The Artist’s Child

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Bags of Creativity

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In this world of mass production I love handmade things.  They tell the story of their creation and continue the skills and traditions valued by the people who made them.  I have a collection of handmade bags and purses from the past and the present.  They are examples of textile crafts that require time and effort to produce and reveal the various ways different cultures embellish utilitarian objects.

Some of my little bags came from ancestors and old family friends.  They were produced in the early part of the 20th century when ordinary women had more time to make their own clothes and accessories and they learnt various crafts that are now usually practiced by artisans and keen hobbyists.  Other more recent bags and purses in my collection are examples of the textile crafts of other countries that are still being created in villages and towns today.

Art Deco Beaded Evening Bag
Art Deco Evening Purses

The black beaded evening bag and two rectangular purses were made in the 1920s and 30s by an old family friend.  She must have spent hours sewing or weaving the tiny beads into art deco style designs that were fixed to the fabric backing.  Women’s eveningwear would have been an added expense in those days, especially around the time of the Great Depression and many women made their own party clothes and accessories.  They probably got ideas from overseas fashion magazines.  When I look at these I can hear the sound of jazz bands and the clinking of martini glasses and see couples dancing in their finery.  Such objects remind us that the owners were once young and enjoyed going out to parties and other celebrations.

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Japanese Crochet Beaded Purse, 1960s

I also have a small vintage 60s beaded crotchet purse from Japan.  This type of Japanese beadwork was popular in the 50s and 60s for bags and purses.  You can find lots of examples for sale on the web. It seems to have been a common Japanese style of beading and purse shape. These tiny purses were widely produced and are still being made today. I like its miniature size and design. It must take a lot of patience to do such fine, fiddly work and to fit on the small beads while working with a crotchet hook.

Beaded Evening Bag, China, 21st Century
Cross Stitch Purse, Uzbekistan (top left); Red Beaded Purse, India (right); Beaded Crotchet Purse, Japan, 1960s (Bottom)

Beaded bags are still admired in the 21st century and new ones are readily available.   I have a grey beaded evening bag made in china and a small red beaded purse from India, where handicrafts are still common and are created for a wider market.  There are also many obsessed independent crafts people who create their own beaded purses for sale online.  It is good that this time-consuming craft has not disappeared.  There is something magical about the way light catches on the surface of the beads.  It is like miniature mosaic.

Evening Bags, 1930s & 1950s
Needlepoint and Petit Point Evening Bag, 1930s
Austrian Petit Point Evening Bag, Circa 1950s

Another popular craft of the past and present is needlepoint.  I have had a go at this with cushion and picture kits and it is a slow and relaxing pastime.  Before these kits became commonplace women would use unmarked canvas to create their own designs or could purchase graph style patterns to copy.  Of the two bags that I possess one is a combination of petit point and standard needlepoint and the other consists entirely of petit point.  An ancestor created the former in the 1930s and the latter is an example of Austrian petit point, possibly from the 1950s.  One can only imagine the eyestrain caused in stitching such fine needlework, especially before the availability of magnifiers with lights.  Austrian bags like this are still made today but are extremely expensive because they are so detailed and slow to produce.  Anyone who does this painstaking work deserves to be paid well. Luckily there are still plenty of vintage bags available for a reasonable price for those of us with limited means.  I sometimes wonder where the owners took these bags; from the theatre in the 30s to concerts in Vienna in the 50s, it seems a world away from our modern life today.

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Hand Embroidered Silk Evening Bag, 1950s

Other types of embroidery were applied by hand to mid-century bags.  The stylish 1950s black silk clutch in my collection has very fine couching embroidery on the top flap. Nowadays a soulless machine would be employed do this type of detailed embroidery.  This purse reminds me of Audrey Hepburn’s elegant style in a Breakfast At Tiffany’s.

