I share therefore I am?

While I don't know if my own experience with technology agrees with everything Sherry Turkle says in this talk, many of the points she raises I find really relevant to my masters research. Particularly her points on how we define ourselves by what we share and how we edit/present the self with new media - I would argue though that this can still be just as clumsy and awkward in any social situation, on or offline. Reading peoples posts on Facebook or Twitter appears to be full of unintended stumbling and revealing moments.

New technology does change us... but I don't think we should see it as a passive cause and effect exchange and I guess this is the point Turkle does make at the end about self-reflection.

I'm interested to hear from others on this subject.

Vacant old hospital building in Leederville enlivened as creative studio space

(From left) Sean Morris and Kyle Hughes-Odgers are among the 25 artists and creatives leasing a studio space at The Ward.
Photo: Eva Fernandez

MEDIA RELEASE, 17 April 2012

Built in 1913 originally as a maternity hospital, ‘The Ward’ in Leederville, has been revitalised as a studio complex for visual artists and creatives, through a joint venture between Artsource and Spacemarket.

The Ward houses 21 studio spaces for visual artists working alongside other creative service peers; such as illustrators, video producers and 3D animators, allowing for collaborations and shared creative emphasis.

Artsource’s guiding mandate is to empower visual artists to build sustainable careers, and it sees having a studio space as the key platform for artists to develop their practice.
Artsource Manager of Studios and Residencies, Loretta Martella said that affordable studio space for artists can be extremely hard to come by, and even rarer; is acquiring a working space close to the city centre.

“Artsource is thrilled to have taken on the head lease for this inner city studio space. What this means for this talented group of artists is a chance to further develop their skills and
ideas in a convenient, central location without the hefty rental rates usually experience in the Perth metro area,” she explained.

While Artsource only holds the lease on The Ward for 13 months from Realmark Property Group, it is imagined that this venture will serve as a favourable model for future studio complexes.
“The Ward is the first commercial building Artsource has attained as a studio complex, and we hope this can be the first of many more inner city studio locations,’’ Martella continued.

The Ward is a welcome addition to Artsource’s well-established Studios Program, which includes a stable of over 80 studios, spread across 8 buildings in the Perth metro area. The other studio locations include Fremantle, Midland, East Perth, Kelmscott, Belmont and White Gum Valley.

Inaugural tenants at The Ward are: Linus Andersson, Tarsh Bates, Claire Bushby, Jo Darbyshire, Giovanni Di Dio, James Foley, Rina Franz, Ruth Halbert, Kyle Hughes-Odgers, Tessa McOnie, Elisa Markes-Young, Sean Morris, Carley Ternes, Deborah Oakley, Kimberley Pace, Perdita Phillips, Josephine Pittman, Aaron Welch, Christopher Young, Alucinor Productions, Inkubator and The Duck House Theatre.

ALL MEDIA ENQUIRIES
Claire Hastwell, Marketing Coordinator, claireh@artsource.net.au; 08 9335 8366

About Artsource
Artsource is Western Australia’s peak representative body for visual artists. A not-for-profit organisation in operation since 1986, Artsource works to expand and improve the sustainability and profile of artists through practical services and support. For more information, please visit www.artsource.net.au

About Artsource Studios Program
Artsource is committed to providing affordable studio spaces to artists and see this as a fundamental way to develop visual artists and their practices in Western Australia. Artsource sublease these spaces to artists, keeping the rent low, offering secure tenure of up to 5 years and managing the day-to-day operations of the head leases.

Further info:
Spacemarket
Artsource

Sandra Dieckmann Illustration

London based illustrator, Sandra Dieckmann draws enchanting images inspired by nature and wildlife, harmonised with beautiful folk style patterning. Bear among bees is so in love with her bear images (a few favorites posted below) but go check out Sandra's website to see a wonderful menagerie of animals, or visit her etsy shop where you will find a range of tote bags, prints and cards featuring her work.

