swamp cartography

Swamp Cartography jewels at the Brisbane Institute of Art

2011-10-02T14:22:00.000-07:00

A selection of jewellery works by Rebecca Ward from Swamp Cartography are on display at The Brisbane Institute of Art until 11 October.

Gallery 9.30am to 4.00pm, Monday to Saturday, from Saturday 1 to Tuesday 11 October; closed on Sundays

Swamp Cartography book available

2011-09-18T21:44:00.000-07:00

The book of the project is now available to purchase online. I'd like to say that each purchase comes with one of Shannon's gorgeous scribbly gum yunomis (cups) but I'm afraid you will need to purchase these separately!

It includes an essay by Dr Tamsin Kerr , written meanderings from Shannon and Rebecca and many beautiful photographs that we took on field trips, photographs of the processes that we used and of the finished pieces.
We asked Tamsin to write an essay for us after the inspiring speech she gave at the opening of Swamp Cartography earlier this year in Gympie which seemed to capture exactly what we were trying to convey. It was rewarding to hear our intentions so clearly articulated in Tamsin's prose and follow the threads of her research. That she has put our work into a broader context of women artists working in the wallum and with environmental themes was most gratifying to us!

The book can be purchased in soft or hardcover from this site:
http://www.blurb.com/bookstore/detail/2443426

Wallum Glass Earrings

2011-09-08T00:08:00.000-07:00

Yummy new silver and glass sandblast-resist earrings depicting sundews, clouds, leptospermum and scribbly gum by Rebecca and Shannon - Launching at Botanical Gardens, Mt Coot-tha 17- 18 September.

Beautiful new photos of leptospermums and scribbly gums

2011-08-20T22:19:00.000-07:00

From Lucy's photoshoot... Gorgeous photos by Shannon Garson

Swamp Cartography Brisbane exhibition

2011-08-13T20:50:00.001-07:00

Event: Swamp Cartography: notes in sliver and clay.

Exhibition and sale of jewellery and porcelain artworks.

Venue: Richard Randall Art Studio, Brisbane Botanic Gardens, Mount Coot-tha

Date: Saturday 17 September and Sunday 18 September 2011

Time: 10am – 4pm each day

The Botanic Gardens, Mount Coot-tha provides a perfect venue to appreciate Rebecca Ward and Shannon Garson’s Swamp Cartography before it travels to future venues in Queensland and the ACT.

Swamp Cartography ceramic work wins award!

2011-08-07T22:20:00.000-07:00

Wallum Mapping – Diurnal Variation

Shannon won highly commended at the Noosa Travelling Scholarship awards with her stunning work Wallum Mapping – Diurnal Variation. News article here . Congratulations Shannon!

Touring Exhibition Dates

2011-07-09T21:04:00.000-07:00

Tour Dates

Brisbane

September 17^th and 18^th2011

9am-5pm

Richard Randall Studio,

Mt Cootha Botanical Gardens, Brisbane

Redcliffe

1 - 25 February 2012

Redcliffe City Art Gallery

470 - 476 Oxley Ave

Redcliffe

Noosa

10 May-24^th June 2012

Noosa Regional Gallery

Pelican St, Level 1 Riverside, Tewantin

Canberra

July- August 2012

Australian National Botanic Gardens,

Clunies Ross St. Acton ACT

Sun Infusion

2011-07-07T02:54:00.000-07:00

Since the opening of Swamp Cartography at Gympie in February we have been busy sending work around the country. These sunset lit Wallum Glass Pendants are resist painted and diamond point engraved by Shannon Garson and depict delicate Leptospermum flowers and Forked Sundews on our subtle palette of recycled and new sandblasted glass. The colours change throughout the day and into the night as we laminated 2 different layers of colour and softened the edges in a kiln.We've now stocked Pomme in Victoria, Sturt in NSW and Artisan in QLD with the glass pieces and I've also sent out new cuttlefish cast and etched silver pieces to these places.

I stopped on the way back from an early morning airport drop-off at the beautiful Ewan Maddock dam at the bottom of the hill where I live and found a landscaped wallumy garden and system of lagoons. Unlike many dams in our area vegetation had been permitted to grow right to the very edge of the water and even beyond in a swampy lush edge that was difficult to define. While it has the misfortune to parallell the highway, this did not deter the whitetailed water rats that I saw frolicking in the reeds. After the rain there was an explosion of coral ferns
and the scribbly gums had just shed their scrolls of writings on the past season of inundations. The pouched coral fern was thick and scratchy and I was able to get some new photos for etching.

All ready for me to use in new jewels for Swamp Cartography at Brisbane Mt Cootha Botanical Gardens 17-18 September.

Slingshot Necklace

2011-07-01T21:10:00.000-07:00

Sticks and stones
And cuttlefish bones

One of my new necklaces spinning off from Swamp Cartography.

Porcelain, Glass and an Old Barn- Gympie Road Trip

2011-02-28T15:33:00.000-08:00

Last Saturday I drove the back way to Gympie for the opening of "Swamp Cartography".
I love driving through the golden afternoon light, the paddocks flying by, the girls in the back seat chattering about their day and taking mini naps.
We stopped to take photos of this beautiful barn. The crossroads were deserted, all we could hear was the wind in the grass and we were surrounded by the sweet, spicy smell of the afternoon sun on the fields.

For the exhibition we borrowed an old cedar table from a friend and set up a "collectors table" with all our tools and impressions laid out.

The "Swamp Bubbles" looked great in a gallery under real lights

Swamp Cartography The Movie!

2011-02-23T13:29:00.000-08:00

Here it is. Swamp Cartography -The Movie!

Swamp Cartography OPENING in Gympie

2011-02-22T17:29:00.000-08:00

Opening this Saturday!

