Tag Archives: breakfast

Week 9, Day 055

Talk about bed, breakfast and belief……. Jean and Erwin, welcomed us with many years of a home away from home at their place in Kybunga and Clare. As for countless others, they took us in thirty-five years ago when we had ‘nothing and no one’, as new immigrants to Australia. Now Aunt Jean came to visit us from S.A. It has been three years since we have been together. We talked of old times and looked at old photos.

 

Still, I wonder if we are more than just ‘people who needed support’ to them. They were ever so, so much more to us……our adopted Australian parents. Thank you, always.

Looking at old photos

Week9, Day 052 BBBBLOG IT!

Week 9, Day 052 BBBBlog it!

Hello Flossie,

In reference to your work Handmade and the comment that the past can conceal a future bias – Is this to be understood as meaning that once one has taken up the domestic identity and ‘adorned the apron’ then one is always connected to that past and decisions will be coloured through the domestic identity? or could you perhaps mean that the apron has figured in both a positive nurturing light in addition to the domestic drudge that some see as a product of womanhood?

I am interested in the inspiration behind the work, so please explain.

Cheers Jill

I like both your interpretations of this assertion! I hadn’t thought of either idea specifically when I wrote what I did but yours make just as good sense to me!

I can only add this additional thought…by putting on the metaphorical ‘apron’ of our cultural heritage (as in doing ‘the correct thing for a particular reason’) we show others what we are made of, that is, our outlook learned from childhood. This is not something we can hide, it is out there being seen by others. But at the same time as we ‘put on’ our behaviour, we cover up part of ourselves. This private side, under the ‘apron’ dictates attitudes and actions we may not realize that we have learned from home. Some people do not look behind their cultural upbringing – for better or worse. In this way the aprons are not gender or domestically based but are used as a metaphor for the workings of society.

Image: Handcrafted aprons

Caption: HANDMADE, 2005, 15 hand crafted, Victorian aprons (Detail)

Women’s work often goes unnoticed but it joins the generations with a specific lettering of culture. Wearing one’s history – like putting on an apron – is easier and harder than may be realized. But the past can conceal a future bias.

Sunday 21st Feb

Week 8, Day 049 Was it any better once?

Cutting-edge Art today, as the society from which it is derived, is for the most part blatantly self-seeking, bawdy and cynical. Since this is the only era I have lived in, I honestly do not know if things have ever been different….or better. However, I do feel out of sync with my peers and at odds with their world views on more than one occasion. If I would have to be a Cress or Gosper or Min Mae or Madonna to become noticed, I would not compete. By the way, I will not link their websites…if you are interested, you can find them yourself.

The Stumpf family in Canada Circa 1956. I am the youngest with Cuddles.
The Stumpf family in Canada Circa 1956. I am the youngest with Cuddles.

Week 8, Day 048 Progression from Home

I was asked at the Launch if the progression in size in walls held any significance. Here is the text as found in the catalogue.

The shortest design of nine (9) is based on my birth home, from which the houses progressively rise in height, like kitchen canisters. Each having a wooden letter on its front which when all are set out in order, spell ‘container’. On the inside are the same letters, except for one, thus spelling out ‘contained’. This seems to amplify the theme of community splace. – linking the sacred of the home to the sacred of the cathedral.

WALLS -Wednesday, February 17, 2010

Week 8, Day 047 ‘EIGHTPRONS’ in Action

Creating Community Ties
Creating Community Ties

The Launch at Maryborough was the site of a brief public performance of art. Participants were handed blue ‘aprons’ to wear during the artist’s talk. Later I explained that the aprons were suggestive of community relationships and ‘the ties that bind’. Each person could take one of the ties on the apron they were wearing and tie themselves to each other or the installation HAUSTAFELN [a German word meaning ‘household duties’]. This signaled joining society and being part of the essential culture at hand. People enjoyed this hands-on aspect and it seemed to make the art come alive for many. Besides that, it was fun!

The aprons allowed eight ways to connect to each other, thus accounting for ‘Eightprons’ as coined by my sons on the day.

I think Robert Owen’s work entitled Untitled (breath) in Spill at ARC ONE GALLERY in Melbourne also references community and he must be fond of blue as well. I am flattered to think that this work looks much like one I could have created….if you are familiar with my interest in text, acrylic sheeting cut outs and blue.

Week 7, Day 046 Why TEXT?

This is a good question asked at the Talk. I am not quite sure what got me into text at first. I will have to think about that a bit more…

But I am interested in not just the actual ‘letter’ itself but the space around the letter as one can not exist without the other. This is a different take to the work of New York artist Jenny Holzer who projects white English text [taken from an author’s Polish poetry…more comment to make here from my point of view] into a dark gallery space and relies on the meaning of words to communicate a message. This is a metaphor for community where we all serve a purpose to create the large and small picture.

‘The house is a large cot.’  Gaston Bachelard, 20th century French Philosopher
‘The house is a large cot.’ Gaston Bachelard, 20th century French Philosopher

related site: ACCA

Week 7, Day 045 Local Fan Club

So, the majority of my family in Melbourne joined me for Launch! How nice! You may think this is expected of an artist’s family but I assure you that there are many excuses available to the children of an artist if they do not want to be in attendance!

Since moving to Wollongong last year, my dependant family almost immediately decreased from nine to three. It was a huge shock to the system, not to mention the food and phone budget!

Thank you Josiah, Phil and Sharaya, and Patience for being my local, mobile Fan Club. Most appreciated. As we discussed in the car on the 2.5 hour drive back to Melbourne, we think the attendees were more receptive of my art and the messages behind it because I brought my progeny for ‘show and tell’.

After all, one cannot be the grande allusive artist with rowdy people at her tail and to tell tales.Thanks, once again for sharing this important day with me!

