busyness and birthdays

Blogging fell by the wayside for the last couple of weeks as it has been full pelt at work and on the academic front. And in the middle of colliding deadlines I had a Significant Birthday.

As a token of his esteem Toby gave me a special birthday present:

 And the amazing Kind Dog gave me a present every day for Birthday Week, including:

 a sixteenth century amethyst ring;

a Chaucerian silver pendant;

and a Shakespearean bracelet.

In the park I saw a Birthday Cormorant

 And then back to the books

52 pickup and I get to meet Seth!

Today I had an oasis day - no thinking about work or study (both nuts at the moment - 6 hour teleconference anyone?) - and instead spent the day at a workshop with the wonderful Seth Apter. Seth is an immensely talented mixed media artist: we 'met' two years ago when he asked me to make a piece for his next book. The Mixed Media Artist was duly published in October last year and included my piece Siliqua Lucti.

So I was really happy when I saw that Seth was going to come to Australia and give classes as part of the Art is You mixed media roadshow. I did Seth's 52 pickup class and it was so much fun. we had to turn up with a deck of playing cards, painted with black gesso on both sides.

Seth taught us how to do all sorts of magic with paint and gesso - here's what mine looked like after a couple of hours of playing.

 I edged mine with gold ink.

It was great to meet at last - Seth is a gem. If you get the chance to have a class with him, grab it!

lunchtime in the park

On my work days I try to go for a half hour walk in the park across the road from my building. It's a really good 're-set' time to go and look up into the trees and sky, watch the birds, search for treasures and have some mental space.

I see all sorts of interesting things and small treasures: today's strange find was this oddly spiralled sap.

There were hard lumps and filigrees of this resinous ook that had seeped out of the tree all the way up the trunk. Some bits has fallen onto the ground but there were lots still attached to the tree.

It's opaque as you can see, has no detectable smell and it quite smooth - not at all sticky.Very strange.

progress report

things are zooming along with my current body of work - still very experimental but huge fun and my hands are perpetually paint and ink-stained

here's what I have been doing for the last few days:

 eggshells painted with stage blood

 silk stitched and painted with plaster, painted with stage blood

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 a ham net from last Christmas, saved for he right project, layered with silk organza and fibre, stitched and painted with soluble paper, paint and ink

sinamay, painted and dyed, layered with silk, stitched, stuffed with silk fibre and cocoons and pierced with porcupine quills.

exhibition!

Three of my artworks will be on show in the Media House Gallery in The Age building in Melbourne from 6 August until 26 September.

 Desert Triptych

 Jealousy

and Xylem/Phloem: the secret landscape of trees.

The lovely Margaret Cooter (herself a talented and always interesting artist) commented on my post about Tomas Saraceno's sculpture and left a gift in the form of a link to the work of Shelagh Wakely - an artist I haven't heard of before.

Drop whatever you are doing and go and read this  http://www.theartsdesk.com/visual-arts/first-person-curating-shelagh-wakely

Beautiful, clever, delicate and rich work - I'm looking forward to learning more. Here is an image of Wakely's work partially recreated Paisagem Inutil, 1997 taken from the article.

Tomas Saraceno at GOMA

When we were in Brisbane a couple of weeks ago we went to the Gallery of Modern art and were absolutely captivated by a beautiful, light and clever sculpture by Argentinian artist Tomas Saraceno.

All photos taken with my beloved Pentax Spotmatic, using a Fuji Neopan SS film.