Bear Rock, Sandra Diekmann

Beach Bear, Sandra Dieckmann

Sweet Dreams, Sandra Dieckmann

Tomorrow Bear, Sandra Dieckmann

Bear, Sandra Dieckmann

Sandra Dieckmann Illustration
http://www.etsy.com/shop/SandraDieckmann
http://www.sandradieckmann.com
http://sandradieckmann.blogspot.com

Speaking with Lance Kershaw Ladu

I was introduced to Lance Kershaw Ladu's work when interviewing Cherish Marrington last November. She pointed me to his Facebook profile where I found such intriguingly beautiful ink drawings, I had to find out more and Lance kindly agreed to this little interview with Bear among bees.

untitled, Lance Kershaw Ladu, ink on paper.

I have to confess I am pretty new to your work and have only seen your drawings online but I’m really loving what I have seen. Can you tell me about the characters in your drawings, are they based on people you know, or are they fictional? And where do your characters come from? 

Well, I have to say; these characters are based on myself I suppose. I try to embody my own feelings and emotions into these drawings, depicting myself mainly as women.

Your work seems to have a baroque or renaissance feel that kind of makes me think of Peter Greenaway, do you like his movies? Have you seen his drawings? And on the subject of filmmakers, there any movies that have significantly influenced your work? 

I adore film. I love Peter Greenaway’s films, like The Cook, The Thief, His Wife and Her Lover, though I have never really seen his drawings before, till you have mentioned their existence. But I must say they are quite exquisite. I am heavily inspired by films, such as The Hours, Mommy Dearest, The Others and many more, but my main focus of inspiration comes from psychotic, sad, depressed, cruel, disappointed women or mothers, which became quite evident in a small web design about myself clearly depicted. But I find an immense beauty in these raw emotions, which I think are intensified through women.

untitled, Lance Kershaw Ladu, ink on paper.

Who are some of your favourite artists? 

I guess I don’t really have a favourite artist. But I adore the works of Cherish Marrington, Gustav Klimt, Egon Schiele, John William Waterhouse, Andrew Nicholls and Tane Andrews.

I saw on Facebook some beautiful works in progress for an artist book you were making. Is that complete now? Can you tell me about it? 

The book called H is for Hippophagy, was a small, 18 paged, book that looked at a different perspective of hippophagy, which is the practice of eating horseflesh. It questioned ‘What is eating the flesh?’ which in my book was the natural decay of a dead carcass. The book was complete, but with my carless handling I managed to shamefully smudge most of the drawings. So it has now been dispersed and adored, hopefully, by their owners.

death [page insert 12 (pg 24/ pg.25) from H is for...HIPPOPHAGY],
Lance Kershaw Ladu, ink on paper.

Is your work mostly drawing, or do you work in other media? 

My work is strictly Ink. I find myself in the terrible position of loving this one medium, this one effect, that my own confounding comfort has scared me from progressing to other mediums. I suppose a love for traditional print techniques and drawing keeps me held to its exquisite bosom. Though, there are secret plans of a doll exhibition, which may lead to some spectacular birth of a new art practice for myself.

What would be your earliest creative memory? 

My earliest creative memory is when I was 6 or something and I drew the study of a woman. Women have played a big role in my life.

Are you working on anything at the moment that you can tell us about? 

I’m planning a show with one of my greatest friends Cherish Marrington, hopefully to be exhibited at Paper Mountain.

untitled, Lance Kershaw Ladu, ink on paper.

How can people find out more about your work? 

At the moment, I can’t be found anywhere. Hopefully soon I shall gain access to oniemy. But, I am easily found on Facebook, having the only name Lance Kershaw Ladu. So if someone is interested in finding me, find me there and stay informed. (Polite smile)

Being Human Being

The following text is extracted from my 2005 Honours paper, Acts of Intimacy. I have recently revisited this paper looking to draw links with my current work with identity (see this post).

Part Three - Being Human Being

Art serves to establish community. It links us with others, and with the things around us, in a shared vision and effort. 

Gerhard Richter [48]

My art making has always been an attempt at intimacy, to communicate an experience of being this woman, at this moment, in this place, with this history and trying to connect my existence with that of others around me. The art I produce is inextricable from my experience and I am suspicious when artists’ claim their work is not concerned with themselves, as whatever subjects and ideas we may pursue first must pass through the self to become art. Albert Camus wrote, “That the idea of an art detached from its creator is not only outmoded, it is false.” [49]  This is not to suggest my particular experience is remarkable in anyway or to advocate a self-centered existence. In fact, it is more an effort to look at the interconnected commonalities of human experience, our needs, desires, fears and pains.  

