NVAEC

Have just returned from Canberra where I attended the National Visual Art Education Conference (NVAEC) thanks to a RADF Out of Rounds grant. It was a great, informative time, with highlights including a talk by Ben Quilty and inspirational addresses by keynote speakers from the U.S. regarding using art in education; particularly its ability to evoke ideas that could potentially save the world. It was also great to see items from the NGA's collection on display and the visiting exhibition of pre-Raphaelite works from the TATE.

Came back exhausted, and today I tripped over the hose and landed on my slowly mending right arm. D'oh! It has probably set me back a bit, but hopefully not too much.

River Herstory

I have made a video which features the work that I  had in the Moreton Bay Region Art awards - 'River Herstory'. Enjoy.

Art on the Edge

As I last mentioned, I spent the weekend up at Cedar Creek Retreat, enjoying a fantastic weekend with a dozen or so fellow weirdos looking at how we can grow our arts businesses. Awesome place (see some of the pics below), awesome food, awesome people. Thanks again, Michael and Ludmilla; and Amy and MBRC for the opportunity. The consequences will be significant and you will start to see some of the effects here and other places online. Watch this space!

Webinar

During the week I had an opportunity to present for a Webinar for Flying Arts. It seemed to go well, thankfully. The workshop was titled 'Layers of Thought' and was about layering mixed media to create a more complex and nuanced communication of meaning than is often possible in a single-layered work. Some pictures of works at various stages of 'layering' and one that is completed are below. The last one is the only one that is completely finished; looking forward to continuing work with the others and will show you when I have.

International Teaching Artist Conference 2014

I am pretty excited to be attending this conference and also to have been accepted to present a 20 min Illustration of Practice. This conference is right up my street - art education to promote creativity in the broader community. Hopefully this will also be an opportunity to meet others who sing the same tune.

Remember Me?

Yes, it has been a while...again. Not that I think that anyone is anxiously waiting for my next blog, but you never know. Anyway, things are very slow on the creative front just now, due to a whole lot of work going on. I have given notice that I won't be keeping on with the curriculum leader thing next year, which will hopefully free up some time and mental space to focus again on my work. In the meantime, I am trying to prepare for a planned exhibition in November. It will be entitled 'Rock Pools' and below are some of the pools I have put together so far.

 

 

The exhibition will be an installation involving a minimum of at least 50 separate 'pools' and some associated creatures, mainly birds. So far I have 14 pools and three birds. Going to need to get cracking!

 

 

Mondayitis

What do they say about rainy days and Mondays? Today is the double whammy - Monday, and we are experiencing what the weather people call a weather 'event'. A low pressure system is sitting over our heads which means it has been bucketing down for the last 24 hours. Just to make it even more fun, I have to drive across town, dodging road closures and flash flooding to front up at the accountant and get my tax done. Great. Needless to say, my inner artist is descending into a fit of thumb-sucking despair. I don't think I have mentioned that as well as being an artist, I am also a part-time art teacher at a local secondary school. Mostly it is good: I love being with the kids and watching them develop their creativity. But the politics and the 'institutionalised' mentality depress the hell out of me. Got to sort out a few 'issues' today along with everything else. Not a good start to my week, all in all. Must do something to cheer myself up. Some art work would do it - but will I manage to get into the studio?