Getting started....... 

Wow, the first three days flew by, consumed largely by setting up my space, taking care of all of the OH&S requirements for both Arts Tas and St Pat’s (no escaping this stuff for artists, in fact making art can be VERY dangerous) and sorting out access (keys and IT). In the process I met lots of really friendly and helpful people and stumbled across a number of already familiar staff and student faces.  I was thrilled to be able to install my existing work Interstitial in the Guilford Gallery, thanks to a lot of expert help from Michael and Danny who set up the anchorage points and hung the work.  Lovely scrunching too guys!!

Interstitial, installed in the Guilford Gallery

I managed to punctuate each day with a little bit of making also.  Over the summer I’ve been thinking about and doing a few things (like collecting used tea bags, more on that later…), developing in my mind a number of ideas that I think will work together in this project.  I wont try to explain these ideas yet, but as a start to the making process I’ve begun attempting to draw straight lines freehand on various types of paper.  At least I start out trying to draw a straight line, but then continue to attempt to draw lines an equal distance away from the previous line. It’s about layering through repeated actions, and multiples of layers and actions, but most of all at the moment it is about making and observing, not only the outcomes but also my experience of making in a physical sense and a mental sense.  I’ll try and explain that a bit better in the coming weeks, but for now here are some not-so-straight lines.

Lines over text and torn edges

 Lines on crumpled tissue paper

 Testing pens and pencils on watercolour paper

 Lines on translucent paper over white and black backgrounds

Oh, and by the end of the week I was itching to get my hands dirty so I finished off with an hour of repeated actions, squishing some clay.

PS I completed this post in a much less embarrassing amount of time. Progress!