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Embroidered and Crocheted Guatemalan Bags

Buying craft items made in another culture helps to keep the local textile traditions alive.  I have three bags from Guatemala that demonstrate examples of different textile crafts. From woven fabric and rich embroidery to crotchet, these decorative bags represent the work of individual Guatemalan women.  An ordinary bag is turned into a joyous expression of their creativity.  I love their use of color and texture and when I carry these bags, they make me feel happy.

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Iroqui Uzbek Cross Stitch, Uzbekistan

A small handmade cosmetic purse that I use all the time comes from Uzbekistan in central Asia.  It is an example of Iroqui cross stitch, a traditional craft of the Uzbek tribe which uses silk thread.  Equally colorful yet so different from the Guatemalan textiles, this purse belongs to the stylized aesthetic you associate with the central Asian communities along the legendary Silk Road.

At a time when computer technology is giving humans less to do manually in the workplace, it is good that there are still some things where a machine does not produce the best result.  Automated textiles just don’t have the same character as those created by hand.  It is the imperfections that make them unique and visually pleasing.  No wonder so many people are rediscovering old crafts for their own pleasure or to sell on-line.

My small collection of handmade bags and purses display craft traditions from several continents that span nearly a century.  It is wonderful to see the varied methods that have been employed in their creation and decoration. I really admire the patience and ability of the makers of these objects. They have transformed what is just a receptacle for carrying around ones possessions into expressions of their creativity and concepts of beauty.

Kat

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The More You Know The Less You Know

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Woven bag: My first weaving project

You see an art or craft that looks relatively easy and fun to do so you give it a go.  Then you get into it and soon discover that there is so much more to learn and various avenues to pursue to gain more knowledge.   It’s a continual learning process and as with most art forms, it is usually a case of 10% inspiration and 90% perspiration to become really proficient at any creative discipline.

I was reminded of my creative journey into tapestry recently when I received a craft catalogue in the mail.  One of the products was an easy weaving kit.  This brought back the memory of how I started learning to weave that ultimately led me to study tapestry design.

In an old set of 1970s magazines called Golden Hands I saw instructions on how to make a frame loom to do simple weaving projects.  It peaked my interest enough to want to make the loom, which I did.  My fist project was a woolen Greek style bag, made by folding the woven fabric, sewing up the sides and knotting the warp threads to form a fringe at the top.  I attached plated shoulder straps.  It turned out quite well for a first project, but because I drew and painted, I wanted to learn how to do my own imagery in woven tapestries.

DIY Loom, Golden Hands
Basic Frame Looms; shed stick; shuttle; comb beater; tapestry bobbins and wools

This involved more research and I bought a basic book to learn how to weave tapestries.  I modified the loom so that it was now a simple frame that I could use vertically with a clamp, rather than horizontally and bought a metal dog comb to beat down the weft threads, as recommended by the book.  At first my attempts were quite amateur because I was using a very basic technique and needed to learn more sophisticated methods if I was going to improve.

Luckily I saw an advertisement for classes at a local tapestry workshop and enrolled in a short course.  This was really helpful as it taught the methods used by the workshop and my weaving improved greatly.  I ended up doing a more advanced course there and I was hooked.  I was now able to weave from my own designs and the final results were much more proficient.

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Tropical Rhythms: My first tapestry after completing the short courses

Ellie was also interested in textiles and I taught her what I had learned and she also got the tapestry bug.

But I still wasn’t satisfied and felt that I needed to learn much more to become highly skilled in tapestry design and production so, as previously mentioned in this blog, Ellie and I both enrolled in an Art course where we could major in tapestry.  It was a very practical course and we were constantly challenged to develop our skills and learn many new techniques.

Ellie’s Texture Sampler
My Compulsory Design Interpretation Sampler

From textures to interpreting complex designs, we had to continually stretch ourselves so that nothing was impossible to weave and were encouraged to develop as visual artists.  We took part in workshops with master tapestry weavers, both local and from overseas.  We learnt textile technology and how to dye wool, as well as occupational health and safety so that we did not poison or injure ourselves.  The only downside of doing a course is that sometimes you must do projects that do not always interest you creatively and this can take away some of the enjoyment.  But if you want to do this professionally you must learn that there are times when you might need to make compromises.

