Simply glowing

I recently got a new camera and i'm just a wee bit obsessed with it. I can't stop photographing things! Kenji had his glaze recipe pegged up on the wall today and the light behind it just looked so beautiful I had to take a picture. I love the little doodles he's done too.

In the studio

Kenji and I were working away in the studio today, when we looked up to see three magpies standing in the doorway just quietly watching us. We all just sat there for a moment looking at eachother, and then they turned around and walked away. I managed to catch this little fellow though. He came back for a second look.

Radio Head

I’m a total radio junkie. I can’t get by without my radio. I have it on all day when I’m working away in the studio or at home. I mostly listen to Radio National – news, documentaries, world music, art, books... love it!! My favourite program of all is THE DEEP END, an arts and culture show that covers events, ideas and issues in the visual arts, theatre, dance, film and music. I highly recommend it! They have a particularly great section called the makers where they speak to artists about their process of making - what they make, how they make it and why they make it. From violin makers and installation artists through to dancers, ceramicists, painters, jewellers and conductors! You can listen via their website, or download it as a podcast too (my how modern!). And seeing as it’s ALL about the Asia Pacific Triennial here at the moment, here’s a link to a recent program that takes you on a virtual tour of the exhibition and talks to critics and artists about the show and the spiffy new building. I promise I’ll stop talking about the APT now…maybe.

Another great program on RN is By Design. Saturday morning....coffee...newspapers...by design...aaaaaahhhh...

(thanks for the pics of the radios jilly!)

La Femme Domestique

I gave an artist talk today at the QUT Art Museum as part of the exhibition La Femme Domestique. I hadn't actually been able to get in to the gallery until today so it was nice to finally see the show. Some great work by some great women! The image is of Donna Marcus's work, who has also recently done a fantastic public art work in Brisbane Square.

I'm getting scared....

Oh yes the christmas frenzy is upon us!! Having been largely holed up in my studio the last few weeks I have somehow managed to miss the build up of the christmas frenzy outside of my own little world. But in the hunt for a new pair of scissors yesterday I naively wandered into one of the $2 shops only to be immediately assaulted by blaring christmas carols, blinding displays of tinsel and shiny christmas balls, and a lifesize electronic santa clause screaming ho ho ho into my ear and singing an unidentifiable song that I think was meant to be jingle bells. I stumbled out disoriented and ran quickly back to my studio to recover.

In her garden

I’ve just recently sent these little babies down to the Craft Victoria Silent Auction. They’re from a series I’ve called In her garden – my nana’s garden. She was an avid gardener and was never happier than when she was out amongst it all, tending the lemon tree, planting fuscias by the laundry or sweetpeas against the chicken wire fence. It was also her solace in darker times. The garden is largely untended and looking a little wild these days, but the daisies and roses and camelias and fuscias persistently bloom. Before the house gets sold I made sure I took some photos of her garden, which I then turned into designs for this work. She'd be tut tutting at the state of the garden if she could see it now, but I think she'd be pretty happy with what I did with it. Even if the garden is no longer, there’ll be a little part of it that lives on in this work! So they’re a bit of a tribute to her. That’s how I remember her….in her garden.

MUD

An interesting interview with Shelley Simpson from MUD ceramics by Kristine at Three Layer Cake. I'm a fan of MUD ceramics. The forms......the colours......mmmm. I always enjoy hearing about how people started out, and how they ended up doing what they do. There are often so many unexpected and interesting stories behind it all!

Ai Weiwei

Ai Weiwei is a Chinese artist who only appeared on my radar fairly recently but since then he seems to be popping up left, right and centre. And I'm liking him a lot! Apart from the fact that some of his work involves ceramics (always guaranteed to make my nose twitch and my ears wiggle) he makes some pretty interesting observations on tradition and cultural stereotypes. When I first saw these coloured vessels I thought they were a playful interpretation of traditional Chinese ceramics, and in some ways they are that. But there is another dimension added to them when you read the little didactic panel that lets you know the vessels are actually authentic Chinese pottery dated 3500-5000BC....painted with acrylic. The other image is titled "Dropping a Han Dynasty Urn". ooooooohhhhhh.......

Galerie Meile has some more images of Ai Weiwei's work.

View from the Shed

The view from our shed is of these huge big camphor laurel trees. When I was a kid we lived on a big property outside of Murwillumbah (land of many possums) and dotted around the countryside were these thickets or forests of camphor laurels. I remember so vividly walking through them – the smell of camphor, the ground thick with the dry reddish brown crackling leaves. Inside the thickets everything was just so still and so quiet. Quite magical. They were beautiful.

Unfortunately, unbeknownst to me as a little munchkin, Camphor laurels do great damage to the environment, particularly in Northern New South Wales. Go here to find out more about the evils of the camphor laurel!! Such beautiful trees, but so destructive….bummer.

The Shed

I work in a lovely lovely studio in the grounds of a fantastic building that used to be a museum. I share the space with 2 other ceramic artists (more on them shortly). Apparently the shed we work in used to be a loading dock for goods on the railway line. The trains would stop alongside the shed and offload their freight through these big tall yellow wooden doors.

The museum building itself is pretty amazing. I have vague recollections of going there with my dad when I was a child. The rooms are just cavernous... huge big spaces that always make me feel like ballroom dancing whenever I pass them! The whole building feels like it is full of stories and ghosts and secrets. We're pretty lucky to be able to work here. A quiet, leafy little place right in the middle of the city.

Masami Teraoka

Yesterday I went to a lecture at the QLD Art Gallery by Masami Teraoka. His work is part of the Asia Pacific Triennial. What an entertaining speaker he was! Full of great anecdotes of his life as a young Japanese artist in America in the 1960s. He was trained in traditional techniques of Japanese woodblock printing (ukiyo-e) and draws on that tradition to create paintings and prints that include everything from geisha's and samurai's, to condoms, g-strings, hamburgers and priests! It was nice to be in the gallery on a weekday without the thronging crowds and to just sit back and listen to someone talk about their work and life.

APT 5

Well put your seatbelts on kids cause he we go! Brisvegas is humming at the moment with the opening of the Asia Pacific Triennial and the new Gallery of Modern Art (GOMA) over the weekend. And what a shindig it was! Very zshoozy indeed – I even ditched the sneakers and clay-covered overalls for this one! Apart from the fact that in order to attend I had to pretend to be someone else (thanks to all those who assisted by calling me Donna for the evening), it was a fantastic night with lots of great music (Talvin Singh and local greats Neighbourhood Groove Collective) and lots of great art – although a bit tricky to get a good look at it all through the thronging crowd of 4000 people! The new building is rather spiffy and I am a bit beside myself at the prospect of a jam packed few months of artist talks, performances, films and other good stuff! Yippee!!