Wandering around in a sea of fluffy white I felt like Alice in Wonderland waiting for the Madhatter’s Tea Party to begin. We sat for a while in the White Forest and waited… but the Mad Hatter didn’t show up!
No…not me! Cover of the Gallery Members Exhibition Guide featuring the White Forest
But Kathy Temin’s installation My Monument: White forest 2008 (as part of the Contemporary Australia: Optimism exhibition at the Gallery of Modern Art in Brisbane) was simply spectacular nonetheless. And fitted the theme of “Optimism” perfectly.
In fact… I couldn’t wipe the smile off my face as I wandered about in the maze of soft stitched topiary trees of snowy white. All at once I was a little girl again. It was (for me) an affectionate warm hug direct from the artist herself. And everyone who went in there felt it. It was fun to watch people emerge just as I had done… smiling from ear. The White Forest was a place “kind of like that!”
Earlier in the day we had parked in the city and trudged three blocks in the heat to Eckersleys Art Store to buy my art supplies. Once there the aroma of “art shop” did not disappoint. I headed straight for the Arches stand to find my paper.
Like a lot of watercolour painters I’m pretty fussy about my paper. If I am buying one sheet (only) it must come from the bottom of the stack and preferrably straight out of the plastic sleeve. No nasty surprises then… when the painting is “all said and done” and random fingerprints begin to appear in the paint… right in the middle of where you didn’t want them to be!
Alternatively… if the price is right… I might buy the whole bag. Five sheets in all. Perfectly sealed. Untouched by human hands! A little hedonistic I know… but hey… you learn from experience that there is no room for other people’s fingerprints in your finished painting (grin) I settled for the bag. No discount anymore though for buying in bulk…. due in part I was told to the economic downturn. Now that’s a first! (grin) I scratched my head and wondered to myself how they could justify that… before realising that they don’t have to!
After browsing the shelves and the possibilities that lay absolutely everywhere there… we stepped out onto the street… Em with five small 6 x 6 canvases… and me with my bag of watercolour paper under my arm. The damned thing acted like a sail picking up the wind as we weaved our way back through the city streets in the lunchtime chaos.
As we waited at the first set of pedestrian lights, a friendly young man… very well dressed… and with very nice manners stepped up beside me and asked what I had there.
“Is that a painting?”
“No” I replied smiling… “but it will be! Five paintings in fact… if I can muster the strength! Do you paint?”
“No… I’ve never tried… but I’d like to”… came his enthusiastic reply.
With that… the conversation turned (oddly) to the joys and challenges of painting watercolour as we three strangers marched lockstep along the crowded street… all going the same way but each toward our own destination. At first I was answering his ongoing questions with cautious one liners… but after figuring it was all pretty harmless… let rip with the virtues of why everyone should learn to paint.
“How amazing that you can paint… it must be fantastic to be able to do that!” he went on encouragingly.
I shot Em a quizzical look.
There was a moment there where I wondered why this good looking young man was talking to me when my good looking young daughter was right there too… but well… dismissed the thought after deciding this guy must really be serious about wanting to paint! (alright…just allow me this one okay?) (((grin)))
The discussion came to an end at the intersection of Elizabeth and Albert with a smile and a friendly wave. Just like that… our paths went different ways. As we surged with the crowd across the intersection Em turned to me and exclaimed… laughing
“What was that all about?”
“I haven’t got a clue” I replied. ”But wasn’t it great?”
Funny how the universe delivers. And in the strangest possible ways. How a random stranger might turn up out of the blue… to offer inadvertent endorsement when we need it most and spur us on in our creative endeavours… is too weird and too surreal for it not to be so. We agreed that it was definitely kind of weird… but in a totally good sort of way!
We wound up the afternoon at the Gallery of Modern Art…. in the White Forest no less… after a calorie laden but thoroughly delicious afternoon tea in the downstairs River Cafe.
Yes yes… I did colour the picture! (grin)
Then exactly as it had happened on our last visit to GoMA… lightning struck… thunder crashed and the heavens opened requiring us to linger on at the nearby State Library bookshop (a favourite for Em and me) where we sheltered for over an hour huddled up with a good coffee and a great selection of books.