The course was quite intensive and after I graduated, I had to take a break from weaving. So did Ellie.  I have been doing other creative things, like drawing and painting, as well as music, but now I feel that I want to get back to creating small-scale woven tapestries and rediscover my love for the medium.  All because I received that catalogue in the mail.

What begins as a simple creative pastime can turn into a complex adventure.  To become really good at any creative discipline takes a lot of hard work and dedication.  It helps to have a never-ending thirst for knowledge, as there is always more to learn.  And even if, like me, you take a break and do other things, you can always return to your earlier passion with a fresh viewpoint.

Kat

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Travel to the Past

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When I need a holiday but haven’t the funds or enough time for a long trip, I like l to take a journey back to another time when life was slower and people enjoyed simple pleasures.  How to do this without a time machine?  Well I deploy our collection of vintage items and use them to create a fantasy of a long gone period.

As I have mentioned before in this blog, I love going on picnics.  But sitting on the uncomfortable ground fighting off ants is not always pleasant.  Why not go back to the mid 20th century, when you could sit in style anywhere with your folding picnic furniture to enjoy the great outdoors.  Back then a family or group of friends would load up the station wagon with all kinds of goodies and equipment and would go off to spend the day in the country.  It would have been a bit like a mini expedition without the dangers (if you exclude potential bushfires or snakes).

This type of picnic is something that I would like to recreate when the weather is not too hot.  Anyone can do this with a bit of imagination and not too much expense.  I set up our vintage picnic furniture and equipment on our back lawn to illustrate my idea for a mid 20th century picnic.  We have some old deck chairs, a folding stool; a folding wooden table and chair; a vintage linen table-cloth, old thermos and wine cooler; shuttlecock and quoits sets, all of which came from relatives.  The glass jug; aluminum beaker set; picnic basket and small wooden case were found at op shops (thrift or charity stores).  The umbrellas came from an Asian shop.

Just imagine a lovely country landscape with lots of trees (and nearby parking).  You set up your furniture and unpack your picnic basket in the shade.  It is a beautiful day with a slight breeze.  After a delicious lunch of gourmet sandwiches and salads served with cold wine or craft beer and delightful conversation with friends, you can indulge in a short walk or play a novel old-fashioned game of shuttlecock or quoits (or whatever game takes you fancy) or take a nap after reading a good book.  Then you have afternoon tea or coffee and cakes before you pack up for the journey home.

This is how I would like it to be, but it always pays to take the insect repellant, mobile phones and other mod cons just in case.  Resist the temptation to start Googling or checking your emails.  The whole point is to get away from 21st century stress and slow down a bit.

In Australia there are picnic race events in the country and you could attend one of these and have this type of picnic in style.  Appropriate clothing would complete the vintage feel.

There are even some people in Australia who live their whole lives in another era (Pia Anderson).  They dress in vintage clothes and live with objects and furniture from their favored period.  I think that this would take a lot of effort to do all the time and would not seem like a holiday after a while.  But whatever turns you on.

You could probably travel to other past times for a picnic theme.  Think medieval spit roast.  For this you would need a group of hungry people and no total fire bans.  A Roman banquet would be a bit more difficult.  Hard to find folding Roman couches but maybe a banana lounge would make a good substitute and there are always those portable shade cabanas or gazebos for a Roman tent if you have access to one.  These themes could be hilarious with a group of friends.

So next time you plan a picnic try something different.  Forget the modern minimalism of backpack convenience and go for a historical production for a fun way to visit the past.  There is nothing like a bit of escapist fantasy as a restorative.

Kat

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When You Need To Laugh

These days we need to laugh more than ever.  When the state of the world starts to get me down I go out of my way to find something that will make me laugh and feel better.  Then I can get on with creative things in a much better mood.

