colour and light .... a celebration of life!

Just tidying up my emails -  a New Year's effort - and was reminded of colourful Brazilian artist Beatriz Milhazes when I found a blog post I'd saved here from Motifs by Thomas Golsenne. He posts in french but you could translate the article via google or view the images. I also posted on this artist last year here on my own blog.

Samambaia, Casa de Baile (vitres) et Milk Mel (2008), Paris Fondation Catier

These works interplay wonderfully with colour and light - depending on time of day. I'd rather like to experiment with this possibility given the right space. Kids try this out with coloured cellophane... taking it a step further would be rather interesting..... Im thinking also layered panels of glass too!  Milzhaze' work above remind me of Matisse's windows shown below:

Henri matisse - Rosaire Chapel windows, St Paul de Vence, France, 1951

You can read more on the Matisse artworks for this chapel here at Wiki which links to other sites too.

You can view this interview from last year here:  

Interview de Beatriz Milhazes à la Fondation Cartier
Uploaded by FondationCartier. - Discover more animation and arts videos.

Kandinsky, Quelques cercles, 1926 / Milhazes, Sinfonia Nordestina

Brazil is in our thoughts today ... the deluge and landslides have brought great losses to this country.

Sound advice from Myrtle St Studio

Jay Dee Dearness runs Myrtle St Studio at the Grange in Brisbane which concentrates on the production and exhibition of

• Printmaking/Graphic Art/Illustration/Drawing/Textile Art
• Photography
• Book Arts/Limited Editions/Small Fine Press/Artist Books/Zines
• Paper and Fibre Sculpture/Installations

Jay Dee has posted some great advice for anyone dealing with water damage of valuable paper items. Click on sub-heading Flood tips below to go straight her post.

Flood tips for Queensland Artists, Collectors and General Public

JANUARY 13, 2011

Some of the most important possessions in a home are paper-based – photographs, historical documents, certificates, artworks and the list goes on.  Some of these items may not have been digitized and may be irreplaceable.  If you are someone who is possibly going to be salvaging a flood devastated home in the coming weeks, I’ve quickly put together some information which may be of assistance.

You can read an earlier post I did on Myrtle St Studio here....from December.

The images below are from one of my favourite places in Brisbane...the Qld State library which I posted on here. This wonderful reading room looks straight over a very peaceful looking river.  Jay Dee mentioned in her post about flooding at the State Library. As a much loved public building always filled with international students, families, old and young, many will be keen to know their library is OK.

Call out to artists:

ATTENTION brisbane-based ARTISTS

Thank you for your spirited offer to volunteer your skills. There have been a number of generous offers to entertain the people accessing the evacuation centres over the past few days. Please be aware that the evacuation centres are run by The Red Cross and a number of other not-for-profit, non government organisations who are coordinating a diverse range of logistics and issues.

In order to prevent additional stress to those accessing and running this centre Brisbane City Council’s Creative Communities team are creating a schedule of creative programs to ensure there is an even balance of activities. We already have a number of acts and workshops scheduled but we are taking a list of artists who could volunteer for the next week – whether in an evac. centre or at other similar events/centres for those affected by the floods. 

If you are still keen to assist us in the coming weeks over the clean up period we would love to have your details so we can contact you if you are required. Please complete the below form and return to  HYPERLINK " mailto :  scotia.monkivitch@brisbane.qld.gov.au" 

This was one of several call outs that came by email last night from various community sectors. Lots of community initiative is coming from everywhere. I was told 8,000 people turned up at Mt Coot-tha Botanic Gardens this morning ready to volunteer. Buses were on site to ferry people to flood recovery areas needing help... there was a bus shortage!!! This morning's Australian newspaper carried a one page letter asking people to think down the track... to consider buying from Queensland businesses 

and coming here as a tourist. The same newspaper ran stories on the Brazil situation with deluges and landslides -many killed and vast numbers homeless. Sri Lanka has over a million homeless from floods. The question in Sri Lanka is where will the money come from to rebuild. Sobering and important question. Every loss here is honoured. They are not anonymous losses ... nor should they be. We live in a large continent with a small population ... Sri Lanka is a small place with a huge population. How are losses tracked and people sustained with those odds?

a rather confusing image...

image form the Qld flood found at sir mitchell

A really brief post today... I found this here at Mike Mitchell's Tumblr of Amazing Things this morning when trawling tumblr sites which is a new enthusiasm of mine that allows one to hop around viewing some fascinating imagery and such. 

