A Big Mixed Bag of Lollies

Anish Kapoor Memory

Multiple exhibitions in one venue can sometimes be a mixed bag of lollies.  There’s usually the big musk stick that pops out the top of the bag and draws you in and then there are the ones  at the bottom, the three for 5 cent  jubey things.  My trip to the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney was like that.

Anish Kapoor proved musk stick-like to be as good as it looked. Something sweet and distinct at every bite, leaving a unique taste in your mouth.  The promise of more sweets inside was the huge mirror dish reflecting Sydney Harbour on a perfectly blue hundreds-and-thousands sparkly day.  Having been impressed by his work for a long time I was hoping for the best and I got better. As usual looking at the works on line, in books, on DVDs doesn’t cut the musk stick.

At the same time the other exhibition South of No North jubes proved to be strawberries and cream. Delicious with no fan-fare, three for one. The exhibition was based on works by Noel McKenna, Wiliam Eggleston and Laurence Aberhart. Noel McKenna’s work has always made me smile. From his doggie poster series to big things. This was a wonderful exhibition and although it is hard to compare the  monumental work of Anish Kapoor, there was a similarity in the complete paring down of subject and the strength in simplicity. I especially loved these small tiles of simply drawn ordinary objects and one of the best known useful products ever deserving to be lauded in glazed ceramic : liquid nails.  It was also wonderful to see his influences in Aberhart and Eggleston.

So my little bag of MCA mixed lollies proved to be quite sweet . It wasn’t too sickly and way too tempting to refuse.

If you hadn’t tried this before, click here for my Doggie Quiz inspired by Noel McKenna.

How Much is that Doggie

Give Some, Take Some and Two Bags Full

I swore no more books in the house until some leave. I rummaged the shelves for sacrifices for the next big book fair. I piled them into two huge bags, took some out, put a couple back in and lugged them to the boot.

I can’t believe the Lifeline Big Book Fair has rolled around again so soon and today is half price Sunday. I expected the visual arts section to be dessimated by the last two days of hungry art students but the pickings were great and I chowed down on a Guggenheim publication, an old botanical art book too big for the shelf as well as some lovely old 50′s mags.

Of course I ended up leaving …heaving the same two bags I had arrived with, more fresh old books. The smell of musty books and scouts cooking sausage sangers makes this Sunday in March delightful.

Another Splash

I finished David Hockney’s biography “A Rakes Progress” by Christopher Simon Sykes at the same time as my daughter returned from London where she saw A Bigger Splash Painting After Performance at the Tate Modern. We seem to have that sync with art. Sometimes we disagree on the merit of works and artists but for the most part we are at one.

I loved this book and found a renewed enthusiasm for drawing. It reminded me of art school and David Hockney Drawings a volume that was much too heavy to keep taking out of the library on a regular basis. I could not juggle the book, the paintings and the backpack so I would spend lunch poring over it at the table in the library, sketchbook out and scribbly notes taken.  The good books were always the biggest – Rauschenburg, Picasso and another on my regular list – Asian Abstraction.

My current book is one that my little girl had found for me, another wonderful gift:  Elaine De Kooning The Spirit of Abstract Expressionism Selected Writings.  Full of essays and insights from a painter and a critic.

Words for Birds

Camel Gate 2007 Work in progress by John Wolsley

I can’t describe John Wolseley’s work easily. I might say that he is an explorer or an archeologist or an artist. His work makes me get lost.  I was looking for a book to blog about from my bookshelf and pulled this one out Lines For Birds by Barry Hill and John Wolseley, Poems and Paintings. I thought I might flick through and find a beautiful work to share but that was an hour ago. I have flicked and read and my mind has wandered in the same way Wolsley’s work takes you on an exploration through mark making.

With Carla yesterday spotting birds in the lush hills and cool bush, getting caught in a downpour and steamy hot weather reminded me of Wolsley. His work unfolds like the weather and colour of a day. He involves the paper in a landscape and draws from his immersion in what surrounds him. At times he lets the bush impact and may bury a work or leave it alone for some time and return to check on it’s alone-ness. He uses maps, weather, writing and meticulous drawing as well as random marks made by the environment.

