Month: February 2008

The art of quietude…

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The Gang went back to CMAG to take in the Stephen Procter retrospective without all the social rigmarole of the opening. And we were delighted to find Lienors Torre there (taking snaps) because we’d missed catching up with her in the crush at the launch.

Lienors and husband Dan made the film that accompanies the exhibition which, along with a book of the same title, makes for a wonderful tribute to Stephen, his practice and his working philosophy. 

This exhibition has been a long time coming – but it was definitely worth the wait. Christine and her stalwart team of assistants deserve every accolade for this beautifully realised package (exhibition/film/book.) It is a perfectly balanced, sensitively handled homage to a loved and respected artist and mentor (who is still hugely missed by colleagues and students alike.) The great hope now is that funding can be found to travel it, both nationally and abroad.

We’ve taken snaps of the exhibition and the DVD for those too far distant to catch it in person. But we urge people to get along and see it in the flesh if possible – the photos barely capture the effective essence of the show…

A website has also just been launched – http://www.stephenprocter.net/ – and anybody wishing to purchase the book and/or DVD (both of which we highly recommend) should just follow the prompts.

The exhibition is on in Canberra until the 8th June. For relevant info go to…

http://www.museumsandgalleries.act.gov.au/cmag/stephen_procter_lines_through_light.html

And keep an eye out for the mid-year issue of Craft Arts International which features an article by Dan Klein about the Stephen Procter Fellowship, and a piece by Megsie regarding the CMAG exhibition-book-and-film combo.

Meanwhile for gallery snaps go to…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glasscentralcanberra/sets/72157603997192968/

Moore, Moore, Moore…

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Tom Moore, Peculiar Behaviour, 2008    (photo Grant Hancock)

We might have to speed up the unrolling of Tom’s new cardboard series – the show’s opening this week!

Autoganic  makes its debut at the Jam in cahoots with Last Riot AES+F Group – a video/photomedia presentation plucked hot from the Russian Pavilion at last year’s Venice Biennale.

If you can’t make it across to Adelaide, then just keep watching this space for ‘please mister, can i have some Moore?’ Meanwhile you can catch plenty of bibs and bobs from Last Riot on YouTube. It’s worth a squizz; classic ruski fare, very arty and intense. Tom’s critter war will be a gorgeous foil…

For info direct from the Jam, go to…

http://www.jamfactory.com.au/html/index.php?option=com_wrapper&Itemid=199

Dira Horne: work in progress

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The Gang dropped in on mosaic artist Dira Horne only to find her happily ensconced in her Canberra studio, hard at it on a piece for the upcoming 12th Annual ‘Cuttagee Artists’ exhibition: 21st-30th March, at the Indaba Exhibition Centre (just south of Bermagui.)

There she was, up to her armpits in her beloved Italian smalti (which she bought during her European tour last year.)

It’s gunna be a great looking piece – and weather proof for all of you who are already visualising it, centre-stage, out on your terrace! Though if you miss out on this one, you could always commission one of your own…

Gone bloggin’…ANU School of Arts Postgraduate Program gets with the…er…program

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(above) David Wills, Erotica 2007, In/De-flatus, digital.

For those who like to keep tabs on the progressive goings on at the fank (the ANU School of Arts), your wish has now been granted. The Postgraduate program recently launched its own blog – which is hardly surprising, given the Convener (Nigel Lendon)’s predilection for the said ‘webform’. It is, after all, the most efficacious method of disseminating news amongst the faithful, as we all know…

While only in its infancy, the blogsite, Transit Lane, already beckons you down the garden path into various people’s practices. We had a lovely time exploring David Will’s work and website…as you can see, it’s right up our alley…

Anyway, whack it into your favourites and catch it express: www.transitlane.net

Trish Roan at Craft ACT…

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(above left) Trish Roan, One drop at a time, 2008, mixed media 

(above right) Trish Roan, What you sow, 2008, mixed media 

(bottom) Trish Roan, What you sow, detail.

Trish Roan has new work in the Crucible at Craft ACT, which is a perfectly scaled showcase for her delightfully (almost)Baconian practice. [For more background on Trish’s work go to ‘search’ for earlier post, Infinitesima: the art of curiosity.]

Meanwhile, thanks Jas for the press release string (below)…

Trish Roan presents a mixed media installation incorporating found objects and glass, that focuses on the processes of transference and transformation – a collection of objects and the relationships between them exploring the trace of an event or the marking of time. A collection about acknowledging the things that pass, the capacity to hold, the capacity to give.

A little soiree action in Ainslie…

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The Gang slipped into the ‘Berra at the weekend for a sayonara soiree, hosted by Babs and Jane to mark our shift to the coast. The gods were kind and delivered a sunny arvo, and Albie had invited Lola along so it was one of those lovely relaxed kids-and-doggy-friendly kind of doos (we love that.)

Highlight of the evening would have to be Jaqcue Gropps’s Pink Ned Kelly cake (above). She does a great line in cakes, does Jacque – and for this occasion she whipped up a ripper (and even had enough of that gorgeous persian fairy floss left over for Megsie to make a merkin….later in the evening, after the kiddies had gone home, naturally!)

It’s not a total goodbye, of course (quite the contrary!!) – rather just a broadening of the glasscentralcanberra coverage. The Gang will be based at the coast and swing up to Canberra regularly, when occasion demands. Meanwhile, of course, there’s such a sizable outpost of Canberra artists living down this neck of the woods that the flavour of the blog (Chateau de Sheep Dip) will hardly vary – at most it will become perhaps a little more relaxed and countrified [shades of Jane Austen, reckons Ging!] The wider cast will serve to highlight an already long-established and wonderfully robust Canberra-Far South Coast connection.

Anyhoo, back to the soiree – thanks so much to Barb and Jane for their great hospitality – we love youse guys…

For more party shots go to…

http://www.flickr.com/photos/glasscentralcanberra/sets/72157603939304277/

What happened to the Sunday of the Ausglass conference…?

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(above) security-trainee Lola flakes out after a very long weekend.

We’ve been fielding heaps of enquiries about the ‘missing’ Sunday of the Ausglass Conference weekend. But the simple fact of the matter is, that as we didn’t go to the final wind-up, we didn’t have any scintillating mug-parade biz to post…

We had dutifully spent the afternoon gallery-sitting at ANCA – chatting about the Hunks with all and sundry who came through the exhibition – after which we packed up stumps and gratefully headed home for a quiet evening en famille.

We did get a post-mortem on the conference front however – from several sources – so we can bring you a potted, heresay version of events, if you so insist:

i) the auction was amusing

ii) the awards for the members’ show had a suspicious Canberra-in-house-ring about them.

[Hey, we’re just quoting. But that being said, we were nonetheless pleased that our little mate Netty Blair scored one. Meanwhile Lee Mathers was the well-deserving winner of the Vicki Torr Memorial Prize – which is voted for by the whole membership; so no rigging there. And Ruth Oliphant took out the Beaver Award – though you’d want to keep that fairly quiet whenever you’re in the States, Ruthie, it could get ya into all sorts of trouble. n(Ed)]

iii) the closing party was a fizzer, not the least because the bar was inexplicably closed at 10.30 pm to the disgruntlement of many.

And so the general concensus of opinion appears to be that the conference ended not with a bang, but a whimper (apologies to T.S. Eliot – though even he would probably concur…)

But what can we tell ya, we weren’t there.