my personal feed! info, updates and everyday moments
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my personal feed! info, updates and everyday moments
Toward HOME review by Julie Purcell! Julie writes a juicy, nutrient dense newsletter, Modconned. She is an artist and a writer and woman of many talents! One of my favourite paintings of hers is the small, oil painting from the Space Cadets series that was in the Moreton Bay Art Prize in 2024. Read the review on Julie’s website here…
Our first zine to celebrate the exhibition of art lab artists at the Hub Gallery, Caboolture. Produced by Guthrie with contributions from all the artists.
AHA! moments are those in which a jolt of understanding or realisation is a sort of revelation. I think these moments are one of the pleasures of making things. They mark a growth of sorts and I believe they are integral to the process of creating. This exhibition is a showcase of works by Art Lab artists who visit my studio each month to talk about art and art making. Those aha moments that we experience, through conversation and connection are one of the reasons why Art Lab has become so important to me. It’s a privilege to be able to show our work at The Hub Gallery in Caboolture with the support of the staff at Caboolture Regional Gallery and City of Moreton Bay. Here’s a peak!
Bump in day! Toward HOME with Kylie Harries, Rachel South, Sarah O’Neill, Mel Brady and me! They won’t be upside down and back to front when they’re finally on the wall!
Andy drove the truck and thank goodness because the terrain was pretty rough. But oh my the adventure was worth it!
And this is why it is called golden hour when even with freezing fingers in the frigid cold of early morning something magical happens!
I can’t believe I haven’t written about the Ladies Home Journal series of collages. Made during my at home residency in 2022, these were the result of somewhat of a breakthrough in my creative process. Read more…
I’m a sucker for infographics and here is a how to for Art Lab…
At the beginning of this year, I was invited by the Redcliffe Art Gallery to participate in Fresh Eyes 2025, a biannual exhibition for emerging artists in the region. Read more…
Aha Moments! is a forthcoming exhibition at the Hub Gallery, Caboolture Regional Art Gallery. It centres around Art Lab and the artists who have participated for the past three years, meeting at my studio to talk about all things art and art making! Making connections and participating in deep discussions about art with other artists has been one of the joys of Art Lab. Not to mention the ready support and mutual learning that enriches our practices. Come and see work by Ann Gillespie, Helen Evans, Ulrike Foerster, Kimberly Marston, Lucie Verheltz, David Cross, Grace Cross, Guthrie and of course, me! During the exhibition we will be sharing our work, our experiences, the concept of Art Lab through artist talks and open Art Lab sessions.
I have a new respect for landscape photographers who travel far and wide, early and late to find landscapes untouched by human activity. I’m playing with grainy b&w film photos turning a perfectly ordinary roads into mood and mystery.
Made a mistake winding on the film of my 40 year old Pentax K1000. However…I’m kinda liking this 20 times over layered exposure. So now I’m playing around with that idea even though I don’t really know what I’m doing!
what is art lab
I am pleased to have been invited to facilitate an Art Lab session at Pine Rivers Art Gallery as part of a series of workshops offered by the Gallery for the duration of the Moreton Bay Art Prize.
Art Lab is a kind of model for peer support which brings together like minded artists to talk about all things art and art making. Since 2023 a group of local artists have been meeting at my place for these discussions and as into we’re well into our third year I have a heaps of resources that I have collected.
I have made an infographic and I am still working out what might be the best way to document the prompts, discussion topics and exercises.
why art prizes?
I recently read an artist's newsletter about their shock at being rejected from an art competition and how they processed the disappointment.
Art prizes and people’s reactions to them seem to be a topic of discussion that never gets old. Why do artists enter competitions? Why do we feel so intensely when the work is either rejected or accepted? Read more…
In an exhibition catalogue I picked up recently, Elizabeth Newman: Is that a 'No', she is quoted as saying "I never try to consciously make work about anything. I am not the active agent in the art making..." And yet, her work is so strong conceptually. Or at least that is what I am reading and seeing. I want to understand the nuance between the birth of an idea and realising the idea. I should probably accept this is an ongoing quest...
Writing is very personal. I’m able to have conversations with myself in a way that I rarely would talk with other people. As read and work things out it helps me understand what I’m reading, thinking and doing. On the other hand, there is a curious vulnerability about making this personal thing public, even as it sinks under the vast ocean of ideas, information, thoughts and feelings that is the internet.
