Virginia Jones (was) at Metro Arts

I've been trying to get to this post for the last week but alas time eluded me and the show finishes today! So instead of urging you to go and check out the work of Virginia Jones at Metro Arts, I'm just going to show you the photos and tell you how great it was!! The show is a part of Ginny's PhD research into art and nature and was made up of various installations as well as photographs and other documentation of some of her ephemeral works. The gallery itself is one of my favourites, a huge space full of character smack bang in the middle of the city.  It was all a bit impressive really!

You can read a little more about Ginny and her work here. 

Yoshihiro Suda

I was taking a stroll along the river the other day and stopped to have a drink from a bubbler. As I leaned over to drink I saw these little fellas (above) creeping up through the cracks in the boardwalk. I was instantly reminded of the work of Yoshihiro Suda (below) who I recently came across in a publication called Spectacular Craft. This guy has some serious patience! Each tiny piece is carved by hand from magnolia wood and they are so incredibly executed that it's almost impossible to distinguish them from the real thing. Craftsmanship like this just leaves me speechless. You can find out more about him and the exhibition Spectacular Craft here.

And speaking of fine craftsmanship...don't miss this one. Kirsten Coelho (image below) at Helen Stephens Gallery. September 17th -October 12th. (Where IS that damn tardis!!!!)

Collaboration

I mentioned a little while back that Andrea Higgins and I were working on some collaborative pieces with my cut glass guns and her photogram process. Well here's the first prints. The three guns were cut from glass platters (using my new favourite water jet process) and then placed on to photosensitive paper and exposed.  I love the way the process highlights the variations and faults and bubbles and scratches in the glass. A bit like an x-ray.

Gore in the garden

I spent the morning in my sunny back garden sitting under the poinciana tree with bumcrane and Li'l chubba. As we drank tea and scoffed Shingle Inn cupcakes (mmmm) bumcrane regaled us with gory stories of Brisbane's early history that she had recently unearthed - gold diggers chopped to bits, murderous butchers, wrongly hanged cooks and dark family secrets of the well-to-do! Lovely!!

six hundred degrees

Another blogger on the block! Sophie Milne is a Melbourne-based ceramicist based at the Northcote Pottery studios in Melbourne. She makes lovely functional and decorative vessels that you can now read more about at her new blog six hundred degrees. Sophie has also taken on the challenge of developing and managing the sparkly new Pan ceramics gallery housed in the pottery complex that opened with what sounds like a fine shindig the other night. Check out her blog and her website, and if you're in Melbourne check out the gallery!

Wedd at Waverley

Sometimes I wish I had a little blue telephone box like Doctor Who so that I could just nip down to see all these shows in Sydney, Melbourne and beyond. The next one I’m going to miss out on is Gerry Wedd’s show at Helen Stephens new gallery this month. Gerry has just posted some interesting background info on his work on his blog which you can check out here. Another ripper I reckon. Opening night Wednesday 13th August and the show runs till September 7th . Catch it if you can.

At journeys end

This work was the title piece for my show - Keep Calm and Carry On, a slogan from a British World War II poster. It was inspired by the stories of some of the women in my family and their experiences of war time (mostly the Second World War). One aspect of the stories that really interested me was what it was like for the women who stayed home, the women who had to carry on their daily lives while their husbands and sons and fathers and brothers were fighting. I was drawn into this subject by a show I was involved in a couple of years ago and despite my best efforts was not able to let it lie. It just kept coming back to me. I could never attempt to take on this subject in any universal sense, but found myself drawn into it in the context of my own family story. One way I explored this was by taking objects and symbols related to these stories about the war and recasting them in (or having them cut from) old, and sometimes iconic, domestic objects, some of which belonged to members of my family. It was a fascinating and confronting and puzzling and often unresolvable process that had some unexpected resonances and conflicts for me in the context of todays political climate.

I always get really nervous before an exhibition when people want to know what my work is about, or you're asked to write an artist statement or press release. I usually don't know what to say and get myself all tongue tied and ramble on a bit incoherently! Its not until its up and I've had some time to reflect on it and get a bit of distance from it that I start to work out where I'm coming from. So i'm still pondering and digesting all of this. Now that I'm feeling remotely human again. Geez, its been a big 4 months!! Oh to sleeeeeeeeep! For more than 5 hours at a stretch!