To see what I have been up to visit   s e e d  c a p s u l e s   and also the           a r c h i v e  thats is gradually building with this tumblr blog.  I must admit to have spent quite a bit of time there earlier this week when feeling anxious about the flood... 'reading' images from all over. A most engaging activity in a most unsettling time.

Been out riding the bike this morning... much of yesterday was spent cleaning, sorting, clearing out papers and now working out what could be given to those whose need for things is greater than mine. A new year's tidy up is timely after the big wet...fresh air coming into the house... discovering missing things... making way for what's to come.

Even my car is at the doctor's getting maintenance... its that kind of day!

cheerio,

S x

ps thank you lovely visitors for leaving such warm messages...Im slow to respond... but I so appreciate the warmth of these connections

ppss

On a lighter note...  pure whimsy after a dark week .... just sent to me by a Brisbane friend:

The next local fashion trend perhaps....

High Tide Heels

some snaps from the recent trip south... and also today!

entering a little bit of paradise... my friend's place at Byron Bay

is this not the most perfect daybed... summer .... winter?

I'll be back!

I had two very wet but delightful days in Byron with friends ... then tootled south to Grafton on the Clarence river, stopping briefly in Yamba, a beach I used to love spending time at. A visit to the Gallery there was most rewarding with a large show by artist g w bot:

Current Exhibitions - 15 December - 23 January

g w bot: the long paddock a 30 year study

Curated by Peter Haynes this exhibition showcases the artists rich and diverse practice and includes prints, paintings, artist’s books and sculpture and is a ‘must see’ exhibition for artists, students, printmakers and art collectors as well as the general public interested in art. This exhibition is supported by Visions of Australia, an Australian Government program supporting touring exhibitions by providing funding assistance for the development and touring of Australian cultural material across Australia. A Goulburn Regional Art Gallery Touring Exhibition.

Read More...

port of yamba historical society: jt pearson's marine watercolours

A suitcase found under a bed in the Pacific Hotel Yamba and given to the Story House Museum in Yamba revealed a life’s work of highly detailed watercolours of marine life by J T Pearson.

Read More...

Loved these!

from an exhibit at the Grafton Regional Gallery - note where these were found -
in a suitcase - under a bed?...Yamba was my absolute fav childhood beach!

Sea Perch

Visiting Upper Copmanhurst meant a half hour drive through familiar country to arrive at the farm and see this amazing colour green everywhere ...this county can get a bit dry looking from memory ...but far from it this time round!

Whilst in Grafton I visited a cousin who lives 30 mins north  west of the town which is incidently under water at the moment. There was a lot of low-lying water on Sunday when I was there... Loved these views from their verandah!

crops are planted between this stream ( which is only there when its quite wet!) and the far line of trees before the hills.

after our visit the rain fell heavily for a couple of days...

leading to this

and this! The crops are under in parts and it will be a few days before damage is clear.

And then back home...

... today I took my new bike out for a ride ... at last ...  the sun decided to shine again. I rode to the river which was not yet spilling over its banks at Racecourse Rd. 

There was an exceedingly eerie atmosphere in the city today...some of course considerably anxious due to personal circumstances ... waiting, watching ... for the river to rise and break its banks, wreak havoc and then the reckoning that comes with that and the clean up. Its strange to comprehend! People were either fully engaged in preparations to protect property, or evacuating ...or if like me ...living where its quite safe ... then trying to burn up nervous energy somehow, not feeling terribly useful ... feeling to unsettled to do very much of value at all!

my belated christmas present to myself

The river had  to rise perhaps 1.5m  to rise to break its banks here...
unlike upriver which had been flooding suburbs along the way.
You can see the city buildings in the distance in the centre of this image.

A catamaran that had lost its moorings was being swept along in the very fast current ... with a heavy-looking pontoon coming up its rear. the river was chaotic... so much stuff coming downstream... it had drawn quite a crowd this morning!

Thank you to people who have left kind messages of concern and good wishes.  Its quite humbling... I'm safe so it feels a little embarrasing to be receiving such care when others are dealing with  devastation and loss... we're hoping that people have made their way to safety by the time the river is said to peak at 4am. Its going to be a terrifying night for some. Im still thinking of friends I need to email to see how they are going.
However ... the warmth of connection from so many is treasured ...it reminds one that the world can be a most a hospitable and caring place!
S x

2011 interrupted... but not for long!

