Wallum Porcelain Brooch

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

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

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

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...

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

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

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.