Narratives at Sabbia

Now here's a show not to be missed. A sweeeeeeeeet line up of some of Australia's best (and some of my favourite) ceramic artists - Julie Bartholomew, Janet DeBoos, Honor Freeman, Patsy Hely, Ruth McMillan and Angela Valmanesh. The show Narratives runs from August 7th - September 6th at Sabbia Gallery, and there's an opening event and floor talk by some of the artists on August the 8th. More info here. Should be a ripper!

Gun Love 2

A few more images of the work in my show. This piece above almost didn't make it in. Something about it just wasn't sitting right with me and I umm'd and ah'd for weeks about whether to include it. I set it up in my lounge room and walked past it every day, and every time I walked past it I changed my mind about it! But after some convincing from the gallery and a few other folks, in it went. And it went down a treat! A big thank you to bum crane for her help and patience in setting this work up. She can roll a mean ball of museum wax i tell ya!

The guns above have been cut from old plates using a water jet process. I'm a tad enamoured by this technique at the moment and have spent the last six months op-shopping like a mad woman and have accrued quite the collection of plates and saucers just awaiting the chop!

Coo Coo

Yep, more pigeons. This is the last of them! All of these were cut from small saucers and I've used both the front and the back of them. I love the back of old plates, the markings, the stamps, the symbols, the text and fonts they use. They're often a lot more interesting than the front of the plates! One of the pigeons has an extract from my grandfather's war service record decal'd onto it, and another a map of PNG where he served in the Second World War.

Coo coo......

Keep Calm and Carry On

Well FINALLY it's here - this show I've been rabbiting on about for months now it seems! The invites are out, the catalogue is ready to go, and most of the works are packed up ready for set-up next week. Time to down a few glasses of much needed champagne - it's been a while between drinks I tell ya! Opening night is Saturday 26th July 5-7pm at Jan Manton Art and the show runs till August 16th. Susan Lincoln (image below) is also exhibiting so it should be a good old shindig! Hope to see some of you there!

Susan Lincoln, The Immaculate Conception, 30 x 22 x 18cm

Art Monthly

Well I'm sure most of you (in Australia at least) are aware of the recent hullaballoo over the latest issue of Art Monthly. But just a few pages on from THAT front cover and THOSE articles is an article by Louise Martin-Chew on me and the work in my upcoming show!

Formargruppen

Formargruppen is an arts & crafts collective in Malmö, Sweden and they are currently holding an exhibition of functional cups by makers from around the world, including me. I’m exhibiting alongside some wonderful makers, including Karin Eriksson (image left), Ayumi Hori, Scott Rench, Anne Linneman (I swoon over her work), Kenji Uranishi, Virginia Jones and lots more good folk too numerous to name here! So if you happen to be living in or passing through the area go and check it out. Wish I could! The show runs until August 28th.

Ceramics and Print

Well it seems that ‘ceramics and print’ is like so hot right now. There's a lot of activity going on in this field at the moment, from workshops, conferences and symposiums to books and exhibitions. And why not, it’s a damn fine way to make art/craft/design!

I spent most of last week freezing my ass off in Canberra at a ceramics and print symposium held at the ANU School of Art (that fantastic building pictured above). My talk/demo was up first so I was footloose and fancy free after that to watch other workshops, talks and demonstrations, to catch up with lots of my nearests and dearests who call Canberra home, and to show off my latest work. A fine (albeit exhausting) week indeed!

Sydney based artist Petra Svoboda (image above) is also running a 'Printing on Clay' workshop at Sturt from July 7th to 11th. Sorry for the late notice with this one…it has been in my inbox for weeks but I just haven’t had a chance to get it up here…should be a goody though - she works with a pretty extensive range of techniques. More info here.

But wait…there’s more!!! I’m off to Hungary in September for a month to take part in an international symposium on ceramics and print called Hot Off The Press. Can’t WAIT!!! I was very excited to receive an invitation a few months back from the International Ceramics Studio in Hungary to be part of the symposium. I’ll be working alongside some super folks - Paul Scott, Scott Rench, Maria Gesler and Antal Andras. You can check out more details on the symposium and the artists involved here...

Ceramics and print-a-rama.

