It’s hard to believe nearly two months has passed since my solo exhibition. It was over all too soon. With the packing up and unpacking and sold works delivered, I turned my attention to completing work for the Stitching and Beyond Biennial Out of Hand exhibition.
Lightning Ridge
Most of these new works I created for this exhibition reflect the outback. I’ve always been fascinated by the textures and colours of the bush, and the detritus that leaves its mark on the landscape. Back in the days when photography was my main creative pursuit, I often travelled through the outback for work, to places like Lightning Ridge. In the early morning light, aspects of the land looked like the opals being mined underground.
Landscape & bones
Clouds of cockatoos and budgerigars would rise in their thousands like a whirlwind, sometimes causing me to stop the car to avoid hitting them when the road was covered in birds. But it was rusted metal, wire and BONES that I really loved – bleached white and contrasting against the ochres. So it’s these reminders that have been incorporated into my new artworks.
Carriage graveyard
Now the exhibition work is completed, I've revisited my art & travel photographs compiled over forty years. It's a daunting task cleaning several hundred slides and converting them to digital images, but, so far the results have been better than expected. Here are a few that have been rescued.
Ship painting
Sadly, the large cibachrome prints I had of these shots had been damaged by living in the tropics. Now I know the slides are in good condition I can reprint them and hopefully put together some books for posterity. Of course, one thing leads to another, but that's the way I like it.
Glebe back street in the eighties
As well as learning how to add effects to my photographs and incorporate these into my collage, I’ll be trying some different techniques, including encaustic. I'm also keen to begin printing with a nifty little X-Press machine I purchased some months ago, but have been too busy to even unpack it from the box!
The Ultimate Athlete
This weekend I'm facilitating a two-day workshop, but then the decks are cleared for several weeks. So there’s lots of experimenting and fun to look forward to.
Nikki at Botany Bay
Meanwhile, back to cleaning all those slides.