Packing boxes within box was like a 3D jigsaw with no ‘right’ solution. I think the additions to the video give extra information plus make it clearer that the video is documentation, not the final work itself. Still, the most important word is “Done”!!! Below is a lower resolution version.
There’s a break before I can begin my next OCA course, with the new level 2 course due to be released in September. Now the challenge is to live that time richly, productively, a trial of beyond the structure of studies.
The plan is to live the life I aspire to. Follow various strands of inquiry, look, think, interact. I don’t have a particular target, other than not to drift. These round ups are part of that, part of living consciously, being accountable to myself.
Paper Yarn project
The last update was May 1 and since then it’s been promises.
The final additions:
- 20160502
- 20160503
30/4 & 1/5 How quick to fall out of habits!
2/5 Some ribbon from a mountain gift, combined with more of the newspaper. Getting close I think.
3/5 A bit more of the Darley’s ribbon, a bit more newspaper, and I’m calling it done.
A fast review:
Lecture
In the Collectors series Louise Marshall talked about Art and the Renaissance court: the d’Este of Ferrara. Some beautiful Renaissance images. I’d love to spend some time at the Palazzo Schifanoia. A reminder of the very calculating way art and the symbolism contained can be a political tool.
1&20 sketching project
Claire (tactualtextiles.wordpress.com/) and I have undertaken a shared project. We meet pretty much every week at the AGNSW lectures and we’ve decided to bring in a new sketch each week to discuss and critique, and help keep our sketching fresh and moving. No grand plans, we’ll see where it can take us. We’ve chosen an initial task of going into an environment, deciding on a focus in one minute, then 20 minutes drawing.
So far I’ve chosen items in my workroom – where I’ve been spending most of my time, tying up MMT. Week 1 was one of my MMT wrapping samples. Some paper with traces of indigo on it, oil pastels, quite lively. Claire brought in a very polished drawing in pencil on cartridge paper. In week 2 I took up the challenge of drawing something and trying to make it look like the actual object (usually I’m concentrating on observing, or lines, or whatever, not so much on producing an image as such). So hopefully you can tell what the object was.
Ceramics

sketch 20160519 – based on Gordon Baldwin’s stoneware form (1971) www.galeriebesson.co.uk/baldwin.html
Looks like a potential research strand, but I’m wary of starting up too many strands at once.
Ephemeral art
Suzanne Davey (http://www.suzannedavey.com.au/) left a comment about the Ruth Hadlow workshop. After visiting Suzanne’s website there was still more grinding of teeth about missing the class – Suzanne’s work really draws me, and I would have loved to have spent time with her. The term “ephemeral art installation” came up within her work. It was only last week I learned the term, when Michael Hill used it talking about Andy Goldsworthy (who apparently makes them almost daily, a kind of warm up or sketching practice). There’s an idea somewhere in there for building my sculptural sensibilities. Not working in nature and letting weather do its thing. Perhaps it fits back into the MMT approach, lots of samples and the wrapping ones especially soon dismantled. Make, record, reflect, repeat.
And depending on your time scale, isn’t everything ephemeral? Is the difference a matter of how much we treat something as precious, that we take pains to maintain, or that we try to control?
Text / writing
Very interested in some of the work Lottie has been doing with a 3D pen and text (eg https://thecuriosityoflottiecontinues.com/2016/05/16/t1-mmt-pt3-pj2-v-additional-samples/). Love the animation and the idea of not-quite-readable.
Preparatory readings for Ruth Hadlow’s class (sob) included a number related to Simryn Gill. I remember seeing her Forest photographs at AGNSW (http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/32.2003.a-p/ and a particular example http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/collection/works/32.2003.a-p/). Strips of text from books torn and arrange in nature, say in the bark grooves of a palm. And we’re back at ephemeral art.
I tripped over the Voynich manuscript (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Voynich_manuscript) this week – a mysterious text that hasn’t been deciphered. That mystery obviously is very effective at engaging people as the ongoing attempts to find meaning show.
What is important about something that appears to be text above other expressive marks? I don’t accept that there is such an “above”, just all sort of differences between many, many forms of mark. Expressing one’s self, finding meaning, connecting – words are among the options.
All this was definitely on my mind when I visited the Biennale on Cockatoo Island this week.
Biennale – Cockatoo Island

Camille Henrot
Grosse Fatigue
The video took the form of a large computer screen, presenting the story of the creation of the universe, full of all the jotted notes, snips of text and videos, images and graphics that clutter our screens and minds. A warm male voice spoke poetry, creation myths from different cultures. I’d like to go back and quietly watch it all. The catalogue text includes “challenges the traditional categorisation of art history”. I didn’t see that, but was a bit distracted at the time.
The sculptural works reminded us of Henry Moore with their voluptuous curves, but were even more explicit. The room was dark and my photos blurred unfortunately.

Emma McNally
And then you find this.

Emma McNally
There is a sense of the physical effort, the time, the stretch of muscles, the artist responding to her work in front of her. There is a terrain we try to read. Is this an abstraction of land, of our lives?

Chiharu Shiota
Conscious Sleep
The same evening I came across a photo of Duchamp’s Sixteen Miles of String installation. Some very different ideas. More reading required.