...the final countdown

2011-02-09T23:07:00.000-08:00

The Swamp Cartography collaboration is entering a white hot, nerve-wracking, exciting phase as the travelling exhibition begins on the 26th of February at the Gympie Regional Gallery.Exhibition design has never been my strong point and mostly I just opt for white plinths deluding myself that they somehow appear "Classic". We had a very fruitful visit last weekend from Australian ceramicist and teacher Janet de Boos (this doesn't really describe her fabulousness as a supporter and encourager and inspirer of literally hundreds of students, artists and teachers over the past decades) who gently but insistently prodded us into the uncomfortable process of examining our assumptions. This is a process that is totally absent from the everyday studio practice. Compared to my own very gentle examining of my aesthetic motivations Janet's was positively brutal! It was worth enduring the discomfort as Janet's questions forced me to think carefully about every aspect of the exhibition space, how to make it dynamic and how to pare down the ideas until every aspect of the space is resolved so the exhibition becomes an experience drawing the audience into the beauty and isolation of the wallum. This process is so valuable it is worth enduring the discomfort and the exhibition will be a cracker with not a white plinth in sight!

The exhibition commences in Gympie and will trundle on it's way over the next two years encompassing a film launch in Brisbane at the Botanical Gardens in September, an exhibition at the Museum of Brisbane in October , Noosa and Canberra, and Melbourne in 2012....with more to come.

$18 000

2011-02-09T22:12:00.000-08:00

The auction of ceramics for Flood Relief raised over $18 000!!!!!!! This is an incredible number when applied to contemporary ceramics. Thanks to Vipoo and all the artists who took part and thanks to all the generous supporters who bid for the pieces.

Stormy Weather

2011-01-30T16:50:00.000-08:00

There is a severe thunderstorm warning issued for parts of the south east.
A thick band of storms...

Torrential rain and flash flooding. People are advised to take shelter.
I wonder what is beyond that thick wall of water falling from the sky?

Did I see a glimmer?
Rain easing.

Scattered showers.
Sun Ah.

Underneath the storm is like walking under a waterfall into another world.

These 4 brooches about storms sweeping across the Wallum were created during the recent floods when we received about half a meter of thundery rain in 4 days and the side of the hill slipped away. Making them was difficult, the first batch lost to rising waters and when I was seperated from my etching bath for way too long. After that I was too careful with the etching and achieved conservative and boring results. Despondency.

So I pretended to be a risk taker and put the bath in the hot sun which had finally emerged. Forgetting about it, I discovered these rugged results some hours later. Weathered brooches. Eroded by the torrents of rain and beaten by the sun. Plucked to safety minutes before total disintergration.

Mapping December wallum

2010-12-26T13:59:00.001-08:00

letospermums in December

2010-12-26T13:52:00.000-08:00

making tracks

2010-12-02T17:31:00.000-08:00

When I did these I was thinking about walking through the wallum with my children.
Last time I did this Sweet P. got tired and I had to piggyback her. I lost my new sunglasses.
The wallum swallowed them up and in the glittering, sparkling, scratchy, wallum with the bright hot sun bearing down I looked and looked for my sunnies as the little girls sat under a banksia wilting and sucking their thumbs.

We didn't find the sunnies ...but the shy wallum did reveal her treasures as we saw many many of the elusive vanilla orchids with their pale,unphotographable mauve spots.

Wallum Windows

2010-11-11T16:41:00.000-08:00

There are lots of different windows to find, portals pop up here and there.

In puddles, sky, leaf droplets, walls, eyes and up from under thickets and grasses.

What is hidden and what is revealed by the frame of a window?

Some new brooches and necklaces from Swamp Cartography. Etched images are both photographic and hand painted.
For sale at Cherish and our Studio Sale.

Wallum Porcelain Brooch

2010-10-05T15:57:00.001-07:00

Wallum Porcelain Brooch
Originally uploaded by rebeccathewrecker

In the strange way of collaboration Rebecca's beautiful brooches inspired me too look again at the ways of connecting disparate elements.......

............which meandered me through to the varied and suprising things you might see as you wander in the wallum.....

....which directed me in a mysterious sort of way to cartography and mapping..........

....that made me think of these little silver claws as cartographic symbols....which led to the map bowls.

Mapping -wallum, creativity and collaboration

2010-09-28T16:26:00.000-07:00

Swamp Cartography-
Cartography (in Greek chartis = map and graphein = write) is the study and practice of making maps (also can be called mapping). Combining science, aesthetics, and technique, cartography builds on the premise that reality can be modeled in ways that communicate spatial information effectively.
The process of making new work is harder than I usually like to reveal for fear of sounding a little too highly strung and artistic. It starts a long time before a single mark has been made and swirls and gestates for anything up to a few years. The collabotaive process adds another element that hasn't come into my working process before. Rebecca's brooches got me thinking about the ferns in the wallum, the way she connects two disparate materials with silver, the threads that connect all the wallum flora and all the ideas we continually revisit, merging and submerging. Sometimes an idea that one of us has bought up many times seems like a breakthrough when we are finally at a stage of being able to appreciate it.

These pots are maps. The marks are intended to draw the viewer over the surface, they map the volume and exterior of the vessel, the journeys I've taken through the wallum and the creative process.

Arthur H Robinson states that a map that is not properly designed will be a "cartographic failure". "The intent of the map should be illustrated in a manner in which the percipient acknowledges its purpose in a timely fashion. The term percipient refers to the person receiving information and was coined by Robinson. "(from wikipedia cartography entry)
I wanted the percipient of these bowls to feel their way over the surface and through the wallum. I also wanted the pots to contain a secondary map of the collaboration which doesn't sound so dry and boring when I refer to it as the inspiration and alchemy that occurs when two like -minded and wildly different artists get together.
Mapmakers claim that maps should contain a wealth of information and be multivariate. The richness of information in a map generates hypothesis, stimulates ideas and further research. Perhaps the purpose of art and the purpose of mapping intersect.

