Diabolical Clay

I must have rocks in my head.. I am thinking of entering The City of Hobart Art Prize 2009. This year it is sculpture and drawings. I have a sculpture in my head that is gnawing at me to get out.

I have a small sculpture that I am particuarly fond of and l am thinking of using her as the inspiration for a larger sculpture.. Here she is.

I call her “Silence”. When I made her, I had been thinking about how many women, in so many societies around the world don’t have a voice.

I am thinking deep thoughts about the destruction of Tasmania’s ancient forests and the shame and despair that I feel as a consequence. So I think my next sculpture will be my physical response to those thoughts…

I missed last weeks, weekly winners because I had a serious case of the “couldn’t be bothereds.”

I am pleased to say that this week I can be bothered and so here are my winners..

And we were trying to score some weed.

My girlfriend Rosie had her licence and a car and we had just recently discovered marijuana. We were driving up towards Bridgewater hoping to find a bloke that Rosie knew, so that we could score a stick (a small amount of marijuana wrapped in foil)

On the drive up I noticed these two blokes walking along carrying a car wheel. Actually it was really hard not to notice them, as they stuck out like dog’s balls. Hobart was a very very conservative place in the eighties and these two fellas looked anything but conservative..

One of the men had really long flaming red hair and looked like a hippy.  The other bloke was dark haired, with  a scraggly beard and was wearing jeans and a cut off black t-shirt. He had the darkest tan and a tattoo of a panther on his bicep..

We hadn’t managed to score any smoke, so Rosie and I were heading into town to do a few laps of the block and see what was happening. When I noticed the two men again. Still walking. Still carrying the car wheel.

I talked Rosie into picking them up and giving them a lift back to their car.

And that is how I first met Mr Frog Ponds Rock. I picked him up hitch-hiking. He was the dark haired one with the sexy tan and tattoo..

I have just had a quick look through my drafts, in the hope that I would find a half written post that I would feel like finishing. Nope!! No luck. Nothing in there grabs my attention this morning.

I could be inspired by the upcoming American Thanksgiving holiday and list some things that I am thankful for. But I can’t be bothered and in a perverse way I am thankful for that.

I have a serious case of the can’t be bothereds.

This is where you come in to play, My Dear Internets.  I received an email from the lovely Hyphen-Mama asking about Christmas in Australia and if Santa really wears that big snow suit in the middle of an Australian summer, (yes he does). As I was describing  my version of Christmas to Hyphen. It struck me as really bizarre that we just go along with all the advertising hype of a snow covered, Bing Crosby Christmas, in the middle of a  hot, dry, drought affected, Aussie  summer.. Really bizarre…

But that isn’t the point of this blog entry. The point is I would like to know what you would like to know about Tasmania or Australia or even Me. Taking into consideration that my lifestyle isn’t exactly a mainstream one and I have a decidedly green bias. I am on holidays at the moment so I actually have some time up my sleeve to do some proper writing.

Or failing that you might just want to know what this is a photo of?

I can’t draw for nuts. I can do a passable doodle and I can cartoon after a fashion, but the ability to look at something and then draw it accurately is beyond me.

Next year is my last year at Tafe, I have managed to stretch out a two year diploma course into four years. I have the confidence now and the skill level to set up a home studio. But what I don’t have is a working kiln and I wont have one here until the three phase power is connected sometime next year. So I might as well do another year at Tafe and this year as well as refining my throwing skills, I would like to learn to draw.

I have successfully avoided Glen’s drawing class for two years but now that next year will be my final year, it seems a bit silly not to take advantage of his skills. Even though the thought of spending hours drawing boxes on tables in order to train my eye is as appealing to me as playing chicken with a train. I really would like to be able to draw.

This train of thought in turn leads me back to my new camera. I was fiddling about with the settings and noticed that I could set the digital zoom to 48x.. Wow 48x digital zoom. The pictures looked really good in playback mode but when I viewed them on the computer they looked like pastel or charcoal drawings.

I was struck by the simple beauty of this image and when I get some ink for my printer I am going to print this out and try to copy it. I have some chalk pastels and charcoal here and I think that this would be a good practical exercise for me to do. Mainly so that when I do go into the drawing class I don’t look like a total goose..

