Photo: D Knight

Wilderness continued

Last week I posted some quotes and images that are inspiring me lately. I've also been

carrying around a quote in my diary since last year:

Wilderness is not a luxury but a necessity of the human spirit. - Edward Abbey. 

They need little explanation - evoking space, provoking thought and handing out a challenge 
to choose a large sheet of paper and some chalky or waxy drawing tools to describe my 
response. My son's travels in Patagonia were a delicious catalyst  - those vast expanses of 
uninhabited wilds are pretty awesome. So I picked up a battered copy of 'In Patagonia' 
by Bruce Chatwin and a new Moleskine this week. 

As I sketch, I'm thinking about the concept of wilderness as uncharted or unclaimed internal 
stage too, not only as physical geographical landscape.

Here's another quote: 

The wilderness is a place of rest - not in the sense of being motionless, for the lure, after all, is to move, 

to round the next bend. The rest comes in the isolation from distractions, the slowing of the daily 

centrifugal forces that keep us off balance. - David Douglas


I'm hoping to be able to play in the studio over the next month in between work, healing my damaged 
knee and sheltering from the almost unbearable heat from the tin roof in this small space. 

    Photo: D Knight (Patagonia)

Wilderness thoughts and inspiration

"I pictured a low timber house with a shingled roof, caulked against storms, with blazing log fires inside and the walls lined with all the best books, somewhere to live when the rest of the world blew up."
— Bruce Chatwin (In Patagonia)


"I climbed a path and from the top looked up-stream towards Chile. I could see the river, glinting and sliding through the bone-white cliffs with strips of emerald cultivation either side. Away from the cliffs was the desert. There was no sound but the wind, whirring through thorns and whistling through dead grass, and no other sign of life but a hawk, and a black beetle easing over white stones."
— Bruce Chatwin (In Patagonia)


"And the end of all our exploring
Will be to arrive where we started
And know the place for the first time." 
— T.S. Eliot

"The creative act is a letting down of the net of human imagination into the ocean of chaos on which we are suspended, and the attempt to bring out of it ideas.

It is the night sea journey, the lone fisherman on a tropical sea with his nets, and you let these nets down - sometimes, something tears through them that leaves them in shreds and you just row for shore, and put your head under your bed and pray.

At other times what slips through are the minutiae, the minnows of this ichthyological metaphor of idea chasing.
But, sometimes, you can actually bring home something that is food, food for the human community that we can sustain ourselves on and go forward."
— Terence McKenna

"Every step you take is a step away from where you used to be."
— Brian Chargualaf


Images;  the collage above contains a stunning selection of images by film maker and artist Clare Langan , whose mysterious and evocative stills are hugely inspirational for me. As well it contains as a still from 'The Wilderness Downtown' - an  interactive short film by Chris Milk for Arcade Fire. Check it out - it's lovely.

Readers and Writers Week

Summer

you uncomfortable joke!

Clouds, you fly dangerously close

and falling dreams make hopeless midnight feed

Come rain, sweep out my dark mood

Give me sunrise

Send in that rare sunny caress

The quintessential key.

Found art

This summer I've been astounded by the wealth of found art around me. Twilight patterns rendered in sand on a windy beach, a beautiful scale dinosaur evolving on a wall onmy way to the studio, these picture poems by an artist at Toi Poneke (the Arts Centre up the road from me) and a small poignantly paced puppet show in the french style which has played everyday in the mall this past week. Honestly, the volume of creativity in my local community is both humbling and astounding!

Red Art Gallery showed my work in Nelson last week

This time last week I was heading down to Nelson to open my exhibition at Red Art Gallery.
This week I'm back at work (have a look on Picture it so to see what I've been up to) and looking ahead to the next creative project or job on my books.
That odd and over-used phrase 'onwards and upwards' delivered with an Irish lilt and a heavy sigh, springs to mind. Although it makes me inwardly smirk, I do feel as if I've barely caught breath this year before lurching towards the next deadline.

Regardless of being a little time impoverished, I can't let this event pass without posting about it - it's too special and working towards it was sometimes so hard to fit in.

I want to write about how warmly I was welcomed and hosted at Red and how much I appreciated seeing my work hung and lit so beautifully there. It was a pleasure to see the tiny paper works on the wall, which Jay framed with such a light touch that they were allowed to speak for themselves and be delicate.
I'm sorry, I didn't take a camera - I'll have to ask her for a picture to post here.

I really enjoyed chatting to those friendly Nelsonians who came last Tuesday evening, who came to appreciate seeing a bit of new art in their city and greet a visiting artist warmly or who bought my work because they loved it. Thank you to you all for coming, you were lovely.

If you're heading to Nelson in the next 3 weeks do call in to the gallery at No.1 Bridge St - they do a great lunch and a superb tea or coffee in their café too.

So... although most artists like to sell our work, it's not all about sales is it?
It's as much about completing a creative project and having it received by others, in order to let it go and move on to the next creative endeavor we're bound to explore.
And what would that be ?