Full Coral Moon

2010-08-26T16:05:00.000-07:00

Extreme detail of a new etched, roller-printed and pierced piece.

Sometimes I feel empathy for the metal - it gets dissolved in acid, squished in steel rollers, drilled and sawn and then heated to near melting pointing point during my sometimes inept soldering efforts.
I've certainly explored the outer limits of what is possible and have the failed experiments to prove it. But on the whole it is so good-natured and forgiving that it seems to embody a sort of loving kindness as it takes the maker gently in hand and teaches them about the matter of metal.
Of course at other times, one has to stop oneself from throwing said failed experiments against the wall in a temper tantrum!

Materiality

2010-07-25T19:08:00.000-07:00

First day at Canberra Glassworks I was very nervous. I had to work with glassblower Annette Blair to make the "swamp bubbles" for the Swamp Cartography exhibition. I've never worked with glass before and, as I labored over my sketchbook only to produce some very basic drawings I realize how much I rely on touching my materials to make my work. I make thousands of little decisions when I'm making, from the very moment I cut the bag of clay open right up until deciding how slowly to dry the piece out I'm tweaking and adjusting to what the materials are telling me they can do. Designing a piece in a hands off way is a totally different mindset.
I'm so used to working in contact with the materials that in some ways I can't even tell what the piece is like until I touch it. You see this in crafts of all types from the way bakers touch the dough through to the way mechanics cradle engine parts in their hands. The touch is what's telling them about the object. Entering a process where there is no touch literally felt like being blind, weirdly panicky and uncertain.
But...Annette did a fabulous job. It turned out that we liked the same colours and when I said "Brownish /purple" she really knew what I meant. This was instantly reassuring! Here is what she blew...swamp bubbles
Aren't they beautiful?

Early showings...

2010-06-27T22:14:00.000-07:00

I have some early swamp cartography pieces in a Redlands group jewellery/metal show coming up soon and also a piece selected for the Waterhouse Natural History Art prize in South Australia.

I am currently taking some time to concentrate on new work for the project. It is proving to be a difficult labour but I'm hoping for a breakthrough this week!

Growing things

2010-06-08T15:23:00.000-07:00

Shannon is correct in saying that art like Wallum takes a long time to grow. Of course there is some that obligingly pops up like mushrooms overnight, but this is definitely not of the fungi variety. Maybe I am using the wrong fertiliser. I won't go into what makes mushrooms grow so well under commercial conditions but I'm sure you are all familiar with the substance.

I guess if these were any kind of fungi, these would be the tiny wild ones that may or may not pop up under decaying leaves and branches by their own unfathomable whim. Which leads me to suspect I have been inadvertently clever in not tidying up the rich litter layer that is my bench as it has finally produced some results.

Shannon' hands scratching back the resist to reveal beautiful leptospermum flowers drawn from photos.

These delicate little leptospermum flowers scratched into ashphaltum coated silver plate by Shannon have been sitting on my bench mocking me for months, too precious to commit to. Visitors say 'what are you going to do with those?' I mutter expletives under my breath. But now I have a much more polite answer.
I think patience is a great virtue and one that is good to have when dealing with acid. Like gloves. They were etched very slowly over days in a very weak brew of nitric acid so the detail is superb even though the etch is shallow. I'm thinking of starting the slow etch movement. I'm sure it will make my practice even more lucrative and in this age of conservation it is probably time to start dissolving precious metals alot more slowly.

So after procrastinating for ages, I cut them out, soldered posts on the back, drilled some holes and made this necklace. It is very simple. Why I couldn't do that earlier I will never understand.

Wild and Secretive

2010-06-06T19:10:00.001-07:00

IMG_4092
Originally uploaded by shannongarson

The process of making new art takes almost as long as the process of growing a flower. This is the second generation of the leptopspermums. The surface is very intriguing as the scratchy drawing is inlaid into the surface of the form and the veil of shiny glaze raindrops overlays the form. I'm playing with the idea of the surface of a ceramic piece being so absolute. The glaze drops reflect the light drawing the surrounding environment into the form and the most satisfying interaction of all is picking up these vessels the smoothroughshinysmoothscratchy-ness.

The wallum is a wild, secretive environment, full of detail and wonder I think pieces of work that capture the wallum should try to capture this.

Tips for fungi hunting.........

2010-06-01T15:04:00.000-07:00

Tips for fungi hunting.........
Start in Autumn, after rain

Keep your knees bent and centre of gravity low (this is also a good tip for hip-hop dancing should you ever want to rap about fungi with the guys in da 'hood)
Get your "fungi eyes" on. Once you start seeing them you'll see them everywhere.
Look around the roots of trees, on rotting stumps and under ferns..fungi pop up in the strangest places.
Expect weird and unusual shapes and beautiful colours.
These fungi are all from Stradbroke Island and the process of fungi hunting became totally addictive, the variety of these wonderful organisms is fascinating. The fungi we see aboveground is often only 10% of the entire organism. Fungi have no chlorophyll and feed by producing enzymes underground that break down complex molecules found in organic matter. As they exhaust the food supply the underground mycelium move further out. The actual fungi is the fruiting body of the organism known as the sporocarp, it's purpose is to disperse the microscopic spores which get carried by the wind far and wide to produce a new web of mycelium that will erupt with a sporocarp when the conditions are right. There are so many interesting fungi facts for instance :"All fungi need existing organic matter for their food. A fungus that feeds on dead organic matter is called a saprotroph and one that feeds on living organisms is a parasite. While there are species that are always parasitic and others that are always saprotrophic there are also those which may feed on either live or dead organic matter and so change from parasitic to saprotrophic behaviour (or vice versa), depending on what food sources are available. " Read more about fungi here.

