at home in Auckland New Zealand... via the Selby.

The other day this post at The Selby arrived in my email in-box.

tracey tawhiao - artist and daniel 'hype the native' haimoana dam native - mc and musician
at home - auckland new zealand - june 21 2011

I so enjoyed time spent in New Zealand that I look out keenly for stories like this one.

One artist + one musician + a beautiful harbour outlook + wonderful natural habitat + maori cultural heritage adds up to a wonderful series of Selby photos on these two creative people Tracey Tawhiao and Danny Haimoana.

I am posting just a few small veruson form the seris of excellent photos... hop across and click through the images... up large and fabulous! Do... you'll get to see what's so appealing and distinctive about this place.

I fist saw images of the artist and her home about 2 years ago at Inside outside magazine (I think!) I was smitten.... being Selby there is less gloss... less perfection... more honesty and the real poeple in their home. Loved the collection of 60 odd photos .. go see ... and if you jut haven't the time then I do hope this gives you an idea at least!

EDITED JULY 2013:  Sorry these photos are no longer available!

OK go see the proper photos now!

As for what's happening over here in my back yard, studio etc....  busy as anything ... a huge week ahead ... GREAT workshop at Percolator Gallery Saturday... wonderful people! Will have photos of activities from that very soon I hope!

Wishing you a good week ahead... must get to bed before the clock strikes 12 tonight!!


PS ... Im back with a little Update... just noticed that the lovely Katrina who attended the Saturday "Colours of Nature" Workshop has posted a story on her blog Katrina Recycled. Here's a small exercise from the class she did. Loved those colours and cant wait to see more that follows with some of these new threads!

Katrina Stirling - "untitled"

news from the farm...

A note in my email in-tray this morning brought these photos with it.... from Nicki on her farm in the Darling Downs whose story has been on my blogs lately.  


See recent posts here and here. 


When I was staying there she said I probably wouldn't get to see the Koalas because of all the visitors staying! So I loved finding these photos in the email today!

" I will send more of my favourite farm pictures a few at a time... Koala in a tree only 4 years old. He gives me inspiration, below that is my favourite tree I will be chained to if the mines (mining company) come ..... the  last one is a tree skeleton at dusk recently."

She noted also that 3 front pages of today's newspapers were covering the story from the Downs re Mining: 

  

Toowoomba Chronicle, The Australian and Courier Mail.

Hope you enjoy these photos from Nicki!

Time for a story?

A week ago I was in this tunnel ... walking along with my friend Nicki when we got to the point where the noise of bats became most unsettling. Maybe you're a tough-nut and would have kept going all the way through this tunnel ... I know Nicki, formerly a vet, would not have been nearly so nearly so keen to turn around and go back as I was... she's a formidable person... read her story and the others who play their part in the tale here at the homage blog post just up.

We'd been visiting around the area near her farm on the Darling Downs ... people on the land are generally a tougher mob that those of us fond of our city comforts. When she and her husband received a notice that they might lose their farm to a Mining Company she did not lie down and give up ... in fact she was in the middle of working on a large exhibition about the town nearby that was dismantled so an Open Cut mine could take coal from where the people had lived and communed daily with each other for decade upon decade. 

This flowering gum - Ironbark: Eucalyptus sideroxylon- great hardwood, termite resistant- (Nicki's notes) was photographed in the town that is no more ... Acland. Well...not quite no more ... it has a resident still... that amazing story was written up in the Australian, the national newspaper - page 4 no less - on Saturday!

The weekend I went to the Downs was quite eventfuI I can tell you ...stories in every direction, stories that are going national... that are symbolic of other's stories from around the globe.

Its was so exciting to see the way the visual arts, in this case Textile art, could play a major role in communicating, on a number of levels, something very important in the lives of this community... and beyond. 

We are all touched by the most profound density and velocity of change in contemporary life and as artists we have much to contribute  and in so many varied ways - whether subtle or overt - the time is here for artistic interventions of all kinds. 

