Algalrhythms Opening at Warwick

We'd travelled out the two hours to Warwick on Friday afternoon to settle in and relax before the opening on Saturday afternoon. We had a great little Air BNB - an apartment in an old house, and my sister and mother occupied another.  

Off in search off refreshments, we struggled even to find our way into the pub (back entrance only as per COVID) and I struggled to produce evidence of vaccination. Finally, cold beers and bubbles in hand, we had some good laughs, then dinner, before 'crashing' Mum and Kiri's apartment for some more giggles.

On Saturday morning Matt presented me with coffee, and a beautiful ring - I guess at nineteen years together it's an eternity ring? We spent the morning op-shopping, until it was time to get ready for the opening. Unfortunately Janet de Boer was unable to be the Guest Speaker doing the official opening as planned, but I had brought Karina an outlandish hat and scarf to don as she read Janet's speech, in order to channel the Janet presence - it worked!

Some special people made the journey which was very kind of them - I knew Jenelle and Sue were coming, but it was a wonderful surprise to see the magnificent Phillipa Rooke rock up!

So, numbers were down because of the plague, but it was a very enjoyable afternoon, accompanied by delightful noms made by Barbara.

  

My heartfelt thanks to those who supported me on the day, and to those I know are planning to make it at a later date in These Strange Times. I'll keep you posted on the travels on Algalryhthms.

Algalrhythms arrives at Warwick

On Tuesday I drove the 2 hours to Warwick to deliver the exhibition to Warwick Gallery. With help from Brittany I unloaded the large pink box of it’s contents directly from the ute to save unnecessary struggling. I was amazed when Britany recognised and named some of the works - she was obviously familiar with them! The stock room was soon filled with work, and as we started ferrying it out to the gallery, it seemed almost endless – it just kept coming!

Karina the gallery director very kindly let me do my version of the layout, which was initially directed by the beautiful aubergine back wall of the gallery – perfect for my dark, digital print series, and the Naracoopa Rocks triptych.

Karina advised me of several ‘hotspots’ of the gallery where popular/dramatic pieces should be placed to draw people in, and the rest of it simply grew around that. One of those was Green Lichen, also Matt's favourite piece.

Having decided that we needed the mobile walls to accommodate all the work, we agreed on a straight line down the middle, a formation which also helped maintain the openness of the space. It also provided some extra walls for my prints, which I was really happy about. The third section of my exhibition and of my journey towards abstraction, it was important to me that they be shown.

To my surprise, I also had the main foyer wall, which provided the perfect position for my leather kelp three-piece sculpture, and the most popular artwork, the Bluebottle Remains triptych. 

The foyer also has a table with two folios of my prints, my booklet of photos I printed after my residency, and print-outs of all my Situation Svenja articles for TEXTILE Fibre Forum, as they describe the evolution of the exhibition. A screen showing a slideshow of photos of my time on King Island is in a corner of the gallery, and two plinths either end of the middle wall hold my felt and leather sculptures.

I left the gallery with everything placed, but it was the gallery staff who did the hard yards of hanging and lighting it, and placing all the didactics. It was really nice to arrive with no expectations of what would go where, and just be guided by the space – a luxury I guess you can’t afford when your exhibition travels far away without you. Certainly it was a very nice experience.

Although it was a relatively small opening this weekend due to - you know what - it was great - more about that soon.

Printing at Studio West End

 After months of lino print designing and peaceful, therapeutic carving, things started to get real today as I joined the crew at Studio West End. I spent the morning happily observing as they inked up, printed lino on acrylic, canvas and paper, and printed etchings onto fabric – all sorts of ideas started brewing in my mind.

Then it was time to open my $400+ box of beautiful printing paper, soak it, and pop it on to my lino cut on the printing press. No colour today – just embossing – so the roller was set more firmly than if I were printing with ink. This was my first time using a press – previous lino prints have been done by hand – and I want one!!! I am absolutely thrilled with how they turned out – I did the 6 medium prints, and the two smaller ones which I carved specifically for the embossing process – I carved the design OUT of the lino instead of having it remain proud, therefore there were no tool-marks on those two – just lovely. These marks probably won’t be so obvious on the inked versions, but I still don’t mind them.

I’m imagining pooling watercolour over these embossings, which would settle around the edges – I think this could look really lovely.

I only did one of the large linocuts as I need to sort out the ink that I used to delineate the design – a little of it transferred to the paper after going through the press, and I really would like at least one pure embossing of each.

Next week I’ll do some more embossing, then I’d better get ready for laying down some colour – and I can’t wait to play with my metallic ink!

Janet Fuller - King Island Artist

 I'm not going to go into a lot of detail here, as I hope to submit an article on this amazing lady for TEXTILE Fibre Forum, but today I was honoured to have a home/studio/farm tour with the powerhouse of creativity that is Janet. So here I'll just focus on the fun and the farm animals for now. 

I was absolutely thrilled on my birthday to receive an artist proof of the long admired print of Nubar the magnificent chook. It was a truly special gift. 

Here I am molesting the 'dog' cat that followed us everywhere on our visit.

Every studio needs a couch where friends can collide...

Another glorious chook work of art.

Now molesting Janet's 'No Drama Llama' and the giant version at the same time!

The 'Heeland Cooo'!!

Janet's Kelp Frill from yesterdays workshop. I look forward to getting to know Janet better as I write this article about her and her amazing work.

Kelp Frill Workshop on King Island.

What an amazing day with these ladies. Mostly virgin felters, they were taught a variety of techniques, from basic felting, to cobweb edges, hand rubbing, making frills, and all sorts of new ways of manipulating felt - a lot to take in on your first lesson.

Janet again was a star, with both her previous experience and natural instinct making her layout wonderful.

Some of those who had never done this before also had impressive layouts plus end results. It's always amazing seeing the differences across the ranges of experience and artistic expression. Having awakened/revived an interest in felting here, I plan to send down monthly projects/experiments for the girls to try.

Pass River, King Island

June and Peter Kempster took the time yesterday to take me out to Pass River, somewhere I had never been before. The rock formations were stunning, I got to see live kelp up close, and I found a dried leafy sea dragon! The amazing drone photos were taken by Peter.