Learning a new Technique

Each exhibition I try to learn a new technique. I appreciate the mystery and excitement, the meeting of new people and sharing of knowledge. With my initial paintings in mind, I tried to work out which method would be appropriate. How to show the mysterious and uniqueness of the seen and unseen I appreciated in our garden . . . in a new way. 

initial - oil on canvas

With my knowledge of jewellery making I realized that the method of fret-work I used in silver-smithing would be ideal for what I wanted. To remove rather than to add. To create the what-if of the design. To allow for movement through the creation of depth and shadows.

initial painting - oil on canvas

However, I wanted the work to be in metal and of a size approximating an A4 sheet. I knew I did not want to do the work by hand-saw. Asking around I learnt that I could have the work fabricated from metal, if I produced Vector files. What on earth was a Vector file?????

I started by drawing the designs I required for each basic human need, and then cutting the nine works out of paper, I then scanned the cut works into the computer, so I could use photo-shop to start the long process of manipulating the images.

 

Asking around I learnt that I needed Adobe Illustrator to make Vector files.  Attending a course in Illustrator at The Edge, in the State Library, I then routinely returned to the computer lab to spent months using you-tube and the assistance of helpful staff, to learn how to make Vector files from my drawings. In the process of making the files I learn I could attend an induction course to learn to use the laser cutting machine they had on the premises in their fabricating studio.


The Edge Fabrication lab

I applied, but for months the machine was fully booked. In desperation I rang the edge and was informed I could attend the Wednesday Bump-in session, where you can use the machine for thirty minutes. . . . enough for one design to be cut.

BEING, HAVING, DOING and INTERACTING

LEISURE

Attending weekly, I managed to cut three works from 4mm ply and instantly I knew they were what I wanted..

FREEDOM

But, suddenly I was well into 2018 and I was only just finishing my images to convert to Vector files, while the laser cutting was a weekly trial in patience. The possibility of finishing all nine images seemed impossible. . . however I kept examining our garden, reading about gardens and working on my images.

AFFECTION

I visited a fabricator to discuss having the Vector images laser cut from metal, however when they tried loading the files into their machine, they crashed the machine. My images were far too detailed and I needed them created with auto-cad, not illustrator . . . ahhhhh!!! Panic.

What to do?

Never give up.

While I tried to learn coral-draw and auto-cad, I worked on some of the other images to represent the nine fundamental humane needs. 

 

PARTICIPATION

Meanwhile, each week, on a Wednesday at the bump-in session at The Edge, I managed in thirty minute sessions to cut out another one or two laser cut images in 4mm ply. 

PROTECTION

With each cut I was starting to appreciate the 4mm ply. I liked the fragility, the weightlessness. The ephemeral quality of thin ply.

I started experimenting with painting and mono-printing the cut-outs. . . .  it had possibility.

All I needed to do was make and cut the remaining works.  All nine of them, when it had taken me three months to complete three . . . help!!!

UNDERSTANDING

Working towards Exhibition 7 July 2018

GARDEN

Following our successful exhibition 5WAYS, from January 2016, Linda, Lily, Lyn and myself have been working towards our next exhibition, GARDEN which will open on July 7th, 2018.

 

Having purchased The Rusty Roo in 2000,  we immediately started establishing a garden. With the help of family and friends, almost eighteen years on, it is now a delightful haven. 

 

So, blessed with a garden, I now needed to focus.

Investigating the topic I came across a study conducted by Mike Stevens at the University for NSW entitled the Congruent Garden: an investigation into the role of the domestic garden in satisfying fundamental human need.

We have a plethora of flowers, plants and we have bees. Yah!

We also have an abundance of  wild-life visitors.

 

This study establishes that gardens satisfy nine human needs: freedom, identity, creation, understanding, Participation, Leisure, Affection, Protection and subsistence.

Armed with this idea I started investigation what each of those needs means to me, and how I would go about representing them.

Keeping a diary, taking numerous photographs, I started with drawing and then completed some paintings. I wanted to portray the fact that we are all interdependent ... we each need clean air, fresh water, unsullied soil and a ratio of sunshine . . .  and that we all need gardens.

 

 

However, no matter how much I thoroughly enjoy painting, I soon realized that this did not offer me the ability to truly demonstrate the otherworldliness of a garden.

The unseen happenings and the fleeting atmospheric changes.  I needed a way to show the hidden and the mysterious - to hint at the myriad of occurrences which make a garden interesting.

 

 

I knew I needed to show the grace and beauty of this place in which we find solace.

Armed with this desire I started hunting for a new technique.