3 Brooches

2010-05-12T16:00:00.000-07:00

Fresh from the jewellers bench: 3 etched silver and gold brooches. These are the forerunners of a larger series for Swamp Cartography.

Each has a portal of sorts to take you under the surface or deeper into the landscape.

Storm Brooch - front and back

Brushbox Brooch

Hakea Brooch

Thirst

2010-05-08T15:35:00.000-07:00

I'm working on the scribbly gum for the wallum project. Rebecca made me some metal plates etched with impressions taken from out photos of the wallum. After the yunomi were thrown I re-dampened them by the highly technical process of putting them in a plastic box with a wet plaster slab in the bottom of it overnight and then used the rounded end of a rolling pin to press the bases of the yunomi onto the etchings from the inside.
These are the second incarnation of this design and the third incarnation will be pared back further. I'll keep going until the pure essence of the bush is distilled into the drawing. Until picking up these yunomi captures first the smoky rays of sun touching the tops of the eucalyptus, the cool damp smell of the dew and the "wheeeeeeee- CRACK" of the whip bird's call.
As tea drinking vessels these pots will be handled a lot. From the setting of the table through to the washing up a drinking vessel constantly interacts with the body and brain of the user. It needs to be stimulating yet calming. Sometimes I feel like having a cup of tea is a tiny island of calm in the midst of a chaotic world. It is really important to me that the drinking vessel is the focus of this expanding circle of calm, yet leads the mind to wander in a creative direction. Having a cup of tea is not just for quenching physical thirst.

Not quite symmetrical

2010-04-29T16:32:00.000-07:00

These wallumy earrings are made by smoodging tiny porcelain coils flat which are then pressed into clay and silicone molds made from direct impressions from nature. Then they're painted, sponged and fired. Finally pairs silver hooks are made.
Pierced ears anyone?

Porcelain pendants

2010-04-26T19:54:00.000-07:00

Porcelain pendants. Wallum impressions in porcelain, made into pendants with a tiny silver twig.

Leptospernums in silver

2010-04-26T19:23:00.000-07:00

First we clean the silver and coat the surface with bitumen paint.
Then I draw leptospernums, Scratching in the silver, the scratchy, twiggy, sticky bushes covered in tiny white blossoms.
Then Rebecca goes to work with her jeweller's saw and ...........
The lovely tiny blossoms appear, magical, and softly gleaming silver.

Leptospernums in porcelain

2010-04-26T19:00:00.001-07:00

Leptospernum blossoms are familiar to all lovers of the wallum. Tiny and white these five petalled flowers completely cover the small scratchy bushes that produce them. I made these porcelain works with an scraffitto/inlay technique which in itself is a rather scratchy dry process. The interiors are pure, translucent Southern Ice porcelain covered in a clear glaze. The exterior captures the light with a spotted pattern of clear glaze over the dry drawing.

The final exhibition will include some groups of 10-15 pieces of this leptspernum work ranging form large bowls through to tiny teabowls all covered in the sepia drawings and softly capturing and reflecting light from their spotted surfaces.

Clay workshop

2010-04-26T02:15:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I visited Shannon's Maleny studio and she worked on some scribbly gum designs with bases pressed into the brass etchings. The damp clay took the shallow impressions rather well.

We also made these impressioned porcelain danglies from clay and silicone impressions taken from the wallum. It was challenging working in the clay but eventually I moved past the wet sticky mess phase!
I'm now seeing if I can make them work as jewellery. It is all rather exciting and experimental!

Tangle Brooch

2010-04-13T23:37:00.000-07:00

Copper, car paint, sterling silver (oxidised), 18 k gold, st steel pin.
Copper upper plate etched by Shannon. Oxidised silver photo etched by Rebecca.

Tangle Brooch came from our studio time together last month. Shannon painted asphaltum resist on the copper plate which was then etched in nitric acid. Then I selected areas to cut out. I constructed the riveted brooch using photoetched and oxidised sterling silver. The rivets are tiny gold pins. There is a vaguely etched rainy landscape on the back.

I have saw-pierced sections of the copper to reveal the dark underlayer. "Tangle Brooch" seeks to capture the micro and multilayered mysterious world of growth and decay in the Wallum as hastened by sudden rainstorms sweeping across the open plain.

Silver and Clay

2010-04-02T18:02:00.000-07:00

I've been visiting Rebecca's studio. We are into the creation phase of our wallum project and are spending time in each other's studios,learning "cross discipline" skills.

We painted silver and copper with brown, road tar goo and when it was dry, I scratched leptospernum blossoms and leaf silhouettes exposing the metal. The plates were then dipped into and acid bath.
We are working on a couple of ranges of jewellery incorporating metal, porcelain and thread. Here are the porcelain pendants in the background with silver cuttle fish castings of twigs in the foreground.

Brass etchings

2010-03-31T19:46:00.000-07:00

Some 50 x50mm photo-etched plates for Shannon to experiment with as impressions on porcelain. I wonder if it will work!

After rain

2010-03-19T14:56:00.000-07:00

Crummunda Park, Currumundi. The girls and I went down the other day to see the wallum after all this rain. The paths were flooded with shallow sepia coloured ti-tree lakes. I took photos and thought about the form of the banksia tree, the children looked at things through their magnifying glass. I think they are getting the hang of the wallum project which has become through necessity a family affair. Of course bribery in the form of a swim and various delicious snacks is essential!

Midyims and Nujigums: Navigating by the Flowers.

2010-03-17T19:14:00.000-07:00

Midyims (top) and Nujigums (below)

I've been thinking about the different ways we use maps and navigation techniques to get around the wallum and find various plants. Recently I was walking around the backroads of Cooloola National Park with my technology savvy companion who relies on GPS to get around town and bush. You can see contour marks, roads, compass and where you have been on this gadget so it makes it quite difficult to get lost unless the batteries run out. Luddism makes me triumphant when this happens! I am wary of such technology, preferring an old style paper map, a fairly good sense of direction, some visible landmarks and a 'solar derived' notion of north. But all these devices, new and old, while setting out to 'close the distance' also seem to somehow put a distance between person and landscape so that you can pass through a place without knowing or feeling or being there.

