narragonia

I built a wall.

2011-11-23T22:02:00.001-08:00

Here is an update!

I don't think the term 'update' is entirely appropriate, considering that my last post was in February or some time dusty and distant. The term 'update' would maybe imply that dear readers have been avidly checking for news at regular intervals, which would be sad for them as consistency is foreign to me.

Here's something else that's foreign - I've made some art, and it's viewable as we speak. It has an internet location here, and if you want to gaze upon it you have to go here. Looks good at night. I'm satisfied.

It's strange that I decided to build a wall. Years ago I had convinced myself that I needed to know how to build a wall. The skill of wall building seemed vitally important. Perhaps one day soon there would be a plague of nasty ground-dwelling animals and I would be called on to protect my home or suburb with a solid, sturdy wall.

Well, my wall building skills are still atrocious and it took two days to contruct that fiend, even with helping hands and all the silicone Bunnings could hold.

a thing in Fremantle

2011-01-26T22:11:00.000-08:00

This is a thing in Fremantle. Near a bridge. Go find it, it's great.

Contrast And Compare

2011-01-26T21:09:00.000-08:00

Sketching is good. It makes ideas get more idea-y. This is something I forget until on a whim I do some sketching and then I realise it again. "Oh yeah, well..duh." Logic frequently slips away from me.

I am so used to doing white things that I am pretty intrigued by the idea of not doing white things.

Also...I changed fonts. Keeping it real.

2011-01-23T22:34:00.000-08:00

clean slate

2011-01-17T00:11:00.000-08:00

When I went to Melbourne a couple of years back, I picked up this surface from the PanelPop shop. It's beautiful stuff, and notebook-sized. This year I'm going to use it instead of a visual diary, and take photos between sketches. It's good to have a solid, reusable object to project thoughts onto, and the surface is a little like dry clay. Plus it saves paper and is made from reclaimed materials. I think when you use clay and kilns it's pretty important to try to save resources wherever you can...ceramics is not exactly a green artform, sadly.

I will post my preliminary sketches up here from time to time.

I Had Heart Surgery And All They Gave Me Was This Orange Lustre Stump.

2011-01-04T23:29:00.000-08:00

Recently I've found it difficult to read about art.
It'd be nice to call it a hangover from the dizzying art-party of '10, and the competetively theoretical nature of BArts(Art)(Hons). It might be. But general mental fatigue results from a bunch of things, including endless late nights and computer-screen staring, oppressive weather, and getting too easily sidetracked by the obligations and anxiety of general life.

The thing is, whenever I open a book or magazine or catalogue and begin to read some person's thoughts about contemporary art, I become physically tense. Frustrated, my eyes flit distractedly over the columns of text, and I realise that I'm simply overwhelmed by total disinterest. I can't help but assume that it's going to be five pages of jargon that will either be a convoluted statement of the obvious, or that the writer's speck of insight will be disproportionate to the length of the article, such that the time required to read it would be better spent, say, enjoying a macchiato from the gallery cafe, or a quick nap in the car.

A lot of artwork has this effect on me too. If it looks like it's going to be too much work, I dismiss it almost immediately. I don't think this is shameful. I won't necessarily always think this way. Maybe that art is just not appropriate for my particular situation right now. I need something that has the power to make my vague, elsewhere mind think that it is in my best interest to return to the present, and exert a bit of energy in actually thinking about the thing in front of me. It's an annoying cliche to say that ceramics has this right-here-right-now capacity, but I guess that actually is why I like it. It suits my frame of mind.

It's probably fair to say that I'm more comfortable making art than looking at it. For me the actions involved in doing art stuff are more valuable than observing the finished product. Maybe that's because the objects I make are mostly acts of research, or ways of thinking about things I've seen. I prefer studios to exhibition spaces. Though ideally the two are the same.

Clearly I'm feeling a bit pent-up from a lack of activity, and rather than make art I've been reduced to blogging. I have also been riding my bike to interesting coastal locations and taking crummy photos of things that I like, but until I get sorted with a studio space and a kiln they are going to remain as crummy photos of things that i like. Such as this.

I Had Heart Surgery And All They Gave Me Was This Orange Lustre Stump

End of Hons

2010-12-06T01:55:00.001-08:00

I've found this project fiendishly difficult to photograph. Thankfully, for my final exam there were others to do it for me. Thankyou to Jessie Mitchell and Casey Ayres for these shots.

