Wow, what a busy week!

My normal schedule for this residency has been Wed-Fri, but this week it’s been a five-day affair.  The AIR program includes the provision of a mentor for the artists and on Monday I travelled to Hobart to spend some time with mine, Belinda Winkler.  We got lost in conversation for a number of hours and I left feeling tired but affirmed that my work and career are on a firm path.  Tuesday was spent back in my studio being filmed for a short clip being made about the AIR program.  The manager of the program, Wendy Morrow from arts@work, was present and it was great to be able to share my progress and processes with her and hear her responses. 

The activities of these first two days were well timed as on Wednesday I had to prepare for the talk I gave on Thursday at the university, with the discussions I’d had boosting my confidence in my ability to articulate my thoughts about my work. I spent much of Thursday morning with my group of students using clay to extend our exploration of line making, then I went off to the Uni to present the lunchtime forum along with my fellow AIR artist Alicia King, who has been working at Launceston Church Grammar School.

The forum was well attended, no one walked out halfway through and as far as I could tell everyone stayed awake, which I’ll take as confirmation that we did ok.  I had managed to avoid over-preparing, going in with just a collection of images, the URL of a YouTube clip and some handwritten notes.  I think I managed to present my jumble of thoughts in a cohesive package, and we finished within the allotted time slot.  There were even a number of questions for us afterwards, which is always a good sign.

As a result of all of this activity though I’m now feeling a bit drained.  So instead of writing the blog that I promised, explaining why on earth I’ve been collecting teabags, I’m going to spend the rest of the day ‘doing’ instead of ‘thinking’. 

For now though here are some images of the outcomes of some experimentation I did a couple of weeks ago with clay, which I have become re-inspired by now that I’ve fired them.

Strata made with porcelain. 

Do you see the parallels between this and the line-drawings?

Various materials dipped in liquid porcelain, 

to see what would happen when the original material 

was burnt away during the firing (1200deg)

Cardstock dipped in liquid porcelain of various thicknesses.

Another method for making lines with clay.

Much going on this week ....

If you’ve read this blog from the beginning you may remember this image, which was the first I posted as it represents the idea I proposed to explore during this residency.  Though I’ve become distracted by other materials, particularly teabags, I haven’t completely forgotten this part of my project.  Over recent weeks I have continued to think about, and occasionally play with, clay and today I am firing the kiln for the first time. Next week the students I am working with are going to start expanding our line making exercise by exploring the lines they have made with clay.  Stay tuned for more images.

Next Thursday I will be joining one of my fellow AIR program artists, Alicia King, in presenting about our work at the regular Tasmanian College of the Arts lunchtime Arts Forum at the Inveresk campus.  Talking about your work is a skill that doesn’t come naturally to most artists, but we get a fair bit of practice at it while studying.  Once outside of the educational institution though the occasions on which you must do this become more formal and the audience less familiar, thus the task gets a bit more daunting.  I have a habit of over-preparing for such occasions, writing a script so finely crafted that I can’t bring myself to go ‘off script’ for fear that I will fail to find those exact words previously chosen to represent my idea.  So my plan is to limit the use of my computer in preparation to the compilation of images, only allowing myself to write notes about my ideas, not a whole essay!

And now I’ve made that declaration in public, I’m going to have to stick to it. 

The UTAS forums are public events, so come along to the lecture room in the main building of the Inveresk campus at 12.30 if you are interested.  I will also be presenting a public floor talk during the day on Thursday 17th April at St Patrick's College. More details about that when available.

I usually find that being forced to articulate my thoughts about my work helps me to better make the links and understand it myself.  Yesterday I had a chat with the filmmaker who is coming to film me next week as part of a short documentary about the AIR program and I found even just that short conversation beneficial.  Next week I plan to prepare a blog post that will attempt to explain this preoccupation I’ve been having with teabags.  For now though I will admit that I have moved on from books as previously alluded to, and offer up this clip as a hint of the path I am now firmly settled upon.

Milestone moment!

Working with teenagers as part of this residency has been an interesting challenge for me.  Even though, or perhaps particularly because, I am a parent of children the same age, I’ve had to work hard to figure out how best to interact with them.  The group I am working most closely with consists of 7 lovely girls ranging from grade 10 to 12, each with their own talents and levels of engagement within the Arts.

When choosing the particular activity they are completing with me I recognised a high level of potential that they might find it boring at times, given that I was asking them to do one simple task over and over again.  So I built in a couple of potential variants that allow them to express their individual style in their work, and set down some milestone activities to provide some perspective on the value of the collaborative approach we are undertaking.

At times I’ve been unsure as to whether or not they have been bored, but I’ve taken solace from the wonderful work they’ve been producing.  Today we had a milestone moment where we installed the work completed to date in the Guilford Gallery.  We started with a discussion and vote to decide where in the gallery the work should go, then one student chose a piece of work (not necessarily her own) and placed it on the chosen wall in a position of her choosing.  From there they each chose pieces of work and placed them on the wall as they liked, collaboratively building up an arrangement.  I was pleased to see that they even felt comfortable enough in the process to make and allow changes, quickly finding an arrangement they were all happy with.

It was clear from the way they went about this and their satisfaction with the outcome that the value of the process had become apparent, and when I asked them whether they were still committed to proceeding with the project I’m sure I detected an increase in enthusiasm J

I’m really looking forward to working with them again next week.

Tea time ....

So I’ve taken my dumpster diving to another level and enlisted the school staff in my pursuit of discarded materials, placing containers at tea-making facilities around the school late last week.  Despite my reservations that this request may be viewed as just a bit too odd (and potentially smelly and gross!) I was pleased to return from emptying the containers yesterday with a hearty and surprisingly fragrant-smelling stash.  Placing the teabags to dry in the sunny window of the classroom adjacent to my space has drawn only a few perplexed looks from students and, in fact, I’ve overhead a couple of comments concerning my creativity, which I’ll take as a compliment. 

And why am I collecting teabags?

I’ve chosen teabags as a symbol of the proliferation of ‘things’ around us that we overlook or discard as worthless.  There are lots of products that could serve this purpose (look in your rubbish bin, recycling bin and almost anywhere you store things for examples) but I happen to find the paper of a dried, used teabag rather beautiful and creativity inspiring. 

I have a bit of a thing for discarded paper, have you noticed?

When I’m not playing with paper my other chosen medium is porcelain clay, which I used to make functional vessels of various forms.  Doing this in a consumer environment of low cost, mass produced domestic ceramic wares brings me to question how objects are valued: what is the non-monetary currency that makes any one object more or less valuable than another like object? 

Books are also a good example of objects whose value is placed in question in the context of our contemporary environment, largely thanks to the Internet and other digital technologies.  In searching for discarded materials within the school environment I recognised a synergy (and irony) in the availability of discarded printed information in the form of newspapers from the library.   This caused me to question how and why we value any one form of printed information above another.  Also how, and at what point, is any object transformed from being of value to being discardable?

So the idea still needs more investigation and a lot more experimentation with processes, but within the form of a book and the use of discard paper products I think I’m onto something. 

Stay tuned, but for now here are a couple of my experiments.

A little inspiration ....

I'm loving the work of Cara Barer, finding interesting parallels in the lines formed by her manipulation of book pages and the line drawing exercise I've been doing myself. I'm continuing to work on these drawings along with my small group of students, experimenting collaboratively with how we each can use the same process and produce an individual yet cohesive outcome.