Shannon and I were at Peel Island last month walking through cypress and eucalypt forest with the National Parks ranger looking for a narrow slither of wallum . Peel is quite flat and I lost my bearings soon after leaving the road. As Shannon related, we were being carefully guided so we found the open wallum fairly directly. We made our observations, took our photos and the snakes kindly let us though. Then we took a 'short-cut' back to the road through a dense and high fern, peat and melaleuca forest which required us to push through with our whole bodies. Evidently the forest had regenerated after fire more quickly than our guide anticipated. For a brief moment we had that feeling of being lost. Everything looked the same. Forest stretched as far as we could see in all directions and every few steps the false floor of the peat layer gave way and we fell through to the true ground like Alice in Wonderland. But we did feel that we were really 'there', wherever 'there' was.

This experience led me to ask Shane Coghill, traditional owner how he would navigate when landmarks are not easy to see. He related how pathways to significant sites are told in stories and it may be years before this knowledge is called upon. And when it is, there is considerable pressure to find the site, with knowledge concentrated in a chosen few to keep the sites safe. In what would probably sound like mysterious metaphor to me, the story might describe the patches of midyims and nujigum (pronounced midge-ims and nudge-ims) and their delicious berries along the way. Knowing the plants is important and the seasons too, as deadly snakes are associated with these species at certain times of the year. Children are warned off the delicious fruiting midyims (now fruiting) for fear of the death adder which hides under foliage, tempting berry-eating wrens with a protein hit by wiggling its tiny worm-like tail. And the tell-tale blue staining on a child's mouth will alert a watchful parent if they have been spending too long feasting on Nujigums where red bellied black snakes are found.

So this awareness, with an intimate understanding and embodiment of the spirit of the land makes it possible to find places without paper maps or high-end GPS equipment. That there is more going on than the graphical representations of contour lines is both fascinating and mysterious to me and presents a new way of being here/there.

It is this kind of mapping and the creative journey that I think of when rolling the words "Swamp Cartography" around in my head. I hope that the jewellery, ceramics and glass works that we create will have the immediacy of notes taken along the way.

Porcelain prototypes

2010-03-06T13:49:00.000-08:00

Pouched Coral Fern and wallum impressions on Southern Ice porcelain.

Three little pillboxes.

The wonders of the Canberra Glassworks

2010-03-04T18:17:00.000-08:00

engraving, originally uploaded by rebeccathewrecker.

Rebecca the Wrecker and I have just spent 3 days at Canberra Glassworks doing a masterclass with glass artist and teacher extraordinaire Kirstie Rea. We had an amazing, inspiring time.

Canberra Glassworks is a state of the art facility based in an old power station. There are so many workshops covering different aspects of glass forming that we didn't get to see them all, the cold shop, the mold making room and the sandblasters were the ones we concentrated on. Once again we came back to our impressions from the wallum as the source of inspiration and made molds for glass using these.

I was particularly interested in the sandblasting which combines a painterly approach as the resist used is PVA glue. For these little pieces I sandblasted brushbox blossom silhouettes onto the back of "float" glass (common window glass) and used a diamond stylise to etch a drawing into the glass on the opposite side.

Glass engraving is such an immediate way of mark making, the scratchiness of the drawing echoes the twiggy scratchiness of wallum vegetation. I really liked using the window glass as the everyday nature of this material creates a subconscious visual reference linking the glass drawing to windows and all that they represent. The automatic assumption with a window being to look through or out of it, hopefully the viewer of this type of piece would be inexorably drawn towards the drawing to looking closely at and through it!

While we were in Canberra we did a talk for the ceramics students at the Australian National university Ceramics Department. Rebecca and I were struck by the vibrant, international diversity at both ANU and the Glassworks. The place is buzzing with international artists coming and going, Australian artists and students are constantly encouraged to make international connections in terms of residencies and, entering competitions and other professional development programs. It is very exciting for studio artists to be in the hustle and bustle of a creative, institutional atmosphere and I highly recommend anyone thinking of coming to Australia to consider doing a residency or a degree at Canberra Glassworks or ANU.

Canberra Glassworks

2010-03-02T22:49:00.000-08:00

Shannon Garson and Kirstie Rea

We have just returned from the most wonderful and inspiring 3day intensive class at Canberra Glassworks with a wonderful artist, Kirstie Rea. We were so lucky to have such an experienced and enthusiastic teacher who seemed to understand immediately what we were doing! Kirstie showed us many different kilnforming, sandblasting, wet grinding and diamond engraving techniques so that we were exposed to a broad range of possibilities working with glass. It was fantastic having Kirstie all to ourselves.

Preparation for sandblasting- Shannon painting PVA on window glass.

There were some overlaps between Shannon's ceramics and glass and my coldworking techniques but I found it really beneficial to learn the proper ways of doing things in a glass workshop and loved learning about fusing glass.

Pulling apart moulds from the kiln

My favorite technique involved making impressions cast from plaster moulds using botanical specimens and moulds made from silpression and silver/copper. We filled the cavities using pate de verre (glass paste made from tiny grains of glass), glass powder and sheets cut to size. It was quite a magical process with pieces of non-descript plaster and greyish glass granules disappearing in the kiln overnight to emerge in the morning, melted flat and brightly coloured. Of course firing schedules were carefully planned and numerous technical and safety procedures observed but there were some truly magic moments breaking the glass from the plaster.

The massive turbine room in the Glassworks- a converted powerstation.

The glassworks was a wonderful place to learn- well set up, organised and plenty of friendly and dedicated workers and artists to learn from. We hope to return there later this year to further develop our work for Swamp Cartography.