Stitching is an important component of my work, thread and cord are representative of many things relating to the body; veins, tendons, the lymphatic system in fact the body is made up of thousands of cord like structures. There is a strong symbolic relationship between thread and life, when we are born the umbilical cord is cut to separate our body from our mother’s and of those who claim to have had out of body experiences many report an elastic-like silver cord joining them to their physical body. Thread also symbolises narrative and there are many phrases such as ‘to follow the thread’ of a conversation which incorporate this imagery. In Greek and Roman mythology the goddesses Clotho, Lachesis and Atropos, also known as the three Fates controlled human destiny by spinning thread, each person acting as a spindle.

Stitching is also both a symbol of time and its physical evidence; with each stitch a second has passed, leaving a mark upon the cloth. When my grandmother started cancer treatment I was in the third year of my Bachelor of Arts degree. Nan, mum and me would spend long periods of time waiting in waiting rooms with other cancer patients and their carers, moving into the treatment room where nurses bustled about putting in and taking out needles – where again we all sat looking at each other, the carers with their healthy bodies and the patients – all just waiting. Occasionally we would try to make light conversation; many jokes were made about pincushions. I found it hard to come away from that space and sit in a studio to make art; it was difficult to think about art theories as many seemed absurd in the presence of life slipping out from real people who were suffering both physically and emotionally. In the final semester I wondered how I could continue, I decided I would take a piece of cloth that could be carried with me and just stitch with no forms in mind, just lines of hand stitching, being in the moment of the stitch.

Image11a. Claire Bushby, Time (or Mr Red), 2003.
Satin, cotton, steel and sand.

This resulted in a piece of satin approximately one metre square covered in stitches. When complete it was attached to a frame which held it in a cone-like shape (echoing the time cone diagrams in Stephen Hawking’s A Brief History of Time) with white sand spilling from the bottom. (see images 11 a - b) This work was first exhibited in the School of Contemporary Arts 2003 Graduate Exhibition, then exhibited at Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts in Hatched 04, titled Time (or Mr. Red), with a piece of text which is an absurd dialogue between artist, process and material. (see appendix 2) I mention Mr. Red here because it seems to be a turning point in my working method. Hand stitching is a meditative process; sometimes it is a refuge, a place to feel empty of thought but also like meditation stitching can sometimes be a challenge to stay with and requires discipline.

Image 11b. Claire Bushby, Time (or Mr Red) [detail], 2003.

For my Honours project I began making plaster body casts and making latex ‘skins’ from them. Each skin has lines of hand-stitching in red cotton. The first series were a pair of feet in six pieces (see image 12) – I had recently read the story of the woman who washes Jesus’ feet in her tears and wipes them with her hair, the mixture of devotion and self-reproachfulness in this account seems to speak about the nature of caring for another’s body.[50]   Feet are also often a part of the body which must be cared for when someone is too ill or immobile to reach them. In the second series I cast parts of myself where cancer had visibly affected my grandmother’s body, my left breast, my left hand, my left underarm(see images 13).This was a cathartic action, a visceral extraction.

Image 12. Claire Bushby, Acts of Intimacy (skins) right foot,
2005. Latex and cotton.

Also produced is a series of photographs; close-up images of my grandmother’s tea-sets in my kitchen, combined with intimate images of my skin (see images 14 A short poem also accompanies this work [see appendix 3]). I inherited a large box full of Nan’s collection of tea-sets along with many of her other belongings such as clothes, letters, books and assorted memorabilia. It all sat on my kitchen floor and throughout my hallway for about for three months. Every now and then I would walk in to the kitchen stare at the box and build the courage to pull out a tea-cup or saucer, unwrap it and place it in amongst my own collection. Each of these objects stood as a raw reminder of the absence of their owner. You can’t help wondering of the importance of certain objects, asking was this one significant? Did this one have meaning, or was it just collecting dust? Each object a material fragment of the history of a life.

Image 13. Claire Bushby, Acts of Intimacy (Skins) breast and underarm,
2005. Latex and cotton.

