hope at least one of these rattles makes it out of the kiln ok. these porcelain child sized monkey wrenches were created to commemorate the birth of two very good, rabble rousing pal’s new baby.
a more realistic day in the studio.
just a few things to get done. no big.
i’ll just knock some important computer work out of the way.
and read a few books on professional practices, technique and conceptual development. they didn’t just sit there in a pile. that would be crazy.
i drew some….i just used invisible ink.
my work table was sagging under the weight of all my productivity.
in my imagination anyway.
wow, after a day like that i’m gonig to need an additional ware cart.
not.
fun with florida plants.
one fun thing about my program is that we are required to take a class outside our area. it usually ends up being something unique that informs our work. since i consistently use nature as a source material and have a deep love if the plants, animals and ecosystems here in my home state if florida i was amped to take a botany course called northern florida flora.
catch up posts.
hi all, sorry for my lack of posts these last few weeks. the last couple of weeks of my australian adventure i had the opportunity to join janet deboos and another ANU student in the southern australian desert. we visited ernabella, and aboriginal community 300 km from uluru, a sacred site for indigenous australians and quite a tourist destination. janet has been working with with ceramic artists at ernabella art center for several years now. in addition to the ceramics studio there is a even larger painting studio where complex, colorful paintings are created. the art center managers ruth and julian and there adorable daughter beatrix, as well as all the center artists welcomed us into their lives for 10 days. we would work our butts off all day alongside wonderful folks, eat delicious home cooked food every night and be lulled to sleep by the hee-hawing of wild donkeys.
before heading off to the desert i was wrapping up work at the anu studio and took a quick trip to brisbane, where i got to cuddle a koala finally. i also got to hand feed kangaroos and emus, in the company of some of my favorite folks in the world.
killer swan.
while painting by the lake one day, this swan interrupted. at first I was thrilled to have him so close and took several pictures. he eventually waddled away only to be replaced by his far more persistent friend. after several minutes he didn’t seem to be moving on. in fact he was regarding me quite suspiciously. i suppose he thought I was holding out on him snackwise. it was quite disconcerting! eventually i couldn’t take it anymore and got up. my increased height did nothing to discourage him. to make matters worse everytime i reached for my stuff he hissed at me. even when I approached him with a more aggressive attitude he was unruffled. finally, thankfully, a couple and their young daughter wandered by and seeing my predicament produced cherrios with which they distracted the mean ole swan. whew!
my week in drawing, tracing, coloring.
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- self portrait in the studio.
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- moved to a new accommodation. the bike ride is about 11 km through some bush. saw my first fairy wren today.
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- fairy wren.
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- “portrait” of janet during her demos a few weeks ago. she was wearing a white headband with black kanji printed on it, a black dress with white polka dots and a white apron with bluish grey stripes on it. adroable.
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- mushrooms from the farmers market. made risotto with these puppies.
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- the tree across from the bus stop (when i’m too lazy to bike). the green yellow color is amazing, i just wish i could record it better.
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- clay covered fingers and my new pal. this guy is called the grapevine moth (outside the studio we have a railing covered with grapevines). these guys fly around during the day looking all lux.
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- i’m currently staying with ceramic artist maryke henderson. she has an incredible garden which, aside from meat and grains, supplies her groceries. she’s bringing in the harvest with her pup celly.
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- image collage of a black swan from above and minerals from the melbourne museum.
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- i got to work with greg daly this week, doing lustre firing. he heats the kiln up and then does cycles of reduction and oxidation, pulling test rings as he goes. the unburnt gas gets combusted (by lighter) as it leaves the kiln, resulting in a pretty bananas rush of flame above the kiln. felt like a bit of a bad ass when i got to do my own cycling. now i just need to develope a base glaze, a pigment suspension, the correct amount of silver, etc, and do about a thousand tests and i can legit lustre fire.
sketchbook: weeks 3 and 4, canberra and melbourne.
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- new addition: i got this neat little closer at a stationary store in melbourne. noelle brought me to fitzroy which is kind of the hipster-ville of melbs.
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- i went to the park on city hill in hopes of spotting some kangaroo, didn’t have much luck with that but tried out using charcoal on this silver fabric to capture the bushy texture of the trees.
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- used some silver ink with the ghost image of the trees on the page behind the fabric.
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- crowd sourced some sketches form folks at the bar.