So what is it then about our visiting GoMA that almost invariably invokes the forces of nature? I dunno. It’s a mystery. In fact… it was a bit of a downright freaky day all round. Freaky but good. But in a freaky good sort of way… if you know what I mean? (((chuckles)))
FLASHBACK artwork Copyright 2009 Jean Burman
Sheesh… and I thought I was pushing stuff uphill at the end of 2007! (((chuckles)))
I’m off to Brisbane today to pick up some art supplies. I boxed up much of it when I was home a week or so ago and posted the boxes down to myself here on the Coast… but somehow left behind my large portfolio with a whole (unopened) bag of new paper in it. I had excess baggage anyway… so maybe leaving it behind was a good thing. And I can always get it next time.
Meantime though… I’m chaffing at the bit to get paint to paper. Hence the trip to Brisbane. I can’t wait to browse the aisles of Eckersleys to see what I will find. I love art supply shops. They all have the same smell no matter where in the world you go! It’s a peculiar combination of paint paper clay glue… I don’t know what… but it never fails to spark the flame of inspiration in me.
I knew a guy once who (along with his beautiful wife) owned an art shop. He ran classes occassionally in the loft above the store. He was a big man with a beard and a somewhat gruff personality (if you didn’t know him better). He scared the begeezes out of me for a long time… but then as time went on and I visited the shop and took a few classes… I seemed to catch his drift.
He was passionate about art. Moreover he was passionate about his materials. I remember his thunderous voice on one such occasion loudly booming…
“you’ve got to be in LOVE with your materials”
He punctuated the statement with a ferocious wave of his fist at the back wall where art hung as a glorious exemplary metaphor. I thought he was nuts.
At the time I was only in love with the wafty idea of the subject floating vicariously around in my head… so I didn’t really get it. I thought the paint and the paper or canvas… the clay… or whatever… was just a means to an end.
But no… after all these years… and now that big John has gone to that big art studio in the sky… I do finally get it. I love the stuff that makes it happen!
I do I do I do!
I love the brushes for the varying marks they make… each with their own unique personality. I love the paper which, depending on brand, shape or size gives me a totally different mood and feel. I love the paint as it flows across the paper and settles into crevices along it’s path… creating new and unexpected nuances I could never have ever imagined in the first place.
I love the feel of it. The “doing” of it.
Yes… I love my “stuff”. And I can’t wait to get my hands on it!
After that… maybe a leisurely lunch somewhere… and then on to the Queensland Art Gallery to see what’s new on the exhibition circuit. You might remember my report on Picasso back in August last year which ignited so much new found passion for Modigliani!
Well… watch out here I go again. And depending on whose work is showing… this time they may have to tie me down… (or not!) We’ll see.
My Grandmother would have described it as a “dirty day”…. and I can’t think of a better way to describe the miserable rain we endured this morning as artists from “all over” trudged dutifully into the Tanks Art Precinct for the third day of ArtEscape.
Southern artists must have been wondering where the heck they had escaped to… as the expectation of a warm and balmy “Winter School in the Tropics” dissolved into a quagmire of mud… and dripping downpipes. At least the rain was warm... and the wet feet and frizzy hair didn’t seem to dampen the creative spirit!
Mercifully the sun peeped through around lunchtime… and the humidity dropped just enough to allow some of the wet media to dry. It’s been frustrating… waiting waiting waiting for pictures to dry so that we can continue working on them.
I got a wet “derriere” sitting here this afternoon waiting for my ride home!
Classes started in earnest with our small group applying our burgeoning abstraction skills to painting a life model. I love life drawing… so this was nothing new… except that this time round we were expected to look beyond the figure to abstract shapes and opportunities to exploit newfound concepts and techniques. It was hard. There is always the tendency to revert to what we already know.
You can see the inescapable watercolour influence here…even in acrylics.
Here I enjoyed the spontaneous approach to mark making
… and that something of the “spirit” of the sitter was captured in both these 3 minute poses.
This was rather fun too… using a print making approach. I loved the white… but no surprises there… as a dyed-in-the-wool watercolourist! LOL
Madness clearly setting in… as “newspaper” is prepared with acrylic gel varnish by a fellow artist!
The crowd gathers for a discussion of “those who’ve passed this way before us”
Followed by a fuller discussion of more complex processes
The well stocked on-site shop for all supplies Art related. There is virtually nothing these guys can’t or won’t supply! LOL It’s a great place to meander between bouts of inspiration.
Ingrid Douglas – official photographer extraordinaire and talented award winning artist
whom I also managed to capture the day before…
capturing me! LOL
Thanks Ingrid… clearly your photographic skills far surpass mine… no surprises there… I hope you will forgive me? 