I just started to get back into routine with painting before I headed off down the coast a week ago. I prepared these canvases as dyptich panels for ease of transporting ... keen to do some larger works. Ive not been to the studio since returning Monday night basically because flooding had started on Tuesday and its now cut off for the next few days anyway!

Something about the new year made me get stuck in to several works at once without much preplanning.... wanting to see where I was led! Its seems peculiar to show such foetal work ... but in a way it will be interesting having done so... to see where they go! 

Prepared canvases

thinking/feeling my way into these works ...slowly unfolding work...playing around with space in this one... at the same time working with 'busyness' in parts...

gewtting started with the underpainting ...much more to come!

looking awkward and very unfinished... may not be evident...but ...

this close-up of an area shows the beginnings of a skeleton layer - in red oxide colour - being added over the top of the existing layer... this obsession with layering is something I restlessly play with ... hard to know where it wil take me...but its important to go on the journey anyway

It seemed like a god idea to add something to the blog tonight that was not all about floods. Its been hard to think of little else.... but wont be long before I pick up the brushes again!
cheerio,
S x

an opal-hearted country, a wilful, lavish land

Mt Warning - a memorable landmark which can be seen from the Pacific Hwy  - was barely visible yesterday driving along in heavy rain

Arriving home last night around 6pm from a 5 days getaway (driving about in continual rain whilst staying on the north coast of NSW) meant I caught the news and was aghast to hear of the most tragic developments in the Queensland floods yet. Sudden and profoundly damaging flash floods had hit the area inland from Brisbane and this morning we are learning of the numbers of missing people and loss that came with it.

Our State's Premier Anna Bligh appeared shaken this morning when presenting current facts on the news... as if stripped to her most human level of being ... nothing of the practiced politician was evident. One saw the gravity she's been hit with. Politics washed away for the moment and utter humanity in its place. There is that mood here at present. It can be a little hard to think of much else. We who feel safe cant help but wonder at this time... 

I went down to my local shops on Racecourse road and chatted to various people... everyone very sad for the loss of life. One wonders about contributing.... giving money yes.. but what else helps I pondered... Lots to think on.

One thing that did come to mind were the words used in the post title..."a wilful, lavish land" ... a line from the very well-loved populist verse "My Country" written by Dorothea Mackeller .

From Wikipedia: "My Country" is an iconic patriotic poem about Australia, written by Dorothea Mackellar (1885-1968) at the age of 19 while homesick in England. After travelling through Europe extensively with her father during her teenage years she started writing the poem in London in 1904^[1] and re-wrote it several times before her return to Sydney. The poem was first published in the London Spectator in 1908 under the title "Core of My Heart". It was reprinted in many Australian newspapers, quickly becoming well known and establishing Mackellar as a poet.

first draft

The poet

Dorothea Mackellar OBE

A poetess, and third generation Australian who loved Australia and the Australian countryside. She is best remembered for her poem, "My Country", with the immortal line


"I love a sunburnt country"

The love of field and coppice,
Of green and shaded lanes.
Of ordered woods and gardens
Is running in your veins,
Strong love of grey-blue distance
Brown streams and soft dim skies
I know but cannot share it,
My love is otherwise.

I love a sunburnt country,
A land of sweeping plains,
Of ragged mountain ranges,
Of droughts and flooding rains.
I love her far horizons,
I love her jewel-sea,
Her beauty and her terror -
The wide brown land for me!

A stark white ring-barked forest
All tragic to the moon,
The sapphire-misted mountains,
The hot gold hush of noon.
Green tangle of the brushes,
Where lithe lianas coil,
And orchids deck the tree-tops
And ferns the warm dark soil.

Core of my heart, my country!
Her pitiless blue sky,
When sick at heart, around us,
We see the cattle die -
But then the grey clouds gather,
And we can bless again
The drumming of an army,
The steady, soaking rain.

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold -
Over the thirsty paddocks,
Watch, after many days,
The filmy veil of greenness
That thickens as we gaze.

An opal-hearted country,
A wilful, lavish land -
All you who have not loved her,
You will not understand -
Though earth holds many splendours,
Wherever I may die,
I know to what brown country
My homing thoughts will fly.

