vernissage

Great word vernissage. It means: "a private viewing of paintings before public exhibition.
ORIGIN French, literally ‘varnishing,’ originally referring to the day prior to an exhibition when artists were allowed to retouch and varnish hung work." from the dictionary on my computer's dashboard.

If I didn't think I was going to sound pretentious, I would start to use it from now on instead of "opening".

This is just a photo of Flora's shoes. And of the floor in the studio where the landscape architects were working. It was the old smithy and I thought the floor was beautiful.

And this was the entrance to the room where we were exhibiting. It's a time-line of the process of the workshop. If you look closely you can see the bright red Australia from our first project.

I know it all looks kind of empty but I was taking photos very early on and then forgot (had too much to drink) to take more photos when the crowds turned up.


Here is the set up for the still life workshop that I mentioned in the previous post

and a close up:

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The End

You might have guessed that I am post-posting.

Yes, I am back in Melbourne and as I was lying awake at 4.30 this morning, I thought that I might as well use my extra jet-lag time to my advantage and catch up on the blog.

The intention project was our last project and the one that we got the most time to work on. It ended up being only about a week as we had to allocate 2 days to setting up our exhibition.

At the end of the summer academy there is an open day with all of the studios open for the public to come and have a look at what we've been doing. It is not supposed to be an exhibition as such, more an open studio, but a lot of the courses set up exhibition style displays. We thought it best to put on an exhibition as a studio tour wasn't really a great way for people to see what we've been doing - our work being so small and all. One of the painting courses was about still life and they had left the still life props set up surrounded by the large canvasses that the students were working on (I've got photos for another post).

The room we used for the exhibition had wooden slab lined walls which I thought was going to be problematic but we managed to put together a cohesive and elegant show (if I do say so myself!)

This is Sooyeon Kim's work in the foreground and the photo gives you an idea of the space. That white stuff in the background that looks like snow is a huge pile of salt!

A close up of one of Sooyeon's pendants - leather, gold, thread and pearls

Peter Sahle's work.

and a close up of one of the brooches - silver, gold leaf and coral (?)

Satita Rojpojjanarat

and a close up. This is a bangle. We are doing a swap.

Elisabeth Reichl - laminated paper neckpiece and acrylic ring with gold tag. The neckpiece was bought by a collector which we were all very excited about.

yours truly.

Jacqueline Santos

and a close up - paper and paint.

Yamuna Valenta - textile and marbles

Yamuna again - copper.

Lucia Rizzieri - silver, copper, textile and paint

and another close up. You can see that we were quite creative in overcoming the problems with the wooden walls.

Anja Eichler

one of Anja's morsels - silver, gardening gloves and something spiky!

Samira Götz

and my favourite work of hers - felt, silver and thread.


Melanie Sinnhofer's work was a display of photographs as her work wasn't object based...

false eyelashes

silicone

And Wolfgang Löffler

press the button and...

various materials

and the guillotine ring. If you tap the red bar on top, the razor chops down and shazam! No finger!

Not really, there's a stop built into it but it was quite difficult to release it while you were wearing it.


More photos can be found over at the Jewellery and Other Stories blog.
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Playing Fields

So, here's a bit of shameless self-promotion, coming at you from a rather fancy hotel in Bangkok!

Playing Fields

Curated by Joe Pascoe, CEO and Artistic Director, Craft Victoria

Event Dates: Friday 6th August - Saturday 4th September
Venue: Craft Victoria, Galleries 1 and 2, 31 Flinders Lane, Melbourne
Opening: Thursday 5th August, 6pm

The exhibition features the work of Jennifer Bartholomew, Anika Cook, Anna Davern, Michael Doolan, Bern Emmerichs, Tim Fleming, Gracia Haby & Louise Jennison, Greer Honeywill, Ben Pearce and David Ray.

The exhibition coincides with the annual Craft Cubed festival. The theme of the festival is 'childhood' and my response has been to look at the darker side of childhood fantasy. I initially played with this idea for e.g.etal's exhibition Figment and was inspired to further explore the more frightening aspects of the Australian landscape.

I have made four dioramas from old biscuit tins that require a physical engagement by the viewer to reveal the fantastical hybrid creatures that inhabit these alternative colonial dimensions.

Aragog. collage diorama: reworked biscuit tin, sublimate printed steel, 

constructed swinging mechanism. photo: Terence Bogue

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Figment II

So the opening went orrrf!

I couldn't stay long as my folks were in town and we had a dinner booked at 7.

There are some photos of the opening over at Katherine Wheeler's blog. And here are the brooches that I have in the exhibition...

Jude - printed steel, copper, garnet beads

Edgar - printed steel, copper

Drago - printed steel, copper, garnet beads

Feargal - printed steel, copper

Kit - reworked biscuit tin, printed steel, copper, garnet beads

Shylock - printed steel, copper

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inspiration

Does anyone else remember this...?

I have such strong memories of this book. Particularly the story of the little thumbsucker.

Maybe it's because I sucked my thumb when I was little. Anyway, I drew on this book and the nightmares it inspired for the work I've produced for figment. Below is the little bit of writing I did for the floorsheet in the exhibition.

The Great Tall Tailor always comes,

To little boys that suck their thumbs.

He comes equipped, yes I'm afraid,

With scissors sharp as razor blades.

He'll cut your thumbs clean off and then,

You know, they never grow again.

Heinrich Hoffman

Of all the tales in Hoffmann’s Struwwelpeter, it is The Story of Little Suck-a-Thumb that permeated the nightmares of a young Anna Davern. In the story, The Great Tall Tailor does come. And the boy’s thumbs are snipped off with his razor sharp scissors. The  illustrations in Davern’s childhood copy of the book were graphic and explicit, the young boy’s hands spurt blood from where his thumbs once were. It is this gruesome memory that has inspired the creation of Davern’s range of brooches for Figment. The brooches evoke the unease of the closet door left ajar after lights out, the expanse of darkness underneath the bed and the unexplained footfalls outside the room.

And here's a tiny little sneak peak...

figment

I am in this exhibition.

Please come.
It's this Thursday night.
It doesn't list the artists on the invite but they are: Katherine Bowman, Michaela Bruton, me, Natalia Milosz-Piekarska, Jessica Morrison, Karla Way, and Katherine Wheeler.

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two new guys

These two are going to Munich


Calliope - biscuit tin, 18ct yellow gold and copper


Trevor - biscuit tin, 18ct yellow gold, sterling silver, copper and pearls

They're going to be in an exhibition of Australian jewellery called Treasure Room which will be on as a part of Schmuck in March. (That's a German site but there's some info over at Klimt02) The exhibition has been curated by Robert Baines and he requested some older work of mine which I pulled out of the archives this week.


Romance I


Romance II


Romance III

I made these three brooches when I was doing my honours year at RMIT. They're really quite large - 200mm wide - and they're made from flocked copper.

This guy's also going....


Winkin'

Sorry I've been so slack about posting, it's a new year's resolution to get back into it. Part of my reluctance has been not having a good way to document things as they come of my bench. But I've decided that you can all put up with brooches photographed on pink tissue paper if that's what it has to be

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Buena Vista II

Here are some close-ups




Collins St Crusader




Fantastic Mr Fox - yes, he swings



Coo-Eee. Look who's peeking over the tree tops (sold)



Terra Nullius (sold)




And don't take a bite of it orright (sold)





Touring the Realm (sold)





Tally Ho





Where's the Doctor?





Absent IV (picket fence) (sold)





Securing the Harvest




Boundary Rider




Spook


and look who's hiding in the tree




the Spook!

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