Medusa comes home

Time for Medusa to come home. She’s been the meeter and greeter at the Otago Art Society gallery for the past year. Apparently she was frightening too many small children (naughty monster!). So she’s taken up residence in my lounge again, watching us watching TV.

She was originally made for a nude themed exhibition, I had really wanted to make a human-sized sculpture, and leaning more towards monstrous ideas I decided on a nude Medusa.

My grandchildren don’t go on a bear hunt at my house, we take torches and go on a monster hunt! We creep up to them, hold their hands, touch sharp teeth, shine touches into their glass eyes and pat their fur.

I’m not sure of the long term psychological effects but after seeing Medusa and Birdwoman, they are developing a tendency to draw monsters with ”boobies” and are convinced Medusa has a “diddle”.

Now, my Medusa is a strong, independent all woman-monster but I decided not to explain the difference between a penis and tentacle pubic hair. Some things are just best left unexplained.

The Sketch

I enjoy drawing as an end in itself, I love building up a drawing, playing with line and shading. I’m a bit of a paper snob and love the feel of a heavy good quality paper. My drawings are more like elaborate doodles. but any sketches I do for paintings or paper mache works tend to be really fast stick figures akin to shorthand I suppose, just a quick note of an idea so I can come back to it later.

Often the best ideas come when I’m in the middle of a project, so I whip down a wee note and a sketch so I can review later. I spend a bit of time writing in my sketchbook too, ideas and wafflings about what’s happening in my life, the occasional recipe, my “to do” lists, Christmas present ideas and so on.

An idea I may well come back to, a painting with an elaborate paper Mache frame.

An idea I had for a standing figure with a dog head. I considered weighted shoes before changing to big feet for balance.

The finished dogman, he turned out not so stable on his feet, so he leans against the house. Now I use a steel frame in the taller pieces to give more strength.

If you look closely at the sketch, you’ll see I was considering wings as well as high heels, I may revisit this idea in the future

Demo Weekend Completed

I had a great time at the demonstration weekend, artist’s busily working, lots of people watching, many having a go at printmaking and painting. As solitary creatures, it’s very worthwhile to get out and share our craft with others. Working with paper Mache means carting a huge amount of gear though! Glue, wire, paper, body parts (of the paper Mache kind), all the tools of the trade.

A group of us thought to sit downstairs in the foyer of our iconic Dunedin railway station to encourage the public up to the first floor where the rest of the artists were. With blue fingers and chattering teeth ( its beautiful but so cold!) we worked and talked.

Being extremely passionate about what I’m doing and the materials I’m using, I love to talk about it.

Sorry to the gentleman who was trying to break eye contact and sneak away, while I had you in my sights bleating on about the differing qualities of glues and the importance of using cotton cloth over synthetic. I knew you were trying to escape, but I was fully into my talk by then.

I gave Birdwoman and Medusa a job in the sunshine outside the station as the meeters and greeters, I didn’t hear too many small children crying in terror so they must have done OK.

Demo Weekend

Every year the Otago Art Society has a demonstration weekend. This year I am one of the coordinators. Now organizing artists can be a bit like herding cats, we don’t read instructions properly, we forget things, turn up late or not at all, can be a bit precious about our artworks……..

Herding guinea pigs might be apt, those little things are fast, very hard to herd, they zip all over the place and just vanish.

There were once some guinea pigs that were released accidently and three big guys spent some time ducking and diving under and over shrubs recapturing them, only the thought of a broken-hearted little girl keeping them on task. ( I have cute stories, despite my artwork being filled with monstrosities and gnashing teeth)

Happily, our fantastic group of artists are all very organized, leaving me free to sort myself.

For me, this means pre-making lots of body parts. Making paper Mache sculptures has a lot of long tedious steps, so to avoid having people come and watch me make toes or paper Mache balls, then watch them drying I have to have a lot ready for the fun stuff.

The fun stuff for me is the putting together of the body parts, getting the legs attached, the technicalities of getting the balance right, which way will it be looking?, is it a bit aggressive or woeful?

What comes after, the cloth and glue “skin”, paint and the fur or jewelry is more “window dressing”, where I’m working to enhance the sculptural shape.

Macrocarpa Men

I made a few of these creatures inspired by an exhibition I was involved in. All the artists found something to inspire them from the pages of “Landfall” editions.

I chose the short story “A Whale Sunday” by Kerry Louise Harrison. Her description of crawling inside a macrocarpa hedge took me straight back to my childhood, where I have spent a bit of time crawling around in macrocarpa hedges.

“We vaulted up the sand dunes to the hole in the macrocarpa hedge. Inside we crawled. It was my grandmother’s hedge and it smelt of dark green forest, held within it whole armies of bloodied men and the odd gnarled creature.”

Wow! Magic writing, drawing pictures in my mind.

So what do I do with a few large, creepy-looking tree monsters after the show? I can’t sit them in the middle of the lounge, they’d get me tangled up every time I walked by, not to mention blocking the view of the TV.

So I took them on a trip, got tangled up in a lot of branches, tripped over a few times and took some photos.