Fragile Environments

Dawn Stetzel Between Two of Us (porcelain, carved twigs, felted wool)

A few years ago when I was a visiting artist at the University of Massachusetts, I met a woman called Dawn Stetzel (sounds like pretzel). Her studio was directly across from mine and every day I would watch amused as she would scoot in on her bicycle laden with all kinds of weird and wonderful things she had found down by the waterside….pieces of worn styrofoam, nets and little plants, samples of murky water....her studio was like a science laboratory with things growing out of tubes and pipes and fermenting in trays and buckets. It was most curious! So I was pretty excited to see the outcome of all this, which she has recently posted on her blog. Her work is about noticing, paying attention and taking care and shows a beautiful sensitivity towards both the fragile nature of ceramics and our relationship with the natural world. She is currently gallavanting around this wide brown land of ours having all kinds of adventures, slowly making her way up here to Brisvegas. Check out more of her work here.

Dawn Stetzel Drip Bird (polluted water, porcelain pipes, bird)

Rice Boy Sleeps

My friend Jo (she of the beautiful ceramic twigs) sent me this link. Nothing to do with ceramics, but make yourself a cup of tea/coffee/gin and tonic and put your feet up and listen/watch this. Beautiful.

Madonna Del Rosario

I went to the opening of Madonna Del Rosario last week at Artisan, a collection of objects and jewellery inspired by the rosary. Love a good religious theme I do! There’s some interesting work in this show, but the opening was so jam packed I only got the briefest of looks at everything. So I’ll have to get back in for a quieter look another time. A few pieces particularly caught my eye though - Gerry Wedd’s crown of roses (image above), Julia Moretti's giant rosary made from uncooked pasta shells, Madeline Brown’s beautifully “tatted” rosary, and local ceramicist Ky Curran’s Madonna tile installation…definitely worth a look if you're in the neighbourhood.

Another sneak peak

Here’s a little sneak peak of some more work in my upcoming show. Yes folks, more pigeons. The text on the vase is from a little gem of a book I found one day whilst randomly wandering around the state library. It’s called “The Flower Garden in Australia” (a gardening book for ladies and amateurs) written by a Mrs Rolf Boldrewood back in the 1890s. It is a delightful little book and the way she writes about the flowers is both beautiful and amusing. This vase is about the Camelia, and I’m currently finishing off another one on Hydrangeas. I’ve always loved hydrangeas. They’re so old fashioned, and they remind me of those funny little swimming caps women used to wear back in the ‘olden days’!

Fun and Games

Well it’s been fun and games around here lately I tell ya!! What a wonderful whirlwind life has become! In between being a mum (it still seems quite surreal!) I have managed a few little bursts in the studio, finishing off work for my solo show and tidying up some other odds and ends. It’s been quite an interesting experience having to work in small fits and bursts. Gone is the luxury of 5 (and sometimes 7) long days a week playing in the studio! So when those rare moments happen and I can steal away for a couple of hours I just turn into a whirling blur…faster than a speeding bullet! Its amazing how quickly you can work when you have to. And how much time I used to spend faffing around! There'll be no faffing for a while now. I’m faff-free.

In Vogue (living)

A fancy little page in the latest Vogue Living - Margie Fraser has written a lovely article on both mine and Andrea Higgin's work. We've both been dabbling with crystal and glass platters of late - Andrea photographing it and me casting it. Andrea makes beautiful images of domestic objects called photograms - no camera involved, just the object, a dark room and sensitised paper. We're about to embark on a collaborative piece which I am very excited about - crystal guns and photograms...can't WAIT to see the results. Hopefully not too far away.

This Coat of Arms piece featured in the article is part of my upcoming solo show Keep Calm and Carry On (as in the World War 2 poster) in July at Jan Manton Art.

A very nice cup of tea

A cup of tea never tasted so good....from my new Kirsten Coelho cup (and bowl). Thank you Kirsten!

8th International Ceramics Competition, Mino, Japan

I’ve just had some work selected for the 8th International Ceramics Competition in Mino, Japan. I have been meaning to enter work in that show for a while now, and kept missing the deadlines. This year I made it with just a couple of hours to spare (thank god for online applications!). I’ve had 2 of my translucent bowls selected for the ceramic art section, one with a recipe for my nana’s pumpkin, pineapple and prune cake on it - I know, sounds kind of gross doesn’t it??! What was it with that generation and prunes? - the other a letter written by my grandmother to my father relaying a story about my uncle almost shooting himself in the foot when he was a kid (image above). Its my favourite letter of my grandmother’s – it just oozes with the characteristic sense of humour and mischief and larrikinism of that side of the family, as well as their knack for story telling. I also had a group of 4 of my patchwork beakers cast in Southern Ice porcelain (below) selected for the ceramic design section. All packed up and posted off today.