Leaf Litter Bark and Birdsong Cobboboonee Forest detail 2006 2007

Detail Upside-down Flowers 1982

Poetry is just another extension of his work and it’s understandable that words would go hand in hand with his artwork. He is a truly remarkable artist and I have never enjoyed an art book as much as his Landmarks by Sasha Grishin. I remember sitting up in bed scribbling notes madly into my sketch book.  Lines for Birds is not only about Wolseley’s work but poetry on birds. I have included this excerpt from one of the poems by Barry Hill,

OVERALL PATTERN

There were two birds. One, in pencil, dreamed on graphite leaves,

it’s belly full of perfect fit with bed and dance and  dinner.

The more I looked the more I thought it merged with fine matter

drawn with the ease with which it could be erased.

Drawn Out

Tim Allen: Folded and Faulted Sediment III

After the Bacon exhibition I went for a look at the Dobell Drawing Prize at the Art Gallery of NSW.  This is the last Dobell Drawing Prize after 20 years and I was pretty sad about that.  It struck me that Bacon had no sketchbooks displayed in the exhibition and I was then curious about his habits and it appears most of his work went straight onto the canvas. I’m currently reading David Hockney’s biography A Rakes Progress whose drawing is such an important foundation of his work.  I remember being in awe of a simple line in his drawing that went from black to red so easily and obviously. Beautiful.

Graham Fransella: Figure and a Bell

I remember seeing the Dobell prize for the first time and my excitement of drawing that I continue to have. I remember being obsessive, taking the sketchbook in the bath to draw the taps, taking it fishing to draw while the line was dangling, always at the beach and having a sketchbook especially for train trips small with an orange cover so I knew the difference.

I still have a sketchbook with me at most times but I don’t have that obsession anymore. I don’t know where I lost it but wish it was back. I love that feeling being lost in a drawing, starting small getting past that uncomfortable niggling feeling and then being swap away in the marks.  I still use drawing within my painting and don’t think I could ever use just paint, the brush handle is too distant from my finger tips.

Lloyd Rees Sketchbooks in the Art Gallery of NSW Collection – photo from Australian Drawings AGNSW

Kevin Connor: Pyrmont and the City 1993 the first Dobell Prize Winner

The last exhibition for the Dobell was like saying goodbye to some old favourites and familiar names associated with drawing. The prize will be replaced with a drawing biennale which sounds exciting but a long time between drinks.

Dying-O-Ramas

This blog was to be a Favourite From My Bookshelf. It soon turned out to be more than that.  The next book on the shelf was titled Dioramas-A Visual History of The Phillipines. The book was produced by the Ayala Museum in 1978 and as I flicked looking for an image to share, I realised it wasn’t difficult because I loved them all.

But there in the back of mind was an article had been reading recently on the future of museums in the digital age. Then I realised maybe dioramas will become a thing of the past. Damn. I love dioramas, they make me want to be an artist.

This picture was from my trip to New York at the Museum of Natural History. This man was propped on a stool drawing coyotes. I imagined me propped inside the case painting the background.  I used to imagine when I was a little girl and my dad would take me to the museum in College Street Sydney, that I would have to lay on my tummy to paint inside the small windows before they put in the glass. It wasn’t just the painting either, it was the scumbling over tufty grasses and sculpting hills and caves and little peoples from all over the world.

I decided rather than share more from the history of the Phillipines, some of the photos I took on that trip to NYC.

My Volume is Turned Down.

Yesterday I listened to Andrew Christofides talk about his work in an exhibition titled Square One at Wollongong City Gallery. I was envious of his quietness - both in painting and manner. He talked about his influences and his preference for the quiet artists – Kasmir Malevich, Vemeer and Titian.  Once again I was delivered one of those serendipitous moments.  This week my library books were one on Kasmir Malevich and another on Titian. Is the universe asking me to turn down my volume in painting?

At what point did Malevich and Mondrian leave all the rest out of their work, pare the objective down?  There was a small Ralph Balson work that Christofides had also made reference to. It was blocks of colour overlaid and simply beautiful.

I have always admired these painters and while the hard-edge abstractionists never quite fitted me, I have the temperament and touch of a red-haired gestural painter. I felt that perhaps I need to go back. Control the mark making even more. Turn down the volume.

Once again I know it won’t last, next month I’ll return to Canberra for a return visit of the abstract expressionists and I’ll want the volume full blast.

 

Putting Peart Away

“Spacious,spaceless and painter of edged edges”*

Putting books away is a never-ending task for me. I seem to have a stack accumulated beside me, or stacked on a stool or in one of those canvas non-plastic bags. It gets to the point where I have to put them away and do the shelf shuffle to find room.  The problem is I flick before I file. That means I suddenly come across something I hadn’t noticed before so I have a little read and put it aside and so that vicious paper cycle continues.