Peel Island- Park Rangers Rock!

2010-02-14T15:16:00.000-08:00

We met Rebecca's good friend Rowley Dowling the Park Ranger who took us across to the deserted Peel Island in the middle of Moreton Bay. Peel Island used to be a leper colony and due the to the care and hard work of the Rangers the compound comprising of the hall, official residences and the leper huts is still standing. We drove along a rutted track through wild looking cypress and gum forest. It was very dry and the trees had dead branches ripped off by storms or drought hangng from the the canopy, many trees were covered in veils of dusty green "Old Man's Beard"
Suddenly the forest opened out into the lazaret, a mown, green lawn dotted with little wooden huts.Two of the leper's huts. The Rangers have repaired some of them and left others in various stages to show the history of the site.

This is one of the official residences where we stayed the night.

The best thing that we did on Peel Island was go for a real bushwalk. Rowley took us right into the wallum. It was hot. The wallum is extremely dense vegetation and we had to push our way through scratchy, prickly branches and grasses with sharp razor like points (I've learnt my lesson about wearing shorts when bushwalking!) To get back to the road we walked through head height ferns n a dry peat swamp, every so often our feet would plunge to through the dry crust to the knee and as you grabbed a paperbark stump to get your balance that too, would just come away in your hand. I loved it! When I was a kid we used to go "exploring" all the time time, my mother was surprisingly blase about this and would just call "Take the dogs in case of snakes!"
Artistically it was great to really get in amongst the wallum vegetation. Your eyes, nose and all the senses are taking in information and filing it away for later. We took heaps of photos but they really couldn't convey the excessive heat, prickly scratchy, fecund vegetation, the colours of the leaf litter, the cicadas shrilling, the smell of the dust as a dry papery stump crumbled in your hand.

Stradbroke Island- Brown Lake

2010-02-14T14:50:00.001-08:00

We are entering the next phase of the collaboration. This last trip to Stradbroke was great as I managed to come sans children and had FOUR WHOLE DAYS(!!!!) to concentrate on ideas and the visual language of the wallum.
We spent a whole morning walking around and swimming in Brown Lake. This will be a significant location within the project. The tea tree stained water, creamy sand and dark brown rotting leaves on the lake floor combine with reflections of the sky and trees.

Twig Impressions Experiment

2010-02-10T23:39:00.000-08:00

Working on this project and teaching a cuttlefish casting workshop, I have been inspired to venture out of my happy little comfort zone in cuttlefish casting by making impressions of these leptospermum twiglets from the Wallum. Inspired by what the students dared to do in class after informing them that "it probably wouldn't work but give it a go anyway", I found I was able to get quite delicate impressions in the cuttlefish bone. These castings are only 5cm long, to give an idea of scale. I also pressed some of the tiny tea tree seed cases into the cuttlefish, closed up the mould and poured molten scrap silver from the crucible to make these 2 pieces of double sided sheet: The castings are relief style owing to a brass sheet inner cutout mold. And the cuttlefish pattern shows its wavy texture in the background. Quite appropriately too I would say, as the cuttlefish bones were all found along beaches adjacent to Wallum/heath coastal areas like Kangaroo Island and Bribie Island.

Photo Process

2010-02-10T21:41:00.000-08:00

Taking photos in the Wallum we have been experimenting with paper backgrounds to get a better outline of the intricate leaf and branch patterns. The paper encourages the illusion that the photo is being taken against sand or sky. This photo of Twigrushes was taken at Women's Lake and you can see how I extracted the strong black and white graphic which will make an excellent etching resist.

Then there are the beautifully serrated Wallum Banksia leaves photographed rather artificially by spreading them on a sheet of white paper. Photoshopped to make positive and negative resists for etching. Someone recently commented that these patterns are reminicent of 70s wallpaper design! They are certainly bold and reductive.

Results: Two silver pieces etched with the Wallum Banksia leaf pattern.

What to do with these metal plates that are accumulating around me like loose pages from books remains an enigma.

Wallum Vessels- deeper water

2010-01-26T21:10:00.000-08:00

"It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but a lifetime to paint like a child. "
Pablo Picasso

The "vessel" is a form of enormous significance in ceramics. What distinguishes a vessel is its ability to contain something. These vessels are embryonic, they are carriers for an idea about the wallum. Prototypes, fragile, ugly, often contain a germ of an idea that continues, untouched through the creative process.

Picasso said we should all learn to draw like children, by this he meant let go of learned, technical skill and capture the joy of sensation, colour, form and wild imagination. It is really hard to do, I take refuge in skill, feeling that if something doesn't quite capture the fleeting, glimpse I had in the original inspiration then at least it will be beautiful because of the skill. I keep letting go "just a little bit" - which is an oxymoron. I have to trust that these funny little vessels will be able to carry me beyond the safety of technical skill and into the wild blue sea.

wallum "hatpins" impression

2010-01-26T20:46:00.001-08:00

This is the first wallum work out of the kiln. This works directly from wallum impressions- in this case of a small plant called "Hatpins" and a tiny banksia with roots. I pressed the plant directly into the clay and fired it , the plant matter was burnt off in the firing. The glaze is an oxidized celadon.

I've always loved those old- fashioned museums where there are row upon row of pressed, dried and stuffed specimens. Collecting wallum impressions makes me think of those enormous, dusty collections. The thing that galvanised the Victorians to create such collections was curiosity. The collection was just a representation of the unknowable mystery and greatness of the world. I think that's what I like most about this crazy collecting. Instead of illuminating the world and making everything clear, a collection of dried flowers or stuffed birds illuminates the mystery in human beings as well as the mystery in Nature.

wallum "hatpins" impression
Originally uploaded by shannongarson

Wallum Kit

2010-01-18T21:36:00.000-08:00

Currimundi, originally uploaded by rebeccathewrecker.

