Today is Good News for Whales

Above are details from Cat Bailey's hanging nylon bag installation please see and read more here 

Lets hope today's historic ruling by the International Court of Justice ends Japan's murdering of whales (and thanks to the 2010 Rudd government for this campaign).

"Japan had justified the slaughter of more than 10,000 whales in the Southern Ocean in the past 25 years on the grounds that it was done for scientific purposes, even though it sold them on commercially."  

The Independent TUESDAY 01 APRIL 2014

MINING: gouging the country

Articulate project space  December 1  at   2 - 4 pm

for the launch of the latest Artlink issue 

and the last day of LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND

The world is hungry for minerals and fuel. Is Australia's preparedness to gouge its (sacred) earth any different to that of any other country? The land's value in spiritual as well as economic terms has led to some of the most debated legislation of contemporary times – from Australian Aboriginal ownership and land rights to mining, coal seam gas extraction, the value of the land; who owns it; who has the rights to use it; to sell it; to exploit it; to act as custodian of it. Initially defined as "Terra Nullius" this country is now recognised as an ancient, mineral-rich continent of hotly contested territories.

This issue digs deep into the seen and unseen impact of big mining and its greed for the rapid and ruthless exploitation of fossil fuels. It comes at a turning point for the community in relation to climate change. With the carbon level in the air now reaching 400 ppm, coal mining can never be ‘clean’ or sustainable; 350.org, an urgent global public campaign to keep coal in the ground is growing.

Artists, artists' alliances and arts writers join with environmentalists to raise consciousness about the dangers of mining operations on farmlands, rivers, in remote areas, deserts, and coastal areas, as well as in the depth of the oceans.

• Ken Mulvaney writes on the ancient rock art being damaged by proximity to mining operations on the Burrup Peninsula.

• The tension around funding for arts, science and community enterprise from mining companies which commonly exploit the prestige of arts projects to varnish their image. Arts patronage is used as a wedge to buy off the potential community opposition and the custodial burden is getting heavier for Indigenous land holders in many regions.

• During the mining boom has support to the arts from mining companies been minimal relative to their profits?

Artists include Fiona Hall, Cai Quo-Qiang, Craig Walsh, Jan Senbergs, John Gollings, Ah Xian, and Raymond Arnold. 

Writers include Daniel Thomas, Sam Cook, David Hansen, Michael Taussig, Judith Blackall, and Jane Deeth.

PRESS RELEASE

Williams River Valley Artists' Project presents

LEAVE IT IN THE GROUND will show the work of artists Neil Berecry Brown, Sue Callanan, Juliet Fowler Smith, Noelene Lucas, Christine McMillan, Ian Milliss, Margaret Roberts, Toni Warburton and David Watson, made in protest against the fossil-fuel industries and their role in the growing crisis of global warming.

at Articulate project space
16 Nov to 1 Dec

 Williams River Valley Artists' Project 's newspaper The Stuttering Frog #2 will be launched at the opening. 

Bird Week

image from BirdLife Australia's newsletter

Celebrate Bird Week 19 - 25 October, see more at Birdlife

and Ornitho-logical exhibition and residency runs until 26th

Ornitho-logical

as invited artist-in-residence this month for the temporal Pop In Space at 124 Marion St Leichhardt, artworks are up and installations are made including a great interactive No Honeyeaters by Kirsty Collins (detail pictured). 

The all bird exhibition runs until the 26th Oct and is open on Weds - Sat 11am - 4 pm  

is now in its second month and has plenty of great workshops/events, please check out the program here.

Animal Welfare League fundraiser

at Pier 2/3 Walsh Bay

2013 Sydney Writers Festival    20-26 May

The Sydney BAG (Book Art Group) makes art from discarded books and non-traditional materials. 

'Lifecycle' is an installation of reborn text and Australian domestic imagery. With great images seen here

This free exhibition will be featured in the Foyer of Pier 2/3 for the duration of the Festival.

park art

The Blue Trees in Texas "takes an urban landscape with which you are familiar and changes it for a brief period of time so that it becomes something unfamiliar. We are creatures who like certainty, and we become disconcerted when our environment changes. Yet, we have altered and destroyed much of the global environment. With this destruction, we have caused the extinction of countless species.

The primordial forests of the world are disappearing at an alarming rate. It is easy to restore the trees we have coloured blue back to their natural state. However, without some serious efforts, the old species will disappear. They do not have the option of restoration."