Before I dash off to get on with things a little reminder in case you're down the road... and interested ! There's been a great response to the workshop series Im starting up at Percolator Gallery in Paddington this weekend...a couple of places are left for this Saturday, 25th of June and July, 9th and July 23rd too! With more dates coming soon!

Click on website page for more information or email me here: sophiemunns @ iinet . net . au (without the gaps of course!)

close up of section of a new work - view at website

The other day I got around to posting new work at my website...  and added a post at my studio archives blog about all this. I was reflecting on the fact this free website provider has continued to develop what they offer and is surprisingly user friendly ... and best of all I discovered a much better slideshow facility the other day to upload work onto. Maybe its new or maybe I missed it before this.

A couple of years ago I felt like I would never get my head around creating a website ... then I saw Robyn of Art Propelled renown create an excellent one through weebly, so I wrote to her about it, then worked on one myself. It was a very basic start... but after last year's busy-ness I had time in January to rejig it... and then again recently and every time I do I find I am learning how to improve the way I use it!

I've been seriously impressed by some wonderful streamlined websites ive seen ... like blogger friend's website: Mary Zeran ... they can add so much to the viewing experiecne ... but you know...its almost impossible for me to do minimal... my first page of the website is spare ... relatively... but after that its just what it is!  I guess I could apologise to the International Style Council for Artist's Websites... but what is this whiff of homogeneity all about anyway ...I'm all for bio-cultural-diverisity! Bring it on!

Bye all... have a wonderful week where-ever you are ... go forth  and may you be fruitful!

Oh... and if you're into textiles and living in this region you must check out this week's big event here at the website for Textile Art Academy.

two things to share with you!

Bloggers...  for all of you ...artists, designers, makers, gardeners, carers, world-makers, thinkers ...

all of you who love the authentic... the precious... the gift of time plus hearts and minds put to good purposes...

Chloe proudly showing her drawing!

Firstly....

This graphic is about protecting the interlinked systems of Biocultural heritage...

                 

                       What I hear you ask?

Well thats the whole thing... all of us...  every living thing on this planet.... every language, cultural tradition, blade of grass and more.

And no... life is always changing and we cant keep things still... but we do need to understand the links and act now to preserve a great deal of what is passing.

Revered Goddess via Ghost Colours tumblr

Secondly... I'll share this thought with you from indigenous people of Chile:

"The seeds are our mothers because they nurture us. Sometimes they become our babies, and they need our protection, care and warmth. In other moments they are our sisters, with whom we enjoy, sing and dance. That's how we are all family in our Andean world."

please visit the homage blog where you can read more on this and leave a comment today if you will....

Sophie x

    and a good weekend to you all!

what's cooking at your place?

Its winter here... OK... there's no snow. I admit our winter's are hardly worth a wimper ... but we still think about soups, keeping warm enough and avoiding runny noses and worse! What I dont like about winter is that I have to wear shoes!

I stayed at friends on the weekend up on the range (Great Dividing Range as its known - extending along the entire eastern side of Australia). My friends assured me it can get a lot colder up there than here... yet its only 2 hours west. It was wonderful sitting in front of their fire... and it seemed a million miles away forn the very green urban environment I wake up to each day.

I didn't get enough photos of their views... nor have I downloaded what I took... so stay tuned I hope for some decent pics from weekend!

image: Sabra Krock - I'm afraid I've never used
such fancy things as this  But I did like the photo
... it does spell out that baking is on the cards!
Plus I'm into blues and browns at the moment 

Why these photos you ask? Well... lots of home cooking where I was on the weekend... people who bake from scratch...  Thats always particularly nice in Winter. But thats a whole other story. 

Sabra Krock

anyone got one of these?

Now this is more like something I would get around to cooking! I'm a fan of quinoa. of green food, particularly herbs. I found this at "a billion tastes and tunes" blog.... the recipe for Quinoa Tabouli was adapted from a Moosewood book... simple ingredients... looks good to me!