Always there's room to reflect about why I make the work I do, the difference between drawing and painting - and this time, the contrast between the scale of the works on show. I've come away with plenty to ruminate on.

My pillow book this year includes:

• textures that make your fingers twitch - not necessarily larger than life, but intimate, barely there or conversational textures.
• marks that have genuine depth and meaning
• images that sing to souls - some of mine do, some don't (why is that?)
• scale that is both accommodating for rooms and expansive enough to allow freedom of movement
• colour that's allowed to shout or be subtle. (Its about time for subtle I think).
• supports that suit the medium. The old paper versus canvas debate again!

OK that's about it for now - there's plenty there to keep this active brain busy and experiment with in the days to come. As Fifi says, it's time for some head down work now, so it might be a bit quiet in here for a while.

Wanganui Summer School

Now that my paintings are boxed and sent off with the courier, it's time to assess the fallout here in the studio.
Brushes are standing stiff and irretrievable in solidified varnish; the boxes left over from the Storylines Festival and the Spinning Gold conference are tripping me up daily, and piles of papers are dotted about, their contents a jumble and a mystery. Somewhere in there is my ACC invoice- but where?

In the mess I have found the brochure for the Wanganui Summer School. You can download it here if you don't have it.
Summer School is a week of stimulating classes and artists talks for professional and emerging artists, with whiskey tasting (if you're me) and sunshine in the company of like-minded artists. It's stimulating and exciting enough to keep you going as a practicing artist, if you're thorough with your post-summer explorations, for another 8 months at home. If you're lucky you'll bring home the bones of your next show too. It's not to be missed really and Rob McLeod is tutoring again too (though I hear his class is probably full already).

This year I'm not attending, and although that's a bit disappointing, the holiday I know I need from the crazy full year I've had to date, will be more replenishing in the long run.
There's a time to push the hell out of yourself (and I know when I need a good kick!) and a time to rest and breathe slower. This year I just long to be still a while and not have to be anywhere or meet my own tough expectations.

I'm looking forward to next week though - to being in Nelson and seeing my work hung outside of my studio, to having it received and to wearing my new Spanish shoes!

Quotes to be remembered

Here's a quote from Picasso that resonates with me today.

The artist goes through states of fullness and emptiness, and that is all there is to the mystery of art.

Pablo Picasso

I've been varnishing paintings this week - and learning a lot in the process about the fickle nature of varnish. After one piece clotted up and gelled alarmingly in the warmth of my studio and I washed it off hurriedly, I also learned a lot about the outer limits of acrylic to be soluble!

Glazes that I'd made with a dilute solution of paint just melted off the surface of my canvas and trickled own the sink - and those I'd worked with glazing medium stayed behind. It was a good lesson. Consequently here I am back in the studio today, to paint a new last last piece to complete my 10 canvases.

Mary Cassatt said:

I doubt if you know the effort it is to paint! ...The trying and trying again and again and oh, the failures, when you have to begin all over again!

How things grow...

A seriously bad stitch up photo that shows these little paintings as they stand today - another week and the collection may look a little different depending on which eyes I'll be wearing!

Terrain in Nelson for the Arts Festival

Well here it is - the invitation to Terrain. Nice to be moving towards having this body of work finished and lovely to be showing during the festival at Red Gallery. If you're in Nelson over that time call in. I'm also showing the last 2 large paper works and small framed postcards - so there will be a mixture of scales and media. I'm getting excited now !

Dali at the NVG

A week or two ago, on Fathers Day (what were we thinking?) I visited the Salvadore Dali exhibition 'Liquid Desire' at the NVG in Melbourne. (13 June - 4 October)

I'm not a Dali fan, but it does hold a certain retro fascination for me. I was looking forward to seeing a broader range of his work than those familiar pieces we all associate with this somewhat 'outre' artist, especially his drawings, sculptures and photographic experiments with space.

It's the first time I've really come up against a large show where the experience of the art is so plainly influenced by the quality of the curating.
Aside from the size of the crowds - which were pretty unbearable and snail paced, I thought the design of the exhibition did no favours to the enormous number of works on show.

In the first 'room', ceiling to floor small works from Dali's early years were hung as close as postage stamps. Delicate and bizarre little drawings were displayed about a foot or two from the floor, or higher than eye level and crammed together so that appreciating their simplicity or individuality was difficult.
Large, closely spaced tracts of dense wall information were everywhere, to tell the unedited story of his career. Their indigestability served to prevent crowd flow or conversely deterred people from taking in the information at all, and the walls of further round rooms were carpeted in vertical 150 mm wide striped grey and charcoal plush fabric.
It was difficult to separate the experience of the show from the artwork - and intensely claustrophobic.

In all a disappointment. I didn't see any elephants on stilts - my favourite piece, and the jewelery though beautiful was mounted in view cases at breast height (which made for rather comic visions of visitor interaction). The sculptures dotted about were fascinating, though few.