Sumantro Ghose’s explores similar issues in his Modern Painters/Guardian Prize winning Destruction and Nostalgia – Cornelia Parker’s Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View.[51]  Ghose muses upon his mother-in-laws death concentrating upon the boxes and bags of her belongings that his wife has brought home. Alongside this personal account he analyses Cornelia Parker’s installation Cold Dark Matter which is the remains of a shed and its contents literally blown to pieces. Parker has then assembled the burnt and charred fragments hanging from the ceiling as though in mid-explosion, like a frozen moment in time. Of the installation Ghose writes,

You scan the objects in Cold Dark Matter like a crash investigator or forensic scientist, sifting through the debris for a miniscule clue to someone’s identity, an object that belonged to a now vaporised existence. With the certainty and poignancy of a medieval shrine, a momento mori, this installation confronts us with our own mortality.[52]

Image 14. Claire Bushby, Acts of Intimacy, print series, 2005.

At around 9.45am on September 15th 2004 my grandmother, June Doris Storey passed away. Her two children (my mum and my uncle), her partner, Ian and I had decided to stay at the hospice the night before. I spent the night by her bedside, watching almost every breath, her chest rising and falling. A strange gut-wrenching expectation rushing through my body each time the rhythm of her breath slightly changed. After hours of watching through the night, morning came and for some reason I decided I should go move my car when Ian went to feed their dog. My uncle took my place by her side; I got back at 10am missing her last breath by minutes and was appalled with myself.

The hospice nurse later tried to console me by saying that it was a very common experience, often people who have spent days by the bedside of a loved one, walk out for the first time to perhaps have something to eat, only to return finding they have passed away. I had heard many stories about the opposite happening, of an ailing person waiting for someone they love to arrive before passing away with the comfort of knowing they are there. The nurse felt that it was the families’ inability to let go, that perhaps patients sometimes hold on for longer if they sense their families’ distress in the room. This only further heightened my sense of guilt; the thought that I could prolong my grandmother’s suffering through sheer fear of losing her was not at all comforting but it gave me a profound sense of humanity.

Contemplating the many people before and after me in that particular room, observing someone they love for every sign that life still flows through their body. Detecting the signs of losing time, as shadows on the wall change and the sun goes down, only to reappear hours later just like any ordinary day. This overwhelming sense of helpless loss is both personal and collective at the same moment. My loss is mine but I am not the sole holder of this pain. All forms of art have the potential for intimacy between people, to connect and share their subjective experiences.

Art is not about art. Art is about life, and that sums it up. 

          Louise Bourgeois.[53]

[48] Richter, G. (1995). The Daily Practice of Painting – Writings and Interviews 1962 – 1993. Thames and Hudson: London.
[49] Camus, A. (1955). The Myth of Sisyphus. (J. O’Brien, Trans.). Random House/Vintage Books: New York. p.71.
[50] Gospel of Saint Luke, Chapter 7:36-50.
[51] Ghose, S. (2004). Destruction and Nostalgia – Cornelia Parker’s Cold Dark Matter: An Exploded View. Modern Painters, Autumn. p. 19 – 21.
[52] Ghose, S. (2004). Ibid. p. 20.
[53] Bourgeois, L. (1988). Statements from an Interview with Donald Kuspit. In M. Bernadac & H. Obrist. (1998). Ibid. p.166

Night in the leaves

A thankyou

This is little thanks I mailed to Miik Green for having Claire² to speak at his studio night last week. We felt rather honored to talk about our Claire² projects in this forum. It was also great to hear some thoughts and feedback too, many thanks to everyone who came along.

You got to keep on dreaming

Speaking with Maria Hildrick

The first time I met Maria was at an exhibition opening at The Oats Factory. I got talking to this rad lass and when I realised who she was I got a little excited, blurting something like, "oh my god your Maria Hildrick! I love your work" in a gushing way I seem to be prone to upon meeting people I've been admiring. Luckily for me she's good humoured and didn't run away. Instead we became friends and exhibited together last year in Beast for Thee. For March Speaking with she has graciously spent some time talking to me about her work.

Eileen felt her own absence, Maria Hildrick, 2010. Oil, graphite and ink on canvas.

Can you tell us a little about your background? Where did you grow up and where did you study?

