sculptural forms

Aviary # 1 by Sheridan Jones

A friend is in town from Brisbane and so we drove all over the Mt Macedon, Trentham, Daylesford, Kyneton area yesterday giving her a small taste of country Victoria. Last stop was The Stockroom in Kyneton, my favourite contemporary art/design space to visit in that area. They support local artists and designers and showcase their work in a huge old ex butter factory. I was transfixed by works on paper by Sheridan Jones in a group show called Chicks with Knives. Sheridan makes sculptural forms of animals using her etchings and stained paper. The pic above is one I took of her work while in the gallery yesterday. From a few metres back I initially mistook her work for taxidermy. Intrigued I stepped close and became silent in awe of her paper based work. Such extraordinary detail.

Digging around this morning I found this recent interview with Sheridan on Golden Artnet about her work and a show she did at the Castlemaine Contemporary Art Space. It's a great read. Check out her owl in the beautiful old glass jar.

If you go to The Stockroom make sure to also visit Lauriston Press Gallery on the same street (Piper St). Owner and printmaker Sarah Gabriel stocks some beautiful work there including those of Daylesford based artist and bird print maestro, Bridget Farmer.

Foodies will love that there is a new place in town: St Beans Provedore right next to Annie Smithers' Bistro. 

studio practices

Hello. It's been a while. Summer is here and the days have been warm and delicious. The beach has been calling.

But there has been a little studio activity. Hurrah!

At the moment I'm playing with colour and trying to work up some sketches that I can use for a new series of etchings. Today felt fairly productive.

I've been observing a few things about my practice which some people find unusual. But really, I think anyone who uses social media (like blogs, instagram, twitter, flickr, tumblr) and has a creative practice won't be too surprised by my observations. What I've noticed is I've been increasingly using and finding support in a virtual side to my practice. That is, like many artists and designers I know (but not all, as I've learned when I try to explain this to some) I might work alone at home on studio work but while I'm working I document my practice and share what's happening (messy process, end results, inspirations - all find their way in). Sometimes I ask questions about colour or composition or tools or any number of things. This happens mostly on instagram and twitter, but in the past also a lot on flickr. And also here too, on this blog. Using hash tags like #printmaking #studio #illustration etc are great because you can find all kinds of people popping by to look and sometimes comment.

It sometimes gets tricky when I'm printing. Inky hands and the camera/phone don't make happy companions.

It's all very virtual and yet also very social.

Any yet it's different from when I'm printing or working alongside other printmakers in the same physical studio. I still document my work and share it digitally while I'm there. Yet what I experience with the virtual practices I've just described is different from the way I spend time, move around, practice, and observe others at work in a shared physical studio space.

And I'm trying to work out what is different and why I might experience it that way. 

I haven't joined all the dots together yet.

What about you? Any thoughts you'd like to share on the matter? What kind of digital/virtual studio practices do you use?

artists in conversation

I'm in love with a book I'm reading and think you might like it too. In many ways it encapsulates my dream job: interviewing artists and designers about their practice over many decades. 

'Artists in Conversation' by Australian journalist Janet Hawley has just been published and is well worth a read.

Hawley interviews many interesting (mostly Australian) artists and presents the book as a series of essays about each one. As this review points out "Spanning continents and decades, Artists in Conversation brings to life the creative talents of more than 30 artists including Brett Whiteley, Ben Quilty, Margaret Olley, Bill Henson, John Brack, Sidney Nolan, Arthur Boyd, Adam Cullen, John Wolseley, John Olsen and Albert Tucker, among others."

I've read about 7 chapters so far and was moved to tears by one in particular where Hawley reprints letters between the then dying Lloyd Rees and Brett Whiteley. So poignant.

What's quite special about this collection of artist portraits is the way in which Hawley has developed quite intimate friendships with each of them over long periods of time. Often holidaying with the artists and their families, and always being invited for studio visits and meals and long, interesting, thoroughly-worth-reading conversations. She has the inside scoop on what plagues them, what stirs and motivates them and what fame has meant for their lives and their creative work. 

You can listen to an interview with Janet about her book here recorded 15 November on ABC Radio National Books and Arts Daily.

Fascinating, I tell you!

Dream job indeed. So I'm putting it out there. I'm available to do this kind of project for printmakers if anyone has funding. Just saying.....

studio thoughts

2 plate etching

succulent blossom in sepia

etching press

APW studio

my work area - blood bath!

studio buddy's work area

drying rack

I've made my first use of the Australian Print Workshop's (APW) beautiful print studio. What a fun day! For me it was mostly about process and practice, and getting a better feel for the intaglio experience. As a relief printer and screen printer, intaglio is opening up a whole new, delicious world for me in printmaking. At the moment I'm just producing drypoint etchings. I have not worked up the courage to go near the acid bath and do anything that tricky.

Working in a communal print studio like APW's is a pretty wonderful experience. There was a collective buzz about the place as people went about their printing business, but also plenty of conversation and friendly advice for me when I asked questions. Mid morning an art tour group came through and watched us work. While that was a bit nerve-wracking it was also really good to talk to people who wanted to know more about printmaking.