Related Website: One Apron at A Time at University of Wollongong

Week 7, Day 044 Safe as Churches as Houses

The day has come! A wonderful and crowd arrived for the Artist’s Dialogue and stayed for the Launch Formalities. For the first time I met Ian Tully, whom I have corresponded with for years, and his sweet wife Annie. They travelled over three hours to join in the fun. I was very impressed.

Ian was the illustrious Opener and his speech emphasized the importance of this work ‘being seen’. I agree that the tactile intrigue and mix of 2D and 3D makes B, B & B quite a delight in real life…offering plenty to tease the mind and eye.

Though people are generally moving away from the religion found in churches and in fact, are not drawn to churches as places of spirituality, Ian commented that they are very keen to buy churches as a space to construct their homes. This is true. I think people who would not be found dead in church…or maybe only dead…. still respect the ‘sense of spirituality’. I must think more about this…

Someone I spoke to later about the ‘churches as houses’ comment said it was about the large, open space on offer. This may be true too but to say ‘I live in a old church’ brings more intrigue than to say ‘I live in an old factory’.

Housing and a ‘sense of the spiritual’ is the topic for Darren McGinn at Craft Victoria. It has long been the interest of Greer Honeywill, too, at Flinders Lane Gallery

Darren McGinn, Dormitory Subtopia, 2009
Darren McGinn, Dormitory Subtopia, 2009

Week 7, Day 044 Angels/Butterflies wings

Question received at Central Goldfields Art Gallery on 13/2

‘The significance of the Angels/Butterflies wings with the jewelled clips?’ Beryl Allan.

Dear Beryl,

Good question! Perhaps you will have time to return to B, B & B and have a close look at Celestial Inversions The Book as it is the key to understanding the pinned gold wings…Often we come to exhibitions with our minds made up as to what art we will like or tolerate. The same holds true about spirituality. This art invites you to consider these biases as ‘bugs’ to the system.

Have you ever visited a natural life museum and inspected the drawers of insect specimens, neatly documented with obscure differences? This was the inspiration for these ‘pests’ which infect society – interesting to consider but poisonous in possible magnitude if not eradicated. The jeweled pins represent the scientific categorizing and the idea that we unwittingly often pride ourselves / pin ourselves to the most damning aspect of our personal outlook.

Capturing the little parasites
Capturing the little parasites

Week 7, Day 043 Maureen and Me

Currently Anna Schwartz Gallery, Melbourne, offers a stark movie and still image installation by internationally famous young Afghan artist, Lida Abdu. I quote from her exhibition statement ‘Art is a petition for another world, a momentary shattering of what is comfortable so that we may become more sophisticated in reclaiming the present. The new wandering souls of the globe, stubborn, weak, persecuted, strong, will continue to make this art as long as people believe in easy solutions and banal closures.’ The art I saw was sophisticated yet uplifting, poetic and demanding. Abdu saw her country change through the disaster of war and is capable of seeing regeneration and hope. I admire her for this.

Prof. Maureen Ryan and I are to hold a Dialogue at the Launch about hope and home using the everyday images found in my art. We are speaking similarly about ‘reclaiming the present’ as Abdu – but to an audience even more difficult to impress with the looming social problems of living in the comfortable world of a peaceful Australia.

Opening artist’s dialogue
Opening artist’s dialogue

Website

Related website: Maureen’s gallery

Week 7, Day 043 BBBBlog it!

Comment received at Central Goldfields Art Gallery on 12/2

‘(B, B & B) Gave me a feeling of community and how much I love my mother. Saw it as a community piece,  not religious. Thought the placemats were wonderful artworks. Didn’t think much of the aprons -more of an older, mum type thing. Anon.

Dear Anonymous,

Thanks for the comments. Glad the exhibition related to your thoughts of community and your mother. I believe most definitely that there is a role for religion to play – apart from community and of course, visa versa. But as religious significance and symbols diminish in our current society, so necessitates the need for new images to convey / construe the spiritual. This is why I look at the community as an indicator of belief. Suggesting ‘community’ is less fraught with preconceived ideas than an attempt to portray ‘religion’….or is it?

HANDMADE, 2005, 15 hand crafted Victorian aprons
HANDMADE, 2005, 15 hand crafted Victorian aprons

Women’s work often goes unnoticed but it joins the generations with a specific lettering of culture. Wearing one’s history – like putting on an apron – is easier and harder than may be realized. But the past can conceal a future bias.

Living Museum


Week 7, Day 042 IKEA & the Everyday

Today Patience and I travelled to Melbourne in readiness for the B, B & B Tour Launch at Maryborough on Saturday. So nice to be picked up at the airport by son Joe and to see Ez too. We travel south to have Patience’s braces adjusted and try to have it coincide with other delights. So it is all happening according to plan. A chat with my long-time optometrist and friend Nick gave me the thought that without the impending new job prospect, I have been given SPACE; meaning space to think about what I am doing with my energy, time, life. Funnily enough, it is just such ‘space’ taken earlier that lead me to consider the drastic idea of entering the workforce, earning cold hard cash for something I am good at and being able to put the cold and heartless grind of ART out of centre space for a time, a reprieve, if you will. So, now I have to come up with another idea while being content where I am…Well, at least I am not a dancer with a time limit on my arts output!

Oh yes, the title…IKEA…went to an exhibition at Craft Victoria by Adam Cruickshank called Reverse Cargo using IKEA objects transformed in to art. It is quite clever to put add a ‘primitive edge’ to objects of desire and consumption. This relates to my Celestial Inversions Display which presents Spotlight-purchased golden wings as botanic samples of noxious insects.

The everyday as art
The everyday as art