felices fiestas!

found at twitter...

Its warm here and even though I'm not at the beach this feels like a fitting image to share with peeps from the northern hemisphere.

Its actually late here as I type ... the end of christmas day... so I've added this image looking into my studio and house. It seems all the neighbours are away. We are still getting to know the neighbourhood so its an eerie feeling. Our former home always had more people around and late night revellers to boot.

SEED.ART.LAB studio is closed for a week. Back after New Years!

Whilst I don't speak spanish I do rather like the notion of joyful festivity... and I think it a good wish to send around the globe when we don't all subscribe to the same creeds, religious or cultural festivals. As many have a holiday at this time of year and the same calendar is quite common around the globe its a punctuation mark that means something to all of us ... whatever that may be!

We chose to stay in this year... a new home makes it appealing to do so. We'd have been at my niece Lara's in a flash if that didn't involve a busy freeway trip for 90 mins or more. On top of travelling south tomorrow one's 83 yr old mother voted to avoid the roads and Lara agreed it was wise. This year we celebrated her marriage to the lovely Dwight and 10 days ago were up for her 30th birthday and an announcement she will be having a July baby. So we will visit in January for sure... and come July keep us away!!!

Imagine my mothers delight when her 5 yr old great grandson William, son of Lara's brother Tristan and wife Renee, phoned this morning to say his Mummy was having a baby. Olivia, my mother sat outside all morning counting all the July birthday's there'd be in the family with such relish! As her birthday is July 31 she hopes either Renee or Lara will bring her a very special birthday present!

It's been a pleasant day and I've pottered a bit in the kitchen... very low key nibbles today which in the heat is great. Red papaya for breakfast. Simple things laid out for lunch... and this afternoon a taste of home-baked goods given as gifts this week.

The Panforte was made by Jane's mother Vivienne who's mother is Italian and no doubt they have cooked this panforte recipe for years. The other tiny Xmas cakes were from Olivia's friend Stella who is quite famous for her brilliant cooking I'm sure. She is the only person I know who takes her treats to cafe owners she befriends so they can try her wares. The love her... so do we! She's young 80+

 year old and gift giving small treats is something she does all the time!

There other thing I'm doing is sorting things to take with me on a little mini-residency for 5 days.

My rationale in taking this short opportunity was to look into lining up a longer stay with hosts at Koonjewarre and Springbrook Rescue - part of the Australian Rainforest Conservation Society.

Their work consists of:

Springbrook Rescue” is a multi-stage project to protect and restore the World Heritage rainforests of the Springbrook region in South-East Queensland, Australia.

It involves seven programs:

1  acquiring land to expand the World Heritage area

2   restoring critical habitat and landscape connectivity

3   community engagement in World Heritage protection, presentation and restoration

4   science programs to guide restoration and monitoring

5   protecting World Heritage through better governance

6   presenting World Heritage values for their protection and community well being

7   partnerships to realize a shared vision

NB: text from website page!

Because I'm tagging along this week on a pre-organised camp I am doing a lovely exchange with them where I have a generous work space and I will offer 90 min classes over three mornings to 10 or more people. I will focus my seeds and biodiversity art classes around the work being done onsite to weed out invade species and restore the bio-diverse landscape which is deemed a Biodiversity hotspot.

Its come at a great time as I have been working non-stop to set up the new studio and introduce my plans for Seed.Art.Lab, and importantly, after months this year spent in limbo whilst relocating homes, these past 6 weeks have seen a spike in income that was... how to put it... absolutely about time.

click here to visit

I am so thankful to the support of a great many people who have visited, sent messages, made purchases at my online shop or in person, shared my project with friends and importantly set ideas up for next year so that there will be ongoing events, workshops and such.

Going backwards $10,000 due to stalled projects, expenses and new studio set up costs saw me holding my breath and anxious to turn that situation around. $10,000 is peanuts to some but I know many artists see it as something considerable and we don't like to spend when we're not earning.