Quinoa Tabouli

1 cup raw quinoa

2 cups water

1/4 teaspoon salt

1 teaspoon dried mint or 

1 tablespoon chopped fresh mint

4 scallions

5 garlic cloves

2 or 3 bunches fresh parsley 

3 or 4 tablespoons lemon juice

1 1/2 tablespoons olive oil

salt and ground black pepper

I just noticed these images below at two posts at the same blog called "they draw and cook..." ... any of you draw and cook... I find the camera every now and then to record something but I must admit its been awhile since I drew something I've prepared for the table.

A Well-Salted Salad with a Little Vinegar and Good Olive Oil by Bozena Wojtaszek. This one is all textile and thread!   NOTE: Text and link from the blog!

Spring Garden Soup by Meta Wraber. 

Chickpea Dip by Sali Swindell.

Whilst posting this I thought of the wonderful Janis at Paintbox who delights us with her take on things around San Francisco where she hails from  ... and her drawings... like this one. Posted May 17...  its missing a title hence link to that actual post...   so just visit the blog and you'll find it and many other treasures! - May, 2011... 17th.

A sketchbook drawing inspired by Francesca's post on making tea
with fresh jasmine blossoms. * Note from Janis

And I'll finish with this from the also clever and lovely  Sanne van Windon in the Netherlands whom I was delighted to see had a post at Bloesem on her wonderful work last week.

"Last week was about flowers and melon gazpacho, really nice on a summer evening". Sanne's text!

Sanne

Sanne

Images from the Bloesem blog story : Art in your home : Sanne van Windon

Sanne van Winden is a Dutch illustrator and pattern designer , who graduated at the Royal Academy of Art in the Hague at the fashion&textile design department. You can find her colorful portfolio right here, read her journal here and visit her etsy shop right here. I also love her designs over at Envelop. 

{in the image below, Bedcover  by Beddinghouse} Text from Bloesem!

well busy week... must run!

Ive just booked at seat at the local Slow Food evening "the History of the Pie" ... after the talk we apparently partake and the warning is... dont eat beforehand! I can't promise drawings... but I'll try and take photos!

Art and food do go together so well don't you think?

The Slow Food manifesto:  SLOW Food began when delegates from 15 countries gathered in France and endorsed this manifesto, written by founding member Folco Portinari, on 9 November 1989... Read more here.

colour reverie...

In the last month or two time for painting has been slim due to competing factors. Rather than not paint at all I took all pressure away from the valuable time I did find for paint ...  suspending need for outcomes  instead I was led purely by feeling my way through some nebulous interior space. 

Ever sensitive to the pull of the inner it was such a delicious breathing out after last year's haste and deadlines. This way of painting I am much more at home with... even though it's not a good match for the contemporary notion of "getting on with it". Too many exterior demands and motivations kill painting for me ... I really do prefer to give the ideas time to surface... and I need to work repetatively with impulses to make them part of my vocabulary or language... a way has to be found into the rhythm that works ... quite simply.

What I present here then is some of the contents from this most uncontructed time ... essential reveries in certain colour realms.

 close-up section

painting on a humble canvas board 25 x 25 cm

the next are a series on 20 x 20 cm canvas boards... 

These are also on canvas boards below - 20 x 20 cm. They were started however about a year ago when I sat and painted stripes on these boards as a kind of meditation... they were simply colour exercises on the one hand...in another way they were wordless colour poems. I often work with colour in this way... putting down colour stories that I need to inhabit ... like being in a certain kind of room for a while!

These striped boards I pulled out the other night very late and proceeded to add the layers of oval forms ...like capsules with the spaces in which to glimpse what exists beyond.

Here I've returned to another preoccupation ... painting with a syringe which of course, if you've tried it, is absolutely frantic... the paint tends to come out so quickly and haphazardly that it's an effort indeed to control the flow of paint... Its taking me rather a long time to even work out what I think of this technique... what I might do with it.

close-up of work with 2 layers of line work. Try clicking to see more closely the effect.

I became rather engaged in the colours of this work ... a different direction to what I generally work with.

untitled  60 x 60 cm  acrylic and ink on linen

Below are two works in a similar vein ... meditating on seeds ...

breaking the surface up with this horizontil line ... an impulse

that is purely intinctive.

