Lockdown #6

That was hard! But so much better than even more death and disabling illness. It feels never ending - and so the mind turns to what I am missing - the everyday - the calm wisdom of the ordinary. I tried my hand with Sculpey - polymer clay that fires in a domestic oven so long as you haven't built too big. I guess I could use a kiln... well somehow I had all these wine bottles and I made them into lockdown companions

A bit of a crowd to stop me feeling lonely.

Right to left you can see "Maeve" I'm trying to find wisdom in this? Well good luck with that. Then a piccolo bottle - was that a sparkling white? "Love me Tender" and behind that "Mr. Braun" then poor "Maurice" just clinging to the only comfort left to him. "Wilhelmina" is no nonsense but "Gently" is more compassionate - after the George Harrison song. "Beat" is playing for the extinction rebellion - while we hide is the wild world under attack or fighting back? "I.See.You" - I spent a terrifying night looking at the Burnett Report - and fearing for the calculations that lead us to the knowledge that our actions have consequences - deathly ones. And then "Unity" vertical drinking hah! - whoever heard of it before? Are we divided in our unity or united in our solitude?

I stopped at nine.

I've had molds taken off them. The molding process did a bit of damage so the originals can be displayed but not sold... but the bronze! The bewitching bronze! Not to mention the masterful Mal Wood working the patina!

"Unity" detail

"Unity"
at the foundry

"Unity" in bronze

I'll show the original at Herring Island - and as much bronze as I can manage - it would be great to see the set gracing a winery somewhere...

And while locked down I considered the trials and tribulations my forebears went through - my great grandmother had six children... but only my nana and great aunt went on to have families. With that inheritance came a sprig of rosemary - a cutting of a cutting of a cutting... of the plant by my great grandmother's gate. Great-uncle Herbert wore a sprig in his buttonhole when he went to Gallipoli and never came home. So to honour the past - and something that has been handed down from mother to daughter - I made a stamp for the polymer clay:

The official name for rosemary is
Rosmarinus officinalis - dew of the sea.
I had no qualms about feminising it.

without the mess and in different relationships

The molding process cost some damage...
 I will repair it sometime... but here they are at home

And on show at Herring Island with white and red wine bottles to indicate the process

On the record again

After a long break it's time to update the records.

"Meander" went into the Melbourne International Flower & Garden Show. No sale and no prize but it looked pretty well there.

"Meander" as photographed by Rob Anderson at MIFGS 2019

Lucky for me - and a pretty impressive compliment the work sold later to one of my suppliers... it's gone to a very loving home. Wow!

So on with the show fortified by that bit of confidence raising I worked on the inspiration of Shakespeare's Sonnet 29... and thought of the emotional lift at dawn when the birds go up all together.

The process was prolonged... finding the form and then figuring how to make it... and then transporting the wax in its frame hanging by bits of jute string to the foundry.... Mal Wood is not only skilful but extremely courageous!

And so the work was exhibited at the Association of Sculptors of Victoria Annual and Awards Exhibition - to prize winning acclaim! An honour! Lucky me!

a work in bronze, glass
stainless steel and pebbles

with a signature "rock"

... at break of day arising.....

as photographed by Rob Hay

The Gunnersen Thomas medallion
sculptor Michael Meszaros

Winner of the 2019 Margaret Gunnersen William Hoggan Thomas Award 2019

Herring Island 2019

Herring Island in the middle of the Yarra River is a great place - it appears to be natural bush but the Friends of Herring Island will tell you the long and arduous battle they have had to get things to grow. But it's coming up a treat as pioneer natives give way to something closer to a community. The Association of Sculptors of Victoria runs a show as part of the Herring Island Summer Arts Festival - in 2019 from 12 January to 3 February.
So I put two works in:
"Sun and Moon" and a new one "Meander"

Sun and Moon (image Rob Anderson Photography)

"Meander" is a continuation of the bronze and glass story - and the subject - maybe a lament for the Darling River - was intended to find an echo of sunlight through water and the re-wilding of rivers.

two waxes for the two media under construction

In Mal Wood's Foundry

glass fish out of the kiln

In the exhibition

Where it won the People's Choice Vote