Yesterday there was a hilarious post on The Age Newspaper website.  It has a game where you can type in your own name or any other and it will be Spicer-ized.  For example, I typed in Mother Teresa and the Spicer version was “Mothershead Tereza”; William Shakespeare became Willibald Shaky; Richard Nixon became Richelieu No-Nose; Alec Baldwin became Aledore Balestrero.  You get the idea. Lot’s of fun at Sean Spicer’s expense.  Have a go.  Here is the link – Spicer-ize My Name

Another fun on-line pursuit is the Oracle of Bacon.  This has been going since 1999 and started as a university study into the concept of “Six Degrees of Separation.”  You type in any actor’s name and it will tell you how they are connected and how many degrees they are from Kevin Bacon, who has been in so many films and TV shows he was chosen as the test subject.  I typed in Alicia Vikander and she is only two degrees from Kevin.  Try and beat the system with obscure actors.  It is very difficult as he has links in film all over the world.  You might even find yourself connected.

Searching You Tube for comedy videos is a good way to get you laughing.  Comedians are great value.  Amongst the many wonderful choices, I love looking at ones with Dame Edna (aka Barry Humphries).  Ellie and I went to one of his farewell shows in Melbourne in 2012. Dame Edna is such an Australian Icon that it is good that we can still laugh at her antics on You Tube.  Those in the know would never sit in the front few rows to prevent becoming a a participant in the show.  Here is a performance she did in Montreal in 2005.  Part of the enjoyment of Dame Edna’s sharp wit was that, while you felt sympathy for a hapless audience victim, you were glad it wasn’t you.

Political satire can certainly turn around a depressing situation.  Australian satirist Huw Parkinson, of the scarily prophetic “Winter is Trumping” Game of Thrones video parody, continues to make us laugh at our political leaders.  His recent Trumpocalypse Now video starring Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull and “you know who” is a hoot. Watch out for a young Harrison Ford in a minor role.

Musical comedy performances are also good for stimulating laughter.  The Australian band Axis of Awesome write and perform hilarious songs poking fun at contemporary song writing and modern culture.  One of my favorites is How to Write a Love Song, which deals with all the clichés in love songs, a must to avoid if you write songs.  Yes and one of them does look like Jack Black.

I know that these pursuits are silly time wasters, but when you need a good laugh, a bit of fun web surfing at lunchtime or in the evening can release those endorphins and give you a boost.

Keep laughing,

Kat

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The Garden Doll

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Sometimes inspiration can come from some object you have had hanging around your house for ages.  Suddenly you see it in a new way.  That is how I wrote this poem.

The Garden Doll

It was buried in our garden bed

A broken doll, no arms no legs

Ceramic torso, molded head

A cast-off toy, all that’s left

 

Some child’s treasure long ago

Now a relic, sad, alone

A doll’s house prop, without a home

Lost in the past, it’s owner gone

 

Once dressed and posed in make believe

It had a life, it talked, it breathed

Gave form to some girl’s fantasy

Her youthful hopes and joys to feed

 

It cannot speak, it cannot move

Story unknown, mystery imbued

Sits in a jar, a thing to view

The garden doll I never knew

(© The Artist’s Child, 2017)

Kat

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Sleepless Zombie Kills Creativity

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No.  I haven’t started writing a horror story but about the dangers of ignoring your bodies natural rhythms.  During the holiday period I was staying up very late every night, writing and working on this blog.  I got away with it for a while because I could sleep in, but then when I had to get up earlier this behaviour started to have a bad impact.  And especially when on top of this my dog had a vomiting attack after midnight and I had to keep letting him outside every 10 minutes.  The next morning I looked and felt like the zombie from hell, walking around in a daze.  Not good for the creative mind.

You can’t cheat on sleep for long as it will catch up with you sooner rather than later.  Sleep study experts say that losing too much sleep can make your IQ drop and it becomes difficult to think clearly and perform physical tasks like driving (Alarming Number of Drowsy Drivers).  I’d have to agree because I’ve not been firing on all levels.  This means that everything takes me longer than it should which leads to more wasted hours and a later bedtime.  It’s a vicious circle.