Being able to get back on track makes me incredibly grateful for each and every bit of support and kindness that came my way. I am finishing 2013 in a far better place than when it started actually ... and despite the unnerving panorama of global challenges which I do, by nature, take very seriously I feel my faith in the kindness of many absolutely assures me of the colossal numbers of wonderful people on this planet that want it to be the best world it can be for all.

Recently starting "internships" at the studio has been a surprising joy. I've long enjoyed working with teens and children but it was an incredible stroke of luck that two separate conversations led me to intuitively put forward the idea of work experience to Sam and her mother back in May, and to Jane when I met her finally in person at my opening weekend after helping her in March with research via email.

That we decided to call it an internship was a mutual decision between the girls and I. They've been coming once a week for 5 or 6 hours. The focus of their time is spent between my projects and their own, depending on what else is happening at the time. They both wrote blog posts for me on their own artwork and their individual experiences here at the studio as they come on different days and have not met as yet.

Read Jane's post.

Read Sam's post.

We discuss what it means for them to be in a studio, slowly observing the full gamut of my particular art practice, getting glimpses into challenges and down-sides as well as the wonderful aspects of this vocation. Both families are delightful. Sam's mother put it to me from the start to ask 15 yr old Sam to help with anything useful for the studio business. This was liberating as I then knew there was a very clear understanding of my role.

Sam's father, until his recent untimely death, had an international career as an award-winning Architectural Illustrator so her understanding of a Studio Practice is very much about conducting a professional life and a business as much as exploring the depth and breadth of one's creative life. What has been exciting to see in her is that she understands the pragmatics of this vocation but is also utterly whimsical and enamoured with expressing her creative passion. Her joy in art-making is infectious!

Jane ushers in a kind of energy and experience that is different but equally inspiring. She brings me ideas every time she walks in the door. Have I thought of doing so and so... what about this or that? We laugh, talk and work on some of the tasks that she has essentially reminded me of the importance of.

Time soon passes and its been great to see her shift out of her heavily academic Year 12 mode of thinking and art making and into a period of  freedom from academic direction... to realise there is now a window of opportunity for her to make marks and put down ideas that she feels like exploring... certainly at a least until she takes up University if that's what she chooses to do next. There's a fluid exchange... we go between working on something for my deadlines to thinking through things of importance to her quite effortlessly.

Ideal really for school students ... much of their direct experience of art at this point is more likely the busy school classroom, generally without commercial context or broader world engagement, apart from referencing ideas of artists. Perhaps if they were doing 5 days a week for a month or longer all this would be a different experience. But one day a week gives a solid grounding in the studio reality and 6 days to go off and ruminate on that and find whatever they might like to explore inspired from their time in the studio.

More days are planned for January and I look forward to that.

One thing I want to share before I sign off came up lately when approached by the Global Crop Diversity Trust re an image for their Christmas greeting. As a not-for-profit they were interested in connecting and doing Homage to the seed promotion in exchange for non-exclusive use of the artwork. Having followed their organisation since 2010 when my project was taking off it was an inquiry I was delighted to follow through on.


This was one of the artwork images I sent to them... 'Perennial Symbols from the Botanical Realm I'.  It was decided to crop a section of this work for a closer view suiting the card the were going to have printed and also send via email!

Original work: 120 cm x 60 cm... one half of a dyptich.

To read more about this go to the Homage to the seed blog post I wrote this week where I described the way this painting evolved over two long years.

The cropped section below is now available as a Limited Edition print from my Seed.Art.Lab online shop here.

You can call my mobile on 0430 599 344 if you have inquiries. Or leave me a message on how to contact you! I've been organising to use Paypal so that makes it easier at the online shop.

It seems like a good note to end the year on really. To be able to share my artwork with the organisation that works at every level to conserve the seeds of the crops we rely on everyday all around the planet is a satisfying thought.

