Catching up and sitting down

It is over three weeks since we came back from our holidays. In the intervening time it has been catch up on the home front - unpacking and cleaning up and taming the rampant garden - as well as indulging in the arts. My first week back was spent finalising my works for, then helping to set up the Be Seated exhibition at the Butter Factory Studios and Gallery. Finally I feel I have time to sit down and type.

The Be Seated exhibition is part of the Bendigo Bank Southern Art and Craft Trail which comes to an end with the end of the school holidays. We had a marvelous opening, with entertainment by Sound Bites choir singing to a seated theme. A colourful Gertrude Well-ease, sported a stunning chairy hat and dispensed a lively commentary on the artworks, to our many visitors.

Bruce's carved cardboard chair and raku cylinders

Gabriele's granite stairs

My stitched pit fired ceramics

Close up on Helmie's chair and more of her work in the background

Work by Nikki, Helmie and myself

Work by Nikki

Peppermint spirits by Robyn and painting by Helmie

Mixed media works on wall by Barb

Works by Robyn

Works by Alison

For more photos follow this link to Butter Factory Studios and Gallery.

Jimmy Pike

On the evening before we took off on our holidays we saw the Jimmy Pike exhibition You call it desert, we used to live there at the Albany Museum. It was a set of about fifty artline drawings from the Berndt Museum of Anthropology collection chosen from about 250 drawings in total. The Berndt Museum, part of the University of Western Australia, holds collections of Aboriginal art and cultural materials as well as items from Melanesia, and South East Asia.

This exhibition was timely for us as we are heading up that way as I type this now.

Pike's works were extremely bold and colourful. I was particularly taken by his vibrant flower drawings.

Partiri (flowers)

Partiri (flowers)

Kakarra, Karla,Kayili, Kurlurla
Sunshine on one side, other side dark  

He also painted his traditional country. The image above is sand dune country showing the strong light and shadows that are present there.

Some of his drawings were of traditional cultural stories and he also drew stories from his own life.

Dreamtime story

Headband

Having an Xray

Wirl (Falling star)

Apparently Pike was hit and knocked out by a falling star as a young boy. A strong medicine man revived him. Because of this Pike often drew falling stars and stars as they were an important symbol to him. 

Pike, a member of the Walmajarri people, was born on the edge of the Great Sandy Desert in 1940. He lived a nomadic life with his family until they left the desert to settle on cattle stations in the early 1950's. He was introduced to Western style painting in 1981 and continued to paint until his death in 2002.

Link to a virtual tour of the exhibition here.

Time flies

I've been missing in action for quite a while. Life is like that sometimes. This month I hope to get back on track.

I have been preserving fruit. Damson plums - they make the most delicious plum jam - but they are fiddly, being small and cling stone. I bottled some too and they look great. The twenty eight parrots feast on the fruit high on the tree, while the chooks get the windfalls.

Joey Williams

I have been rehearsing two nights a week for Joey Williams' Songlines project. It is a cross cultural performance expressing the story of his family songline, performed in part to honour the memory of his father who died last year. His family totems are all the forms of fire - smoke, embers, fire sticks, sparking fire and flaming fire.

It was also an excuse to dye up some fabrics for our costumes - earthy and reminiscent of skins. Out came the dyepot and in went silks and cottons and karri bark, eucalypt leaves and rusty iron.

I have done some sewing as well, using fabric I had dyed and printed.

I have been helping to build the red tent, with many other woman, for Sarah Martin's Red Tent Project. It is a big geodesic dome built from bamboo struts and leather hubs, all bolted together and covered with a zipped together red vinyl covering. It is envisaged as a safe and nurturing space for woman.

I have been to writing workshops with Linda Bradbury as part of the Red Tent Project series of workshops. I managed to get to one of the Write in the Great Southern author talks.

Image by Bharat Sikka

We have been to Perth to catch up with family and attend the opening of the Pilbara Stories exhibition at Form Gallery way back in early February. The exhibition runs till 20th April. To get the best value from this exhibition the stories that were collected at the same time need to be read in conjunction with the images. The photographers are Martin Parr, Ketaki Sheth, Bharat Sikka, Annet van der Voort and John Elliott.

Image by John Elliott

And there have birds congregating on the inlet and pretty sunsets in amongst it all.

At the fisherman's jetty at Crusoe Beach

Pelicans and cormorants

East meets West down South

Nikki Green beside her work Emunah (Faith)

Nikki Green's East West: A Pilgrimage is the latest solo exhibition on at the Butter Factory Studios in Denmark. It is the culmination of a journey that took Nikki to 'the crossroads of ancient civilisations in Turkey and Israel ... and to the cultural diversity in New York'. While overseas in 2012 Green delved into the mystical side of her Jewish heritage alongside an exploration of printmaking techniques in studios in Israel and New York. 

Mandala Series, black and white photographs

The geometry found in architecture, nature and eastern ornament is strongly evident in this current series of works by Green. Shown above are a series of photographs that have informed her work.

 The sublimely beautiful work Emunah (Faith) which is pictured at the top, has finely layered white on white multiple lino block prints. The effect is simple and mesmerising, capturing the essence of sacred geometries.