One woman in the tour group asked me if working in a communal print studio had any benefits to working alone. Without a doubt I said yes. For example, yesterday I worked next to a monoprinter. I haven't done mono prints since high school, so for me to work next to my studio buddy all day was a wonderful way to revisit that process. And boy could she produce fantastic Goya-esque monoprints! There were other etching artists working there too so I was able to bug them with questions throughout the day about materials and process. And I got to see their prints together with mine on the drying boards. It was a lot of fun to see what concepts people are working with and how they resolve into prints.

One special treat I had was to work with an ancient etching press [pic 3 above] all day. What a beauty that old lady is! She's hard work to pull a print through but in many ways working like that is also very satisfying.

As you can see by the prints I made above I'm still working with botanical images, specifically succulent flowers. I'm a bit obsessed with the process and evolution of life at the moment and botanicals is the way I want to communicate the ideas I have about this. So there will be more to come!

blood red

There's been some printing going on around here! This time I've made up a rich blood red ink and printed my banksia pod design with it. I quite like the way it came up against the warmth of the linen.

I use 2 types of Russian linen - a warmer colour called 'flax' and a slightly cooler one called 'oatmeal'.

pic 1: flax
pic 2: oatmeal
pic 3: oatmeal
pic 4: flax

The thing I LOVE about printing on 100% linen is the way these towels wear over time to a gorgeous softness with use in the kitchen. And linen is such a beautiful natural product. Remember this video I posted last year about how it's made?

Oh, and they're in the shop. Of course. Xmas pressies perhaps???

etching class with Bridget Farmer

some of the work I made at Bridget's studio

Fruiting Habit

The lovely Daylesford sky

After spending 2 days in Bridget Farmer's gorgeous print studio near Daylesford I feel very inspired and energised.
Bridget taught me the ins and outs of drypoint etching and I seriously think I've found a new printmaking addiction. Bridget's work alone is inspiring enough. Take a look at this gallery of some of her gorgeous bird etchings. Oooh la la! Aren't they just divine?

Bridget's originally from Northern Ireland but has lived in Australia for a few years now. Her current home is the gorgeous bushland near Daylesford which is where you'll also find her peaceful printmaking studio. And I can vouch that Bridget knows her birds! Her studio has several enormous windows looking onto the bush and while we chatted over lunch and cups of tea she regularly pointed out various little feathered beauties as they perched in tree branches nearby. I was impressed. My own bird naming knowledge doesn't extend much beyond knowing what galahs, lorikeets, cockatoos and the occasional magpie look like.

And the printmaking! What fun! Working in the etching medium allowed me to unleash my passion for linear forms, something that is quite hard to portray through relief printing, like woodblock or lino. So based on my botanical sketches I printed up a storm of various botanical inspired etchings and got to experiment with colour and shading under Bridget's support and guidance. I can't speak highly enough of the soft and gentle approach Bridget has towards teaching what she knows about etching. It was a really magical couple of days for me.

The good news is Bridget's running classes. So you too can learn about various kinds of etching processes in the peace and quiet of Bridget's lovely bushland studio.

embodiment + sense-making

I'm still working out the specifics of Instagram but have been playing there a bit this week for the first time @kyliebudge. Boy, there is just a world of non-stop beauty and inspiration in that app, no? I know I could easily lose a lifetime looking down into my phone screen perusing all that people post there. Wondrous!

Speaking of visuals and the role of them in sense-making for artists, there is a pretty cool new post on Pat Thomson's blog by Megan McPherson (@meganjmcpherson and @thomsonpat on twitter) that you might want to check out. In it Megan talks about the role of visuals and journals in sense-making for artists and it made me think of the way blogs and visual repositories like Flickr and Instagram do that for many of us. Go read and see what you think.

One of the topics the post touches on is embodiment. I've been thinking a LOT about this in terms of the big story I'm working on (a PhD about creative practice and the teaching of art and design in universities). Funnily enough this topic crossed my mind yesterday morning when I was home sick with a cold. I should have been writing, or at the very least analysing interview data but I was in that thick fog that colds bring on (still am really) where it's hard to make the brain work. So instead I did some printing. This decision was so automatic for me that it was only later I realised it has something to do with embodiment. While I still have to use my brain to think while printing it's different from how it's used when I'm writing. And I think it has something to do with how printmaking has become embodied for me through years of practice. By this I mean I can more or less just do it without thinking about it too much or over-analysing. And it feels good to do when the brain is tired. Even relaxing.

If you want to read more about embodiment in the context of art practice go read Erin O'Connor's work. If you're up for a big read here's a link to her thesis. Erin's PhD was an in situ ethnography about how it felt to become a glassblower - from novice right through to expert over about 3-4 years. She writes a lot about embodiment of practice and also language and culture in the context of glassblowing. Really fascinating stuff (ok, I might be nerding out here but I really do think that).

I'm really interested to know - do you feel like you embody some aspects of your art or design practice? In what ways have you noticed this?