Old News & Black Cats Hiding in Plan Drawers

Hello Possums

So here's some old news...

Some pictures from my exhibition 'Flotsam & Jetsam' last month at Sweets Workshop.

Opening Afternoon! Thanks for coming everyone!

Some broad holding her etching plate....

The lovely Emma & John! Thanks so much guys!!!

Embroideries hanging around

My Flotsam & Jetsam collection & Book Project books in the afternoon glow. 

Shearwater skulls and bones, sea sponges, lobster shell, anemone, corals, etc.

Front window display.

Book Project Prints : My Family & Other Animals, The Lacuna & Bleak House.

More Book Project Prints : The Daylight Gate, The Year of the Hare & Tender Morsels.

The Birds. Embroidery on Calico.

The Book Project again: The Miniaturist, The Old Man & the Sea, The Signature of all Things, Cannery Row & Prodigal Summer.

Flotsam & Jetsam series

More unframed prints for sale.

A Constellation of Vital Phenomena I, SOLD!!!!!
With reflections of the platform at Summer Hill Station. 

In more recent news.....

We moved house. It's lovely.

I have a new studio space!

Here it is in all it's shiny new tidy splendour.

(it doesn't look like that now.....)

I've been digging through some old work recently for something to switch my brain on again. Since the move I've lost my way a bit, everything is a bit muddled up and stuck. 

SO, I found these guys.

I made these drawings while I was living in Sydney in 2009. 

I wasn't in a very good place. Sick all the time and very depressed. In the share house we were living in there was a little shit of a cat that lived next door and one of our flat mates, feeling sorry for the little bastard, started to feed him and pay him attention. He was psychotic. There was no love. Scratches that could slice through flesh and he'd go for the achilles every time. Lurking in hallways and dark places. PURE EVIL. Jet the deceiver.

After moving away from the share house I continued to be sick. After thinking about black cats and superstitions decided that it would be a good idea to make some cat drawings. Black Cat rather then Black Dog. Purge some of the ill feelings. I'm always interested in the idea of anthropomorphism and human/animal metamorphosis. So the cat portraits eventually morphed into self portraits. Not that many of them look like me, bits and pieces almost get there. Self portraiture is HARD! Especially when you're not generally inclined to stare at yourself in the mirror. Well without any of the baggage of self attached anyway. You think you know what you look like but you have to rethink everything!

I just read a fantastic book that relates to this idea of drawing. 'Paint Your Wife' by Lloyd Jones. 

Here's a beautiful extract from it.

'When you are drawing you are actually learning how to see. You do this through looking. Looking is untarnished glass. No green bits of judgement hang from it' lens. In order to draw you must learn to see how things are - not how you wish they were, or once were.' pg 245

And there's also this bit about identity.

The story is set in the 1940's in a small town. All the men have left the women and gone away to war.

'As far as the rest of the women in the district were concerned, to be looked at was as rare as sugar or chocolate. They could have looked in the mirror of course. but there is nothing like another's eyes to set us alight, to make our nerves stand on end, to tell us, in effect, who we are.' pg 63

It's a gorgeous book, READ IT. :)

SO that's what I've been thinking about.

If you check out my Instagram there are a few awful (they really are!) self portraits I've been working on. They're still in progress, I obliterate them every now and then to start over. 

Here are a few more oldies from my Honours year back in 2005, a bit more metamorphosis.

I love these pieces. They never made it past the walls of my studio space, now they're stuck in an old journal. They were so much fun to make. Alter egos!

It might be time to play with some collage again!

Oh! And a heads up if you're in Brisbane for the Writer's Festival 2nd-6th September, The Bimblebox 153 Birds project will be on display at the Queensland State Library. Go and check it out for me, I haven't seen it yet. Look out for my little Pheasant Coucal.

I'm so excited to be a part of such a great exhibition.

Check this link out for some pictures of the official opening in Brisbane at Impress Gallery earlier this year in May.  

Stay tuned, 

J

xoxox