- Konstantin Dimopoulos

Song Dong

Now on at Carriageworks - Chinese artist - Song Dong's Waste Not is a dedication to his late father through family objects kept, stored by his mother. After showing in the World's major art institutes, it arrives via 40lt shipping containers holding 10,000 items and a section of Dong's family home. An amazing work in dealing with grief, remembrance, hoarding, for me - consumerism...and a celebration of life.  A family project, the work is always installed by the artist and his mother and sister. more great images here

A must see -  on until March 17

Happy 2013. Environmental Change...

in the foreground, detail of two sculptures by Gordon Stokes

During December as artist-in-residence in Portland, south-west Victoria, I had the privilege to be involved with curator and artist, Catherine Bailey, in a wonderful group exhibition, Environmental Change - a visual response, at the Portland Art Centre.  The show continues until the end of this month and some of the work can be seen via the fb page here. Most of the works in the show reuse found materials which I find to be a truely inspirational way to make art.... it's economical, environmental and ethical!

Snacks, a few pieces here, depicts remembered threatened animals belonging to the Portland area 

painted on found throw-out food packaging

Planting Cheer with IWEG

Sydney Biennale finishes today

detail of Hassan Sharif's Objects  materials include everyday rope, bags, plastic, wire and string

ARTcycle residency at INDEX project space

lots on during ARTcycle's residency 

on until the 11th August 

and for all the details please look here

water debris

© PAOLA TALBERT   Gyre 8   2012  60 x 60cm   awarded Highly Commended at the 2012 GreenWay Art Prize

Above photograph shows a fragment of an everyday urban detritus so beautifully enticing but revealing a part of our human disconnect. This work is from Paola Talbert's newest series Gyre, an ocean vortex, where originally full of plankton now collects millions of kilos of rubbish... our rubbish! Here is a good link with more information on what they call the Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a landfill in the ocean.

Your piece Paola is an exquisite example of the beauty and the foul aspects of this wonderful and absurd world we live in! Thank you

GreenWay Arts Prize

Above is my rejected version of along Hawthorne Canal made for the 2012 Greenway Arts Prize Exhibition. The opening was on last night  with another full house at Art Est and tomorrow I will be there again to guide a free art workshop with a nod towards sustainability from 10am to 1pm. This is for our first GreenWay Hub Day...  

GreenWay festivities coming soon

Saturday 23 June  GreenWay Hub Day from 10 - 1pm at Canal Road Leichhardt near Cafe Bones


free activities: 
Bike skills training and tune ups
Kids blinging up bikes
GreenWay Food with Bike Tour
Walking tour - dog friendly - to the GreenWay Arts Exhibition at Art EST  
Sustainability art workshop at Art EST 


bookings and more details here

Story at Branch

Story starting with the letter B

Branch3d

April 30th - May 26        

9am - 8pm everyday       

26 Ross St Forest Lodge

Have a look at this fabulous space for art, design and architecture to connect with an everyday thoroughfare. More details at Branch3d. I wish that more windows around town could be used in a creative way. The work here was a playful interlude from my studio works and a lovely opportunity to make art merging with the suburbs.

Through a window, through the branches, on the tree top

birds, brooms, brushes

here we are reflected

past and future imaginings

together with abundant possibilities

suspended pages quietly in shadow and line

removed from Nature, held in museums and books

the birdsong mixed with the ordinary and disowned,

remnants of the human world.

http://www.birdlife.org/community/2011/10/a-call-to-action-for-australian-birds/

A big thanks to Sarah Nolan, artist and director of Branch

and to the Macleay Museum, University of Sydney for a wealth of history and inspiration

(admission free, open 7 days and just up the road!)

Insight Out of Sight

Last night was the announcement of the winners of the  Insight Out of Sight competition - a Leichhardt Council initiative with their Community Development Officer Bronwyn Tuohy. First place winner captured above at Birchgrove Oval was by the charming Neil Tomkins. The idea is to invite artists of all sorts to bring colour and interest to traffic signal boxes that are often covered in snoresville tagging. Why I know so much (my reward on left) was because I was given the honour of being one of the judges for this year and I have always been such a fan of this fun approach to liven our streets. Please have look around or at the link above.... and maybe you would like to enter next year?

long-nose bandicoot at Macleay Museum

Carmel Wallace detail of Colony at Brenda May Gallery

I love going to the old world Macleay Museum at the University of Sydney as their collection covers many interesting areas about history and stuff through the stuffed. I often go specifically to view their bird specimens for my art practice and recently spotted the above critter, a long-nosed bandicoot (in the centre).  I do recommend a visit and amongst the permanent displays is their next curated exhibition called Coral: Art Science Life

more posts about the long-nosed bandicoot here and here 

did you hear about the fab workshops?

on the mantelpiece are collages by Rochelle Summerfield 

  
Thirning Villa is where Ashfield Council houses their artist in residence programme and this weekend I have just completed a free workshop conducted by the newest artist on the block. 


You can find more on Rochelle Summerfield's blog and all her links. 


Workshops on printmaking techniques are open to all and there will be plenty to choose from so contact  Ashfield Council for details and to make bookings. 

here I printed a collagraph of "litter" over a fragment of an etching... its a great technique.