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- these pages were side by side but went in different directions.
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- haven’t actually seen this one in real life but was way into the “flocked” texture of the kangaroo paw flower.
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- hours and hours of fun.
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- i tried to paint at the lake, but ended up getting run off by the aggressive swans. will post the video of that soon.
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- met this amazing artist in the loom room at ANU on the day i left canberra to go to melbourne. ilka white is based in melbourne and was only in canberra for the rest of the week. what a lovely chance meeting.
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- hello house reunion (from my tokyo days) in melbourne. greg was wearing a florida shirt in noey and my honor.
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- hello house pal-sourced memories of the night…..
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- and more….
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- …and more…specific content obscured so everyone can feel less silly…..
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- who’s luke?
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- melbourne has significantly different architecture then sydney or canberra. i’ve heard it referred to as the more european of australian cities. it was a beautiful town.
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- more testing to figure out how to treat the silver fabric in my book. this might be the answer.
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- spent a lot of time with this australian kitty.
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- impressions taken in a graffiti covered ally way off flinders street.
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- more leaves and feathers.
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- installation idea/impression of karst formations that have pushed their way out of the landscape.
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- first glimpsed these in the area aound janet deboos’ casa.
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- some diagrams on the plane back to canberra. i have a few more weeks of making and some of these australian experiences are starting to trickle out.
from the sketchbook. drawing and collecting.
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- drawing of magnesium from my impulse purchase of the week, a photographic deck of the elements.
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- view from king’s park. canberra has a big lake in the middle of it and it’s lined by sweet little parks on most sides.
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- i can’t stop collecting feathers. they are everywhere and if i picked them all up i could easily fill a pillow in a week.
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- so many parks, so many nice canberra vistas.
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- playing with color and form.
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- paying tribute to this funny bird the crested pigeon. they are so nervous i can never get a good picture so i used a birding book for reference.
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- spent a couple days out at janet deboos’ home rangeview. she lives in an incredibly picturesque spot surrounded by verdure and animals galore. these are all from right outside the front door where she puts out seed for the feathered masses.
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- janet was a wealth of information for a nerd like me. she showed me her favorite floweres, banksias, which are too huge and amazing to press ( had been ignorantly admiring them since my first day in sydney), this was her second favorite grevillea. i’m convinced!
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- shared with me from janet’s own collection of natural objects. the perfect way to start off this sweet little envelope book i found my first day in sydney.
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- found in a park. in the envelope it’s not as spectacular as it was glistening in the fierce australia sun.
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- janet educated me about gum and eucalyptus trees. these are nuts from the peppermint gum. she crushed some up and even though i can’t “smell” i could definitely feel the minty-ness.
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- flowering gum nuts from rangeview.
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- more items i couldn’t help but hold onto. xuan zhou (visiting artist from china who is at ANU for the year) found these feathers for me.
wild life photography.
anna is right. the birds in australia are out of control. all these amazing avian friends make a girl want a fancy camera. using my cell phone camera and my significantly outdated little digital camera, i have, in full zoom, tried to capture the wild life i’ve encountered daily while in canberra.
i went to a zoo (eeehhhh, i know) in sydney, and will post those pics soon. ethically questionable, but i don’t know if everyone knows, i’m kind of obsessed with animals….in any case i say that in order to highlight for you that these are NOT in a zoo. they are literally outside my door. wild.
anyway, wildlife. sorry everything is so blurry:)
sketchbook week 1
after today i’ll be posting on a weekly schedule each friday. my goal is 2 pages/1 full spread per day. thus far i’ve had some days with more and some with less, but i feel like i’m getting into the habit. i’ve been drawing whatever makes me think i want to draw it and have attempted to press on even when i don’t like how it’s turning out. i relate it to my studio practice, you know how we all have those days when nothing is working, you get so far and whatever your making looks silly or messy and so you start again and naturally, everything still sucks, and finally you just decide, i’m going to make this thing no matter what and suddenly it works out? well, i haven’t had quite had that feeling of success, but i think i’ll get there. i’m playing with all my materials, collecting other materials along the way and i have a nice variety of papers and textures (and some fabric-like material as well), so i suspect that as i get accustomed
these materials, what i’m recording will get closer to what i’m doing in my ceramic process, or even start me off in some new directions. i’m loving using color, even if it feels quite clumsy:)