*Landfall Autumn 1994 (187) page 120

The hazards of a shared workspace

I have a spare room that was supposed to be the studio. It has turned into a sometimes chaotic storeroom. As it turns out it’s just better working out on the kitchen bench and table. The kitchen is warmer, lighter and has the room to spread out. Daily I gather up bits and pieces, drag them all out and (mostly) take it all back. Sometimes the putting back goes astray and things build up until I’m forcing the door open and pushing stuff into whatever gap is on the floor.

I like a clear bench when I turn to cooking, so I spend a reasonable time shuffling things from one end to another. There’s a bit of paint splatter up the kitchen wall, and a reasonable coating of glue on the tap, but hey, it’s all for the art cause! Occasionally though, there’s extras in the food.

This week I decided to make macaroni cheese for lunch. First mistake! going straight from arting to cooking. As I was busily mixing the cheese sauce I noticed a few red streaks, being unsure where it had come from, I decided it was probably food safe and ok.. Not wanting to waste another 10 minutes making more, I quickly mixed it in.

However, when beloved hubby put out his, there it was, evidence of my crime hiding under a piece of pasta looking like a piece of congealed blood.

The next day, on discovering colourful streaks on the cheese for a baked cheese sandwich, all was revealed.. The dye I had been using and all over my hands was not permanent as I thought, but water based.

AND food safe.

Field Trip

One of the fun things with making paper Mache beasties is that you can have a lot of fun photographing them! Its great to pack a couple up and take them off on a journey, posing them beside streams, in layers of soft green moss, hanging from branches. I have had a few strange looks!

For Christmas, my wonderful family gave me an awesome camera. It takes beautiful photos, one day I even plan to take it out of its automatic setting. Truth be told, I’m a little terrified of all its fancy knobs and dials, living in constant fear of accidently pressing a wrong button and taking it off automatic, never to find it again.

The main problem is that I seem to end up out in the forestry, all knowledge of what the different settings do has evaporated out of my head and my glasses have been left at home so the teeny tiny writing is all but invisible. For the time being I’ve decided that the camera knows more than me, so I’ll use its expertise.

A lot of my inspiration comes from walking in the bush or forestry, the patterns the branches make, the moss covered trees, the play of light and dark. I love the way, in certain light, the trees look mysterious, like they might move towards me, or scuttle off into the darkness. When the lighting is right, I intend on gathering up some artworks, rushing off and catching some more pics in the fog or sunset.

Max, my trusty (sometimes untrustworthy) assistant usually comes along for the ride.

A switch to Painting

I’m working on a couple of paintings for an upcoming exhibition. I switch a bit between different mediums, pursuing different ideas. What I’m pursuing through Paper Mache is different to what Ideas I’m chasing through painting or drawing. There’s a connection through approach and a definite feel to the works. I have a love and respect for the materials I work with while working within their limits.

I suppose I’ve been a bit reflective lately (much like almost everybody else I imagine!) In the slowing down of our fast-paced lives due to covid, it has bought about for me, a look at where I’ve come from, where I’m at and where I’m going.

I have been creating small paintings in oil on board for a couple of years now. I’ve previously painted on canvas, but always loved the look of oil on board. The paint is slippery, sliding around and calling for a completely different approach to my works on canvas. I’m chasing an whiff of an idea, something small, precious, slightly creepy but also endearing. Why I need to I’m unsure, so I looked back on earlier works to see if I could find that elusive thread.

Looking back over my work I can see several threads that evolved, I’ve come back to different themes. over time. These paintings above were created between 6 to 10 years ago, I then moved with the patterning aspect and took it into drawing. (That’s another story in itself)

I can see the eyes and heads in these works moving into the painting I’m doing now, where the eyes are a big focus. There’s a fairytale feel to the works, with a dark sinister edge, which comes through in a lot of my work.

So anyway, I’m in the process of creating 2 works to be called “The darkest light” and “Dark Dreams” Usually I dream up the names while creating the works, but as I had to have the entry in early I went names first. Under the pressure now to make sure I’ll get 2 works done and dry in time. Great stuff!

About Blogs

Well, In deciding to add a blog to this site I first (unbelievable I know!) had to look up what a blog is. I’ve heard the word “Blog” and about people “blogging” but hadn’t thought much about it. So off I went looking online, even got a book out from the library, and discovered they weren’t part of some mysterious and confusing online culture, but that I’ve been reading blogs all along without realizing it.

Now, I do have a tendency to get a tad confused by some of the technical jargon around the internet, but I spend a lot of time pretending I know what’s going on also. All part of my “fake it till you make it” strategy.

“Have you got Fiber Optic?” “I don’t know but whatever but it works well”

“What internet plan are you on?” “errr I’ll have to look it up, it works though”

Anyway, I was thrilled to discover there is nothing mysterious about writing a blog, and that , in fact I have been writing blogs all my life in the form of journals, tracing my steps to creating an artwork, insights into where I’m at and what I’m doing. I’ve been doing this all along ( well, for an audience of one)

Getting out all my old jounals, years of thought and ideas.

I’ve always enjoyed writing ideas down, sometimes great ideas come in a flash and I’ve got to get it on paper before I lose it. Of course, a lot of my writing is fairly illegible, but it has served its purpose, getting it out of my head and making it real.