Fashion Fun

A little while ago my good friend Sue visited Brisbane so I headed south on the train and we spent a couple of great hours together - chatting, shopping and this!

We walked across the bridge to the State Library and GOMA - the Gallery of Modern Art and found this exhibition celebrating twenty years of two Brisbane designers Easton Pearson. The most fun part was in the children's education area (we didn't have any children with us, but still felt we could join in) where you could play with different photos of fabrics that the design duo use, a couple of different styles of clothing and put them all together on these templates and stand them up as part of an ongoing exhibition. We had fun!

The two girls side by side are ours; the others belong to the ongoing exhibition/display.

Clearly you didn't have to be a grown up to do this - the last photo is the proof.

Student art exhibtion

We travelled to Brisbane thru the week to attend my niece Emily's Year 12 Graduation exhibition. The students did a major art piece,and then had to make an artists book to accompany it. There was such variety and talent around, and I love that they got to explore the book medium in all its wonderful permutations.

I think Emily is very skilled with watercolour and has great control of the medium. I liked how she used her mock up drafts in her book; and even more I loved that she used a binding we had done together in a studio day here, and used rough brown string instead of toothpicks or skewers - taking an idea to a new dimension.

Her main work was woven and hung and also used some tea bags we had done some mixed media work with, so it was lovely to have the connections to her final pieces.

More garden bounty

The hot weather has certainly see the vegetable garden take off - the corn is high and ears are growing, the basil has already gone to seed, and the tomatoes are taking over.

We picked some zucchini and pulled up some onions this week. One of those zucchinis was just a little bit over done; but will be stuffed for dinner tonight we think.

I love garden bounty!

Mapping the Range - COMA exhibition

Plenty of local artists belong to COMA - the Collaboration of Maleny Artists. It is a group where information about exhibitions, workshops, prizes and awards is shared by a regular newsletter and which also 'hosts' a couple of group exhibitions each year.

Our next one is "Mapping the Range" in which we have each purchased a grid on a topographical map of the Range where we live (i.e. mountain range) and have been asked to produce a square work of art.

I sneakily chose the grid representing where we live, so I didn't have to travel far to create. Below are a couple of images from our deck that I plan to include in my bookwork...

The thoughts behind the art

I am in a bit of a hiatus at the moment - a couple of big pieces of work-work to get thru, a trip to Melbourne and then I can re-focus on all the lovely bits of books and art that are in my head.

In the interim I thought I would simply share the thoughts behind the exhibition. It was called "In the stillness..." and Barry created several series of works - meditation bowls, incense burners and fonts from recycled metals that worked towards that theme. My calligraphic pieces, prints, books and paper work were joined by this thinking which appeared as my artist's statement...

I respond to quiet art. I like work that doesn’t shout; work that is calm and quietly draws you in and asks you to spend some time with it. This is in part why I love artists books - books allow the viewer to be intimate with the work; to have a one on one experience and to be drawn into the artist’s world, often quietly and slowly.

This series of works includes a small number of artists books as well as a larger number of wall pieces. With these works I have reflected what happens for me when I stop and am still and am quiet; as well as my desire to promote peace in small and everyday ways. Some of the works involve inspirational words that can remind us of our potential; reminders which often come when being still or quiet allows them in.

My love of books and words and text mean I often express these sentiments, thoughts and desires through calligraphic means and in this exhibition I have used a range of materials and forms to produce the written word. My prints suggest the tranquillity that serene landscapes offer; for when we stop and celebrate the beauty of small moments and recognise the wonder of the world, our spirits are nourished.

Being. Being still. Being quiet. Being peace.

Planning an art future

Barry and I tend to work in a fairly incremental way with our art - we don't take off and explore new horizons without thinking; we don't drop everything and say 'that's it, we're going there, we're doing that'. Instead we tend to think about what we do, how we might take it forward, and do little steps. Perhaps we need to be bolder at times; but so far it's working for us.

Following our exhibition we thought it was time to review and explore where to next, so we sat and had a planning session (supported by Barry's famous homemade pizzas and a glass of red wine, so it wasn't a dreadful business type thing).

We worked our way thru a couple of mind maps (see below for some examples) and then today I have written it up more formally. We are pretty loose; no timeframes, no strategies, no milestones; but we do try to just explore things and test them and use these 'plans' as guides to what we do next. Knowing us several things will appear from out of left field as well that we will pursue enthusiastically; so a plan should always be flexible!

Floral happiness

I am often bemused and befuddled by art. What sells? What is valuable? What is it worth? I pondered over and over about whether or not I should exhibit my whimsical copper flower and words pieces. They made me smile as they hung on my studio wall; but I wasn't really sure if anybody else would 'get' them.

In the end I took them both in - reminding myself that this was an exhibition about who I was and what I did and these were well and truly 'me'.





They both sold before the exhibition was fully hung. Since opening I have taken orders for 4 more. So I guess the answer is yes, other people do enjoy their whimsy and they make other people smile too!

BTW - the online exhibition is now available for viewing here.

Open for business

We finally made it and had a great opening night on Saturday - lots of people and lots of friends joined us as we stepped forward onto the stage. This exhibition was another important marker for us as we build and grow our artistic side. We have both been in group exhibitions before but this time we were saying - OK, here we are, this is who we are and what we do - with nowhere to hide really.

We are both pleased that a number of pieces have sold and that a lot of folk have also said how much they enjoyed the quiet space. We were aiming for the room to be peaceful, still and restful and thanks to Ken's curating it appeared just so!

We were way too busy to take photos on the night - but here are a few of the space without people that we took today.