just kids

I've just finished reading an extraordinary book. I'd recommend it to anyone interested in the creative process and the evolution of artists. I'm talking about Just Kids, a memoir by Patti Smith focusing on her early life as a young artist finding her feet in New York City and her close relationship with Robert Mapplethorpe.

Extraordinary in so many ways. It's hard to put words to it.

I loved many things about this book. But one thing in particular was having a detailed account of how Patti and Robert worked through the beginning years of creative development, the trials, the explorations, the self-doubt, the hunger and poverty, the small steps forward, the struggles, the sudden unexpected opportunities, and the incredible range of characters that they met along the way. All real. All amazing artists.

As well as all this Patti gives a detailed description of her and Robert's life at the infamous Chelsea Hotel. Absolutely fascinating! It's really quite mind blowing to read about this period of history from a great artist who was deeply immersed in it. Patti Smith, you rock! And thank you for writing this book and recording this history for others to read.

I'm now on the pre-order list for the kindle version of Patti's latest book 'Woolgathering'. Am so looking forward to it.

And she writes so beautifully. Which I guess is to be expected from a poet and song writer of her stature. You must, must, must give it a read. Honestly.

MONA love

There's a whole lot of beauty, inspiration, and surprise waiting for you if you haven't yet been to MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) in Hobart, Tasmania.

Where do I begin?

The location for one. Oh my goodness. MONA sits carved into a cliff face on the gorgeous Derwent River. You can arrive by ferry or car. I've heard coming via ferry is pretty special. I had a car so went that way. However, I parked about a kilometre away (accidentally) and walked in. That was pretty special in itself. You get to see glimpses of MONA sitting there on the edge of the cliff facing the water from various angles around a small cove.

That cement truck iron sculpture in the pics above captivated me. How extraordinary that someone could make something so mundane and ordinary so intricately beautiful! Something so bulky like a cement truck has been utterly transformed into this delicate sculpture.

Inside MONA was mind boggling to say the least. Exhibition pieces have been chosen deliberately to push the boundaries of peoples' expectations about art. There are a lot of surprises in stall. And I won't ruin them for you by telling you too much here. Let's just say you need to set aside at least half a day - one day to be there. It's massive. There's so much to see and experience. And the place is gorgeous so you might like to have lunch and a glass of wine and sit outside on the pink bean bags and look at the river while you're there.

I was especially moved by the pencil rubbings (pictured above) by Okabe. These were made by hand over a 9 year period of the Ujina Station train platform in Hiroshima. Eventually the train station was demolished to make way for a freeway but Okabe's rubbings remain as simple reminders of what was once there. You can read more about their background here. And here's a picture of Okabe with his work.

I'll be going back to MONA later in the year. My brother also loves the place so we thought we might go again together. There is no other art gallery like this in Australia. It's extraordinary on so many levels. So if you can, go!

linen and paper

Lino block prints. Experimenting on linen and paper.

The cards are in the shop. And so is the linen tea towel.

The end of summer has found me eating too many fresh figs with blue cheese. I guess things could be a whole lot worse!

making, eating, listening, seeing

Heide Gallery are currently showing an exhibition showcasing 30 years of their collection. Two pieces that stood out for me were Charles Blackman's 'Alice' and Mary Boyd's 'Hands'. Such powerful works, both of them.

Aimee Mann's music is keeping me blissfully happy. As is this beautiful autumn weather.

Have been eating at Pope Joan. Their corn cakes are to die for.

Lot's of carving still to do but am hoping to print next weekend. Now that it is said, I'm committed. Ha.

mojo thoughts + 21st century conundrums

I think I may have my printing mojo back. It's been a while. But sometimes I think it's good to step away and do other things. It can be quite conducive to letting the creative juices percolate.

Today's carving session was musically accompanied by:

1. Holly Throsby
2. Jen Cloher
3. The Jezabels
4. Sarah Blasko
5. The Be Good Tanyas.

A fabulously talented combination of Australian and Canadian musicians indeed! And really good to do some intensive carving to. In case you ever wanted to know.

Now have you heard about all the Pinterest fuss going on? It seems the web is full of debate about Pinterest inspired copyright and digital identity crises at the moment. And here I was thinking it was just pretty eye candy. To be honest though, the first time I looked at Pinterest (about 2 weeks ago) I found one of my woodblock prints pinned there without any reference to me, the creator or to where they'd pinned it from (my shop). I was a bit annoyed when I saw that. Then after I signed up to play on Pinterest I realised that when you click on a pinned image it takes you back to the original source so you can see who owns it. Eventually. I was still cross that the original pinner hadn't taken the time to mention who owned the print though. And then on Twitter I noticed some artists saying a big thank you to people who had pinned their work because they'd receive enquiries as a result. And one person I know sold a painting due to the publicity it received on Pinterest.

Then Flickr made some moves in response to the Pinterest copyright debate. They disabled the pin function on copyright protected Flickr images.

So it seems that it's a bit of a complex situation. A real 21st century conundrum.

Any thoughts?

two worlds fusing

With the publication of this article in the International Journal of Art and Design Education my various worlds have fused together. In a good way, that is. But fused together all the same. It's taking some getting used to.

You see I wrote the article about this world, our world - art and design blogland - a world I've been part of since 2007. But I wrote it as an article for publication in an academic journal. Because, and you might not know this, academia is the other world I inhabit. So in a funny way this has been coming for a while now - the two worlds I am part of fusing, melding, joining together.

So what's the article about? Well friends, stringent copyright rules prevent me from giving too much away here. The abstract tells you a little. I titled it 'Art and design blogs: a socially-wise approach to creativity'. So that tells you something also. I used an ethnographic approach to writing it, as someone who has been in this community, our community, for a long time now. I wrote about what I observed over many years by being a blogger in the world of art and design. Over the years I've noticed some really amazing things about the art and design blogging community and I wanted to share this with an academic audience. I wrote about how social it is, how practice is shared (not secreted or hidden away), the support that exists for each others' creative practice, the kind of generosity that flows on a daily basis and the sense of community that has developed over the years as a result of all of this. I also wrote about creativity and the approaches to it that I have witnessed in our community. And I observed all this specifically through 25 blogs that I have read closely for many years. These particular blogs were at the heart of my ethnographic study (blog names were not mentioned in the article of course).

Why am I telling you about the article? Why not just read it? Well yes, you could, of course, if you have access to a university library and therefore can download it for free. Otherwise you will have to pay for a copy via the journal itself because frustratingly, that's the way the academic publishing world works at the moment.

So if you do get to read it I hope you enjoy it. I also hope the academic audience I wrote it for will learn a lot more about our community, because let's face it, what's not to love?

UPDATE. Good news: I've just discovered the journal publishers have an online library where at the moment, you can access my article for free. Click here to go to the library. My article is the 4th one down the list under 'original articles'. Love to hear your thoughts on it.

recommended

Carolina | especially their brioche french toast with stewed summer fruit, mascarpone and mint. An old shoe repair shop reinvented as a cafe on Nicholson St, East Brunswick.

IQ84 | Murakami's new 3 volume-fiction piece. In paper form it comes as a massive 1000 page hard back brick. Not easy on your arms, hands or hips when reading. Go the ereader version if you can.

Hibiki-an | for beautiful Japanese green tea. Nothing available in Australia compares to what they have on offer through their online shop. Try their sencha range. The sencha karigane is very good.

Holly Throsby. Especially her album 'Team'.

in the heat:

| cold cherries straight from the fridge

| Maggie Beer's Quince & Bitter Almond ice cream

| gin & tonics with slices of lemon or lime and lots of ice