My Turtle Ran Away to the Carnival

Sometimes the unexpected can lead your mind on a merry dance through some strange stuff.  Yesterday while walking my dog on the jetty at the lake at Boonerah Point, I was reminiscing. The smell of the lake and the jellyfish and weed combine to recreate my childhood. I suddenly saw something swimming toward me, moving slowly through the water, larger than a jellyfish, larger than fish. It was a sea turtle.  I fumbled for my phone for a photo but unable to unravel the dog-lead and swipe for the app, all I could do was stare. It came closer and closer almost breaking the surface, the dog scrambled to the edge, the turtle took a swift left turn and swam away at high-speed.

Boonerah Point

It’s unusual for sea turtles to venture so far from the entrance but a good sign that the lake is healthy and it definitely looked uninjured and in good condition.  I have had  some limited turtle experience so I figure I knew one when I saw one. I’ve snorkelled with them a few times in Queensland waters and on the Great Barrier Reef. I’ve helped my friend Carla feed worms to her hungry turtle hatchlings for WIRES (wildlife rescue).

The one turtle experience however that has stayed with me was a turtle whose name I can’t remember. Dad had found him at the boat shed and he had a hole drilled in the base of his shell. Dad put him in the garden behind the shrubs next to the tap where it was dark and damp and we left lettuce.  The next morning he was gone along with most of the lettuce.  It was near Xmas time and the usual carnival had set up over the road in the park. I always thought that my turtle had run away to the carnival. I hope he had a happy life and his fairy floss was mostly green.

My Headcounter is Running Down

Weeds from the Lake

Sometimes a day is never what you plan.  I wasn’t feeling particularly creative today but after a vigorous bout of gardening and junk throwing-outing I went into the “studio”.  I jotted down a couple of ideas for the lake series that had drifted to the front of the brain. Drew a few thumbnail sketches to see whether a bull in a boat was feasible.

There was no more room in that sketchbook, another one had bitten the dust so I grabbed the next empty. It was a small black moleskin that I had started a collage on the cover. I was using body bits out of an anatomy text-book. I love doing this, simple cut and pasting. I lost focus pretty quick and went from collaging body bits to checking emails.

There was a great podcast on the future of museums so I went outside once more and sat in the sun and listened, watching the counter going down and down. From there I found a link to another creative blogger who had a Vimeo treat for me so off I went watching a selection of  Vimeos, looking at more counters counting down minutes and seconds.

Miniature Melbourne from Nathan Kaso on Vimeo.

I felt I had a counter on my weekend. I tried to remember how it had started but I couldn’t grasp that slide bar to take me back.

Giant Ducks in Little Places

TAL Dai-ichi Collection State Library

 

My Painting of shag (cormorant) at the Lady Denman Heritage Museum Huskisson -a large shag in a little town.

 

 

 

 

Sometimes I stumble across stuff by mistake.  It’s a bit like when you are waiting to get to sleep and your mind wanders from one subject to another and before you know it, you’re thinking of something completely new and forgot how you got there to start with.

I can’t remember why I had gone to the State Library’s website but in the back of my mind there was a definite reason and that is now a lost cause.  Anyway, I attended a talk at the Wollongong Gallery on the TAL Dai’ichi Collection (Earl of Derby) that sparked my curiosity. These wonderful albums had been locked away for a long time, like those recesses of the mind.  The talk was not only about the volumes but how the State Library of NSW came across them and was able to purchase them.

TAL Dai-ichi Collection State Library NSW

Walking round the lake this morning it reminded me of the talk and the recording of nature in those early albums. It was a wonderful era where the drawings were so much more than a photo. The initial image replicated in the power point presentation was of a giant duck standing webbed over a tiny painted landscape.  It made me want to paint huge cormorants over tiny lakes. It was though that the watercolours were quite often done on return from the antipodes and that some of the works looked Indian in nature.

I also loved the stories of the collectors of the images, sometimes members of the Linnane Society who would collect and treasure new and exciting images of exotic creatures. Some of the most beautiful works were of fishes and the colours were fresh and amazing. Following the talk we were able to gather in close around the table where two volumes were gently turned page by page by devoted white-gloved conservators. The delicacy of watercolours means these works are rarely shown. It was a rare privilege to see these giant ducks in this little place.

 

TAL Dai-ichi Collection State Library NSW

Post Christmas Colour

Each Christmas gets curiouser and curiouser. This year was shared with my painter friend, Jane.  Rather than a traditional Christmas, we ate BBQ sausage sandwiches and painted and drank.  Trying to get back into some semblance of order post-Christmas and cleaning up the studio a tad, I decided to show my daughter my Christmas painting (as I had dubbed it).

Declaring to her “This is my Xmas painting.” I realised I had painted it primarily red and green. Maybe the result of too many Xmas mojitos, the heat and lamb and rosemary sausages but I can’t remember the original subject. Jane’s subject was the lake where we had walked the day before and I’m guessing mine had also originated from the same area. I do remember referring to a sketchbook. But the colours certainly aren’t relevant.

I had also lost a day in the midst of a week and fortunately collected my daughter from the airport on the right day (just!). So now I’m getting back into order, righting the chaos and so this painting is now half done, red and green, unwrapped but needs to be finished. I just don’t know what I’m finishing.

 

 

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.

Fishing in the Art Pool

I guess my childhood at the boat shed is the reason for my love of fish. When I heard about the exhibition at the National Maritime Museum in Sydney I knew it was up my alley.  Exhibits at this museum are always excellent and this one certainly didn’t disappoint. The nature of the Museum would mean certain limitations on what is exhibited so it is even better when they come up with such a simple idea done in a fabulous way.