This is a photo of what Rebecca and I get up to when we enter the wallum. What you can see here is our "Wallum Kit" contained in it's super- duper heavy duty 4WD toolbox.

This contains a couple of reference books on the wallum, some plastic containers for holding our "impressions" and samples, a lump of porcelain, two containers with "silpression" (a two- pack jewellery moulding silicon rubber), brushes, video and normal cameras, and water.
"Silpression" impression from the wallum.

We've been gradually refining the data we need for our collaborative and individual pieces. I've been collecting impressions of the wallum in porcelain and silpression. In the studio I've been experimenting applying these to porcelain- thrown objects and flat discs. Applying texture to thrown objects is tricky. For years I've been refining shapes and surfaces that strongly refer to the perfect circle created by the wheel. Applying texture to porcelain warps it out of shape, even if you straighten it up to round again the clay has a memory that comes out in the firing.

Currumundi was the first big outing for the Wallum Kit and it worked great.....but I have to say that dragging it up another really steep sandhill when we thought it was just a short walk to the beach was hard work.

positive and negative impressions

Etch

2010-01-07T14:49:00.001-08:00

Pouched Coral fern, bracken, club moss.

We pulled over to the side of the road near Broken Head to get these photos for etching. I discovered later that week the price to pay as baby ticks had by then burrowed deep into my person!

Once I stopped itching, the images were 'thresholded' and 'inverted' in photoshop reducing them to strong black and white tones only which a choice of positive or negative.

Then they were photocopied on to Press n Peel computer circuit board paper. An iron at high heat transferred them onto my super clean (scotchbrite, detergent ammonia, meths) copper and silver sheet (0.5- 0.7mm). This can be tricky as I am no good at ironing and the images sometimes only partially transfer. I think the humidity also has a negative impact. Some I patched up with paint pen circuit board marker. Others I re-did.

Then I prepared a nitric acid etch bath in pyrex dish. Very carefully. With gloves. Actually I had some I'd already mixed which can be used again and again. I was intending to use ferric chloride and ferric nitrate but discovered that I'd left some of the equipment at college. You need more stuff for the safer chems. It was good in the end as nitric is super fast although incredibly evil and I had previously thought it did not work as well with the press n peel. But it does.

The pieces were immersed for up to 20mins. I watched carefully through my safety goggles and tried not to breathe in the vicinity. Doing yoga in an adjacent room proved misguided as traces of fumes wafted my way making me wonder what the hell was happening in the acid bath instead of being calmly aware of the present moment.

The bubbles forming on the surface of the metal were brushed gently with a sulphur crested cockatoo feather. I couldn't help thinking that Phillip Adams would have approved as he refers to the white birds as "rats of the air". Poor cockatoos. I apologised to the feather (one of the only soft things that won't dissolve in nitric) and got on with the job. The bath accelerated and at the end I contemplated dilution as one piece of copper was fairly frothing and spongy slag forming so quickly that it was dislodging the resist. Enough!

Then the pieces were neutralised in soda and cleaned with scotch brite and fine brass brush. I patinated them with some Jax blackener. It does not really work well on copper but when I woke up this morning I found that verdigris had grown in the coral fern etch overnight! Magical chemicals!

I'm not sure how I will use them but made a funny little brooch using a silver coral fern positive etch and impressing vinyl onto a negative bracken fern etch. The copper one that got out of control in the bath and etched at various depth as the resist was dislodged created an interesting 3d surface. I was thinking of convergent evolutions (coral/coral fern) and fossils.

I like the etching method and also making impressions from etching as unlike the other methods we have tried with silicone and wax and clay, it allows me to reduce the scale. I am doing more experiments with the etchign and will try to multilayer it, like the multilayers of the wallum.

Sacred Women's Lake

2009-12-09T15:13:00.000-08:00

In the ancient perched lake is a peaceful place not quite far enough from frolicking holidaymakers. We were thinking of glassy interpretations of this beautiful tea-tree stained lake with it's reedy edges, native fish and submerged melaleuca.

Brush Boxes

2009-11-04T17:57:00.000-08:00

Brush Box trees along the ridge of the old dune

are now flowering

and shedding.

This tree grows all over the place in SE QLD once you start looking and takes different forms according to the conditions. Like melaleuca, stunted here, giant there. See what Tatters says about the size these trees can grow. Apparently brushbox blossoms make for quite uninspiring honey and the timbre contains silica that bluntens steel tools. Somehow that seems to increase their appeal.

Stardbroke Island Sand Blow

2009-10-25T20:41:00.000-07:00

At Stradbroke Rebecca took me on a deserted 4WD track. We walked through banksia forests and up a really steep track of soft ,soft sand to emerge at this....
A sand blow.
It was like emerging into another world. The sun was setting, lighting up the beach spinifex and animal tracks.

Wind was blowing the beach spinifex around. Calligraphy in the sand.

Goenpul - People of the Pearl Shell

2009-10-25T20:22:00.000-07:00

We spent the weekend at Stradbroke Island.
Words cannot encompass how beautiful and inspiring this was. We did a cultural/archeological/botanical tour with Shane Coghill of the Goenpul tribe- the People of the Pearl Shell. Shane took us right into the wallum on the narrow tracks made by wallabies. All around us was the stiff tangle of leucopogon, leptospernums, sedges and Dianella. As we looked into the heart of a clump of reeds for lizard eggs I noticed a Forked Sundew on it's long spindly stalk reaching through the blades towards the sun.
Shane took us along an old road shaded by the huge Bloodwood trees, there was an eagles nest , big enough to house human children balanced high up.
We took a lot of impressions in clay and our weird resin products. We took a lot of impressions in our impressionable brains, ancient stories, vegetation, dried leaves stippled shadows , in that strange, filtering, creative, process.