Some illustration photographs to come soonish.

Dark Room

2010-08-25T01:12:00.000-07:00

Still no photography skills. And I try so hard. Well, the work is progressing.

Star Of The Sea

2010-06-20T22:17:00.000-07:00

Some better photos of what's cooking. Actually I tried to do some cooking the other day thanks to Jamie Oliver-inspired lunacy, and it really is better for everyone if I stick with making intentionally non-edible creations. My artwork right now mostly involves constant re-arranging, which is great if you have knees of steel. I don't. The mid-semester holidays offer me a chance to really get this project completed before having to write arduous assignments and such. But this week I have been mostly doing nothing. All that is about to change, however. What you see here is half of what you will see at the end of the year, and that's a (rashly proclaimed) promise.

Maritime Mysteries

2010-06-07T07:58:00.000-07:00

Semester 1 of my Honours year draws to a close. I hope to exhibit the work from this year in an actual gallery at some point. In the mean time though, I will be joining Kate-Anna Williams in a collaborative exhibition entitled Flight & Light at the Pigeonhole Bon Marche Arcade space. Probably in August. Stay tuned!

In the meantime, here is just some of many things i have been working on:

Southern Ice porcelain, inlaid cobalt/black iron oxide.

A Story About A Far-Off Land

2010-03-09T07:37:00.000-08:00

Long time. Life gets in the way of formal activities such as this blog.

Something I did many months ago now - I took a 5 week trip to the Netherlands, during which I visited some stunning galleries and was just so impressed by the work there. I visited the Princessehof Ceramic Museum in Leeuwaarden, which has a wonderfully diverse collection of ancient, antique, modern and contemporary ceramic artwork and functional wares. And the shop, oh, the shop.

Fancy a romantic dinnertable setting? This one comes with over 20 small bird craniums.

Bronze lustre torture items are a must for your tool shed tidy.

I also took a guided tour of the Royal Goedewaagen ceramic factory- all giant kilns, 10-piece moulds and wacky machines - which is also has a nice gallery, particularly featuring Gouda design, other art deco stuff and lovely Dutch pieces. This photo does great injustice to what was actually a large and inspired portrait of Rembrandt. The depth of the blue paintwork was breathtaking.

I spent a fair amount of time in Groningen, the main city in the northernmost province of the Netherlands. It's a great city - nowhere near the size of Amsterdam, but more laid-back and still lots to explore. A bit like the Perth of the Netherlands, maybe. What they do have is an absolutely brilliant piece of architecture by Italian architect Alessandro Mendini, the Groninger Museum. To be honest I loved the museum more than the art within it. It looks pretty good in photos but you need to walk through it and touch it to really get it. I was wandering around with a smile on my face the whole time. I think I left a bit of my soul clinging lovingly to its wonderfully kitsch mosaic walls and gloriously inconvenient walkways. The Groninger Museum also has a dreamy floor devoted to Chinese and Japanese ceramics, a disorienting labyrinth of floating curtain curves and glistening glass cabinets.

I took a lot of photos. If you would like to know the artists or details, leave a message. Also, if you're interested in photos of Chinese ceramic ware en masse, art nouveau functional ware, or more of that delicious modern design from the Princesshof museum, send me a line and I'll make more of an effort to upload. Once again, apologies for poor quality.

Oh, so many wonderful things to see in the Netherlands, and I would love to show you all my photos but I'd just get off topic. If you visit Amsterdam I strongly suggest you go to the Van Gogh museum. It's perfectly sized so that you can see everything without getting art fatigue, everything is intelligently and educationally arranged. And the work is so beautiful, it brought tears to my eyes.

If you visit the Netherlands for MORE than just Amsterdam, which i believe is not a very accurate representation of the country as a whole, I suggest you visit Dordrecht in South Holland, and take the scenic ferry ride, preferably late in the day. Dordrecht will capture your heart. Definitely my city of choice, were i to move there tomorrow. Dreamy, arty and cosy.
If you want more action, more student life and more Miffy, go to Utrecht. Utrecht has an enjoyably two-tiered kind of city layout, with a below-street-level section along the main canal, lined with architects'/designers'/artists' studios - many of them have a commercial entries or galleries up on the main street level. Also, Utrecht boasts the Dick Bruna House where you can take a trip into Miffy-land. Miffy is known as "Nijntje" in Dutch, meaning 'bunny'. Sadly it was closed when I was there...

