evan

Just a little while ago, I had the opportunity to witness Evan Lawson's last undergraduate recital at the VCA (Forest Collective in Recital), The performance encompassed clarinet, singing, piano, using ping pong balls inside a piano!! electronic sort of distortions and impromptu performance.

It was yet another example of Evan's obvious brilliance!! And although, I was not at all involved in the performance, one piece, included the impromptu musical interpretation of three pieces that I had previously developed as covers for a pre-existing piece of Evans, one which was dedicated to me ... sigh.. here is the SINGULAR shot that I was able to capture during the performance- one setback for using a 35mm SLR is that they are rather noisy!!!

Reading ...

Seeing as I have seemingly lots and lots of hours to 'waste' over the next few months, I have decided that I will definately, at least attempt, to finish the above books, although both knitting/crossstitch/handmaking all of my xmas presents/practically everything, is tending to get in the way!

So thankfully, I've at least squeezed a few (recommendable) books in recently!!

Happy Birthday Sharon-Margaret

Somehow, the universe, or should I say The Commoner (my lovely place of work) introduced me to the brilliant, rather hilarious and talented knitter/artist and now friend Sharon Margaret Russell. And last Friday a group of friends celebrated her birthday with an absolutely gorgeous soiree in Richmond, although I didn't stay long enough to witness the destruction of a Spongebob pinata I did have a brilliant evening. For some reason my camera decided to do some Surrealistesque doubling, reminiscent to my Dad's experiments with portraits of myself and pictures from storybooks, but it sort of looks pretty cool!

Automatic Crossstitch

I recently embarked on a series of automatic cross stitch and stitchings, which are quite removed from the type-writeresque text based ones that I am used to doing..

Rough&Tumbles

These are the beginnings of a new jewelery line, that I will hoping to flog off at some sort of market in the near future, sort of a smaller, more accessible treatment of my neckpieces/kinetic works. The line is called Rough&Tumbles after my grandmothers' nickname for me- referring to my extreme clumsiness which still haunts me today!

Home Sweet Home

With the renewal of my lease for another year, I have gained a new perspective and love for my teeny apartment (although I'm not sure if the same can be said for the screaming bogans and lushes which come with the suburb- St.Kilda, of course). Here are some shots from my beloved home inclusive of my beloved (NEW!) rug and beloved Karl.

Shelter:

During last semester, we were given a brief to construct a shelter, or explore the notion of shelter- primarily to present a piece to be shown at the Evoca Festival for Eco-Sustainability, although the latter didn't occur, as My cotribution was far too fragile, the experience was interesting.

I explored the subject through a research of sorts, resulting in a photographic series, hand-bound book of poems, and several small-sculpture works. But the main piece that I developed for the brief was a large scale sculpture collaboration with Deon Robertson, a fellow Ballarat student (and amazing painter)

The shelter collaboration hoped to develop a subtle narrative concerning nature, the organic, human imposition and the subsequent “death” of our original, natural context.
Thereby alluding to the introduction of a man made environment. The use of kinetic art activates the piece- linking it to the external environment and promoting audience participation.
The sculpture draws influence heavily from the work of Gerda Steiner and Jorg Lenzlinger, whilst presenting an intertwined product of both mine and Deon’s style.

Through the use of my knitting and small/found object sculpture and use of mobiles, Deon's bone sculptures, and the inclusion of recycled materials, this is what we came up with or some images of how it progressed - although, I don't have any of the finished piece, it ended up being completely encompassed by glad wrap and lined with an astroturf flooring.

Kittle

One of my briefs at university last semester was to create a shelter- of some kind, or interpret the word and concept of shelter- both physical and emotional, most of the research for this project was inward, and one of the pieces that I created as research for the project, was this one, 'Kittle' it's a ready-made intimate scale scuplture. I found this birds' nest, feathers intact, in my street, and sprayed it a metallic gold- as a reinterpretation of the status/wealth associated with the metal, and embroided it with pastel coloured thread, to imply a personal nostalgia, the result is a delicate, fragile and transient piece.

Foil Glitter

At some point in every (or almost every) artist/art students' career they will be asked to get naked- for artistic purposes, I mean! Recently Katelyn Rew (NMIT) asked me to pose for a shoot for her, as part of her folio, but specifically to enter in one of Brunswick Street Gallery' s small works exhibitions.

We used body butter in an attempt to cover me in silver foil glitter- which I later found out was rather sharp!!
The idea (I think) was to contort the nude female figure, here are some of the shots.

I've softened shipwrecks, right from the start.

These are some images of two rather intimate scale sculptures that I recently put together, the idea was to recycle materials that I had previously used, these glass shards were the smashed gin bottles used in the 'Consider Preserved' installation, and the rectangular glass plinths were previously from frames used to house some of my text cross stitch.

I used inks to colour the shards and simply glued them with hot glue, they are difficult pieces to photograph and display, but at some point I'd hope to have them hung, in a window preferably- both my mother and father at some point in time have fiddled with leadlighting, although these structures are fair less durable, and much more three-dimensional than leadlighting, this would probably be as close as I could get to a homage.

When penetrated with light the pieces seem to transfuse and redirect illumination- highlighting their crystallized qualities.

Refraction of Varnished Thought series #4

Click clack, click clack, click clack.
Always, momentarily, fleeting worry of the aggravation being sparked with the royal blue laced, capsule, indifferent to time and place.
A continuous, learned pattern, hands and fingers, running fast, evoking hypnosis further induced by the bending horizon steering just beyond her futile sight.
Auburn, splotched with cream trots past, shrinking into the distance, majesty amongst infertile land. Devoid of life, red rock and spilt sand lifeless as a undivided blue sky.
Depression drips in through ears and nose, all apetures remain closed. Days crawl by without a spoken word. Madness conquers lined paper in between sheets, every night.
Morning becomes stalked by darkness accompanied by jesters- the slur-mouthed men of last night.

#4

350

(I interpreted photography into the performance, and above are some of the finished products. Below are some images taken by my lovely ma, Lesley)

(Below are some of the original concept pieces for the Kinetic series)

On the 24th of October this year, Forest Collective and the Occasional String Quartet came together at the Japanese Sock Gallery in Northcote for an afternoon of performances in order to encourage awareness of climate change, especially through the organization 350.org.

Forest Collective served as the latter half of the afternoon, performing impromptu pieces including the 'The Sound of Images' which included the musical interpretation of three of my dry-point etching, collage, and 'Modern Traffic' during which I contributed a performance involving some of my knitted kinetic pieces.
I pinned the mobiles onto the musicians whilst they interpreted more collage, thereby activating my pieces, through the musicians' movements the pieces were brought to life.