Midyim

2009-10-18T13:51:00.000-07:00

Austromyrtus dulcis

The midyim in the garden are flowering and I made a graphic background for our stall at Finders Keepers Market in a couple of weeks. I expect we will see lots of this edible berry growing on our trip to North Stradbroke Island later this week as it loves having its feet in sandy open forests where it forms a spreading understorey favoured by snakes. Pity it is the wrong time of year for the delicious gingery berries.

crumunda park, wallum, September

2009-10-04T23:48:00.001-07:00

crumunda park, wallum, September
Originally uploaded by shannongarson

Leptospernum flowering in Currimundi Lake (Kathleen McArthur) Conservation Park.
We did a workshop with Phoebe Hart from Hartflicker Films on filming with a small handheld camera. She gave us heaps of tips on using tripods, getting shots and getting footage suitable for editing into a finished product. The film will be part of the final exhibition as well as broadcast on the web. We hope to capture the collaboration from these early stages right though to finished exhibition work with accompanying footage of the making process in both studios.

Crumunda Park and the ground orchid

2009-10-01T20:31:00.000-07:00

Last week Rebecca and I both headed from our homes with cars full of friends/supporters and children to the lovely wallum of Crumunda Park at Currimundi Lake (Kathleen McArthur) Conservation Park. Arriving late, in various degrees of disarray we were met by Suzanne Aspland a local authority on the wallum. It seemed as if Suzanne was familiar with every tiny plant along the path as we walked through the ti-tree and paperbark forest and entered the golden, late afternoon light of the wallum heath.

Once again the need to really LOOK was impressed upon me as Suzanne pointed out the fine hairs in the throats of the tiny, white Leucopogon leptospermoides

The banksia normally known for it's knobbly brown seed pods used by May Gibbs as inspiration for the villains of "Snugglepot and Cuddlepie" had on a pale green coat knitted out of moss stitch. Velvety brown seed pods peeked out through slashes in this startling garment.Just as the sun went down we saw this beautiful ground orchid at the side of the path. Hidden under the trees this weirdly spotted delicate plant was the highlight of the day.

Pru Morrison Mold-making Workshop

2009-09-27T18:36:00.000-07:00

Last week we did a mold-making workshop with Pru Morrison at her fabulous Metro Arts Studio shared between about 5 other potters. How wonderful to work in this space- and share equipment and ideas with such an interesting group. We spent the first hour or so perving on works in progress and talking to Pru about her latest pieces bound for the big smoke.

Pru is an expert slip caster known for her slipcast simulacra of flasks, thermoses, bottles with legs and arms which she covers in naughty and thought-provoking terra sigilata drawings.

We wanted to learn the technique of making a plaster mold from an original form into which slip could later be poured. Shannon found a stick outside for that purpose. As we are casting from nature and Pru uses manufactured objects to create moulds, it was interesting for Pru as well as us as she figured out how to mold the stick. Pru's method was meticulous and patient. She was able to anticipate undercut problems and prevent them from occurring by leaving no dramatic corners and plugging up with clay. The cast object could later be carved back if necessary. The piece was done in halves- as a 2-part mold. Some of Pru's more complex shapes are 6 or 8 parts and it can take a number of days to create a mold that will register and release well.

Mixing and pouring the plaster was carefully done to minimise bubbles and while we were waiting we started to mold a cup handle from a 1950's cup. Before we knew it, it was 5 o'clock and we'd forgotten all about lunch!

The stick casting came apart perfectly and Pru said the mold was probably overengineered for the object but better to err on the safe side. I'm not sure that Shannon entirely agreed as she lugged the dinosaur-bone-like object back home on public transport!

We were both stuck by the contrast between Pru's crazy tattoo-like excisions on pots and her calm measured studio processes. But then you dont see many tattoo artists waving their arms around and emoting!

More photos here.

Tea Tree

2009-09-18T16:02:00.000-07:00

Leptospermum liversidgei or Leptospermum semibaccatum?

Pouched Coral Fern

2009-09-13T23:57:00.001-07:00

DSCF6838
Originally uploaded by shannongarson

Making art from a collaboration is a bit like turning lead to gold. It's a mysterious process that requires a lot of faith and messing about with odd combinations and sticky stuff. We have started by visiting places together and collecting what I scientifically like to call "data". This means photos, drawings and impressions of the wallum. The impressions are literal, we have this strange putty-ish pink resin used for making dolls heads. You can pinch off a bit of this and soften it up in your hands then press it into leaves, rocks and bark. We came back from Poverty Point with a lot of impressions which I then cooked in the oven for about half and hour. One of my favourite forms of flora has been the Pouched Coral Fern . This amazing little fern contains it's spore in the myriad pouches along the stem.

The next time we go out I'll bring some porcelain. If the impressions pick up any organic matter it will burn out in the firing. As a ceramicist I've been looking at the initial impressions which is a negative of the form we cast. Rebecca uses a lot of impressions of the impressions creating a positive of the cast form.

Taking things out of context can reveal the abstract qualities such a line pattern and shape that are hard to discern in the complex quiet/noisy bush.

Tin Can Melalueca

2009-09-01T22:24:00.000-07:00

Melaleuca quinquenervia - the swamp paperbark saplings emerge from the twigrushes as the land runs down to the mangrove flats.

welcome to the wallum

2009-09-01T15:44:00.000-07:00

The Wallum (Coastal lowland heath) areas of South-East Queensland are endangered but beautiful ecosystems often overlooked and threatened by encroaching pine plantations and residential ‘sea-change’ development. The humility of the low lying and stunted vegetation springing tenaciously from acidic soil is deceptive for like jewellery and small objects, huge variation (biodiversity) and intimate detail can exist on closer examination. The small but exquisitely jewel-like flowering and fruiting bodies, leaf types and stems provide forms to examine and draw out the metaphors and meanings of this rich ecotype.