Filed under: surrounds | Tags: art materials, hoarding, pencil case, tool kit
As life has become more transient my materials have formed into kits. With printmaking retreats, over an hours traveling time between home and studio and a separate set of clean tools for uni, portability and segregation have become essential. A studio with an uncertain future, the possibility of travel and the prospect of a new home entails the whittling down of things. An antithetical attitude to my early days in art where I hoarded every last stick of charcoal and used canvas, slavering over strange materials in art shops, materials that were never used.
A laptop and digital camera complete the portable studio, occasionally with the assistance of my beloved drop leaf table.
Filed under: 2009, made in, drawing | Tags: life drawing, watercolour, work space
Peoples working spaces fascinate me especially when they merge into the domestic space. The things we surround ourselves with become extensions of our thoughts and memories, symbols to store our epiphanies. Breanna’s posted some photos of her space that elaborate on these watercolours beautifully.
After eight months of residency I still haven’t documented my studio, I will. I appreciate the space and retreat it provides but dislike how it forces my art apart from my day to day routines. To tackle this I keep my watercolours and an extra set of grey leads and paper at home. Lately I’ve preferred working at home, embroidering in bed with my laptop for reference.
Plates so small you can see the grain of the aquatint. Under exposure mechanically produced, forcing our eyes to adjust. My home amongst the murky depths.
One of the best exhibitions staged in Melbourne so far this year, Cannibal Tours was an exhibition of Narelle Jubelin’s work at Heide. For this show she has cannibalised her previous work into new arrangements. Combining petite point and found objects she investigates trade and the movement of people through their cultural materials and colonial influence.
All images are from the catalogue for the exhibition.
My discomfiture with being a voyeur of others grief has prevented me making use of the above images. Taken on a detour from St Andrews to King Lake in July they have sat dormant in my digital photo archive. I see such beauty in them but cannot bring myself to translate that into drawn images, they belong to other peoples histories. Stories of loss that I cannot begin to comprehend.
Kate Hughes 