Before I hang any exhibition I normally lay out the works in my entrance hall. It is the only space in the house that is empty of furniture & long enough to get a good idea of how all of my works will look like together. My cats normally hang out with me & take interest in whatever I am up to. This time was no different & they sniffed, paraded up and down next to them and Matilda (my Devon Rex cat) even tried to sit on one artwork.

Hanging at Fat Tuesday normally goes quite smoothly, with the Bellevue Café downstairs supplying the cappuccino coffees, our “hangmen” Fred (My husband) and Patrick (Lara’s husband) doing all the measuring, mathematical calculations & hammering, we managed to put the exhibition of 100 artworks up by lunchtime. (We started at 9am) 

Read more here (Lara’s Blog). She has also provided a link to her Facebook page where you can see many more pics of our hanging experience, the opening and Ana’s walkabout.   

Burnett had collected 30 paper machè mannequin busts which 30 KZN artists re- interpreted decorate and re-imagined. "Burnett stood in solidarity with women in abusive relationships and supported initiatives which assisted abused women and children. To this end, the exhibition will be a fund raiser for two important organisations" that work towards the prevention of abuse of women & children. source

I went to pick up a paper machè bust half way through April. The bust I chose reminded me of a bird when viewed from the side. I was immediately reminded of the story of the mythical story "Leda and the Swan" in which the god Zeus seduced, or raped, Leda in the form of a swan. Leda later gives birth to an egg from which the gods of war hatch.

Sam my Spynx cat is pictured here inspecting the original bust before I started working on it.

I covered the paper mâché bust in plaster, pressing real feathers into the plaster. I then painted a swan's neck between the breasts of the torso with it's head curling around the neck of the sculpture. The sculpture was then stained brown & sanded down so that the imprinted feathers would stand out. The resulting piece had too many contrasts so I softened it with white spray paint. I finished off the piece by collaging printed feathers, text from Yeat's poem written out in my own handwriting & sealing the whole thing in layers of resin & wax.

Ana (looking like a painting herself) taking notes (using a purple pen)  

The meeting worked so well last year that we decided to repeat the experience again this year. We met yesterday morning (Sat 28^th May) in my classroom - the space is big enough to spread all of our work out on the tables. The time we spend together at these meetings not only reconnects us as friends; but allows us to focus on uninterrupted discussion about art in general.

Jeanette (in her velvet hat) discussing Lara's work. (Lara on right)

Some of the discussions that arose in this session focussed on: 

• the sense of nostalgia that was apparent in our work 
• the amount of conscious and unconscious elements that occur when we make our artworks
• what is “stolen” in our work (We purposely “borrow” from each other’s work and we share source material) This led us to a discussion about copying in general. The following link further elaborates on this point. 
• whether size has affected us (Fat Tuesday is a small gallery – so we have had to adjust our artworks accordingly)
• we debated art terms in relation to our work – words like palimpsest, romantic, de-collage and illustrative  
• and parallels were drawn between Turner, Max Ernst and Arthur Rackham. 

All three of the women who have agreed to speak on our behalf & share their own insights and interpretation of our work; are passionate supporters of our work and the development of art in Durban.

From Left: Me, Estelle, Jeanette and Maggie discussing Maggie's work.    

Jeanette Gilks is a Fibre Artist and has taught art for many years (as a school teacher & now she runs workshops for artists)

Ana de Vlieg is an artist (she participated with Lara & myself in the Sketchbook Project) and an art teacher with a special interest in art as therapy.  

Clinical Social worker Estelle Hudson runs dream workshops with Maggie at the Buddhist Retreat Centre at Ixopo. Her talk will focus on an interpretation of our work in terms of Jungian Theory.  “Estelle Hudson is a narrative and family therapist. She conducts dream workshops for professionals, Masters Students and interested people. Her personal interests include feminist spirituality, drawing, painting and dream work.” – link. 

Joan Martin, Gaye's Gecko, Mixed Media on Board, 20X30cm, 2012

The following is our statement for this exhibition:

Our last exhibition at Fat Tuesday spoke about our methods of working as a group – finding a direct and particular response to each other’s work which became a discourse about our methods of art making and our childhood memories.  

This exhibition “Lost, Found and Stolen” is a continuation of our first theme. We revisit memories both personal and collective, things that we perceive individually and jointly from the mist, looking at places and ideas that have been abandoned and forgotten by ourselves and by society as a whole.