  Below is the work Etz Chaim (Tree of Life) which was an early work created by Green while in New York. The Etz Chaim is a symbol of energetic balance.

Etz Chaim (Tree of Life), lino block print on paper

 Below is Alul (The Emanation Series) a set of prints on canvas. The original prints were created by layering up to seven carved lino blocks of different sizes to create the varied but harmonic series.

Alul (The Emanation Series), glycee prints on canvas

In this next set, the work on the right is Ein Sof (Without End) and the two works on the right are Segulah (Treasure). They explore ideas of the subconscious, unity and inner treasure.

Eis Sof ( Without End) and Segulah (Treasure), lino prints on paper

This exhibition is on until the 11th February and is worth a visit if you are in the area. The works have a duality of simplicity and complexity which is quite intriguing. Green uses the interplay of texture, pattern and colour to great effect, at times restrained and at other times bold and complex. 

General view of the exhibition

Desert colourists

While up in Perth last week I managed to catch the exhibition at Japinka Gallery in Fremantle where works by Lorna Napurrula Fencer and Kudditji Kngwarreye were being shown. The exhibition continues till 12 September 2012.

Kudditji Kngwarreye My Country - Fire Series 120x90cm

They are mostly quite large works best viewed in natural light, I believe, perhaps because they were originally created out in strong inland sunlight. Anyway the colours always seem to sing when the sunlight streams in through the windows of the gallery.

Lorna Napurrula Fencer Yarla Jukurrpa - Bush Yam Dreaming 183x138cm

Lorna Napurrula Fencer was born in about 1923 at Yartulu Yartulu  and died in 2006. She was a custodian of the Dreamings associated with Yumurrpa in the region of the Tanami Desert and of bush potato (yarla), caterpillar (luju) , water and others foods.

Lorna Napurrula Fencer Spring water at Yumurrpa 214x138cm

Kuddiitji Kngwarreye was born in about 1928 at Alhalkere in Utopia north east of Alice Springs. His language group is Eastern Anmatyerre and he is the younger brother of the well known Emily Kame Kngwarreye. He is a custodian of the Dreamings associated with Men's Ceremonial sites from Boundary Bore and for Emu Dreaming. Both artists began painting on canvas in the 1980's.

Kudditji Kngwarreye My Country - Rainy season 150x120cm

I can really feel that strong shaft of sunlight in the stormy weather highlighting the red dirt and bouncing off the sheets of water. Even on the cloudiest of days the red colour is ever present.

Kudditji Kngwarreye My Country 150x120cm

After the rains of course the country springs to life. The vegetation greens up, masses of ephemerals begin flowering, and the country changes colour. This is the time for caterpillars to hatch and grow while there is plenty to eat.

Lorna Napurrula Fencer Yirrirlparti Jukurrpa - Caterpillar dreaming 214x138cm

Link to Japinka Gallery here. All images are from Japinka Gallery.

Industrial landscapes

Salt ponds and stockpile 

Port Hedland is a fantastic industrial landscape that dominates any sense of suburbanality. It is all trucks and trains and steel structures and flashing lights and dark ores piles and ships and salt and workers and hums twenty four hours a day.

Part of BHP Billiton's facilities at the port with mangroves in foreground 

This structure and movement rises out of spinifex, samphire and mangrove flats, and is bordered by the sea that creeps in and out of the mangroves with the tides. Red dust infiltrates and stains everything.

Tanks and truck in town

On the road out to Finucane Island

The port is the destination for the inland disappearing hills that reappear as red brown or black stockpiles before disappearing into the bowels of ships that sink lower and lower into the sea, down to the top of the red plimsoll line. The reshaped hills then disappear over the horizon disguised as long low slung ships.

Part of the port that is accessible to the public - ore ships in the background being loaded

We camped at the Port Hedland Golf Club, as all the caravan parks were full and the golf club kindly takes all the overflow. At least there are clean toilets and showers and it is surrounded by low scrub. The hum of industry is interspersed with the unlikely sound of trotting horses training in early hours of the morning well before sunrise. In my photograph you can just see the industrial lights in the background.

Training horses beside the golf club

While in Hedland we visited the Courthouse Gallery, an arm of Form Gallery based in Perth. We particularly enjoyed the works by Futureshelter that were on display.

 The reclaimed reclaimer by Futureshelter

My photograph of reclaimers - they are used to move bulk materials from a stockpile

The works are a series of limited edition multi screen prints which engaged with the industrial landscape and the tradition of engineering drawings. They were created following on from a trip up there from Perth in February where Adam Coffey and Jane King were inspired by the 'extremes in landscape from the raw nature to the giant machines'. Being up there in February would truly be experiencing the extremes of the place, being so hot and humid at that time of the year. I thought the prints beautifully captured the sense of place of Port Hedland. Their website can be found here and the images came from their blog.

Mirror image by Futureshelter

You have to love this cheeky take on the occupational health safety message - beware the chair! Any one who has been on an industrial site these days would understand, compared to the old days when safety was not regulated like it is today. But it does save lives and reduce injuries.

Beware of the chair by Futureshelter