And tomorrow I go up to Springbrook National Park for a 5 day residency where I will be focusing on Seeds and biodiversity whilst learning about the efforts being made by Springbrook Rescue Action                                                                              to restore land from invasive species and also deforestation that occured decades ago.  

I'm finding myself falling asleep at the key board after rather a long day... so I'll be off for now.
Christmas blessings to followers of this tradition and my warmest wishes that your holiday be a great pleasure everyone!!

Image found at Springbrook Rescue

five minute post: from the Daintree

... its been a preference of mine to take time and post something I've been musing on... but since realising I have neglected loads of images gathered here and there plus also started to seriously neglect posting at all.... maybe this brief post is a strategy worth adopting.

I hope to do the longer version... but i wanted to share these snaps from a walk in the magnificent Daintree World Heritage listed rain forests of Nth Qld in the region where I was located for a month... see Sept-Oct posts!

ciao,
S

Clear, fresh mountain stream in the Rainforest that meets the sea!

This is my second last morning in the Wet Tropics before I fly home tomorrow night. Its the dead of winter and 27 degrees C today. I'm staying in the residence where I will live and work during the spring residency up here.

Its been brilliant and of course I have taken many photos ...but alas! Falling asleep at the computer trying to sort them all this morning. I have picked just three to post today and then I have to skip to it and visit the Australian Tropical Herbarium just 20 mins north.

I was up pre-dawn and went to the shorefront thinking it would be a nice day for an early morning beach walk. But no... it was drizzling rain...so I went to the Regional Art Gallery cafe and wrote a letter and enjoyed coffee and toast...then had a quick visit to the waterside.

Still early I will get going....

but first...

These photos are from Mossman Gorge...  I must write more on this place where I took quite a number of photos. I went there Saturday and found an impressive Aboriginal Cultural Centre had just opened 4 days before. 

Then on Monday I met a wonderful local indigenous person in Cairns who had been a ranger in this Gorge for some years and is now working in an Arts Project there. Sheryl offered to take me walking up there on my return visit...and compare notes about our art... so I am delighted to have a chance to spend time up there in such fine company.

PS the water wasn't too cold and Sheryl assures me that crocodiles don't travel up over the rocky river into the cool mountain water. Next time I'll swim! It was a stunning place to visit and much to learn here from the indigenous community.

Hope you are having a good week everyone!

Ciao,

Sophie x

      ....Go to the studio archives blog for images from the new journal!

New work up today for Group Show in Brisbane.

Heading off to sleep at 4am last night had me wondering how I would pull up today. Any ambivalence about the readiness of the paintings was countered today by the pleasure of conversations with others whilst musing over how best to hang the work.

You can read details about the when and where of this show at  Studio archives blog - Opening night is friday evening, but doors will be open from tomorrow - so if you are out and about in this sunny city do pop in and have a peek... the work of 10 artists is showing over 12 days. I'll be there Saturday morning for 4 hours from 10 am, Tuesday morning - same hours, and Saturday afternoon next week if you want to come have a tea and a chat... you will be most welcome. 

This Gallery happens to be situated in a very lively precinct - a large Antiques Emporium is just up the street - book shops, boutiques, cafes and other galleries nearby. A gorgeous little chocolate shop sells the best, most restorative hot chocolate made from a very special recipe each morning! In fact I must take some photos of the surrounds...a hilly area, with wonderful views and fabulous old Queensland timber houses and lush trees and gardens.

As I nestled into the Gallery's bay window seat next to the wall where my work has been hung... I could not think of a better place to pull up for a little while....especially on these winter mornings where the sun is so gentle.  

* click on images to enlarge for viewing!