I really wish I could be more positive about the show - it was a major one and there were some stunning pieces in it.
My partner loved it, so of the 4 of us one was content that he'd seen an amazing exhibition on Fathers Day - the rest of us were happy for that !

Hidden routes

I've been playing with using varnish as a medium to make images or to add information to my paintings - it's fun to explore. Gloss over matt has the most obvious success, but semi-gloss is a more subtle sister and may be useful to layer too. I like that it's a light painting - or to be more accurate, a shine painting. These small works are coming along...

Terrains

Gonner

The painting on the extreme right in my last post didn't earn it's place, so on Saturday I replaced it. With a worse one! Oh well... it happens.

Recently I've been rereading from the pages of What we Ache For by Oriah Mountain Dreamer;

I know, it sounds a little mystical doesn't it, but trust me it isn't - there are gems in there and on second reading I still think so.

She talks about the fertile silence required as a vital component of the creative process. How ensuring there is enough empty time in your life to come to some stillness and just be is often what facilitates the flow - and with it the joy of the unexpected outcome.

'We cannot begin our creative work if we do not have an idea of where we are going, the intent to write or paint or compose, and a practice that takes us into the process.
But we cannot continue in a way that is faithful to the creative process unless, after beginning, we loosen our grip on the original idea and allow room for something else to happen, something that produces more than what we could produce from our knowledge and will alone. And we cannot let go, cannot surrender to the creative process itself, unless we can find some stillness to allow ourselves to stay there where the creativity of a fertile and abiding emptiness can find us.'

I think I've been so busy working lately and so focussed on it, that I haven't cultivated enough time to do nothing - and to stay with it for more than a moment. Preconceived notions, anticipated outcomes, necessary planning and deadlines all crowd in from my working week to occupy the creative space - and in order to claim it exclusively I need to make the time I have more 'sacred'.

The answer to the question 'what if empty time, time without plans, tasks, or scheduled events, is a necessary prerequisite for accessing your creative imagination, doing creative work?' is not within my power to action - at least not for the month of August.

A collection of postcards

This little collection is currently hanging in my studio and growing slowly. When you look at them together, it's interesting to note similarities and developments in these little works (all 305 x 405mm). I'm quite liking the scale these canvases - it's do-able with everything else I have on in my life right now.
I'm not sure if the one on the extreme right is finished yet - I'll leave it on the wall a while and think on it - I'm sure it'll come to me why it jars a bit. I think they'll look great all hung together like a patchwork, especially once they're varnished.
I bought 3 varieties of varnish (gloss, semi, and matte) and I want to experiment with lifting keynotes out of the works, or even making work where the information is on the surface texture. That might be fun.

Embodied in paint

Last year in the film festival I saw a movie about Edith Collier, a Wanganui artist of the 1920's who was a friend and fellow painter of Francis Hodgkins and Dorothy Kate Richmond.

What hit me hardest, and the saddest thing; was that once she returned from Europe and London where she explored and mastered her modernst style; she was faced with her community's parochial ideas and her appalled fathers' displeasure at her bold nudes. After an episode where he burnt her paintings, she stopped painting entirely.
It's not just that she stopped that saddened me, but that after she died, the family found a whole trunk of art suppiles she'd gone on collecting throughout her life.

Hopes and dreams embodied in canvas and tubes of paint.

I thought of that today, as I came back to the studio weighed down with the promise of brown paper bags filled with new paint and an arms full of canvasses, and I promised myself to put them to good use, whether or not the results turn out as I hope.

I've been playing with new colours all afternoon. Happy as a sandboy.

Flights of Fancy

An exhibition of new works by Rosalind Atkinson and Leilani Isara

Thistle Hall August 4th -11th

If you get a chance, pop in to Thistle hall and have a look at this show. Rosalind is a recent Massey graduate and her artwork and illustration is very delicate and assured.

The mystery of what's underneath

Under painting reminds me of all things 'under' - mysteriously necessary to give shape and structure, a tantalising glimpse of what's to come (or sometimes a big disappointment if viewed before the beguiling and descriptive top layers are added). Wearing only under painting a painting is colder, flatter and sadly lacking definition.
In order to be complete, you have to have it and so you plough on adding layers over the scrappy flimsy underpinnings that define your idea(l).

Today I got stuck at the under painting stage - incredibly frustrating and a little disappointing since tomorrow's Monday again.
If it was formed of clay, I'd return my work to the mass, throw it into a dark bucket and begin again. Instead, it'll stay on the easel, I'll come in tomorrow and squint with fresh eyes at what it is I'm struggling to express.

There's the soft red of the background for a start; traditionally a dominant colour, I've been forcing it to recede all day and wanting it to be a foil for the many whites... it isn't happy ! Then there's the skin tones, the motion blur that isn't and various stickiness experiments. Sigh.

I think today might be one of those days - full of creative learning and some momentum but no visible progress.
It's been nice to be in the studio nevertheless, and now that the light's finally slipped away I will too.