People, Place and Pieces

As the year rushes to a close Fiona and I have reflected on what an amazing year it has been – so much has happened. I thought I’d try to pull a few thought, links and photos together that I consider being highlights of the year.

The challenges, inspiration and encouragement of Maleny friends and fellow artists and Fiona have been key elements in my getting out there more this year from an art perspective. And where would we have been without Ken Munsie and his support for COMA, group exhibitions and gallery space. Sculptural pieces using salvaged, rusted, patinated and recycled metal (indoor and garden), beaten metal (especially bowls) and artists’ books have continued to form the core of my work this year.

I had a small exhibition of table top sculptural pieces called Construction early in the year. This was a good opportunity to test some smaller sculptural pieces.

And of course the quirky piece called Who Spiked my Skinny Tea was an extension of this small sculptural form.

But the highlight exhibition for me had to be the In the Stillness exhibition. What a challenge – Fiona and I working to a common theme about quietness, reflection and stillness but approaching it from very different technical and material perspectives. And of course the daunting prospect of filling a gallery room with a quality integrated show. It worked.

Artists’ books were another theme for the year. The Maleny Artists’ Book exhibition provided all of us with the opportunity to test how far you could push the ‘book’ boundary – I combined sculpture and words and I think Between the Mountains was a good example.

But the Wow! Experience for me in artists’ books was to have Censored the piece I entered into the SCU artists’ book exhibition acquired by the University as part of its collection.

The cultural exchange trip to Japan in April not only confirmed my love of timber, copper and brass and patina but also, grid and order. Whilst the cultural exchange exhibition was a great success of course the best part is the connections made with people such as Tombow, Bessie, Hiro, Hiroyuki and Yoko.

But a personal highlight was meeting Mr Motoi and having a tour through his foundry where he forged our peace bell – such a great connection. Ours is the little bell near the box.

A strange offshoot to the Japan trip was a visit to a Samurai tourist village where I watched an elderly metal artist creating bowls out of copper sheet – I wanted to learn it there and then. Of course there was not the time – but on coming home I started to teach myself a little and was fortunate to be able to incorporate beaten metal bowls etc into the In the Stillness exhibition. But what I loved was the series of small reflection or meditation bowls that has continued to grow from this exhibition.

Of course one thing leads to another and I wanted to go further with the metal beating and my embryonic fold forming. I have been lucky to discover Charles Lewton-Brain and that led me to connect with Wendy Edsall-Kirwin. Both are inspirations for me in this aspect of my work and who knows where that will lead over the next twelve months.

And of course how could I not end this overview without mentioning again our excitement of meeting Andy Goldsworthy.