limbs/skin (my favourite)

where black is the colour and none is the number

i want to paint again. big black holes this time. black on white, patterns, stark shapes, bold, simple, all the colour sucked into the centre.

inky swabs.


i've started reading henry miller again. here we go! gives me reason to write and plan and make a life of art. make art of a life.


waiting for BREAD pictures still...


meantime, something else that's sticking in my mind,

"you've got great arms, i've been watching them the whole time, they do amazing things, they're always moving."

(i drank a lot of coffee that day)


i've been to visit AGWA a bit lately and my visits have been strangely exhillerating. my favourite thing to stand in front of is the Jean Arp piece, "Torso of a Giant". i want to hug it. i want it to hug me, actually, it's huge and has amazing crevices and holes and dips. i stood in front of it for ages, sucking it up. i felt tiny, swallowed in by its bigness.
this is the bronze version... AGWA owns the preliminary plaster version, which gives it a different quality entirely.


something else on my mind this week:

Dale Frank.

as my brilliant companion ranted so eloquently: "there is no context, don't try and tell me there's a context. the work is nothing. but it's also everything, at the same time"

this work makes me think a lot about its relation to my own work. our pursuits are similar, our methodology too, the major difference i see is that Dale Frank's work is assertively masculine, virile (which i love about it), and mine is controlled, fragile, somewhat more feminine. circular. in my view this is something i am aware of, but not shying away from. yes, i am female. yes, there will undeniably be feminine influences to my work. but i'm not a feminist. i could go on, but not really feeling particularly wordy today.


and while we're on the subject, I've also been looking at Alex Spremberg's work again:

and he says:
"I consider paintings to be objects, not pictures.
The work is specific in its conception and its physical presence yet it does not pose any conditions on viewers.

When liquid white meets black both interact and find their place on the surface.
This interaction of opposites becomes even more intricate when variables such as gloss, semi-gloss and matte paints are introduced.

I am interested in initiatives that determine their own inherent results.
Painting that is located between intentional activities and unintentional occurrences.
Processes that create their own dynamics, where works are not made but occur as the result of factors that are beyond my control.

I want to be surprised by my paintings."

I think we need to meet. He is having an exhibition in June...

the overall strength of a magnet is measured by its "magnetic moment"

just came in from lying out under the stars. everything is vibrating, like magnets, the poles of magnets: repelling, resisting each other with so much energy. so much quivering expectant energy. out of the corner of my eyes i see little iron filings shifting around between the magnets, tiny movements, but everything is sliding, slipping. a single shooting star: it shocks me, as it would anyone after twenty minutes of non-shooting stars. so dramatic after all this subtlety, it had a long tail (does that make it a comet?), a big fuck off comet to end it all and i come inside.

buckminster fuller had undetected bad vision as a kid, making the whole world a mass of blurry coloured circles, and it wasn't until they discovered it and he got glasses that he realised this wasn't how things actually were. it gave him an entirely different perception of how everything fit together. he said he preferred the world when it was blurry.

HEART BURN. to do to last a few weeks. (you are only coming through in waves)

email alex spremberg, new job, return all the borrowed stuff i'm hoarding, washing, clean room, swim some more, grants, freerange, email jackson, find another book, finish old book, collective website, trans-continental projects, melbourne/sydney, call dad, pump up bike tyres, avocado, frozen peas, finances bleh, 6000 contribution, call roberto the mechanic, myer vouchers, aquarium...

all the tv people look really scary ugly these days. hideously distorted features, makeup. i can't tell if i just never noticed before or if they have actually gotten uglier.


you know when you can focus your vision, or un-focus your vision, rather, so intensely that you can consciously hallucinate? i like that.

it happened to me on the weekend, i drove for a long time, restlessly, before i settled at the foreshore in nedlands, i drove right to the end, where the boats go in, where i could see the moon beaming down on the river. the light was hitting the water so abstractedly, and suddenly i was looking at fish jumping, rain splashing into a pool, ticketape, crazy ants on the tv, static. it was great. i was also sober. yeah. i've been having some really great sober experiences lately, i think it's because i've felt really aware of myself, and my body and my place in the world, that i notice these sensations that i might otherwise be too busy or distracted to notice their effect on my body.

these are great leaps.


p.s. giant translucent elastic pools filled with water, suspended high above, light shining down through the water, argentinian bodies flung through the water, and belly flops, unrelenting fearless impressive belly flops. best tv i've watched in years. thanks eurovision.

bread baked, masses fed

i'm just coming down from the two month long project that was No Knead. And to think it all boiled down to literally minutes and seconds as we started the bread makers at their individually programmed times. I want to write more about it and hopefully get hold of a photo or two but right now i have ONE MORE DEADLINE to make, well two, if we're including the cake i'm going to make my mum this afternoon, but after that i'll have more time.

Come visit us in the old bank in Northbridge (214 William St) over the next 10 days to see the ongoing exhibition. Bread will be baking and ready for consumption around 1 or 2pm every day. Get your carb on!

messy room, clear head

i'm really happy. i feel like i've buzzed around all day, was very productive, also fit in some down time, light exercise, happy weather, swam in the sea, read a bit, saw my mum, had good brief meetings with lots of people, worked, was nice to customers, did my job well, ate some good food when i was hungry.. i don't know, actually, this if funny but i get really happy when i'm hungry and then i get to eat. like, hungry hungry. it makes me want life more, and want to try harder. and then eating is so much more satisfying. i talked about art and got excited about it today, it was the first time in a little while i'd felt like i just wanted it all. give it to me! DOING things instead of thinking about them. my room's a mess but my mind is clear. it feels GOOD. days like this are what i live for. weeeeee!

laps and rainbows

yesterday i went to the pool. it was the first time i'd been in years. i spent a long time there, just sitting and watching the swimmers. it was a really fine day and the pool seemed quite busy for the middle of the day. i've decided it's time for me to have a small rest from life and not feel guilty about not doing a lot in a day, if i feel that's what i need right now, just to give myself some space. also I've found that doing certain activities in the middle of the day is a very different experience to doing things when everybody else is finished work and also doing them. like, going for a swim, doing grocery shopping, going to see a movie... it's interesting.

anyway, so i bought a pair of goggles and did some laps in the slow lane. my body had to re-teach itself how to swim properly again, like i said, it's been years. but of course, those skills are innate, it took seconds. what i liked about it was the repetitive nature of it, just stroke after stroke, lap after lap, it's very calming and non-taxing on your brain. i also, ironically, got really thirsty and had no water.

swimming like this reminded me of the Matthew Ngui artwork at the John Curtin Gallery for the BEAP festival a couple of years ago. it was a piece that had stuck with me, I really enjoyed it, maybe because of the long dark room with a big calming blue screen of water, a bit like going into an aquarium, something I'm also very interested in lately.

Matthew Ngui, Swimming: at least 8 points of view, digital video/sound

because it was such a nice day the sun reflected through the water and i was struck by how much that aesthetic embodied a lot of what i'm interested in, visually, in my art practice. i know it's quite simple, but i'm really drawn to pure light, which leads, subsequently, to colour. and water, as i noticed while swimming, interacts beautifully with light, producing the most natural arrangement of colours, the spectrum. little rainbows, everywhere. nothing especially profound, but how often do we really allow ourselves to appreciate how nice simple light interaction is?

I found this here, it's by an artist called Andy Gilmore, who also appears to be all about the spectrummmmmmm.