Through regular contact and scheduled meetings (once a month) we initially set up themes – each artist came to the meeting with a word or criteria.  Finding our way unexpectedly through these verbal and visual clues often resulted in these prompts being combined in a new context. 

During the past year we have each in our own been diverted by the demands of life, but always found our way back via our scheduled meetings and mutual support.  There are definite connections between our artworks - we often consciously and unconsciously “steal” from each other’s work. Gourbault statement is applicable: “The influences may be subliminal and subtle but all that surrounds us in some way changes how we see things and who we are.”

Joan Martin, School Suitcase, Mixed Media on Board, 2011, 10X10cm

Dr Norman Doidge an advocate of neuroplasticity sums up the journey these artists have undertaken: “We are often haunted by important relationships from the past that influence us unconsciously in the present. As we work them through, they go from haunting us to becoming simply part of our history.”

This is the schedule of events to do with our exhibition:

Tues 8th May 6:30 - Exhibition to be opened by Jeanette Gilks, Fibre Artist and teacher of Art
Sat 12th May 10:30 - Artist and Art Teacher Ana de Vlieg will conduct a walkabout
Sat 26th May 10:30 - Clinical Social worker, applying Jungian theory,  Estelle Hudson will conduct a walkabout and discussion of the artworks 

Please feel free to attend any (or all) of the above events.

Joan Martin, Playing Celestial Symphonies, Mixed Media on Board, 15X20cm, 2012

I thought I would share this project on my blog & by writing about it – hopefully I would gain clarity & be able to speak about it more confidently. 

I first conceived of this idea in 2008 whilst watching Project Runway: an American reality television series on VUZU channel on DSTV which focuses on fashion design. I became very excited when I viewed Episode 11: The Art of Fashion (Series 4).  This episode starts with the designers being taken to the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York.  At the museum they are given 45 minutes to explore three Galleries – Greek and Roman Sculpture; European Painting and the Temple of Dendur (Egyptian Art) They then have limited time to design their outfits (based on what they found inspiring at the museum), choose their fabric and make their outfits and finally put on a fashion show.

I started this project by playing clips from the Project Runway show on YouTube for my students.

I wanted my Grade 9 students to feel like real designers – so I wanted to go through a similar process by researching an art period and getting them to find inspiration in virtual art museums (the Internet) thus extending the learning beyond the classroom. Each stage of the project had time constraints to closely mimic the deadlines that the designers went through in the reality show. 

I didn’t want to listen to traditional oral presentations - I felt each student’s work should stand by itself without verbal explanation.  I also aimed at capturing the excitement of a Virtual Reality show so I designed a project that would include music, visuals and text presented in the form of a PowerPoint show.  Our Information Technology department collaborated with me on this & taught the Grade 9 students advanced PowerPoint techniques.

I wanted the students to mark each other’s work (peer assessment) so each show had to have a made up “designer label” – so each show could be viewed without knowing the author and marked without prejudice.

They had two hours to research specific artists and source fabric swatches on the Internet (virtual Art museums) & one hour in class to draw up the design.

They then worked with specific instructions; this included, creating a designer label, scanning designs, setting timing on each slide (so the viewer could enjoy the show with automatic changing of slides), appropriate music to set the atmosphere, editing images in GIMP, writing a rationale, properly referencing images used in the show, learning how to compress images and finally saving the show to a CD. Click here to download the full brief I gave to the students. I also gave them the marking guidelines I intended using.

I made a PowerPoint show which provided an introduction to specific artists/movements I had chosen as a focus. In 2011 I specifically chose female artists to provide role models for the girls I teach.

I did initially look for South African female artists but the content they explored was either not age appropriate for Grade 9 or would be difficult to adapt to Fashion design. This show also introduces students to the basics of fashion design – creating a more elongated stylized figure and mood boards and provides links to resources on the Internet. A very basic PowerPoint template was also provided to give students a format to start this project.

This show by one of my students represents contemporary fashion design based on the graffiti artist Banksy. (design below)  

Through this process they not only learnt how to research but; learnt how to creatively interpret visuals and text into an original design. They learnt how to acknowledge images in presentations accurately.  The skills given to them via the PowerPoint lessons, has made them technologically fluent.    

I have shared this lesson with other teachers on CD & have thought about how it can be adapted for male students. (I have a colleague who used this at Clifton College)  Instead of Project Runway it could be called “Pimp my Ride” & templates of skateboards, surfboards, cars, motorbikes & even bicycles could be downloaded from the Internet & the same research and presentation done for project runway can be applied.