Entering through a scaly doorway led to an open sea of fish. Fish in design, fish in indigenous art and fish in painting, photography and illustration. I can’t even pinpoint my favourite work – paintings by Margaret Olley, Arthur Boyd, Ken Whisson and John Olsen were tempting enough but then you see marvellous colourful illustrations in one of the world’s rarest books dated 1754. It was just the absolute variety within this exhibition that had me enthralled. I felt I could stay, sketch, research. It felt like a beginning towards my end in works about the boat shed.

One small unassuming work was an illustration of Condon’s Creek in the Illawarra area and the use of the dog tree by the aboriginal people to stupefy fish. It involved preparing the bark of a tree, stripping it and putting it into the fire to get hot. It was then plunged into the creek where the fumes would stupefy the fish and they would rise to the surface. I knew this was a great link – not only was it a local connection to place, it was a fishing method that leant itself to story telling.  A story that leant itself to painting.

I had once thought my memory of flying fish was imagined but I know that fish are as extraordinary as an invented world and this display so wonderfully curated by Penny Cuthbert and Stephen Scheding has provided the excitement I needed to re-visit the subject again.

The exhibition involved tales of fishing, whaling and scientific collection. All of this within a museum that sits right on Sydney Harbour, where during the week a whale was hurt inside the harbour by a ferry.

 

 

There is no other ideal place for this exhibition. It is sad that it has been cut short and is only on for another couple of weeks.

 

Unfortunately it is giving way to a repeated pirate exhibition but if it draws a larger audience and little aquatic gems like this exhibition are held from time to time I won’t jump off the plank in a hurry.

Goldilocks and the Bungendore Bears

The Bungendore Bears series of works have been given a new lease of life. I found a whole folder of work that I had forgotten about. My hopeless memory means I sometimes surprise myself. In amongst sketches and paper (nice blank stuff  YAY!) I found a heap of notes about the Bungendore bears along with some sketches.

I had just bought some new boards so it meant I could take them for a spin with some paint. What a coincidence….some of the works in the folder were from my last trip down that way and I am getting ready to go again this month for another painting jaunt and to coincide with the Abstract Expressionism Exhibition at the NGA.

I did 3 small works based on what I had from my recent find. I can feel there is more to come.

I have blogged about the bears quite a few times. Here, here and here. Once again strange coincidences – I had prepared this blog before the sad news of Robert Hughes’ death. He has a weird connection to porridge for me (read my previous post) and once again I find today I am blogging about porridge and three bears. I have been called Goldilocks when I was younger and my hair much lighter. Perhaps it’s time to revert to blonde.

 

The Banksia from Boonerah Point

Yesterday I set up my paint box in the effort to paint something constructive toward the Lake Series. What I ended up with was a small banksia painting. 

There was a mass of cormorants on the edge of the lake – black shapes against the ochre of the bank and blue.  Perfect. I sketched for a while, took down some notes on the form of the birds- especially those airing their wings. They flew off in a round-about way when disturbed by a couple of lakeshore dogs. It was quiet and no-one else about, just one guy practising his reel casting technique in the park.  I guess he was a self-conscious of his habit as I am in mine.

I sat at the picnic table in the sun and the view was through the barbecue shelter toward the industrial north. Great shapes. I painted till I felt I was fiddling without giving anything more to what I was doing.

I loaded the car and was about to hop in when I was distracted by the banksia tree I was in front of, I decided to grab a bit to take back home and paint or sketch.

A great afternoon of bits and pieces, banksia, cormorants, lake and pink gouache.

Green Cows and Gorillas

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

This painting reared it’s horned head recently. It’s titled Green Cow on 3 Hills. To me, that’s exactly what it is. To others maybe it’s a mess or a field of green locomotives driven by Jesus.  I have had conversations with viewers about what they see. Like most abstract artists your point of initial contact is embedded firmly in reality but becomes a departure. I don’t really mind what people see in my paintings but the title reminded me of another painting I had done.

 

This painting was done years apart from the other but the person who has it thought it looked a little like a cow’s backside. It does. And freakishly a green cow.  It is in fact shapes from heavy machinery on Cockatoo Island.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Here’s another. Based on rocks and once again plain as day to me. This was my absolute favourite painting of all time – the one I had felt was a measure against all others. It felt right. I was so pleased with this one that I indeed hung it in my home (for quite a while) until…someone saw a gorilla. And freakishly a green gorilla.

 

 

 

Am I accidentally painting green animals?

 

Little Painted Thick Knees

Thick Knees Brampton Island Qld Australia

Long narrow canvases have always appealed to me but are quite difficult to make a painting work. I’m re-arranging my paintings in the house. I came across this one that I had completed after a holiday to Brampton Island quite a while back. It was a happy time with friends and the colours on this rainy weekend reminded me of the warmth of tropical waters.

The thick knee was a perfect sketch for this shape canvas.

The thick knees are a type of curlew. This strange bird cries like a baby in the night and stops dead in it’s track if your come across it and shuts it’s big droopy eyes. A sketchers delight – a bit like the lemur.

 

 

Also associated with death by the Aboriginal people.

There are other types of curlew and I came across another in the Desert Park in Alice Springs. I was sitting on an old log sketching one and it gradually came closer and closer. I had hiking boots and I don’t know whether it thought my laces looked like worms but started to pick at them.

Being a drawer has it’s perks you become extremely quiet and spend time studying the subject which makes for some great encounters (of the non-human kind). On the other hand – you could lose your shoelaces