New Video + Seed Survey + Workshop = busy times at Seed.Art.Lab

Hi again,

      It's Sam,

I'm here for another exciting work day with Sophie after a very long road trip holiday over Xmas and the New year. 

My second time coming back to work has been just as eventful as my first last week. Unusually, last week we got together on Saturday because both of our personal commitments during the week had as running around like mad people. We decided to just run a work shop where we kind of did our own thing. We started off with sepia ink, painting with twigs and experimenting with different textures using seeds. 

All day Saturday I had a creature of some sort bouncing around my head so I let it out. I was quick to grab some water colours and some of Sophie's white ink. I could not of been happier with the end result. The picture below lets you have an exclusive sneak peak into the making of my creature and what happens when Sophie and I are working in the studio. Next to it is another one of my creature known as a 'Wispa'.

Sophie and I  were hard at work creating last week! An enjoyable 
peaceful time where we could both relax after our busy weeks.  

To see more of my artwork you can click on to  My Tumblr OR if  you are interested in any of my work feel free to email me here  and if you'd like updates on what i'm up to, you're welcome to like my facebook page.

We started  work today with a much needed staff meeting in a very creative and quirky cafe called the Shutter + Brew.

Sophie had fun distorting the picture to emphasise how quirky and unique this cafe really is!

Sophie and I talked about our survey that we set up late 2013.  Unfortunately we were very distracted with holidays and my being away so now we are back there is ONE WEEK to go before we will draw the prize. 

ENTER HERE to fill out the SURVEY FORM which will be sent to us with your answers and email address.

The Survey is really worth while ... and all results will be a great help in establishing understanding what people know about seeds  and current issues ... a very useful thing for the work of the Homage to the Seed project.

Just by filling in a few questions for us, you could win an original artwork by Sophie. You even have a chance to be in the running for the same prize if you share her new video! Enter Survey here.

I also want to tell you about the WORKSHOP Sophie has coming up on Wednesday 29th January. 

Because this workshop has not been publicised but arranged quickly to suit keen participants... we can offer a LAST MINUTE truly special price of $100 if you confirm HERE NOW and pay on booking ... there's two seats left at $100 each... normally $130 for a whole day starting at 10am.


DAY:   Wednesday, 29th February

TIME: 10 am til 4.30 pm

WHERE: 48 Meemar St, Chermside, Brisbane

WHAT YOU NEED: bring lunch to share ... morning + afternoon tea provided.

                                   Art materials provided + you can bring your favourite art mediums   

                                   + art journal/drawing book if you have one in progress.

FOCUS FOR WORKSHOP: 

Choose and research a favourite rainforest plant/fruit/seed pod ... ask Sophie re this!

You will spend the morning exploring various printing, drawing and painting techniques using any or all parts of the plant as the subject matter. 

In the afternoon you will work with these exciting approaches and ideas to produce a concertina style artist's book made from fine watercolour paper. 

Concertina book created by Barbara at 3 x 90 minute workshops I conducted
during a mini-Residency at Springbrook in December : Read more here.
Barbara had not created anything like this before. 25 yrs since leaving school
where she had not experienced being encouraged artistically. It was really
impressive seeing her observation shills out to good use... art classes would
could easily bring considerable satisfaction if she decides to continue on.

The work will then be documented onto a NEW Tumblr site celebrating seed and plant biodiversity...  for the purpose of building a body of colourful, informative work based on Australian plant species that can be shared with others. It will be important to know or discover the botanical name of the species you plan to work with... there are many places you can get information online if you are unsure about this. There are 2 Mac computers available for doing research in the studio.

Several participants booked in already have some work experience in the Botanical realm... not necessarily with art-making however. This  class is for anyone interested in learning more  ... no previous experience is necessary but of course is welcomed too!

journal pages from Springbrook

There is one last thing to share... 

Sophie has just had a VIDEO produced by the Global Crop Diversity Trust which was released this week. 

It takes 3 minutes to watch and is a survey of her various artworks with an audio recording of her work on Seeds and Biodiversity. She wrote all about this at her STUDIO blog here.

              To WATCH click on this U-TUBE link here:
    HOMAGE TO THE SEED, THE CROP TRUST AND ARTIST SOPHIE MUNNS


Anyone who shares this video for Sophie will go into a draw to win one of her recent watercolour works... so please leave a message here or email us if you share this online anywhere so you can be in the draw for FEBRUARY 1ST!

NB: SURVEY + VIDEO SHARE prize
is a water-colour work from this series!

Have a good week everyone and I hope to talk to you all soon!

Sam

"the world is alive, I could feel it"

I have this image of myself reaching up, 2009

The words in the title of this post were found at the top of Amy Wilson's website almost hidden in the  lush water-colour painted leaves. This website is a delight to visit - I'm drawn to world's created by those who dare to conceive an independant system of thought or visual response to their world. It is less important for me the genre, the format, the 'style'of work, the materials employed that whether there is a rich core to the work ...what is being plumbed in order to produce and offer something to the viewer.
...this is why my own blog is by nature so eclectic  -  it simply gives me space to log the many and various things that absorb my attention...whether in passing, or in an altogether more intense and lingering way.