This work above is shown below in context. The way I chose to hang the show is suggestive of a kind of dispersal of the pod forms featured in all the various works here. For the project I have been carrying out at Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens this year I have focused heavily on the forms found in the seed capules of the rainforest fruits native to Queensland. The Black bean motif I have long employed - finding a way to use it as a kind of scaffolding here in some of the works. This motif abstracted consists of 2 of the most essential or primal of forms... ovals and circles have, across Millennia, held enormous cultural significance... speaking to the subconscious mind powerfully and in our time simultaneously resonating with archaic yet contemporary meaning - with a life force still!

Acrylic and pigmented ink is the medium used and the canvas ovals come in four sizes - the smallest being 17.5 x 12.5cm as in the one below which features the hexagonal cross-section of the 'Pararistolochia australopithecurus' - a ribbed orange berry containing these 6 capsules for seeds....not that 6 seeds will always be found in each. That is something I'm still amazed by - despite the capsules that form in readiness to house seeds the number of seeds produced is not a given. Working in the Seed lab had really brought home the issue of seed viability..  pods may be pried open only to discover the absense of seeds non-vialbility of what is present.

The simple geometry of this species is completely uncontrived in this motif... its elemental and repeated in the most obvious of pattern-making. One cannot but help but think how much of this human love of geometry was fostered by saturation in the most common of everyday things in nature. Once upon a time when the human relationship to nature was for many so strong, and matters of survival meant nothing was taken for granted - seed had to be viable or it might spell disaster - plant breeding would have no doubt have come to rely on an almost scientific observation of what was occuring in nature in particular species. Acute observation may have made the critical difference. 

My long held fascination with ancient symbols has taught me time and again that the correspondance between the tangible and the abstract was deep-rooted and integral. No matter how sophisticated the tiled floors or wall patterns of antiquity appear - how mathematically complex - without doubt the starting point for a motif might be something as singular as a capsule which held seeds... like this one below. Its pause for thought.

The subtlety of the work below highlights three different seed capsules  - each a different rainforest species. This painting ( 35 x 28 cm ) refers to the largely hidden nature of seeds - they are not necessarily seen, more so if we never work with them, plant them, watch them grow. Because of this we can easily forget their mighty role in our lives... their tremendously important role as 'generator of life'. We can remain ignorant of their vast presence in so much that we consume daily... the debt we owe if you like.

And the most critically abundant of habitats for the wealth of biodiversity of these substances we so take for granted iare the rainforests of the world.

My challenge in making works during this year long project "Homage to the Seed" is to find a way to not simply make pictures like one might with a camera. Scientific Botanical Illustration has played and still does play an enormously important role in the research of species and all manner of knowledge. To some it may have appeared simply decorative, certainly exotic and capable of inspiring curiosity, a love of plants and therefore gardening.

Over the year I have researched in libraries and on-line for artistic as well as scientific visual interpretation of plants and ideas around plants.... keen to notice what representation of seeds occured... if any. The formal approach to scientifically presenting a Botanical specimen has often included the cross-section of the pod or capsule to display the structure, the seed - but this is largely secondary it would seem to the external appearance of the species.

Thus common thinking positions Botanical Art as a depiction of the seen form - the external over the internal structures...and certainly not concerned with implying the forces contained within. This is why the extensive work artist Paul Klee carried out on this rich vein of thinking has offered me a deeper strata of response to consider and grapple with.

Klee, influenced strongly by Goethe and a rich immersion from school days in things Botanical - at that time part of the regular school curriculum - went onto delve more fully in the many ways of seeing plants, growth and nature - not just a representation of external reality.

Curiously the thinking of Rudolf Steiner, also majorly influenced by Goethe, had for a time an interest for Klee. Kandinksy is said to have been immersed and stayed with Steiner's teaching whereas my reading suggests Klee left off at some point. 

Whatever the case - the notion of internal forces, things unseen, Dylan Thomas's "the force that through the green fuse drives the flower" has engaged my imagination and curiosity extensively and demanded attention over a long period... coming perhaps to fruition whilst focusing more deeply on seeds and paradoxically further exploration into the Scientific realm. Both have been driving agents and both extremely valuable.