Untitled  40x 40 cm acrylic and ink on paper on canvas

Untitled, 60 x 60 cm - pigmented ink and acrylic on linen

The last one a canvas 120 cm x 40 cm ... pure whimsy... unfinished ... unresolved ...awkward ... the colours speaking to my uncomprehending mind asking for attention. Really... it was enough just to put down what I had and walk away... leave it for later when maybe it will speak to me. Its definitely still in its gawky adolescent stage!

The camera works ... the downloading mechanism is quite mystifying though... Ive not figured it out properly at all. Not to worry ... Im just glad that I got this far ... loaded up some work. Yeah! Its late... gotta go! Before I do... talking about colour. I have workshops coming up soon which I have written about at the other blogs and put on the sidebar to link you to the details if you'd like to know more.

Visit the homage blog here to read about it!

Ciao,

Enjoy the weekend you all! Its a long weekend here. Driving up the mountain Sunday... with my camera!

stripes... loosely interpreted

etceterablog:

Hugh Scott-Douglas
Panel Painting
White Gesso & Aniline Dye Bleen on Linen

jackbarnosky:

Rome    Crosswalk with People and Bird     Jack Barnosky

When in Rome I could not walk easily. I was awaiting a knee replacement operation. I had to walk with a cane! Since I was not very mobile I had to find a likely spot to make photographs and just wait. What I discovered was that the world and its wonders was quite willing to come to me. It was different and new. A bit scary. It changed me. Made me rethink my aesthetic philosophy. I believe, with modesty, that this experience made my photography richer with more , oh I guess the word is poetry.

Shansi mah

burythisbone:

Australian Aboriginal artist Doreen Reed Nakamarra - Untitled

Marcel Odenbach (German, born 1953)
You Can’t See the Forest for the Trees2003.

tumbleword:

Eric Wendel, EXTRA MEDIUM VERSION, 2009, 54 x 66 inches, oil and glitter on canvas

defacedbook:  Remo Albert Alig Fine Books Have a Purpose, Gold 2005

Sunlight on Paper (14cm x 20.5cm

Laetiticus

referenceartgallery: Joan Saló Untitled  2010 (detail) pen on canvas

Peter Doig    via jntquigley:

glovaskicom: Botanical #4, oil transfer drawing, Doug Glovaski 2007

20100220-1, algorithmic composition.

                              Algorithmic artwork by Samuel Monnier. More algorithmic art here..

20090727-1, algorithmic composition.

OK... this is an indulgence... no stripes here... just like it!

20040313, algorithmic composition.

arsvitaest:  Barbara Bernreider

isaac-lonetree:

Abstract: Light Waves as Though Sound (by russell.tomlin)

sunfishdesign: Frank Sinatra Conducts Tone Poems of Color Designed by Saul Bass circa 1956

Paul Klee. Double Tent. 1923. Water color and pencil on paper. 50.6 x 31.8 cm.
Private Collection. © 1999 VG Bild Kunst Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York.

reblololo: GEORGE TJAPANANGKA, Two Men At Wallatu, 1987, born 1938

Emily Kame Kngwarreye, Yam dreaming body paint

crashinglybeautiful:       David Bolduc “Cold Water”, 2008 oil on board, 30 x 36 in.

Pierre Soulages. Peinture 222x137 cm, 3 février 1990. Huile sur toile

freakyfauna: Liebe Mutti… by Harald Stoffers

(via mtrt, boyhair-deactivated20110123)

everythingdear: Kuru Ala, 2007 by Maringka Baker, Pitjantjatjara people

bookspaperscissors:

houseofartanddesign: Call and response collaboration by flatfile 

well.... I said it was a loose interpretation of stripes... all images from archives at my tumblr: Seed capsules. 

Had an excellent weekend... the WED sustainability event was a success all round. You can read a little about that at the Homage blog. Rather tired still so taking the simple posting option of plundering the archives... a little visual is a good start to the day before tackling "THe Must-do List". 

Ciao all!