Now to the splendidly original Amy Wilson... the  reason I am posting here today. See Amy's blog too!

I am thinking of the blurring of the space between things, 2009

I am thinking of having a million choices, 2009-2010

I thought endlessly about creating a place to hide, 2008

we walked along the edge of the river, 2007

IT TAKES TIME TO TURN A SPACE AROUND....

It Takes Time To Turn A Space Around, 2010, is a 10” x 280” seven panel drawing by Amy Wilson that was commissioned for her first public project. The 150’ outdoor installation is currently on view in lower Manhattan’s West Thames Park and is part of the Downtown Alliance’s Re: Construction Program.

Working from the artist’s original drawing, a printed exterior grade vinyl banner was created and secured to a portion of construction fencing which surrounds a future park and playground.  Wilson’s image is one of her iconic girls fixing up a field by cutting down old growth and weeds and planting flowers and trees.

Although Wilson’s work normally contains handwritten text, the installation at West Thames is a version in which no text exists. At the gallery this month we are exhibiting the final version, which incorporates the narrative taken from stories and observations about the artist’s life.

THIS PROJECT IS SPONSORED BY BRAVIN LEE PROGRAMS:

It Takes Time To Turn A Space Around, 2010, is a 10” x 280” seven panel drawing by Amy Wilson that was commissioned for her first public project. The 150’ outdoor installation is currently on view in lower Manhattan’s West Thames Park and is part of the Downtown Alliance’s Re: Construction Program.

Working from the artist’s original drawing, a printed exterior grade vinyl banner was created and secured to a portion of construction fencing which surrounds a future park and playground.  Wilson’s image is one of her iconic girls fixing up a field by cutting down old growth and weeds and planting flowers and trees.

Although Wilson’s work normally contains handwritten text, the installation at West Thames is a version in which no text exists. At the gallery this month we are exhibiting the final version, which incorporates the narrative taken from stories and observations about the artist’s life.

BravinLee programs are sponsoring this event

BravinLee programs opened in the spring of 2006 with a commitment to drawings and works on paper. After 15 years of having a "traditional" gallery Bravin and Lee have chosen to specialize. BravinLee programs will privilege and concentrate on this single complex and beautiful art form.
BravinLee programs will work with emerging, as well as established artists. Strong working relationships with other dealers is crucial to their program. The gallery looks forward to mounting simultaneous exhibitions with their colleagues and offering a platform for artists to exhibit their works on paper. In addition to project oriented exhibitions they also represent several artists and act as their primary gallery.

POST SCRIPT:

NB:  It was lovely to her from the artist herself. I found a certain point of connection with one of Australia's most well known cartoonist's, Michael Leunig, who is also a painter and printmaker among other things. He has also brought controversy to bear on certain subjects a times...much can be found at via Google about he and his work or visit his website .
Amy Wilson's work is hardly not in the same vein - but there is an interest in human vulnerability and what makes people feel certain things that I think is running parallel. And for this reason I think it is important - what is being voiced and depicted is of substance and does in fact matter!

Leunig quoted Debuffet in an article - Love in the Milky Way in The Melbourne Age Newspaper 2 years ago:

Jean Dubuffet once said a fascinating thing about the world of art and I trust he would forgive me if I applied his words to human society:

"They outdo themselves celebrating a sham art in order to stifle true art. This stifling is the task of the public authorities of culture in well-governed nations. When the pompous platforms of culture are erected, and awards and laurels come raining down, then flee as fast as you can, there'll be little hope for art."

Well ......Lets celebrate diversity of views, of art making, of ways of being as Mlle Paradis did so well in this post last week!

And I'll leave you with this image from her post... Thanks MP!

mystical, familiar, objective and subjective all at once...

Portrait -W-No. III, 1917

Untitled (tent door at night), 1916

Pelvis I, 1944

Untitled (Abstraction Red Wave with Circle), 1979

I chose these 4 images from a slideshow of 15 works by Georgia O'Keefe as I was unfamiliar with them and they offered a fresh take on this artist whose work has certainly attracted attention over many years, even if not always for the reasons an artist might wish for! More than 130 paintings, drawings, watercolours and sculptures by one of the most famous early painters of the 20th century from the US - as well as works from the photographic portrait series of O'Keefe by Alfred Stieglitz -  is currently being shown at the Whitney Museum in New York. The slideshow and a review by Jerry Saltz can be found at  the nymag. 

To quote from this article "O'Keefe produced some of the most original and ambitious art in the 20th century....her ideas about surface, colour and scale are not only daring; they presaged the work of artists as varied as Newman, Avery, Rothko, Louis and Heilmann as well as Colour Field painting, Lyrical Abstraction and contemporary Post Modern Abstraction". The title for this post I took also from Saltz  as I thought it a point to muse on!  I have to say...the watercolours immediately attracted me today.

image from the website of the Georgia O'Keefe Museum.

Click on the artists name in the text above to go to the museum.