all part of an installation art piece. "Please. Don't overthink it" muttered my charming and youthful neighbor Rafael, once the lady had gone (not buying one!), who had set himslef up brilliantly to sell his poetry/writings and had, I have to add, immediately put me at ease by telling me my own zine was "adorable". I was perhaps a little worried I wouldn't fit in, the Zine fair being billed as part of Youth Week at Gorman House. It turned out though I was far from the oldest Zine enthusiast attending. Glad though I had thought better of bringing the hot water bottle which had been pressed to my lumber region 24 hours previous the fair for an annoying torn muscle injury. That might have sent the wrong message totally. 

Anyway, down to business - My Zine was called Love Hate and and is essentially about my love-hate affair/ addiction with fashion magazines. I sold over 25 of the little things - $4.50 with buttons attatched and $2.50 without. While I also bought a fair few of the other Zines on offer as well as doing some swaps with other zine creators I certainly reached my goal of making enough to feed my other addiction - books. Win-win. I was too shy to get anyone to take a photo of me at my stall but some collectors from the National Library were there taking photos and you can see me hawking my wares ever so aggressively (not) right here.

Lino Cuts and Waffle Poisoning.

A big BIG thanks to everyone for their lovely, helpful and supportive comments on my previous whinge post. I appreciated them so much and they absolutely helped me move forward. I now have a sculpture that doesn't look unlike me (the goal) and if you are brave enough scroll down to see it's latest progress. I'm only just brave enough to put it up. I actually think it looks more like Special Agent Dana Scully from the TV show The X-Files (but then  I'd always considered there was a bit of a resemblance there. If you are reading this now Gillian Anderson (and why wouldn't you be?) you have the permission to play me in the Hollywood movie version of my life.....).

I also confronted my fears of lino and just committed to doing the best with what I had available (ie focus, health, time, skill). That's all you can do and having a long weekend here was definitely in my favour. Thinking also I might ask for an extension on this brief  -an artists book titled Intimate/Obscure which uses lino print self portraiture to hint at aspects of yourself!- and that should help ease the pressure too.

Lastly just a couple of photos from my mothers birthday brunch last week. Mum has been unwell lately so dad took control of the festivities and produced an impressive effort of a birthday cake. My little boy had also put in requests for his favourite foods - waffles and fresh donuts with sugar and cinnamon. My overriding image from the day is him sitting up at the bar eating waffle after waffle after waffle long after everyone else had finished. Then springing up on the news there would be no school the next day for 20 victory laps of the table. Mum and I agreed he showed all the early signs of acute waffle poisoning...and I think the photo somehow captures that...

Regret.

Sharing here my efforts at the brief handed out at the beginning of last semester - a challenge involving 8 2D images constructed into a 3D form. Both the images and the form needed to reflect one of 5 states such as: Regret, Delirium, Malevolence, Zeal or Empathy. Each of the 2D images needed to use a different texture that also conveyed the chosen state. For me there wasn't much choice about it. I think about regret a lot. Not just my own personal regrets which can run deep, but also the nature of regret - what it means to live it: can it ever be resolved? And is there anything to be gained from it? I chose a diary as my 3D object, as a place where regrets can be tucked away, and created a book (out of a recycled, cloth bound one on meteorology!) which opened out in a visual timeline - a life time of collecting regrets. I hear people say they don't believe in having regrets and I think really? Is it ever that simple? There are always choices to be made and the wondering if you made the right one. And at some point we need to make peace with regret. These are the ideas I tried to convey. Love to hear others' thoughts on the subject...

Samantha Everton.

The first moment I saw samantha Everton's series of photographs from her Vintage Dolls show I had a feeling of stop the search, the perfect image has been found. It was everything about them - the saturated colour, the decaying vintage grandeur of the sets and props, the surreal quality and not least the subject matter. Everton portrays children at play but there is something slightly uncomfortable at work. Perhaps while at play her child subjects are processing their fears? Her 2007 show which proceeded Vintage Dolls was titled Childhood Fears and comes across darker in both the story telling and the medium. With individual titles such as "Fear of understanding" and "If I keep my eyes closed" (below) you get a picture of childhood as a place of not knowing but also knowing and the changing tension between those two states. With six exhibitions behind her I find Samantha Everton's work endlessly fascinating. If you are interested in seeing more go here.

Giving Thanks, Ex- Voto And Detatchable Frida Kahlo.

I know I complained to anyone who'd listen (Hi Karen!) about having to write an essay AND give a PowerPoint presentation on Frida Kahlo a couple of months ago but the fact is the process was enriching (learning hey, who knew?). I've always been fascinated by Frida Kahlo's circumstances but not so enamoured with her actual work - I just didn't like her style. Researching Frida however and her paintings turned that around somewhat. Now I get it. Still, I wouldn't want to have Frida's My Birth hanging in my living area (Madonna owns the original and decides who'll make it as a friend depending on their reaction) but I do love the kitsch that has grown up around her iconic image and has it's roots in Mexican folk art - the very thing I disliked about her style in the first place. The best part though for me was discovering ex-voto and retablo which were popular in 19th century Mexico and which Frida drew inspiration from. They are small religious paintings on tin which give thanks to a saint for intervening in a tragic event or illness. Sometimes the retablo will depict the tragic event, inscribe a sentence or paragraph abut it and in the corner have the intervening saint. In ex-voto it's just a painting of the saint. Searches on google images or etsy will turn up ex-votos or retablos of Frida Kahlo herself. Like she's the saint now. The saint of suffering or rather triumph of the spirit over suffering I like to think. Which is why when I had lots of tin left over from my chandelier project it seemed obvious that I should make my own Frida ex - voto with a little polymer clay. Then it seemed obvious that with a bit of  blu- tac it could be a detachable element of the chandelier - especially if I wanted to push the chandelier over the line into kitsch! As for Affluenza maybe it's just a reminder to give thanks for what we already have. Hope you are enjoying the festive season!