I'm getting all nostalgic thinking about it now. The Dutch really know how to incorporate the arts into their cities - but to be fair, I thought that the actual quality of much of the contemporary art I saw there was not much better than that of the art in Perth. There was just more of it, and more cultural support of it.

A Flock Of Birds

2009-07-29T09:53:00.001-07:00

There is a nice photo of some ceramic tiles i made for the Pigeonhole exhibition, over at the Pigeonhole Blog. What a nice evening the opening was, it even inspired me to attempt to "mull" my own wine.

sydney, some art, and a brownish area with points

2009-07-27T08:42:00.000-07:00

In Sydney i got distracted by this great palm tree:
and my disappointment in missing Liza Minelli singing at the Opera House.

Here is my art at the Young Guns exhibition:

It's the two black rectangles with indistinct grey blurs on them. Sorry I didn't take a better photo. And to cap things off, here is some more stuff i've been making:

Now I'm off to Germany and the Netherlands for five weeks. When I get back I will get down to work. Tot ziens!

Love Bights

2009-07-19T07:47:00.000-07:00

I'm back from Sydney! My eyes are sore from too much art. It was mostly good art though.
I enjoyed the spectacle and glamour of Sydney, but I'm happy to be back in cosy Perth/Freo. I loved looking at the Opera House, I could sit around looking at it all day. I loved the inside and the outside, I loved looking at the big ole bridge through the O.H. windows. But even so, I never get sick of the view from the top of Monument Hill in Fremantle, and even the Opera House has difficulty beating the sight of the ocean from the Round House lookout. Maybe it's because Fremantle has a view of the cranes, and we know how i love cranes.

That there is the Great Australian Bight. Probably the best thing i saw during the whole four days. My shonky camera doesn't really show exactly why. But it was very big, very shiny, and very, very bighty.

I will give a more topical post when I am not sleepy and guilty from avoiding real work.

Love this City

2009-06-26T06:43:00.000-07:00

Excitement! I have a piece (or two?) appearing in the exhibition "Young Guns", an exhibit of international ceramic graduates that is a part of the Australian Ceramics Triennale in Sydney. I sent them off in a packing crate two days ago, and soon i'll be sending myself off in a similarly-sized economy seat, to attend the opening on the 15th of July. I've never been to Sydney before. I hear mixed reviews.

Meanwhile, i am making a piece for a cute exhibition at Pigeonhole, and also, my oil tanker is gradually taking form:

A series of tubes

2009-05-12T09:01:00.000-07:00

The internets:

Those greenish grey markings are the result of something that was stuck on the kiln shelf. I may discard those ones or i may decide that i like it that way. At any rate i have some more bits going in the kiln on thursday and i'm going to start making the next batch tomorrow. I've moved on from pipes and i've started making rectangular things, but I will return to the tubes soon. I'm going to need a LOT of them.

Return of the Swamp Thing

2009-05-10T17:52:00.000-07:00

I'm back! I've been getting sucked into the gloopy mire of a busy schedule, but now i'm going to be awesome instead. I've been getting a bit more work done at uni and I will show you once it's high-fired and shiny.

I visited Melbourne for a week-and-a-bit and whilst most of my time was spent at the Suzuki Convention, I made time to visit some great little galleries in the city centre, and a way-too-brief visit to the National Gallery of Victoria, where there was a jaw-dropping exhibit of ancient ceramic and stone artifacts. I also spent an almost shameful amount of time in the Craft Victoria shop, and came away with new posessions and new ideas.

I also came across a little shop on Brunswick St, selling a fantastic new art surface which is a bit like plaster, a bit like ceramic, a bit like a chalkboard... visit http://www.panelpop.com/ to have a look. I ended up buying a little framed square one that i have been playing around with. Drawing! It is fun.

If you build it they will come

2009-03-23T20:07:00.001-07:00

Lame. I have done nothing that i could topically write about on this blog. I've been too busy with other, less cool things like essays and actual work that pays me actual money (as opposed to thecompletely illusory sense of making money that i get when i spend a day making clay objects).

