cud - two American artists talk

John Drury and Robert Miller: Chicago Museum of Art project

Spike and I attended an artist's talk organised by the Canberra Glass Works.  John Drury and Robert Miller have worked together for 25 years in what i would describe as arts-based community development work.  the art produced, it seems to me, is less important than - maybe even incidental to - the processes of connection and relationship building that leads to the art.  The talk - 20 minutes too long IMHO - was interesting enough, aided by a slide presentation that confirmed for me that it is the community engagement rather than final art work that matters.

I'm not quite sure what the group of Canberra glass makers would have thought of it all.  there's a tension, I think, between Drury / Miller's commitment to found objects and readymades as the building blocks of their community-focused arts projects on the one hand and the labour intensive, technically precise and often highly personal works crafted by the bunch of 'hands-on' artisans and artists I've been introduced to by Spike.

but we had a mostly pleasant evening with some interesting ideas floated by a couple of interesting men from America.  There are worse ways to spend a Friday evening.  The food at the Kingston Hotel was ... the kindest word was ordinary and i had a quadriplegic problem that led me to scurry away as soon as the talk was done.  But that apart, I enjoyed my evening.

Emerging Artists Exhibit

From the end of Semester show of the glass studio at Sydney College of the Arts ...

Spike

Nadine

Erica

Katie Ann

Spike's cool maze

It better be an HD or there'll be trouble!!

SCA Open Day

We spent a large chunk of our Saturday at the annual open day at Sydney College of the Arts.  Spike had roles to play ... guiding prospective students around the glass studio giving helpful talk, lamp working exhibition beneath Mark Eliot's animated film showing on a continuous loop, assisting a little in the hot shop.  I spent most of my time perched on the edge of the hot shop watching staff and students blow various pieces.  It's a fascinating process.  Each piece begins with a single lump of molten glass gathered from a pool in a furnace on a pole.  From that point onwards I am lost.  Usually working as the creative driver in a team of two the glass artist blows, turns, adds more glass, clips, pulls, spins and swings the molten material.  Somewhere between forty minutes and an hour and a half later the initial idea inside the artist's head appears in as near its final form as it will ever be.  No two pieces are the same.  The process has a hypnotic quality.  You wouldn't want to leave until you've satisfied yourself of how it all comes out.

The vegetarian lasagne for lunch left quite a lot to be desired.  Heat was one of them. 

Cecked out the ravens.  Still there.
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The Ravens made it

The second moulds and another week in the kiln worked.  After a day's cold-working Spike finished her birds just in time (second bird on the plinth with about half an hour to go before the show opened).

They're very good.

After the show we drove with Spike's parents to Surry Hills to help them celebrate their 36th wedding anniversary.  Spike calculated that's 13,140 days (not counting 36 leap year February 29ths).  Spike had given a short list of suggested restaurants from which they selected Billy Kwong on Bourke Street.  I was truly impressed by the food: exquisite prawn wonton, mouthwatering mushrooms and succulent Bass Groper as well as delicate jasmine tea plus poached pears to die for.  

I may have overdone sitting on my wheelchair cushion.  The abscess may bite back  Back home, in bed, I shivered like a man with hypothermia.  That's never a good sign.

Photo by Spike.
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More than an idea, not yet a plan

No. 1 on the list here of the top 100 North Carolina songs.

“Samson and Delilah” by the Rev. Gary Davis Where to even begin with this one? You could start with his unique finger-picking that was fundamental to the Piedmont blues style. Or you could point to the countless blues, country and rock musicians who he influenced. “Samson and Delilah” is a traditional work most notably recorded by the Grateful Dead for their Terrapin Station album, which instantly became a crowd favorite. Though, Bob Weir may have never known it had Davis not taught it to him.

I prefer the PP&M version.  
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Acts of creation ... blow torch essential

Giles Bettison at Sabbia Gallery

Spike took me to an opening at Sabbia of work by South Australian glass artist Giles Bettison. I admire the commitment that's obvious in the pieces made using a traditional technique known as murrine. The troble is that as admirable as that commitment is and as technically precise as it must be I'm afraid Mr Bettison's work left me unmoved. I couldn't imagine living with any of his work. Still, at least half of the works sported red dots so my guess is Giles doesn't care what I think. In fact, he doesn't even know I'm alive.

I had a near-miss ... although strictly speaking it was a near hit. I moved in my chair, lost balance and headed toward the floor. I stopped when Spike grabbed me then hauled me back to upright. I missed a plinth holding two of Giles's pieces by the smallest fraction imaginable. There would have been a $15,000 fall I could certainly have done without.
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Sydney College of the Arts Open Day

We attend the College Open Day. Can it really be a year since the last one? This time Spike is a student.

The van is still off the road so we were required to catch buses, which is not without its challenges when it's essential they have wheelchair access. Our first bus (7:05 a.m.) was scheduled as accessible. It was late (of course) but accessible as promised. We anticipated a forty-five minute wait for the connecting accessible service ... not quite long enough for breakfast - too long to make hanging around much joy ... but lo and behold the first bus to come was also accessible. The whole journey took 45 minutes. We'd feared twice that time.

Breakfast in Rozelle, La Grande Bouffe in Darling Street. Good eggs. Pushed to the college in light rain for which neither of us had prepared; promised (as we were) 28 degrees and sun.

I don't mean to br critical ... but ... Ok ... it's an art college. They're creative people; talented I'm sure. To be frank (but diplomatic) organisation is clearly not their forte.