Dorothea Mackellar

We learnt this poem as primary school children ...so it is etched into the minds of generations of children in this country and is perhaps been a key foundation in a young person's forming of an active, imaginative, understanding of what it means to live in a place with very particular and harsh weather patterns. Many have ended up in cities and the coast of this land... not keen to settle the interior which can be seen as inhospitable and very remote.... yet right now we are reminded even the places that have been advertised as easy-living environemnts ..."sunny one day, gorgeous the next"... can become inhospitable in certain circumstances.

I remember reading the Jill Ker Conway book below years ago and feeling the intensity of the isolated life of a childhood on a western NSW sheep farm... and the part that the vagaries of nature played in it... namely drought for the most part. Indigenous people are said to have lived here for 60,000 years and one of the distinctive aspects of their culture is the fact they lived entirely 'at one' with the circumstances unique to this continent ... the kinds of extremes Mackellar talks about in 'My Country'  and that play a part in the Ker Conway story (which I very much loved).

The indigenous take on the weather patterns of this land are known to be very complex ... demonstrating a highly attuned understanding of the possible extremes and shifts in climate - with vocabulary that could define rain, for example, into various different kinds of phenomena. As a child growing up on a river town we used to talk of 'Flood rain" ... I imagine the indigenous familiarity with their regions would have known considerable distinguishing features to help them observe what was occurring.

click here to read more

the authors childhood home

 Literature, poetry and history are all there to remind us of those parts of the human experience that we may well fear and loathe and with good reason.... that we may well be forcefully subjected to. The universal thing is that we all at some point are brought close to shocking events - they come in many guises - and we have to find ways to come to terms with them... come what may!  

My mind drifts to the Pakistan floods of last year. Here there are measures to catch people falling through the cracks... some people will still fall through... maybe no insurance ... no access to the resources to get back on their feet. That does happen. But when one thinks of Pakistan... their safety net is not what it is here. Its very humbling... whichever way you look at it!

    

I trawled this site for images earlier! History reminds us we've been here before!

Flood Fire Famine Virtual Exhibition

Core of my heart, my country!
Land of the Rainbow Gold,
For flood and fire and famine,
She pays us back threefold.

My Country, Dorothea Mackellar

In this famous ode to her adopted country written in 1908, Dorothea Mackellar successfully captures the spirit of Australians battling a hostile environment.

Australia is a land of harsh climatic extremes – several series held at Queensland State Archives document the havoc caused by flood, fire and famine in Queensland. The records also reveal attempts by successive governments to prevent, or at least mitigate the devastation wrecked by unpredictable weather patterns and the forces of nature.

Photograph taken from New Farm toward Boundary Street with the St. Paul's Presbyterian Church on the right.

Men in boats near the Oriental Mills Building in Brisbane. The water level is thigh high on the man in the centre of the photograph.

Photograph taken during the Brisbane flood of 1974.

Campbell Street

driving south for a few days...

Thank you to the many people who left messages after seeing the flood images. I'm sure that those affected are touched by the support coming their way. The global community feels smaller than it is when people take time to send their best.

My brother just sent me this image which made the highway look like a rug that had been misplaced after a heavy night of partying! Massive infrastructure damage is what will leave a huge mark...food prices going up dramatically... much is produced here to feed Australia! Another reason why Food Security is such a big issue as we move into the future. Its been driven home here at the moment

Banana Highway, QLD

On a lighter note ...these are images below (not taken by me) are of one of the places Im off to today for a short break. Ive been here many times and often seen days as clear as this.
But, somewhat in keeping with the feel of the last post, the news from this place this morning when my friend sms'd is that they've had torrential rain since it started last night and to drive carefully!

Cape Byron , Byron Bay,  NSW

Cape Byron Lighthouse

Tallows beach on the right side of the lighthouse facing south

swimming is great here... much of the year!

Mt Warning from the beach to the left of the lighthouse 

Well... dont know how much of these sights I will be seeing ... Im sure the company will be good and its always great to get away. I'll take my camera...who knows... the sun might come out!
ciao,
S x
ps Glad my brother's coming to stay at my place whilst I'm away..flash flooding in parts of Brisbane last night... and I dont want to have my new bike getting wet! More on that later!