I did read an interesting book review (err...because i am too cheap to buy the actual book) on Searching For Beauty: Letters from a Collector to a Studio Potter by Richard Jacobs. It's a really carefully considered review. I also love certain quotes that the reviewer has taken from the book, especially this one:

Art contains our insecurities and physical limits as well as our talents...We must reach definitions of excellence that forgive and complement the labor of our hands.

I am in two minds about this. On the one hand, I strongly agree. The individuality and validity of a personal style is something that should be factored in when aiming for 'perfection'. But is it in one's best interest to simply assume that your skills are 'limited' and can/should never be surmounted? Are we really capable of overcoming every technical barrier? This is a dilemma that i think about both in regards to my visual art and my other time-consuming pursuit, playing the piano. Classical piano and pottery are scarily similar; there is always a core group of masters who are completely dismissive of anything short of 'perfection' or 'mastery'. Can we redefine excellence or perfection to mean something that describes a person's limitations with absolute accuracy?

I don't know. I do know that i haven't done nearly enough throwing, handbuilding, or piano practice to satisfy the masters, but I wonder how much it will take to satisfy myself.

and i liked it.

2009-03-11T05:41:00.000-07:00

I came across this quote on Monday:

Art is an ode to life;
It is not a form of entertainment,
it is a form of joy.

2009-03-09T23:00:00.000-07:00

I have been sick the last two days, which has been bad for work and my usually amiable disposition, but good for my ceramics. I have been messing around with throwing and carving and there will be photos soon!

homes away from home

2009-03-04T06:31:00.000-08:00

Well, the forms have been filled out: it looks like i'll be going Back 2 Skool in the next few weeks, as a Graduate-in-residence in the ceramics department at Curtin. I'm really excited about this! I get to use kilns and hang with old friends and maybe even make new ones! Most awesomely, i can use all the resources - equipment, library books, studio space - and i don't need to pay a cent. THAT's education.

Here's a few photos of my garage studio. You see: my work bench:

What you can't see: the ever-spawning community of daddy-long-legs spiders that festers away in the corners, under the bench, under my stool, in my storage boxes - and the accumulating mass of crushed spider bodies in the broom bristles.

You see: my wheel and wedging table:

What you can't see: The half-dismantled old car directly behind the chairs, mechanic's tools strewn hazardously across the floor, my brother spending half an hour hammering an engine part into what he later realised was the wrong place. Seriously. Boys. Can't live with'em, can't get free rent without'em.

Hi ho Silver, awaaaaay

2009-03-02T07:29:00.001-08:00

Back in the saddle! I used my wheel for the first time today. I bought it from a lovely friend a while back, but since i lacked some other equipment i hadn't used it. Until today! I hadn't thrown any pots since uni last year, and i stopped throwing pots around September and focused on handbuilding. So it's refreshing to get back into it. My wrists aren't too happy about it though.
I took a photo with my phone but i can't figure out how to Bluetooth it to my computer. Fail.

Just makin it audible.

2009-03-01T06:10:00.000-08:00

Today I had two people in two unrelated circumstances tell me to make them something useful. I love functional ceramics and I'm excited about making some in the near future. But if people keep saying to me "when are you going to make some mugs", I'm probably going to start feeling resentful. Maybe i could call myself a sculptor instead of a ceramic artist? Maybe sculptors get asked the same thing. "Nice object, but dude, when can you make me some shelves?"

I kinda get it, I mean, using a beautiful, handmade mug or bowl at breakfast is pretty much the most awesome way to start the day. I have all sorts of ideas for functional ware that i would like to make some day. But seriously. I had my art right there. I was all "Here's something that i put lots of time and effort and thought into!" And they were all "That's wonderful! So anyway, make me something that I can use. With my name on it."

I guess the point of this post is, waa.

Shipping Fragments

2009-02-25T06:02:00.000-08:00

Some photos of last year's work, by way of introduction. This year i am following a similar idea, but in a manner which will hopefully be more concise and make better usage of gallery space.

Annie Get Your Blog

2009-02-24T21:19:00.000-08:00

I'm going to try this again. Here is a blog, in which i will blog. This blog will feature photos of work, by me. And maybe other stuff too. Thanks for visiting!