Woolahra Small Sculpture Prize

this morning we visited the Woolahra Small Sculpture PrizeSally Blake Seep
aluminium wire, plant dyed wool, silk, hemp
24 x 52 x 50 cm
Artist Statement:
In 2014 and 2016 I had artist residencies in Namadgi National Park, ACT. The theme of the residency was the environmental protection of the alpine bogs and fens. A particular focus was the seed collection done by the Australian National Botanical Gardens for their seed bank to preserve plants endangered by climate change. The role of these environments in water filtration was also a significant area of research.
As I visited the bogs and fens I wondered at their fecundity and the abundance of plant life. With permission I collected plant samples from these environments to be processed for their dyes to make a unique record of place. Seep is coloured almost exclusively with these dyes, celebrating the richness of the flora. The aluminium prongs sprouting from the basket/bog reference the continual regeneration of plant life. The patterns of aluminium wire ‘seeping’ from the work are mimetic to the release of filtered water from the bogs and fens.
Tevita Havea Tuna
glass, sand, tapa cloth, wood, resin
22 x 48 x 21 cm
Artist Statement
Hina was a young maiden who used to bathe in the lagoon where an eel named Tuna lived. Tuna changed himself into a man so he could be with her and soon the two became three, as she fell pregnant, much to the dismay of the locals, so they decapitated Tuna and buried his head, and over time a tree began to grow from the burial mound. This first coconut tree, the “tree of life” for Polynesians, was a gift from Tuna.
This is one of many creation myths that aroused my boyhood imaginings. Stories about life, death, and rebirth, that reconnect our bodies to the natural world. Stories that help us transcend the physical, the animal materiality of our everyday existence and bind us to something greater.
David Hamilton Fishes and Loaves – Set in Stone
hydrographic print on cast aluminium
18 x 53 x 22 cm
Artist’s Statement
This sculpture proposes a cautionary speculation about a future world diminished by the quantity of our remaining environmental and global resources. The boat form is used as a metaphor to engage in both the transformation of material and the reconstruction of a recorded event. The sculpture reminds viewers of the ancient biblical story of the fishes and loaves and the feeding of the hungry masses. Laden with food it acts both as a metaphor for our overcrowded planet and as a memory prompt of that early story of hunger. The title Fishes and Loaves – Set in Stone directs attention to the cast aluminium form with its hydrographic printed surface that mimics classical marble.
Stevie Fieldsend As we melted into each other…
glass, metal filings, steel plate
47 x 15 x 28 cm
Artist Statement
My work As we melted into each other… expresses a feeling, a bodily sensation of desire, of giving into and of hovering in-between those two emotions. In working with materials that embody the process of transmutation such as molten glass, coal and steel, a type of performance takes place close to the furnace, at the welding bay and inside my body. A ritual, that opens up a space where realities can shift. This work slumps biomorphic glass impregnated with coal and steel filings that were drilled from its particular metal plate over a thick steel vertical form.
Emma Fielden An Infinite Line (1km)
1 kilometre of hand cut linen thread on polyurethane coated aluminium panel
Artist Statement
An Infinite Line (1km) reflects my ongoing exploration of infinity. It reaches out to encompass questions related to the divisibility of space and matter, touching on particle physics and astronomy, Zeno’s philosophical paradoxes on infinity and Georg Cantor’s mathematical infinities.
The work considers the idea that any line can be divided into an infinite number of infinitesimal parts. To clarify this, think of dividing a line in half, then divide each of those halves in half again, and so on endlessly; the line segments become infinitely many and their size becomes infinitesimal as they move toward, but never actually reach, zero.
In the case of this artwork, the given line is 1 kilometre in length. I cut this line of thread by hand into particles as small as I could physically manage, moving toward the infinitesimal. By doing so, the kilometre is reconfigured into a small mound of tiny particles and we see an alternative perception of its monolithic scale. As its large scale is subverted, the infinite nature of the line is revealed, and we see how the small scale too can be infinite.
view from the gallery, the Jacarandas purple the city for the next few weeks
to see all the amazing works in the show & the winners visit the website
Emma Fielden’s is my favourite for the Viewers’ Choice Award
such a deeply considered work, it changed how I see the world

Artisans in the Gardens

Patrice Cooke
organic ceramics

love her sea forms
Nicole Robins
weaving natural fibres
weaving indigenous & exotic plant fibres found in the inner city
Zoe Ellenberg
avocado plant series
patinated bronze
Denese Oates
odes to nature
Seraphina Martin
beautiful solar prints
the very bold and erotic Amorphophallus paeoniifolius by Mother Nature
Artisans in the Gardens is on til next Sunday
NB please excuse the less than stellar quality of the photos

 

Liz Ackert is imagining so much love & peace into our beautiful broken world

Liz Ackert is stitching so much love and peace into our beautiful broken world
(click on the link to go over to her blog!)
she sent me this photo of her pennon in process, her stitching is divine!
she has gifted me so many beautifully stitched and dyed cloths over the years we have known each other online
she is truly mending our beautiful broken world with Love and Peace
her rust dyed key cloth and 60 count hand woven linen inspired the Key Book
& the Imagine Peace pin is real magic, it helped me keep a lid on it one dark and stormy night
Liz is such a rare treasure I truly hope we will get to meet in real life one day!
namaste

PS on Friday the 13th Liz put up another beautiful post
PPS the next day Liz posted more beauty continuing

timeless

helping out at the opening of Land Between Water
photo courtesy of Madeleine Tuckfield-Carrano Artsite Gallery
“… thoughts on time. She won’t explain that time comes out of the future, which does not yet exist, into the present, which has no duration, and into the past, which has ceased to be.”
All the Beloved Ghosts by Alison Macleod (p225)

Fairfarren beautiful friend

The Empress, The High Priestess and the Three of Wands
Tarot Chesta handcut & printed by Chester Harris © 2002
in memory of Julie Banks
gardener, mother, grandmother
Fairfarren beautiful friend!

Wild Peace

Fiona Dempster sent three of her hand printed Imagine Peace weathergrams with such impeccable timing! One of our favourite gardening customers has been put through hell this year, the new upstairs neighbour has been so awful she decided to move, found a place just up the road, bought it & put her lovely home of 31 years up for auction on Saturday but in a strange twist of fate the awful neighbour bought it… way too hard a deal so we invited this brave woman and her gorgeous cat to stay at our place until the bathroom is renovated in the new place, we need to Imagine Peace!
and Deb Lacativa sent these two strands of her “dirty” thread! I have lusted after some of this magic thread all year since watching Hazel, Liz and Grace make such “wild peace” with it! look forward to having a go as soon as I finish Once in a Blue Moon
magic is afoot, love really is the answer

mending our beautiful broken world with Love and Peace

Liz Ackert sent a Peace Leaf made by Barry Smith wrapped in her hand dyed cochineal cloth along with peaceful words hand printed by Fiona Dempster, her finely stitched Take Heart safety pin and stitched my mending words into the blue for our beautiful broken world !