I grew up mostly in and around Dublin, Ireland, spending a couple of years in England too. We moved a lot when I was little, I'd been to about 20 schools and lived in 30 different homes by the time I was 13. Moving home so frequently instilled my love of objects and the values we place on them. Also, pretty much all of our belongings came from second hand shops and this brought about a fascination with the history of objects, from op shops or the side of the street. Both my parents were very creative people so my sisters and I grew up surrounded by imagination, music and play. Painting and drawing have been a part of my life for as long as I can remember and it was one of the things I most enjoyed as a kid.

My Mum Eileen developed schizophrenia when I was about 7 and this intensified and softened in varying amounts until her death 10 years later. Witnessing and reacting to these times, as part of my family and as an individual, is another aspect of my history that imparts heavily on my work.

 I didn't sit the whole of my Leaving Cert (exams at the end of high school), only attending the Art and the English exam as these were the ones that I felt were important to me! I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my self at that time really... I did a portfolio preparation course for a year and was lucky as the following year art colleges weren't only accepting students with enough Leaving Cert points anymore. They now accepted the cert I received from the portfolio course for entry to the college, along with a portfolio.

I started a degree in fine art at The National College of Art & Design in 2002. In the first year you got to play with everything before choosing what area you wished to specialise in. I did consider print, and enjoyed sculpture too but in the end decided on painting. The creative energy and location were amazing and really stimulating. There was a real emphasis on learning how to look, developing an awareness of ideas and how your work can be interpreted. I almost didn't realise how much I was learning and developing. I can really see the evolution of my current style from those years, particularly from the final two years, where my mixing of graphite, ink and oil began... I graduated in 2006 with a BA Fine Art, Painting and had my first solo show the following year. A few months later I left Ireland to travel and eventually found my way here to Perth.

Sandgroper enjoys feather, Maria Hildrick, 2010.

Do you think that the move to Perth, it's landscape (physical and/or cultural) have influenced your work in any ways that are particular to being here, in this place, at this time? 

The physical landscape has certainly influenced me. It really is vastly different to where I come from; the colours, the trees and plants, the wildlife, the light, the earth. I derive so much from nature and my surroundings that it couldn’t but permeate my work. Insects in particular have featured, at home too, but now to an even greater extent. In Ireland I used to work at a grain intake during the summer holidays and with the samples of barley would come the body of a earwig or a moth’s wing. Ladybirds caught by the combine mid flight were particularly treasured. The creatures I find here in Australia amaze me. I get very excited when I find a sand-groper who’s time has come or a stink bug who’s bitten the big one. One of the best is a praying mantis I found squished in Coral Bay.

There is an area of bush across from my house and it’s full of kookaburras, owls and magpies. Bobtail lizards too, who like to hang out in our garden sometimes. There is so much green space in Perth, so much wild life in the suburbs, that to be here now means a great deal to me as the city is growing so much. The bush land in front of my house has been sold and they are going to develop it into something like 50 apartments...

Also, coming to Perth and being so far away from everything I knew led me to explore objects in a different light. The verge side collection has been a great source of material for me and most of our house is furnished off the side of the street. My house-mates came home one day with a box full of carefully packaged ornaments; a ceramic cat, a little koala. These found objects, obviously once loved as they were remarkably well wrapped just to be chucked out, came to feature in much of my early work here in Australia. In the paintings they are searching for a place amongst imagery from my past. It wasn't until later that I realised this echoed how I too was searching for a place for myself. These pieces, once strangers and with their own history, have now come to mean a great deal to me. They are symbols of this place and that time. The other day I dropped the box they live in and let out a wail of devastation as I heard the sound of shattering from within! Fortunately none of the ones I use in my work were broken. It’s funny though, how the attachment develops. Coming here with just a backpack meant I was sort of starting from scratch in regards to objects with meaning and history. I now have a collection of objects that carry as much memory for me as the bench or the willow pattern plates from home.

Are you working on something at the moment that you can tell us about? 

At the moment I’m trying to figure out what I think about the form of an echo! I’m going to be doing a project with a WA arts magazine called dot dot dash and they are going to pair me up with a writer to collaborate on a piece. The brief is entitled the form of an echo and takes a passage from a talk by Derrida where he explores the story of Echo and Narcissus. I haven’t met my writer yet so at the moment I’m just spending time trying to figure out what I think and find a way into the subject matter, figure out my own thoughts...