Last night it was John Peart Paintings 1964-2004. I read it when I bought it but of course flicking at different points in time reveal new associations. My recent trip to the Abstract Expressionism exhibition at the National Gallery of Australia left me thoroughly soaked in Australian abstraction.

This small book contains some of Australia’s best abstractionists commenting on John Peart’s work. Elisabeth Cummings, Aida Tomescu, Euan MacLeod, Robert Hirschmann, Ildiko Kovacs, John Bartley and the list goes on and so many that I have blogged about before. It made me hungry for an exhibition of Australian works.  I got a recent taste of Tony Tuckson and Peter Upward in Canberra.

I feel the need to compile a list of those that I would include in my ultimate abstracted exhibition but that would mean more books piling up and once again it will eventuate in a casual flick before putting them away, a bit of a blog and I’m back where I started from….

*quote by WHAT – I don’t know who What is but a wonderful quote.

All images from John Peart Paintings 1964-2004 – the book I haven’t put away yet.

Popping Back to my Childhood

Paper and scissors are like chocolate and orange – fun separately but when you put them together amazing wonders unfold. I recently did a workshop with paper artist, Benja Harney. It was for pop-up books. I’d tried making my own sketch books and thought I could somehow translate some skills into what I wanted. I went expecting to do some cutting and pasting.

What I got what was a look into a beautiful crisp cut world of Benja. Apart from a lovely guy he is an immensely talented artist. It was a moment when everything became connected. The gallery where the workshop was held was host to an exhibition on book illustration. A good kick in the pants to once again enjoy the art of drawing. To stop sooking -as in some of my previous posts.

Works by Shaun Tan, Graeme Base and Ron Brooks made me feel like a kid again, reading books for the pictures. I remember making a dust jacket for The Mouse That Roared in primary school. It sticks sharply in my mind, I loved doing that. The folding, drawing and writing. I remember thinking this is what I want to do forever, it was magic, I made the ship huge and the mouse sit in a boat in the foreground.

The exhibition let me into that magical world where imagination becomes reality and in Leigh Hobbs’ case – follow a sculpture of Mr Chicken who went to Paris.

 

The last of the day unfolded when I arrived home to find my beautiful daughter had bought me a new book on her travels : Six Fairy Tales from the Brothers Grimm with Illustrations by David Hockney. A reprint from the 1970′s.

The pop-up was unfolding before me. I know that I want to incorporate the owl and the pussycat into my next series of paintings. What better way than to create a book, fold and slice, draw and paint, cut and paste, nip and tuck. My work today was clumsy and far from delicate but I went home in awe, the same feeling when I saw my first pop-up as a child.

I also came away with a few clumsy pop-ups of my own.

The One that Got Away

One of my favouritist photos of all time is one of my beautiful daughter flicking through books on a sale table outside the San Francisco library. It was one of those days, it was crisp clear skies, we were rugged up and we saw the library by chance, it was unplanned and a book sale! Afterwards we ate organic strawberries from a paper bag. I can still smell them. The books and the strawberries.

Today was the Lifeline Big Book Fair and one of those days that I look forward to all year. Sometimes I will travel hours to check out a book fair.  Apart from the hunt for bargain books, I love the rows, the signs, the scouts cooking sausage sandwiches and again the smell.

I have increasingly budgeted myself on book buying, mainly for precious space on the bookshelf. This time being half-priced Sunday I was happy with the catch but the one that got away is playing on my mind.

Then I remembered I had brought my camera as I wanted another shot like the one in San Francisco and had already taken some random photos.  I realised I could take a snapshot, like a prized marlin, kiss it and toss it back. It didn’t have to be stuffed and mounted. Maybe it will find a better home, a large open bookshelf one where it can stand face forward with air around it, maybe even on a stand.

Maybe I will be fishing in a book fair in a far away place and it will be the right time.  I know there are plenty more fish in the sea, but I am wondering where it is now, it was late when I left it. Packed away in a box for the next fair? Maybe it wasn’t such a great idea to throw it back.  If you do stumble across it any stage maybe you could let me know. I didn’t exactly tag it before release but this is what it looks like. By the way I don’t collect shells, it’s just a beautiful book. My prize book that I came away with today, a small 3 x 5″ book on the Art or Oceania Masks of Papua New Guinea – how much? 50 cents.