Open Studios
Farewelling these two recent paintings as they head off to their new home today. Thank you to everyone who came to Nillumbik Artists Open Studios at Dunmoochin, the engagement and conversations were invaluable. It was so great seeing the faces of very special people I hadn’t seen for so long! Making new friends near and far…and feeling the warmth of family, fellow artists and friends xo
Framing credit to my clever and kind father!
LookingWest
LookingNorth20
Fertile Country
Are there places on Earth where conception is particularly present? An experience in The Kimberley pointed to a particular rock, called Blue Tongue Rock, that could be visited and called into being. The cottage where I am staying here at Dunmoochin is surrounded by two Blue Tongue lizards, who lay in the sun almost every day. This one pictured, appears old and easy prey. So far the kookaburras come and look, and then fly away.
Dunmoochin First Impressions
Leaning heavily on the cultural richness of this place (with a beginners mindset), and it’s historical cast of dedicated artists. It gives so much, in the relationship to nature and to a fully intentional place, with others, to create. I am deeply appreciative of those who have been and are part of seeing this artist residency vision of Clifton Pugh’s through to now. @dunmoochin #dunmoochin
https://www.facebook.com/Dunmoochin?mibextid=LQQJ4d
Artist residency at Dunmoochin
On April the 26th 2024 I began a 12month residency at Dunmoochin in Cottles Bridge, the creation and home of renowned Australian painter Clifton Pugh. The Foundation is run by a number of board members including Clifton Pugh’s son Shane and grandson Lucas Pugh. It is made up of a number of residential dwellings and studios, and is set in the bush. I am in the character filled, historic Cottage, and have a studio to paint in. it feels nurturingly familiar with such a daily life connection to nature and the elements.
It was as though the stars aligned 4 weeks ago, and suddenly here I am living in Dunmoochin amongst other artists and writers, already inspired to get some extended painting time in the studio. More updates with pictures of this peaceful and nature embude place to come.
April view looking across to Cottles Bridge from Panton Hill
The weight of the world - Letting go
2.5m x 1m playing with shards of cardboard and acrylics
Out of the Box
One way to approach a new computer (when you have every cable invented, except the one you need! )…..
Wildwood Days Exhibition
In April this year I held a small exhibition of paintings, created mostly in or between lockdowns in regional Victoria. The show was well supported by family, friends and local community.
Iron Box Forest
Wildflower season is usually between August and October here in Victoria Australia. Often it is like finding the most beautiful treasure when the tiny flowers appear with resilience through rocky ground. Am becoming a forest dweller I think, seeking comfort in nature and ways to express my appreciation for it. Being surrounded by nature is a great experiential teacher for being present and really seeing. As you can tell, it is now January, so this Ironbark painting is taking a while to resolve!
Visiting Old Friends
A much needed comforting few days to sketch some old friends at my family home before Christmas. A chance to have a good look at the old candle bark trees and soak in how they twist and turn, branch off and hold their leaves. Sitting on the earth has never been so beneficial, as the world feels overrun with failings to take up decisive action on keeping our planet not only habitable but with a thriving ecology.
Junk Journal by Curious Chronicles
Hurstbridge summer 2021
9B lead pencil
Chinagraph and oil pastel sketch
Mixed media sketch
Learning to Paint again and again for the first time
Beginning this larger landscape painting has taken time to gather together elements to work with. Although the conception was a visual in my mind inspired by Wild Wood Days , the planning process has been intermittent and spread out over months. With this work I am exploring a new painting style , where I am trying to work with edges in a non linear way… pushing and pulling instead of drawing. Enjoying the challenge and have just sketched out the composition and begun exploring the shadows. Aware to not over work the painting in my attempt to learn how to achieve a painterly style.
Eucalyptus polyanthemos Red Box
Here is my take on this local native species. Size 94 x 58 cm Gloss acrylic on board. Nearly ready for an upcoming group exhibition at the Rushworth ART Depot in May.
The Red Box is of comfort and happiness, as it lines the road leading to where I was born and is also native to where I now live .