This then has lead me to meditations on the place we find ourselves in on the planet at this time, seeking ways to interpret all that I have gleaned to date. The scientific approach..... observation, collection of data, theoretical propositions and such have been important to extract perspective on current concerns re biodiversity and the preservation of habitat and species..

But what then?
What do we humans value?
What do we as a global community care about plants?
What are we noticing and talking about?
What place are we giving this heritage?
Is someone supposed to do that for us?
My list on question goes on...its still shifting and turning. The sense of loss is enormous in the  plant heritage of this world - for habitats and for food. Both matter! Both are necessary to our survival....to breathe... to eat ... to have enough nourishment to live ...!

How do we shake our eyes awake? How do we get closer to what matters?

Below are 2 works - the larger one is the cross-section of mangrove seeds in their pod - Ariceunia marina (if I can read my journal writing correctly). Last year I walked through the boardwalk of a mangrove reserve - 12 kms from my house - on Moreton Bay. These seeds were everywhere at that time... and I picked them up off the path to look more closely before letting them fall into the water.
To think that locations where the mangroves had been decimated on Asian coastlines led to greater destruction by the Tsunami in 2004 is a clear reminder of the relationship between intact habitat and human survival. How wise is it for us to be thinking that because it is ... say christmas ... and we are on holiday, have money to travel and have "deserved"our fabulous holidays that the  environment will behave and let us have out nice time in peace.
Ramp up those travel packages where one participates in communities I say... being able to offer one's  self, getting to really know locals, volunteering for a time... reading of those who do this seems to equate with the most  rewarding of experiences.

I posted on the recent Tea and Seed Stories day in the Gardens at the homage blog and one of the central observations of the volunteer guides who conducted a children's art event and quiz to identify seeds with pods and foods was that the adults were most urgent to particpate in this quiz and many themselves did not know what they were seeing.

This was not the way once... we used to know where our food originated, and to worry that there would be enough because we knew about that too!

The smaller of the 2 images above is Mackinlaya macrosciadea. 

Many of the rainforest fruits I've been investigating this year are not edible, perhaps quite toxic but some able to be treated. Further still, there are myraid uses beyond food sources. I would argue that this kind of knowledge is easily as captivating as wine and cheese knowledge once one gets started, and of far greater significance for the long term. And be assured ... I am partial to a good red and fine cheese!

I will be posting more images and proper titles of works in the next days on the studio archive blog. Congrats if you read all the way to the end of this post ...your bottle of good australian red is in the mail!
You deserve it!

Today...

... actually yesterday now... last thing before bed a quick little post on my day...and wouldn't you know it... its after midnight!
Q: So why this first photo below?
A: Because I live next door to a school tennis court and this morning when I was trying to catch a little more shut eye I had to listen to the very loud, surprisingly competitive conversation of two tennis coaches. Let me tell you ... this was louder than usual...and I heard every word... did I want to? NO! And the sky wasn't blue either like the day I took this photo!
Not to worrry! It was a painting day in my home studio and nothing was going to put me off. I had my porridge with bananas and currants and headed out to my fav Cafe for a delicious coffee and chat and bought some of their amazing organic sourdough rolls to bring home.

Here you can see my shot of a recent visit there... with toasted organic roll, buttered and spread sparingly with much loved australian condiment -vegemite. For me too salty when its lathered on!
Simple... coffee 3/4 full...not too much milk and strong quality Italian style brew! Brewbakers is the best by far in my area for this sort of thing! And conversation abounds here... good people coming by!

Home again and to the back verandah is where I paint when I want good light - this time of year its heaven...cool but never too cold. Even with a bit of rain its still a wonderful place to work. Summer-time it can be  ridiculously hot... so one makes the most of this time of year!

