Lost Data

The weekend of the opening of our exhibition I lost all of the data on my external hard drive. Original photos I had taken, records of all the art I made for the exhibition & the two exams I had set for this term all disappeared.   Luckily I managed to retrieve a lot of my images from Ana Pereira De Vlieg who did our first walkabout.  She took copies of my work so she could prepare her talk, which was enthusiastic, colourful and insightful. Ana is an absolute delight – she is a warm generous person & is fantastic to watch in action. Her mom gave her the big red hibiscus flower (fresh) to wear in her hair that morning.  Click here to read her interpretation of my work. 

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.   

Leda and the Swan

I participated in the “On Form" exhibition @ the Collective at the beginning of this month. This exhibition honors the work and life of Durban artist Martin Burnett who died in January this year.

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.

Stolen Time

Before our last exhibition (Two Goats and a Dog) at Fat Tuesday we met with everyone who spoke (opening and walkabouts) a week before the exhibition – so they could get a preview of our work and ask us questions regarding our intentions and technique. 

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. 

Lost, Found and Stolen...

I am participating in an exhibition that starts on Tuesday the 8^th of May (6.30pm) until Saturday the 26^th of May with Lara Mellon and Maggie Strachan at Fat Tuesday, in Kloof Durban. The title of the exhibition is Lost, Found and Stolen.

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

Collaboration works

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.