She was interviewed in my classroom by the editor and the managing editor of the magazine, Harry Lock and Linda Hodnett.  So I was aware of the article that was written about her artwork. The article features some of her Grade 10 & 11 artworks and her end of Grade 11 exam piece which was comprised of letters and drawings.

Click here (part1), here (part two) and here (part 3) to see excerpts from this artwork. Click here to read a copy of the article in the magazine.  To my surprise one of my ex-students, Annchen Naude, was featured on Page 6 and 7 of the magazine!  

She was recently awarded first prize (R10 000) for a large charcoal drawing submitted to the KZNSA members’ exhibition.  She is presently studying Fine Arts at Rhodes University.

I don’t have time to teach observation drawing during the school day, so my students have to hand in a drawing that is done at home once every two weeks of the term. I set specific topics that are given to the students at the beginning of each term. Two of the more successful topics have been:

1. Tear a printed image or find a printed image & extend the drawing. I exposed the students to the work of Lauren Spencer King who extends scenes from vintage photographs.

The following images are student's work - by Chia-Min (Grade 11), Keyla (Grade 10) and Yentl (Grade 11) respectively.

2. Draw someone or something you love - and journal about it. I wasn’t too concerned about what they wrote – more about how they integrated text into their drawings. I introduced them to Andrea Joseph. (I have recently blogged about her work)

I gave them various printing options & asked them to hand in their three best prints. The options are listed below: 

1.     Image on WHITE - EVERYONE MUST DO NO. 1.

2.     Same image on COLOURED, PLAIN sheet

3.     COLLAGE coloured paper

4.     Collage in tissue paper over print

5.     Use existing (other) image, i.e. magazines, photocopies of previous work, thinners print, old paper, etc. - choose carefully.  Beware of printing on too old paper, badly chosen newspaper print, etc.

6.     FROTTAGE/rubbing

7.     Print on fabric or any other interesting surface

(This list was compiled from a printing list created by Jeanette Gilks for a printmaking workshop I attended a few years ago) 

 The following images are representative of the variety submitted for marking. Some students handed in their prints on mirrors, tiles, canvas, and surprisingly - even a pair of panties (the student assured me they were new - I am smiling as I write this)

I recently collaborated with Lara Mellon on an artwork that is on the KZNSA gallery's members' exhibition "Red". I wasn't going to exhibit at all - I felt that I had enough work to do with our next upcoming exhibition (May 2012) at Fat Tuesday called "Lost, Found & Stolen".  We were walking along Durban's beachfront promenade (pic below) & Lara convinced me to work with her on a piece for the KZNSA exhibition.

(She told me to not interrupt her as she proposed an idea - she knew that I would initially refuse) Since we both have full time jobs - Lara suggested that we set a time limit on this piece & not work more than one day on this artwork. Surprisingly once we had set our minds on this time limit we really focused & the final artwork eventually only took us six hours to complete.

We initially discussed making a two panel piece & then I remembered that I had rescued an old table top from going to the dump at school. This table was originally housed in the boarding establishment at school, was the perfect colour - red vinyl & had been burnt by an iron. Lara suggested that we both use images that are familiar and have meaning for both of us - she often works with silhouetted figures and I draw and paint sparrows. The burnt hole suggested a nest - so it seemed appropriate to place the sparrow next to the nest.  The original table top was so beautiful with its gold spray - painted marks, peeling vinyl and natural wood - that we really had very little to add to the aesthetics of this piece. We have had positive response to this piece, but most people are confused by the nails. The nails visually connect the panels & have symbolic value - but also have special significance for Lara - her grandfather worked with wood & she kept his old rusting nails. 

Statement for Red Sky at Night…by the collaborative Sienna Sam

The inspiration for the title of this piece came from the weather-lore rhyme:

Red sky at night; shepherds delight,
Red sky in the morning; shepherds warning

It suggests that people were more in touch with their environment unlike today where our culture has disconnected from our surroundings.

In the spirit of post-consumerism we chose to work on a found surface and in a collaborative manner. Rejecting mass –produced packaged products and looking with a greater awareness of what already exists around us. Our co-operation makes reference to times when people were more aware of each other’s needs and worked towards a common goal. 

This piece warns about the danger of disconnecting from our environment and each other.

Click here to read Lara's blog about this piece & to see the table top before we worked on it. 

To see more of her work on her blog click here.