Connection, Place, Mind, Body and Paintbrush

 

Found objects....Place

                   Mind, body and paintbrush....interpreting place.......White Beach, Tasmania

 

 

 

The SHACK now....living more simply in Tasmania

 

Coat of mid grey paint to blend in with landscape and lots of compost and forming up of the garden into circular and spiral beds. Giant Russian sunflowers at doorway.

  

Foraging for Self

          Just over a year ago I purchased this fibro shack in a small town on the Tasman Peninsula, Tasmania. The photographs here taken March 6, 2014 was just after settlement of the house....I was out of debt, wanted to live a simpler lifestyle...room to breathe....room to garden...and room to grow. I was already on the pathway....it was one day over one year five months that I had steeped out of a bus from Hobart and on arriving was over whelmed by a feeling of having a sense of place and this is where I was to be..........for how long I did not ask myself at that moment............it was a place to be for the moment... for the now.

 The block, about 3/4 acre goes down to a creek that flows into Parsons Bay......the banks of the creek then were overgrown with environmental weeds.

 

 

Found Messages

Wandering along a beach recently I found two pieces of rope that had been washed up with the last tide. The looped rope fragment reminded me of the returning of ideas, thoughts, places, patterns that seem to arise through out life. The last while has seen me return to a place I first visited as a teenager. A place where I felt I had been before, a place of comfort and strange familiarity. On visiting the area more recently the same feelings arose.

Over these last months I have been looping like the peice of rope and returning to this place. Tooing and frowing like the ebb and flow of the tide that bought the fragments of rope up onto the beach.  I feel compelled to continue to explore the pathway to this place, it is a destination that calls, touches something deep within and brings up feelings that are unexplainable in words.

An adventure has begun.    

Foraged Boat

My father was a professional fisherman along the south coast of Victoria, from Anglesea to Queenscliff. He started off his working life as a motor mechanic working on trucks but since a lad always wanted to be a fisherman. His first boat was found, foraged from a beach at Torquay. She was buried in the sand and needed repair and he purchased for a nominal price from the owner.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ckC4-qYqAtk

 

 I remember as a child the day she was bought home to our backyard for repairs and painting. It is bad luck to change the name of a boat, but after much research Dad could not find out what the boat was called. She was renamed' Deborah D'. She must have been happy with her name as the boat provided Dad with only good luck. Many a fish was caught and the boat looked after Dad on all sorts of occasions, from stormy weather to not drowning when he through himself over board accidently with a cray pot rope around his leg.

 

The boat was sold out of the family and ended up in disrepair and then was 'lost'. My brother in another story of foraging, 'found' her again by chance and repaired and bought her back 'to life'.

 

 The boat is loved by all and brings us all together with our shared love of boats and the sea.

 

Again.......My Tomatoes at the Cross Roads

It is the season of tiny trusses of ripening 'cherry' tomatoes.

Each truss, is a jewelled colour sequence from red, orange to green.

The painting pictured is from a still life series painted a couple of seasons ago. At a time of great change, the tiny tomatoes ripening on the linen cloth with woven striped border were at a "crossroads". With each day passing, they ripened to a brighter red, to maturity. On maturity what was to be their destination? Were they to be gobbled up as part of a salad or sandwich or to be saved for seed? Those saved for seed,  would get the opportunity to start anew. The consumed fruit, would sustain a life yet would lose its own.

Of late, there has been a flurry of activity with numerous posting about the wonderful people who have agreed to be part of the interviews. For the next while, I will be working quietly away in the background writing up new interviews and preparing for the exhibition 'Interpreting Place' to be held at Halls Gap as part of the  TEXTURES 2012 .

More info is on my other blog site Firetail Finch

 Visitors to this site please take time to scroll down and read the wonderful stories about the creative  people featured in the last while.......... Suzanne, silversmith....John, photographer......Anne, doll maker........Ryan, Painter......to mention but a few...........................enjoy the read.

Trish, Editor, Writer and Music Lover

Trish is the person behind the 'gem' of a local mag. "Talking Heads'.

The magazine is full of 'feel good' stories and all sorts of information about what is happening around the local scene.

She started the mag. in 2002 and publishes monthly. The readership is around 8,000 and although Barwon Heads focussed, is appreciated by readers far and wide.

View from the office

What inspires you?

The opportunity to produce ethical, creative & honest media & communication.

What drives you to produce what you do?

Mostly the need to earn a living at something, as above, creative & ethical.

How would you describe your creative process?

Hit & miss and possibly channelled from a higher source as I often wake up with what I need when I need it.

What handmade item do you cherish most?

A cotton jumper that was knitted partly by my mother before she passed away, finished after she’d gone & when I wear it I feel close to her

Besides your creative work, what else do you do, and like doing? 

Running live music gigs with independent musicians who write all their own material. Cooking.

Which artist, writer, designer or craftsperson (living or dead) do you admire?

Gaudi, Dali, Somerset Maugham, Robin Boyd, Joan Lindsay

What was the last book/magazine that you purchased?

Jamie’s Italy

What can make your day?

 Music, kids laughing.

There were lots of laughs and fun to be had at a Zine Workshop at Queenscliff in 2011

What is a favourite quote or saying?

