Deceptive entropy

An interesting thing is happening to our building at the moment.
The natural entropy that comes part and parcel with an old inner city building (circa 1903) which has seen many generations of gallery space and artistic endeavors is being amplified.

At Enjoy - the gallery down stairs from me, a show has been taking shape for the past few weeks. It's called 'Landing' (Oct 30 -Nov 15) and for one of the artists at least, it's taken place outside of the gallery walls. Through subtle brushwork and paint mimicry, the artist has created an insitu simulacra which highlights the buildings aging face and tarnished surface, and without changing the bone structure; the stairs and stairwell have become a canvas.

In the morning I come to work and wonder whether that dirt, this brown wax (is it squashed gum - or worse?), that chipped lino or this rust stain was here the night before.
I marvel at the progressive but subtle decrepitude as it advances and how it only serves to highlight the existing characteristics that we as tenants know so intimately. The artist Raewyn Martyn has a day job, and so these small transformations occur at night or in the early hours. It's one of the more curious shows we've experienced this year ...and I think I like it.

Painting with brooms

Yesterday Sarah and Howard and I took over a studio in town rented by a collection of Wellington artists. Armed with large rolls of paper, some mis-mixed colours (mmmm,that raspberry really was inspired!) brooms,water balloons a 60 ml syringe( dangerously unpredictable but fantastic results) and a handfull of crapped out house brushes we tuned out from our preferred painting styles (or zoned in as the case may be)and worked collaboratively on at least half a dozen large pieces at once to the accompaniment of some damned fine music.

Sarah's attempts at paint bombs were scarily messy and we decided we might need to be gurilla (oh spellign where art thou ?) painters outside (or in some ready to be demolished or pre-renovated space) to get it right. She still hasn't got it out of her system - and neither have I. The broom almost worked but I needed more hip movement and more paint on the brush - a dustpan brush and Indian ink works better for the kind of marks I wanted. I think the upshot is that we'll do it again soon.

We looked at the results yesterday, as we put the borrowed studio to rights, and decided some were worth keeping, and some were great learning pieces which worked incredibly well when they were divided. Less is more and knowing when to stop when you're working at a large scale is still knowing when to stop !

I love the way Howard's camera/phone in all it's low tech glory has captured the movement - the stretching and the energy of the day.

A mark a day

Oh dear! July. Really? - July was my last posting... that's terrible!

On my board today I have a couple of newly prepared large canvases. They're recycled, so they have a legacy of surface textures. In this case I wish they didn't but I guess they'll offer something to the interplay, so it's all good.

Stuck on the board I also have a fragment of a poem that goes like this...

"its not the intangible that torments us, but what's right here, the familiar, current, abundant, beyond our grasp..." I've lost the source of the lines, but I suspect it's Kathleen Graber.

I feel a bit like that about my art at the moment. So Sarah and I have agreed to play at making a mark a day. With no agenda, no pressure and no back story. I've imposed a palette - because I can't quite pick up any tube with my eyes closed yet. Todays mark is predictable. (Tomorrow's mark I'm going to try not to judge!!!)

We've also planned to play soon on huge paper,(roll on Labour Weekend) on the floor of a 'wet' studio belonging to a mate, with brooms and house brushes and reject house paint and crayons. Big tools,(Brooms! I can't wait - my idea of total experimentation!) and loud loud music - any offers of good funk or Mowtown sounds - I'm definitely a taker.

Does it sound like I need to loosen up? Too right. Totally. I've been one uptight and out of sight woman for too long lately.

Mentoring's been interesting recently too.
It's not easy being told what to do (when you're me, lol) but some of the ideas have been useful, and the mirror to the crap I stash has been illuminating!

It was on the tip of my tongue to say I didn't think that mentoring was working for me. The exersizes felt aimed at exploring more of my inner world than my creative world - and for now, I choose not to paint about myself (I know all art is essentially about the self)
But in the end I think you have to find your own way in, or back, or forward to the creative place. Take the first step - the one you're afraid to take... and the best messages or tasks are ones you set yourself. A mentor can only suggest, after all.

One thing my mentor said though, which I've been dwelling on...
There is an interesting thing going on in my work about the way I confine my marks and images to spaces and within boundaries. It's worth exploring and I'm going to try and work away from that tendency by working through it more deliberately.
There's also some lovely marks on the boot polish and ink drawings I made at the life sessions (take crap materials, see the model as a person, draw what they feel. Damage the work when it gets too retentive). They're worth amplifying and playing with - as start points.

This phrase 'like a map with no edges' seems to come back and visit me from all directions lately (work, learning and art)
I've identified it through some 'work' workshopping I've been attending, as the way that I learn - like navigating a cosmos, going deep when I need to - or not, spreading broadly over a subject when I choose to, with no set directions to constrain the curiosity - and always in response to my own questions - seldom initiated so juicily or vigorously by required learning or by just one learning style.
In my art it's the same - the need to traverse a territory and learn it's terrain, building the language to speak the terrain out loud and describe it's joys as you go...
And so I'm making a mark a day in order to step back onto the map. Today's was the colour of blood.


I decided not to enter the drawing awards this year and I know Bruce Mau would be proud of me. I don't need the pressure, or the proof, or even the feeling of participation. (Well ... maybe that. I do need that, but there's more ways to feel a part of something bigger than competitions).

I realise I probably need to journal my creative practice too - writing this makes me realise how much I've missed trapping the thinking in a written format.