Cheers Kim xx

We have finally had some much needed rain..*YAY* and whilst it has been lovely and my water tanks are now nearly full *YAY again* I haven’t had much of a chance to play with my new camera. Mainly because I haven’t wanted to get it wet and secondly because close-up pictures of soggy gum trees tend to be a bit boring after a while. This next batch of four photos were all taken from the balcony/verandah at the back of my house…

Then we had some more rain… and the rain got heavier and heavier.

The frogs were happy with all the extra water…

I am really happy with the new camera. I would never in a zillion years have been able to get such a great shot of this little brown tree frog with my old camera. I am still lusting after a digital SLR but for the time being I am very very Happy with my Lumix.. cheers Kim

Or an alternate title could be “SQUEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE”

or, “LOOK! LOOK! LOOK! YIPPPEEEEEEEE!!!!!!

I ordered a camera through Chriscos and after paying $16 a week for 50 or so  weeks my new camera has finally arrived…YAY!!!!

I have gone from this….

To this…

Here are two photos of the same object I took with both cameras. I haven’t edited the shots at all and the difference is amazing..

Taken with the Pentax.

Taken with the Lumix.

I am a happy happy camper.

I just love that word..

Boganvillainy.

For my foreign readers Bogan is an Aussie slang term used to describe a certain class of people. Americans have white-trash. Aussies have bogans.

I have Boganvillainy. This is what it looks like in situ at the Long Gallery.

This is the text and the images that my shells are sitting on. You can click on either of the images to make them larger, so that you can read the text.

My work Boganvillainy is in response to the proposed Gunn’s Ltd Pulp mill which is the topic for much heated debate within Tasmania. I just can not get my head around the fact that the mill will use 70 million litres of water a day. 70 million litres of fresh drinking water a day.. As well as the truly villainous figures of 4 million tonnes  of woodchips a year, sourced from  Native forests.

:The mill will use 80% native forest and 20% plantation to start with with the proportions reversing over the next 30 years (36% native forest over that period).

Boganvillainy indeed.

And then there is the impact this massive destruction of Tasmania’s native forests will have on our native animals and birds. The wedgetail eagle is under enormous pressure at the moment and is facing extinction from loss of habitat due to logging.

I am unable to write any more at the moment as I am just too overwhemed with sadness. The more I research the pulp mill in Tasmania the angrier and sadder I become.

Richard Flanagan has written a magnificent article called “Out of control”.

I highly recommend reading it.

I am absolutely flatstick busy at the moment getting ready for the end of year art exhibition which opens at The Long Gallery in Salamanca next Wednesday the 19th. Of course that hasn’t stopped me taking  a gazillion photos this week. The sky was amazing all week. So if you dont like photos of the sky  you are in the wrong place…

But first my lovelies here is a sneak preview of an installation of mine  that will be in the exhibition..

I apologise for the quality of these two images. I took these shots in the studio at tafe so that when it came time to place them on their plinth in the gallery, I would actually remember how I had arranged the shells. I had fiddled with them and the text and images that they were sitting on for ages before I was finally happy with the end result.

This is my artist’s statement that goes with them.

Boganvillainy..

In this beautiful island state of Tasmania so many  gifts of nature are taken for granted. Native animals lie dead on the side of the road, victims of our haste. Ancient forests are turned into paper, waterways are poisoned, beauty is destroyed. All victims of our greed.

I am a ceramic artist and when my hands are filled with clay I am able for a short time to forget my despair and shame that I am a silent witness to the destruction of Tasmania’s spiritual heart.

Now Back to the sky…

The other morning we were woken at first light by a very noisy flock of white cockatoos that decided to investigate the gum trees right outside the bedroom window…

It was very hot and very, very windy on Thursday. When I arrived home from the studio at 5.30 pm it was still about 32 degrees up here (about 90) . A thunderstorm was building and there was a lot of dust in the sky. (half the topsoil in the midlands had blown away  *sigh*) …

These photos were taken over a period of about two hours.

That’s it for this week. For more winners go over to Lotus’ and say ‘hello’…