From the old country to the new country

Shows and open studios

It has been a fair while since I have written an entry, so it is with relief that I can finally hit ‘post’. Life has been busy, productive and, with autumn on its way, a little cooler.

In this post I’d like to mention some of the other artists’ work I have seen in Freo. Firstly, a couple of the artists in residence at the Arts Centre have discussed their work in open studio events.

Ritchie Hansel, an Indonesian graphic artist, gave a presentation about his skilled and humorous drawings that often incorporate an environmental message. Ritchie was commissioned to make a public artwork for the Jakarta Biennial last year. His work took the form of a billboard placed on the side of a bridge over one of the main streets in the city. The piece showed a timeline of noise pollution recorded over a 24 hour period and was intended as an alternative reminder of our environmentally damaging way of life.
During her residency at the Arts Centre, Jo Harrison, a British artist, has drawn on her training as an architectural draftsperson to create a viable and perfectly accurate drawing based on Perth’s modern buildings in life scale. The drawing hangs from cables on sheets of translucent drafting paper between which the viewer can wander, giving the installation a sculptural feel. Jo’s work explores how we relate to and inhabit architecture and is influenced by the Arts Centre building itself.

The major event in Fremantle during the following weeks is ‘Foto Freo’, an annual photography festival covering a number of venues in the city, it’s main exhibition space being the Arts Centre. During the opening night I enjoy a peek at the exhibition of Chinese contemporary photography in the downstairs gallery, yet will comment further when I have had a good look at this and the other exhibitions.

A number of photographers have shot work in and around Fremantle and a lovely exhibition has been put together of these electic images to accompany the main shows.

Lower visibility

With several works in progress and none of them resolved, I find myself forgetting what has already been achieved and concerning myself with what hasn’t yet! Easily done, especially when these works in progress all live in different places: scattered around sunlit spaces in the house, lying out on the verandah and of course, in and around the studio. I am beginning to realise how vulnerable things are when left outside, even in this highly predictable climate. After a couple of disasters caused by freak gusts of wind which left smashed glass strewn across the studio courtyard I took a few things into the safety of my home. My partner is a sympathetic soul and treads carefully around the arrangements.

I begin a work this week using some high vis shirts and a plastic washing basket, all from the tip. Ever since I can remember, in my house, many of my friends’ houses and my family home, the washing basket overflows. I wanted something that, much like the puzzle, tends to be left alone for some time before tending to it. The washing basket stuffed with clothing seemed to be a good example. Packing my newly acquired baby blue number with dirty washing including the high vis clothing, I leave it out in the sun hoping that a stencil of the spokes and holes in hte basket will transfer onto the fluorescent fabric as the sun causes it to fade.

I like the idea of the shirt being an indication of somebody who is perhaps no longer around, yet has left traces of their former presence. I will return to this work soon, although I have a feeling this is a ‘long haul’ piece so to speak, as the fabric will probably fade at a much slower rate than the paper I’ve been using.

Rolling forward

After more days of collecting, assembling and scribbling down ideas, I arrive at a solution for a work. Having spent the last five months or so travelling and working in Australia, the process of settling in a place, throwing together a life there and moving on in a matter of months or even weeks has been very much on my mind. It is amazing how swiftly a place can begin to feel like a home.
The work consists of a roll of newsprint paper partly unrolled across the floor in a sunlit space. A rubber doormat is left on top of the paper, leaving a discoloured stencil of it’s patterned gaps caused by sunlight. The mat is rolled over to leave a further stencil, and so on along the length of the newspaper creating a succession of ‘prints’. In this work I want to express the idea of a temporary home and give a sense of a continual process of moving, settling and uprooting.

I have also begun the tedious process of completing a 1000 piece jigsaw with a limited palette of murky tones. Whilst this may seem like the ultimate procrastination, the jigsaw is accompanied by Vague Plan so have faith, this is not a complete waste of time just yet. I want to complete the puzzle laid over a piece of card during the next month or so, leaving it in sunlight in between sessions. The finished work will show only the card that was underneath the pieces, telling a story of the jigsaw’s slow completion in subtly lightening shades. The puzzle (nabbed from the tip of course) shows a painting by George Lambert, an Australian artist known principally as a war artist during WW1. This work is entitled ‘Weighing The Fleece’ (1921) and depicts farmers in a sheering shed doing just that. I am interested in the idea of this classic rural scene being referred to perhaps in the title of the work withough being visually discernable. More on this later.

I arrive at the studio early and mornings pass quickly and peacefully. By 1pm I begin to roast (it is a tin shed after all) and activity slows down as the heat sends me into a dim and drowsy stupor. I wonder at how best to avoid my daily incineration. Ice blocks in front of fan? A second fan? Portable fridge to stick head in at intervals? Earlier starts? Content with the last two solutions I vow to shift my routine forward a few hours and go to bed earlier.

Paper cuts

My first week in the studio is spent sun-bleaching paper. My pickings from the tip include a stack of red printing paper, a roll of newsprint paper and several pieces of card. I am keen to explore paper extensively, especially since it changes colour so rapidly in the sun compared to fabric, plastic and other materials.

Paper airplanes, flip photo albums, multi photo frames, an open book, stencils from household objects – these are some of the objects I experiment with.

I decide to leave them outside over night to avoid handling them more often than necessary. Naturally, it rains for the first time since I’ve been here leaving a sorry looking display of limp, sodden pulp for me to return to the next morning. I repeat everything I’ve done and brace myself for another stretch of obscenely hot afternoons.

Bin diving

I meet with Bevan Honey (he could only be Australian), an established artist who has shown extensively in Australia. He is also the residency co-ordiantor at the Arts Centre and shows me around. Bevan drives a Chrysler Valiant Safari which puts my $700 Toyota Crown to shame, tidy as it is. Classic cars are not treasured here like they are back at home (there are more of them for a start), still I am rather fond of the Crown and any vehicle that will attract such rowdy encouragement on the freeway has my vote.

Bevan shows me the studio that he has in mind for my project, the Green Shed Studio. It is much larger than anything I am used to, attached to the caretaker’s workshop and has an attractive, shady lawn surrounding it. There is a sunlit space behind the shed where I can leave work in progress, undisturbed by the morning sprinklers. There is also a warning sign stating that Redback spiders have been spotted in the area. The Redback is a poisonous beast, docile unless disturbed yet nevertheless a creature whose bite requires urgent medical attention. Having lived and worked on a cattle station for the last two months I am familiar with the Redback so know, thankfully, the kind of spaces she might be lurking in.

The impending residency feels more real than ever now, and I am in urgent need of materials. The next week or so I come across a fair amount of hard rubbish left out on the verge. In contacting Fremantle Council, I find that the following weekend there will be a hard rubbish drop off point a little drive out of town where a number of skips will be provided for residents to dump their unwanted goods. This opportunity is just what I am after and a happy Saturday is spent moseying around the skips plucking out bits of junk with potential.

Even if I dont use half of these things, there is something comforting about having stuff around you in the workspace. Ever cleared out your studio and sat between four blank walls on a floor that seems to stretch on forever and wondered what the dickens you are going to make now? I’ve been there. So, it’s nice to have some friends, albeit in the form of light fittings and flower pots.