The Rushworth ART Depot has been fortunate to have local environmentalist and landscape architect Louise Costa run a series of Botanical drawing classes based on Dynamic Drawing and her own in-depth knowledge of plants. Lou introduced two new species each week explaining their qualities and how they may be included in a garden . Providing habitat for wildlife and insects, the idea of including more natives appeals.
Our only home
...a creative stretch and release. Feeling blocked and shutdown entering only a 5 day lockdown. Wanting to free up. Doesn't always feel good - like making a massive embarrassing mess...but it does get the energy flowing and that is always a good thing.
Our only home
The Arts in Australia and New Zealand
Listening to this conversation between Kirsten Lacey (Paisley) director of the Auckland Art Gallery and Melbourne Philanthropist Carrillo Gantner this afternoon. Reflecting on the status of support for the Arts in Australia, and particularly during the Covid pandemic. They both agree on the devistating effect this time is having and will continue to have on the Arts in Australia where the government has demonstrated very little support.
Kirsten initiated a new Art Museum for Shepparton whist in the role of director there, and was successful in engaging some funding from Federal and State governments as well as other philanthropic fund raising. Carrillo also played a pivotal role by donating his significant Aboriginal Art collection and wrote an important letter to the local mayor explaining the vital role of the Arts in communities.
Thanks to Kirsten’s kind support I was fortunate to meet Carrillo whilst assisting to collect part of his donated Aboriginal Art Collection from his Melbourne home in 2014, and transport it to the Shepparton Art Museum, where we then documented and archived the inspiring pieces. This Art work will be exhibited within the new SAM !
Cultured Conversations Link: https://www.aucklandartgallery.com/page/cultured-conversations-with-carrillo-gantner
The site of the new Shepparton Art Museum is located on the lake and is due to be completed by early 2021.
Blue Tongue Rock
One weekend whilst at Mulan in remote Western Australia, we had the opportunity to go and visit the Blue Tongue Lizard Rock with Veronica Lulu and Eileen. The Blue Tongue Rock is nestled in the bush a short drive out from the community, heading away from Lake Paruku. Lulu (Veronica) assured Kevin, Andrea and Julie that they would receive many grandchildren by each placing their hand on the rock. Lulu asked if I got husband, she said ‘Works when you got partner ’ . Well, yes I had a partner, I think, but he was 3500km away. With warmth. lightness and intent, she placed her hand on my belly, a hand on the Blue Tongue rock, and spoke in Kukatja. That night something moved in my ovaries that I hadn’t experienced before ! :)
Colour inspiration for Blue Tongue Lizard Rock - Rushworth Growlers Hill Wildflower Sanctuary
Sketches for Blue Tongue Rock
Painting Space
The pallete is like a landscape to be travelled and mined for pigment in this case. Occasionally I loose track of a colour and stumble across another resulting in happy accidents and at other times lost days fumbling around to recover a painting from a divergence in colour pallete consistency. Right now this is the situation with ‘Fish Out of Water’. Today I am back in the studio attempting to recover this painting, putting aside the free abandon with which I began this work. Discipline is needed to push on with eyes open and brittle edges soothed.
Moving a bit too slowly. Fingers crossed I can bring the Galaxias into being today.
This way of working with a ‘disorganised’ palette for me, supports intuitive processes, discovery, creation, exploration and infinite possibilities within the boundaries of the kidney shaped board.
Updated Fish Out of Water.
Fish Out of Water
Ok, here goes an attempt to share some thoughts behind a painting before it has fully formed. Watching a fish grasp for breath out of water reminds me of the heaving chest of those who have contracted the Corona Virus. These fish are the small Galaxias fish which have been under threat of extinction for a while, however since the NSW fires in January this year (2020), the small groups remaining are at risk of suffocating in water containing the runoff sludge and ash due to burnt surrounding vegetation.
Another ‘feeder’ into this painting was the news that fish had rained from the sky at the desert community of Lajamanu NT back in 2012. Apparently cyclones are suspected to have picked up the fish from water sources and carried them inland for thousands of kilometres.
More to come…..
Invisible Cities
Imagining places that I love, places that are without the constructed presence of suburbs and layers of concrete, to one day be smothered with ‘civilisation’ makes me feel motivated to understand what is in us that creates/destroys at such a cost. The answer could simply be population of the planet, but how does this explain the dualism of perpetuating life, yet decreasing opportunity for continued life? .