'I am of the opinion that my life belongs to the whole community and as long as I live, it is my privilege to do for it whatever I can.  I want to be thoroughly used up when I die, for the harder I work the more I live.'  ~George Bernard Shaw

To contact Trish or more info   Talking Heads Magazine

Ryan Brearley, Painter

What inspires you?

The simplicity of well-made ceramics and the way that light falls upon them. Bicycles and Biggles!

What drives you to produce what you do?

To have people value the beauty in things and attempting to capture moments that often go unnoticed.

How would you describe your creative process?

Thoughtful and explorative.

What handmade item do you cherish most?

A tiny, brown stoneware butter bowl that was given to me when I was very small. I was so taken with it while lunching with friends one day that they let me keep it

The tiny stoneware butter bowl

Besides your creative work, what else do you do, and like doing?

Spending time with Natasha and my closest friends, riding both my bicycles- but not at the same time, reading, collecting all sorts of things, going to plays and concerts, having picnics, flying kites and playing rounders, visiting galleries wherever I am in the world, playing board games and talking to our cats. 

Which artist, writer, designer or craftsperson (living or dead) do you admire?

Morandi, Eric and Macdonald Gill, Tristam Hillier, Lucien Freud, Cpt W.E. Johns.

What was the last book/magazine/music that you purchased?

Treadlie magazine, The book Conversations with David Hockney by Martin Gayforan and music, Amy Winehouse Lioness: Hidden Treasures.

What can make your day?

Riding my bicycle under the plane trees on St Kilda Road... arriving at the NGV in style!

What is a favourite quote or saying?

Two quotes come to mind, both from the French artist Balthus (1908-2001).

The best way to begin is to say: Balthus is a painter of whom nothing is known. And now let us have a look at his paintings. (This was in response to a request for biographical information for a catalogue).

I always feel the desire to look for the extraordinary in ordinary things; to suggest, not to impose, to leave always a slight touch of mystery in my paintings.

Ryan's latest work can be seen at the Linden Centre for Contemporary Arts, 26 Ackland Street St Kilda Victoria, as part of the 2012 Linden Postcard Show, from 4 February until 17 March.

You can also also read Ryan's musings on The Tweed Rider, a little project that his friends and fellow bicycle-enthusiasts have created for fun.

www.tweedrider.com.au

Ryan's work can also be found on the walls of McKenzie Ebbles Foodstore, Hobson Street, Queenscliff

ME , Hobson Street, Queensclif, Victoria.

Anne Barclay, Mother of the Smiley Momos

Anne has come to making these dolls in an around about way. She was originally collecting fabric scraps of mohair to make a quilt out of them but found them unsuitable for this purpose. As a knitter she had a doll pattern in the archives that she liked, and thought instead of knitting a doll, why not adapt the idea and construct a doll out of fabric?  And so the Smiley Momos were born. Every doll and smile is different, every little character assumes a personality as they are carefully stitched together.

As well as her dolls, she constucts collage assemblages and at present is knitting a beautiful 'cobweb' of a scarf in fine 2 ply Italian grey angora (below) that is breathtaking!
  

Anne's Momo Story

"Once upon a time there was a little grey haired lady who collected bits and pieces of mohair.
One day she said to herself, 'what will I do with all this mohair?'
She decided to make little people with big happy smiles, hoping that they would bring smiles and happy thoughts to young and old and in the middle human beings.
Smiley Momos were born.
Since that day they have been adopted by babies and toddlers, children of all ages, grumpy 60 year old blokes, 90 year old grandmas, well people and unwell people and every one inbetween.
Momos have been posted across the seven seas and one, like Paddington, was lost at Flinders Street station. I'm certain s/he was adopted into a good home.When the little old lady sews the red smile on, every momo takes on its very own character and personality, and she thinks of Guisseppe, Pinnochio's grandfather, in his workshop.

Soft and cuddly smiley momos are guaranteed to wish you good morning, kiss you good night and keep you smiling all day long."

What inspires you?

Curiousity, affection and kindness

What drives you to produce what you do?

Colour, pattern and smiles.

COLOUR  Detail of Anne's shopping basket.

How would you describe your creative process?

Serendipitious

What handmade item do you cherish most, why, significance, story?

A pair of assymetrical jade and gold earrings handcrafted by a Vietnamese refugee in the early 1980s. (He was not permitted to practise as a jeweller in Australia.

Besides your creative work, what else do you do, and like doing?

Walking, listening to birdsong.

I also dabble with collage and pastels and am a published poet in various literary journals and anthologies.

Poetry reading at Portarlington Pub 2006

Which artist, writer, designer or craftsperson (living or dead) do you admire?

 Henri Matisse, artist; John Berger, writer.

What was the last book/magazine that you purchased?

I am presently reading Paul Keating's 'After words' and loving it.

Anne's Collage Artwork



What can make your day?

The antics of sparrows.

What is a favourite quote or saying?

'Each pine at dusk
lodges the bird
of its voice
perpendicular and still
the forest
indifferent to history
tearless as stone
repeats
in tremulous excitement
the ancient story
of the sun going down.'

from 'And our faces, my heart, brief as photos', by John Berger

Annes "Momo Dog" Edith on her Alpaca Rug

Anne's Smiley Momos can be found at ME, Hobson Street, Queenscliff, Tussock, Point Lonsdale, 135 Gallery and at the QUARC Market, Point Lonsdale, Victoria

She can be contacted on mobile 0418335714