Have been reading Social Media Escape Club for some time now. The newsletter by Seth Werkheiser covers all sorts of ways to navigate social media. Given I am so sporadic on instagram and it takes me forever to create a post I thought I would try out Seth’s suggestion and put a social feed on my website. Just for those bits’n’pieces that happen every now and again. Let’s see how it goes…
This year I’m celebrating 2025 World Collage Day with two small offerings—each one an invitation into the reflective, connective space that collage opens up for me. Both are shaped around the idea that looking and making can be quiet acts of reflection, and that these kinds of acts can connect us—with ourselves, each other, and the artwork we encounter. Read more…
Working in a sketchbook has always been a challenge. I have tried over and over again—a sporadic and wistful journey of trying. Sketchbooks seem to be my permanent reminder of failure. At least loose sheets of paper can be tossed away. A sketchbook though, has a binding and if you tear out a page the absence is marked. If only I could play in a sketchbook the same way I do in my writing journal maybe I could crack the code. Read more…
At the end of 2024 I applied for the Path Primer with Dr. Kellie O’Dempsey hosted by the Redcliffe Art Gallery. My application was successful and I’ve just completed five intensive days in the program—what a ride! Read more…
At the moment I am reading lots of essays via Substack. Always of interest are the letters showcased in Shaun Usher’s newsletter, Letters of Note. Read More…
For most of this year I have been making collages centred on the representation of women in media.
In July of this year I participated in a self funded online collage residency offered by the Kolaj Institute in New Orleans.
The residency focussed on the intersection between photography and collage and as I had already started working with photographic images it was a perfect fit for me.
At the end of the residency we were invited to submit work that might be exhibited at the Kolaj Institute Gallery during Photonola 2025 and I was pleased that four of my collages were accepted into the exhibition.
Click on the links for more info:
World Collage Day is an annual, international celebration of collage on the second Saturday of May initiated by the founder of Kolaj Magazine. Aartists and venues around the world hold collage events to bring together people and community in a spirit of cooperation, support and creativity.
In collaboration with The Churn Room in 2024, I hosted a series of collage activities.
John Massy opened with a lively talk about the work in his exhibition, after which Guthrie and I facilitated a two hour collage making session and we finished the day with a life model collage session.
Here are some links with more info:
World Collage Day | Recollect exhibition by John Massy | Guthrie on instagram
When I moved to Dayboro I quickly realised I was not going to be able to travel to Brisbane or even across town at night, along dark country roads, to go to life drawing classes.
So I decided to organise life drawing myself. We started off in my shed studio until we moved to The Churn Room in 2023 and 2024. I am grateful to Bronwyn Hawkins, the Director of The Churn Room, who generously provides support with promotions and photography services and exhibition space for the showcase.
For more information about The Churn Room visit the website at www.thechurnroom.com.au
The Language of Posing is an arts project reflecting on the representation of women in media and society and designed to photograph and create source material for photomontages. This project was made possible through the Moretone Bay City Council’s RADF fund. Read more…
Art Lab - Like many of us, during covid I developed strong connections with my online community and as we eased out of isolation it seemed to me there may be a need for artists to gather in person to engage in critical conversations in which we get to talk about art and art making with like minded creatives.
Keeping my eye open for interesting bits of information, using writing exercises and artist led discussion to interrogate various topics, since 2023 the group has met monthly for supportive and engaging talk fests.
We’re now in our second year and Art Lab is going strong, and looking forward to sharing with our wider community.
Not long ago I was asked to do a collage workshop by our local council for a group of educators.
The prep resulted in another day playing with infographics. They are such a good tool for succinctly imparting information!
This infographic is just a snippet of what I have come to understand about design and composition. It is a dip of the toe into the subject, even so, I do hope this is a handy reference to print out for the notice board!
It’s been a while since I first decided to start writing about creating an at home artist residency, including the lead up and aftermath of my first exhibition.
I documented the process in my journal and made an infographic which might be useful to anyone out there wishing to do their own at home artist residency. Feel free to connect with me should you have any questions.
In the studio making for Fresh Eye’s 2025