Exploring our inner worlds and how that relates to what is created outside in the world, leads me to seek to understand if there is a correlation between our connection to our ‘true nature’ and our connection to nature.
What if….we shone some light on what we do to ourselves psychologically ? What if we recognised our grasping at the material world as a product of the separation from our true nature ? I know this is a huge question, to which various answers may be found depending on where you look. I think we can answer these questions for ourselves, or at least ask ourselves these questions, as a way of exploring current paradigms of living that may not serve us for much longer.
As we move further into the 21st century one thing is for sure, that if we do not resolve these kind of questions within ourselves, they will be resolved for us in some form. The natural world that we depend on, can not sustain us if we continue to become increasingly disconnected from it/this part of ourselves.
Invisible Cities Reflection
The way dreams roll out images, feelings, experiences for us to relate to is curious to me. Invisible Cities is a series of paintings that explore mapping dreams. The trigger for these paintings occurred during meditation whilst listening to the sounds of the Tibetan Gyuto Monks - FreedomChants from the Roof of the World, and I began to revisit dreams. From there I began to work with the process of meditating to access dreams, and then captured physical orientation of the dream scapes in my mind ready to paint. Whilst painting I also revisited the dreams. At the time it simply felt vital.
This year I stumbled across the book Dream Yoga: Illuminating Your Life Through Lucid Dreaming and the Tibetan Yogas of Sleep, by Andrew Holecek. This book is helping make some important links in understanding the value of lucid dreaming, and how to work on transcending the mind to live more consciously.
So far I have had some success with evoking lucid nightmares ! …a stage of facing fears and challenging these fears. To talk more about this here could lead to creating the perception that I have lost the plot, so will just say that this is simply a way of exploring the nature of the mind and its role in nature by awakening to our dreams.
During the first months of Covid 19, I attended the online call to Prayer, Meditations held by Tibet House in Dharamshala India. The meditations were accompanied by teachings and focus on relieving suffering. This is something I value highly.
Latest work
Today has been one of those blissful days in the studio. Fire going, radio playing and relatively uninterrupted time to get lost in moving pigment around the canvas.
This is Seven, the dog from Mulan WA. The decision to leave him behind filled me with so much sadness the day our plane took off from Mulan. That morning he ate a huge meal, lay in the sunny green grass outside my duplex with his friend, another community dog.
The first time I glimpsed Seven was when heading out on an evening walk along the desert road. He was in the tall grass on the edge of town, and I asked “Are you going to sleep in there ?” He watched me all the way up the road. The next evening his face appeared at my door. He became my best friend for the next 5 months, following me everywhere, waiting for me everyday at the classroom door, ready to walk home. The wonderfully strange thing about the last day, was that he did not follow me for the first and last time. He looked content, happy and healthy. I had fattened him up ready for my absence. To leave him behind was the hardest thing I have ever done.
In leaving Seven I had to ask myself questions I barely knew the answer to. Seven actually belonged to LB (who had six other dogs) - was it ok to take another person’s dog assuming I knew better. Seven would have to be fenced in if he came with me, how is that better than life in the Kimberley. I had a cat at home waiting for me, Seven most likely knew that cats were for chasing. He had ‘friends’ and family at Mulan, I would be taking him away from them.
What happened to Seven ? In Aboriginal culture stories are often stronger than ‘fact’. One day I received word from Kevin and Andrea who had been back to visit people at Mulan and launch Kevin’s new book of poetry Look at the Lake by K. Brophy, that Seven had been taken to another community. An email from a teacher living in my duplex said Seven had been around when she first arrived, however the children said he had died. All I know is, he is alive in my heart.
Recently i’ve enjoyed seeing online updates of my cousin Melinda’s paintings. Her work reminds me to work with edges in-terms of colour value and to not just render a painting to create a 3D effect. That way of painting allows the painting to have more life about it as a complete piece. I feel almost like Im starting a new. Loving the process - building stamina for seeing what is ‘wrong’ and pushing on to find new solutions.
This painting has more to go…