Whatever ... the open day started ... eventually, sort of. Stuff seemed to begin; people arrived (exhibitors at least as puzzled as the visiting public). But the clouds cleared from the sky, the sun warmed up the windswept precincts of the former asylum, the day unfolded pleasantly.

Spike gave a tour of the glass studio, sold earrings at the market stall (6 pairs) and gave a demonstration of lamp work to genuinely interested passers-by and an enthusiastic in-house video crew.

I watched a woman called Stevie (in the left of this photo) spin a platter, which I subsequently purchased. It's cooling in the kiln. At the end of the day, after the public had gone, students and staff of the glass studio tidied up, shared some beers and crowded in to the hot shop to watch a team pour molten glass in giant ladles into a sand-filled casting box. Hot stuff.

We had a long wait between buses on the return journey but not (interestingly enough to me) because buses weren't accessible. It's just that public transport ... as much as one wishes it could be otherwise ... is sometimes less than wholly convenient. There can be delays. Those are understatements.

Finished off the day with pizzas. It's been a more than decent Saturday.

A work in progress

Art is not a treasure in the past or an importation from another land, but part of the present life of all living and creating peoples.

(Franklin D Roosevelt)

Last detour of the day

We called into the workshop and gallery of lamp-work glass artist Peter Minson on the way home. It's in a small town called Binalong, which is only about 1o kms this side of Galong coincidentally. Spike had taken one of his bead-making courses a few years back.

We had a delightful, instructive couple of hours with Peter and his jewelry-making wife Lindsey Johnstone. We talked about glass, the biases of different schools, his family's history of making glass (his grandfather made the first neon sign in Australia), even Scotland (where they'd been visiting friends a month ago). Lindsey made us tea and coffee from her gallery cafe and wouldn't let us pay. I scoffed down one of her home-made Anzac biscuits, which was tasty enough to force me to re-appraise the humble oatmeal cake. So we bought one of Peter's 'signature' tea pots, which evened things out, I guess.
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National glass collection

After a late start we ended our less than entirely successful search for a breakfast with lunch in the Wagga Wagga art gallery (pumpkin soup, which I found pleasant, surprisingly for me because I really don't like pumpkin, and ... would you believe after yesterday ... a melted cheese open sandwich!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!). We then spent a couple of enjoyable hours in the gallery's studio art glass collection, which has been designated the nation's collection.

It was an interesting visit. The works were more modest than I had anticipated; smallish, careful pieces that may say more about the curator than the state of studio art glass in contemporary Australia.

There was a blown-glass work of three pieces (not unlike the blue piece here but in red) by one of Spike's tutors (Andrew Lavery) in the permanent collection. Given what Spike has told me about his deconstructionist tendencies, the work was rather more Modernist than I would have expected. I quite liked it.

There was a gorgeous cast-glass work, an expressionist head, by George Aslanis (not unlike the face shown here) with whom Spike (and her mum!) have just completed a two-week intensive course in glass-casting. The head was part of a temporary exhibition of work collected over the last thirty years by an enthusiast, Joyce Kerfoot. The collection may now or soon belong to the nation.

There were some likeable pieces in the collection: George's head, a monolith coloured like a Miro print, a very lovely vase by Ben Eddols and Kathy Eliot, an even lovelier cast form by her alone.

We bought a Holly Grace to celebrate ...

Holly Grace glass

Art house

(drawings and photo by Spike Deane)

The Sydney Glass Space

So, sitting at our favourite cafe in Annandale, an idea was born. I am probably as mad as Alice's hatter and dafter than a brush but what's the point of dreaming if you're not going to dream big? So ... five years from now (at the latest) we'll open the Sydney Glass Space.

I tell you: I am truly, deeply mad.
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Student life

So today we're both working on assignments.

Spike has her 1,000 words on reading critics of Dale Chuhuliy.

I've got to set out the framework for an essay on MacBeth (I think the butler did it).

Théodore Chassériau (September 20, 1819 – October 8, 1856) was a French romantic painter noted for his portraits, historical and religious paintings, allegorical murals, and Orientalist images inspired by his travels to Algeria.
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My mission ...

... is to support the artist until the word count of 1,000 has been reached. Tea, every now and then; Californian Cookies (which come from somewhere in New South Wales) and a pear are my best offerings.

If I don't she'll stab me to death with a 30,000 year old sacrificial knife hewn from obsidian. I believe the technical term is knapped.












(objet d'art and photo by Spike Deane)

Great art (and other stuff) starts here ...

Spike and I spent the morning at Reverse Garbage in Marrickville. The cardboard blocks Spike saw on Tuesday morning had been snaffled but she came away with plenty: more cardboard (for Spike's assignment), illuminated plastic ice cubes (don't ask), glue.

Good shopping followed by a late breakfast / lunch in Summer Hill then a creative afternoon for Spike. I made tea and did NOT offer 'helpful advice', the latter of which shows me to be wise beyond my years. Helena O'Connell's belated 50th birthday party at the Coogee Bay Hotel was enjoyable if slightly surreal in parts ... rocknroll dance lessons, lukewarm tea at 11:00 p.m. (whatever happened to getting rat-arsed on a Saturday?). It was our first public outing (seemed to go well-enough). Hope it's not our last!
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Spike's first day

well ... I was excited simply driving Spike to the front door so who knows what the great artist in waiting herself must have made of it.

Hariet Tubman (a woman I refer to in my disability awareness training sessions) made this observation:

"Every great dream begins with a dreamer. Always remember, you have within you the strength, the patience, and the passion to reach for the stars to change the world."

Chase that dream, girl!