I like this quote below... I have posted it before... ages ago... but its never  a waste of time to be reminded of this! Today though it was a matter of simply getting on with what I'm working on... with some time given to going back through the wonderful book I have dipped into quite a bit this year -"Rainforest fruits of Queensland" by William and Wendy Cooper. I keep borrowing it from the Botanic Gardens Library - at $300+ its not something you rush off and buy BUT I will say its spectacularly worth it!

One does not just dip into this book ... one kind of climbs into the rainforest layers of it its so dense and magnificent. On reading of a species that may be found in the Clarence valley of NSW where I grew up I go off into a reverie of trying to recall the bush and places where I might have seen this or that.

...work in progress and the Homage to the Seed journal I'm keeping above and below - the Cooper rainforest book I mentioned is also open above. I was very keen to get on with painting but felt the need to go back through the Cooper book, freshly documenting, with very quick sketches and brief notes, some interesting forms in the the capsules and seeds of various species. I'm loving this way of becoming more familiar with the biodiversity of the rainforests and similarly rich habitats... recognising the enormous numbers of species and seeing the variations that can occur just through this simple research is so fascinating to consider. Tonight, noticing an indigenous version of nutmeg and reading that it has little scent led to wondering about the extraordinary discoveries that people made through Millennia, the risks when identifying if something was edible, what properties it had and so on.

I'm finding ethnobotany more and more fascinating and realising that its piecing together some of my own various passions for knowledge that to date didn't seem to link that well.

I also came across a fascinating read Hybrid: the History and Science of Plant Breeding by UK based Noel Kingsbury that was published only last year by University of Chicago Press at the Garden's Library this week.

 I'm still hardly scratching the surface of this no doubt timely book - all 492 pages of it. Its contains a series of topics that as they get closer to the present day heat up in terms of potential for controversy. I am noticing the writer's sustained attempt to address these topics with thorough research and due consideration. Still too soon for me to have formed a strong view of his take on current political implications of what is occuring in the complex field of genetics, patents and such. I will say that his coverage is immensely broad  but there is some clearly controversial material which I just noticed on his blog Noel's Garden Blog he owns as "unfashionable ideas".

The sense I did get in reading his book is that there is perhaps not a huge amount of material around that seriously attempts to cover this broad spectrum of human history on Plant breeding. So whilst some things made me sit up sharply and want to pick a fight I was having to address how little I knew of what was being raised and I found it a welcome book for bringing to the table a great many enormously relevant topics.

Well...so much for a quick post...still its been a great way to wind down, and reflect a little on this day just passed.

Ciao! S x

You may click on the image below to enlarge.

a chance to unwind...

This fascinating vine-like growth - orange above and yellow green below - was used in basket weaving by indigenous people. This was found in the bush beside the ocean. The name I will rack down later.

The sign here next to the beach is a useful warning for obvious reasons but also keeps many from wondering onto the fragile sand dunes.... something the locals who work on caring for this fragile strip hope for. 

Close to the beach was a market on Sunday - where I came across this delightful stall selling clothing.

Visiting an artist living near this wonderful beach on the weekend just gone was a reminder I now live in a subtropical region and the coast and rainforest areas leave quite an impression. The work below was painted (if memory serves me) 30 years ago when the artist Vicki and young family were living in this beautiful region of the Atherton Tablelands in northern Queensland. This watercolour was framed and under glass - hence the distracting light in the centre - as if the sun were coming up in the distance! I was struck by the detailed vines and growth of the tree. A vvid story accompanied this work of the time past when one could set up camp beside the water without breaking any rules and needing facilities of any kind.

This watercolor image above on paper was from the same time whereas the image below is a recent work - and after walking in that area near the beach this both recalls that walk and the past almost dream like imagery. In the growth you can see blue quandongs, a native fruit. The photo does not do justice here to the details and colours found in this work. 

And now to lunch for 3...

Vicki in her kitchen preparing a delicious fresh salad. 

Lunch in the garden...

...Just one of the enjoyable moments of a weekend of meeting people and seeing new places.  More photos to come...