Set up for art studio garage sale

 

Tomorrow (Saturday 26 July) Fiona and I are having an art studio garage sale at Deckled Edge Press 10/74 Maple street Maleny from 10am to 4pm - yep one day only.

We are selling a heap of art materials and small art tools. The sale includes lots of really good quality paper, bone folders, awls, book fabric, inks, frames, display stands, tea towels for screen printing, art books and more. 

The opening photo and the following photos show that it is all set up for easy appraisal and everything is priced to go.

So drop in early Saturday morning and grab a bargain or three. Looking forward to seeing some of our tribe and some new folk as well. Apologies, but we are not in a position to provide detailed information or imagery about individual items.

A simple art installation - gentle in the landscape.

 

Fiona and I had talked about installing a bit of art in one of the spaces outside G's unit.  I had been gifted 5X3m lengths of rusted square rod (3X15mm square and 2X25mm square) by a friend - Fiona McCarron - part of Craig Medson's stash from days gone by. I wanted to make a simple installation that was all about the rusted metal and would sit lightly in the landscape. 

The opening photograph shows the result of my thinking and cutting. I wanted to get enough lengths out of the 5 pieces to make the installation shown in the sketch below. 

The installation has movement in a number of directions a gentle wave movement up and down; and a gently S movement across the installation space. The tallest piece of rod is about 1.25m out of the ground and about 20cm in the ground.

A few photos of the cut pieces and the beauty of the rust.

A couple more photos of the work in place. The entirety of the installation is hard to see as it blends and yet also stands out enough in the landscape. The rods have simply been hammered into the ground - I was assisted greatly by Fiona and our friend Faith - joint decision on direction of the S form and the up and down movement.

It seems fitting to have a gentle piece in the landscape that recalls the great talent of Craig and the gift of the metal by Fiona McC.

Light, white and flight

 

Sadly Old Man Crow (Rod) died today - when thinking about this I thought of his spirit flying free. Interesting that I came across the beautiful delicate white (and grey) feather on the road as I walked - reminded me of free flight.

Sun highlighted heart at the front door for Mo Crow.

The day started with soft but clear light as you can see in the photo of my favourite tree.

I found white as I walked.

And a bonus was the beauty offered by G's unfurling orchids to lift our spirits.

Peace and freedom OMC.

Love heals - single sheet book

©2020 Barry Smith - Love heals - a small pocket sized book (10.5cm high and 7.5cm wide) - photos of my artist's proof

I have been working on a single page unbound book using a poem (..love heals..) written by our American artist friend Mary-Jane Dodd. Mary-Jane gave me permission to use this poem from her publication called Offerings.

.. love heals..

upon my last breath
may I know fully
that I have given all
my heart could give.

that the chips
and cracks 
incurred along the way

served not to weaken it
but allowed the light
to enter
(and exit)

and made it all
the stronger.

The book has been printed using Deckled Edge Press' 1890 Lightning Jobber press. The book is printed with Times New Roman lead type (14pt); and was printed on single sheets of synthetic vellum and a fine paper (MAP). On the back of the sheets I have printed an image of one of my cracked and repaired bowls to reflect some of the imagery of the poem.

©2020 Barry Smith

©2020 Barry Smith

©2020 Barry Smith - Open at the centre pages 

©2020 Barry Smith - Front of single sheet - letterpress printed - cut and folded

©2020 Barry Smith - A trial image of the bowl on the back of the single sheet - beautiful image but a little too dark and used a lot of ink

©2020 Barry Smith - Various prints of the vessel - more subdued; and a mix of sepia and toned down black and silver-gold; and printed full sheet and half sheet.

From the vellum prints and the MAP paper printed I hope to select two limited editions: 5 vellum books; and 15 MAP paper books.

Fragments from away and home

Fiona and I were away for the weekend for a family wedding. There is always time to be filled on such occasions and we managed a couple of art experiences including checking out a ceramics exhibition from the collection of the Perc Tucker Gallery. Images of a few of the fragments that caught my eye.

©2018 Barry Smith  - From The Bridge by Jenny Mulcany

©2018 Barry Smith - From Journey into Argyle by Jeff Mulcham

©2018 Barry Smith  - Fragment of s vessel by Len Cook

©2018 Barry Smith  - Sphere by Ray Rogers

©2018 Barry Smith  - Fragment from work by Jeff Mulcham

On my morning walk today light, reflections, rust and droplets featured as you can see from below.

©2018 Barry Smith - Sunrise

©2018 Barry Smith - Reflections of clouds on Fire-pit bowl with mountain in the background

©2018 Barry Smith - Pumpkin flower with ants and droplets

©2018 Barry Smith - Droplets

©2018 Barry Smith - Chain with leaves

We seem to be emerging from the daily showers of rain. I was able to get the gras mowed on Monday; and lots of weed cutting down the back this afternoon.

Rescue of art, polishing and surprises

The weekend has in the main been given over to spring cleaning our place - including my benches and jewellery studio. The studio spring clean has included finishing the polishing of some Daily Word bowls and some rugged rings.

©2015 Barry Smith - Detail from rescued artwork

But first the story of the art rescue. On Saturday morning Fiona and I were about to jump into our car and return home after a coffee in town. At about the same time we both exclaimed that we saw a trailer of rubbish going by that included a piece of art work that looked like it was inspired by Rosalie Gascoigne. We thought we'd follow the trailer and if it were heading to the rubbish tip see if we could negotiate to rescue it.

Well the short story is that we arrived at the tip just as the trailer was being given approval to dump the load. I was able to negotiate with the dump coordinator and the owner of the piece (artist Jonathan Wright) for me to have the work (I even offered to pay for it - though Jonathan said I could have it); and after waiting for him too unload most of his load I was able to return to the car and Fiona (who couldn't come on site as she had inappropriate footwear).  The piece is about 1mX1.2m; and was made from numbers recycled from the same rubbish tip. As you can see from the photo below the art is at our place - we are not sure what we will do with it but we could not let it be trashed - it reminded us too much of Rosalie.

©2015 Barry Smith - A Construct by Jonathan Wright

©2015 Barry Smith - More detail from A Construct

I have also spent quite a bit of time giving a second life to a trivet I bought in Townsville. Couldn't bring myself to cut this one up; and Fiona had admired its art-deco design

©2015 Barry Smith - Silver-plated trivet before polishing

©2015 Barry Smith - Silver-plated trivet after polishing - lovely copper showing through

©2015 Barry Smith - Bit of art deco detail

The Daily Word bowls are all shiny.

©2015 Barry Smith - Daily Word bowls

I also polished some recycled metal rings - they are all a bit rugged but I had to give them a life.

©2015 Barry Smith - A stash of rings

And I had another surprise when we shopped at our local IGA - the Lomandra design I created for the Waterfall Walkway and the Flow artwork in the store has been used on new signage in the store - pretty cool.

©2015 Barry Smith - Lomandra design - part of new IGA signage - got to love that

A very good weekend in all.