Fish funeral II, Maria Hildrick, watercolour on paper.

Coming back to your use of insects and found objects, I can relate well to your attraction to these things and have used them in my own work. For me the "used" holds a kind of life via transference. Like as though along with our fingerprints, we leave bits of energy behind. And the little empty bodies of insects and small creatures make me think about what we overlook, little receptacles of “once was”. Do you have any thoughts on this and what attracts you to the found? 

I feel the same way, the insects are fragments of being, some are whole, some broken. Others have been hollowed from the inside out so all that’s left is their shell. They certainly carry the notion of “once was”, similar in a way to found objects and the history they carry.

I have collected a couple of bobtails too that were squished and dried out in the sun so just their skin is left preserved, their little legs caught mid run. I also found a small kangaroo paw and forearm recently. It was funny, initially I didn’t keep the paw, the leap to mammals seemed too great! I ended up going back for it the next day though… There is something about the bobtails in particular that resonates with being overlooked for me. I often see them on the side of the road. When they’re run over all their insides come out of their mouth because their skins are so tough. Their mouths are wide open, all the life rushing out of them… I guess they are such an every day thing for most people here that they don’t really register...

There are objects all over the world at this stage that I have lost or left behind. It’s interesting to me to think of these things and wonder where they are existing now, are they alone or part of someone else’s life. One of the things I love so much about the found is how it comes into your life, that you’ve happened upon this object because you went down that road, it’s that chance meeting. It’s kind of like that with people too sometimes.

The idea of leaving a type of fingerprint behind is lovely, makes me think of when I was little; my parents let us draw on the walls of the flats we lived in and when we moved on Johnny would repaint them. Under layers of paint in flats all over Dublin and London are little creatures and castles and lines and circles covered by more and more layers as other people lived there and moved on.

Wasp - 3D ink drawing, Maria Hildrick, 2010. Paper mache, wire, ink & plastic.

I love that idea of drawing on the walls of a home, another artist I interviewed last year, Lorraine Corker has a similar childhood story of drawing and writing on walls before covering it with fresh wallpaper. I've moved alot myself and find the idea of leaving a mark like this fascinating because I've never been able to feel connected to a "home" as such. Bricks and mortar seem so temporary to me and I suppose I like the fact that this drawing on the walls kind of celebrates an ephemeral notion of home. 

The sense of home is so subjective. I was at a exhibition last year, photographers were paired up with young homeless people to help them capture their notion of home on film. It was such a moving exhibit, images of stairwells and car parks, derelict houses and bushes; all these places, so out of sync with the mainstream notion of home, were home for these people. There was one girl who was no longer homeless and she took photos of the little porcelain creatures she collects. Just being able to have somewhere to put an object meant a tremendous amount to her and so the objects themselves came to carry that significance too...

Stereotypy I (Eileen), Maria Hildrick, 2011. Oil and graphite on canvas. 

Are there any books or movies that have significantly influenced your work?

What comes to the forefront of my mind is Jan Švankmajer’s Alice, a reworking of Alice in Wonderland, in which he explores the darker aspects of the story using a mixture of live action and stop motion animation.  Švankmajer uses bird, reptile and amphibian skeletons, stuffed animals and tongues, eyeballs and various organs to create the characters Alice interacts with. I first saw this as a child and was absorbed by it’s eerie, nightmarish qualities and particularly the use of animal parts, something that has permeated my own work as an adult.

Honesty in work is something I value, laying yourself bare. Hunter S Thompson's writing is influential for his raw and uncompromising accounts of experience, as is Charles Bukowski. It’s not so much a direct influence on actual paintings as it is on the integrity of my work I guess... I’m always honest to the times and emotions I draw on for my paintings. I rarely deviate from the original image and leave exposed my own personal experiences of transience, mental illness, suicide, love...

Where can people find out more about your work? 

People can find out more about my work and dates of upcoming shows at www.mariahildrick.com. We will be adding a mailing list soon too so keep your eyes peeled!

In my new studio

All moved in, still a little unpacking and decorating to do but pretty much feeling at home there now.