objects of the dead

I made a sculpture for Julie Barratt's 'Hankie Project' which opens tomorrow night at the gallery. Some of the hankies in the show are full of pathos, some charming, some chilling. You can see it at objectsofthedead.blogspot.com I made a deep upholstered work in black with a spirit level attached to represent the carpenters in my family.

pale pink camellias

I stopped outside the cemetery yesterday and picked some pale pink camellias from the roadside hedge. Their perfume was subtle but filled the car. They are sitting on my kitchen bench now in one of my female vases. This is a drawing from a series based on twins and evolution.

chicken footprints

I walked into my studio this afternoon and knew immediately that one of my chickens was out. I followed the footprints coming out of the wet pile of clay that I had left slaking down on the concrete floor. The footprints went under the car, over the vacuum cleaner, and around the veranda back to the chicken coop and straight to Parvati, the undeniable culprit with white feet. What body language can you read in a chicken's face?
This work is called 'Blanketed'. When I was making it, I was thinking about the incredible diversity of life on earth and how each species is so precious.

going, going, gulgong

Heading off this morning to Clay Energy Gulgong. The drive should take about eleven hours. I'm looking forward to a coffee already. It's been six years since I've been to Gulgong and I would really love to sit in a window seat in Janet Mansfield's library again. What a treat. I'm taking this large 60cm platter for the participants show. It's an image of Darwin touching Man complete with slimy protazoa from the benthos.

burringbar chicane

We whizzed up and down the hills around Murwillumbah after visiting Marc Renshaw and Karlee Rawkins show at Tweed River Art Gallery, slowing down only for the speed camera. My favourite work was Karlee's 'Pelting', a tiger, tiger burning bright orange and black stripes. I have this thing for hot orange, I have a burnt orange shirt for golf, and various other shades of orange for various other occasions.
I finished a new series of wall pieces recently. I used coffee grounds in the clay to lighten the weight. The clay was nauseatingly smelly for a few weeks, it then grew maggots and I had to use gloves when I pressed it into the plaster moulds. The iron in the coffee migrated towards the surface of the clay, leaving an efflorescene on the surface. You can see on the work, the mark of the ceramic barista.

snakey business

I went down to let the chickens out before my morning swim last week and found a two metre carpet python perched along the bracing timber inside the chicken pen. It had jammed its head into the wire and was having trouble getting out. I let the chickens out of the henhouse and got a very long stick and managed to free it. For the next couple of days, the chickens looked left and right and then left again before leaving the coop. But they don't have long memories so they run in and out now without worrying.

I've been making some more press moulds for wall sculptures. They are based on vegetative forms and cell division. Not quite ready to photograph but I have a picture from work I made last year.

plumeria

I was offered some frangipani flowers to fill a large vessel at my marquee stall at Rivafest. Their heady perfume reminds me of Papua New Guinean house gardens and the rough and ready PNG way of weeding by pulling out absolutely everything then putting the useful plants back in. I pick a frangipani flower most mornings after letting out the chooks then put it on the kitchen bench until it goes brown.
I went to the opening of Quotidian and Quixotic Gallery last night and saw some work by one of favourite artists, Gloria Petyarre. She has such wonderful design sense.
Here's another work from my recent show in Darwin.

november pineapples

I remember an old canecutter mate called Vic who said that pineapples picked in November usually have rot in them. I always think of Vic when I cut a rotten one open. Someone said he had tertiary stage syphilis and that accounted for his odd manner.
I've been invited to have an artisan's marquee at Ballina's Rivafest next weekend. I'm busily making some smaller work for sale. This is an image of some more work from my Darwin residency.