My quick solution is to indulge myself on a day off and recharge my energy levels.  For relaxation I started reading a new book (The Good People by Australian author, Hannah Kent).   Then I had a nap in my favorite chair and woke up because the washing machine kept beeping.  I have been eating all kinds of treats, like Greek dips, fresh raspberries and dark chocolate.  I don’t usually drink wine so I had a couple of glasses of white wine before dinner then watched a silly movie comedy that I’d recorded.  I am starting to feel more rested.   I would not do this every day but it is good way to break the sleep deprivation cycle before it gets to be the norm.

It’s 10.30 pm and I am going to stop what I am doing and get ready for bed.  I will start this again tomorrow otherwise I will be negating the whole point of this post……

Had a good night’s sleep. It really makes a big difference and I have some more ideas.

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For maintaining long-term healthy sleep patterns, having hobbies different from your usual creative pastimes can be revitalizing.  I have tried various things like aerobics, bushwalking, and belly dancing.  My favorite recreational pursuit is going for a picnic in the hills or countryside around Melbourne and having walks in a forest.  There is nothing like being out in nature to make you feel calm and rested.  Any type of physical activity will take you away from being too sedentary and make you feel refreshed.  You sleep soundly and have more energy during the day.

Doing things with friends will give you a boost.  Having conversation and laughs with like-minded people will stop you from taking yourself too seriously.  Everyone has their own problems and it is good to put them in perspective.  You are not the centre of the universe. Time with friends is what is needed when you are going overboard with your own obsessions and not getting enough rest.

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Dogs and cats have the right idea.  When they are feeling tired they take a nap.  Some places of business have a room where employees can do this when feeling tired.  Kind of like the afternoon siesta still practiced in some countries.  This prevents accumulated fatigue that can hinder work and in some cases is quite dangerous, especially when driving or operating any type of machine.  If you can’t do this during the day have a short nap when you get home.

If you do not want to spend you life in a constant zombie state then sleep is a necessity. This means that you might need to limit the amount of extra work that you do at night.  For your own health and to feed your creative mind, look after yourself and you will find it a lot easier to come up with inspiring new work.  And when you are feeling really tired have a nap and take time out to do something invigorating.  I know that’s what I should be doing.

Kat

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The Blogiverse and Synchronicity

 

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Out in the blogiverse there are some very inspiring blogs.  One fantastic blogger I follow, Inkbiotic , has posted a series of questions for other bloggers to answer about their motivation and interests to get to know fellow bloggers.  I had been planning to do a post about blogging and synchronicity, so I thought that it would be fun to combine this with answers to Inkbiotic’s questions. (I haven’t answered each question sequentially but these answers are within my prose)

The main reason I started this blog last October with my sister, Ellie, was for creative motivation and to share things that might help and inspire others in the same boat.  For over a year I have been helping to run and write posts on another website for a small community group that has nothing to do with my private site.  As I enjoy writing I thought I would give personal blogging a go because I was having trouble trying to balance daily life, art, music and songwriting.  At the moment I am doing most of the posts, but that is ok.  Ellie has a lot of things on her plate and finds writing more difficult than I do.  I would have to say that blogging on a personal site is harder than doing one for a special interest group, where you have a ready-made audience and can get your site linked on free subject related directories.

I think that if your main focus is writing, when doing this all the time blogging becomes easier as you get more experience. The only downside for me is that my visual art and guitar/ ukulele practice have been taking second place to writing, so I still need to work on my time management.  Talking to a fellow artist on the weekend, she said that she also has creative bursts then down turns with her visual art so I am not worried.  The most important thing with any type of creative work is stay relaxed because worry makes it harder to produce anything.

But I must say that reading so many fantastic blogs is very inspirational.  I like reading stories, both real life and fictional, poetry, viewing artwork and photos, anything in the creative field.  I don’t want to single out a favorite post or blog because there are so many wonderful ones out there.

For myself, I enjoy writing about my own creative processes, the problems as well as the successes and really relate to others struggles and triumphs.  I like taking photos of my artwork and environment and find this very helpful to organize and illustrate my thoughts.  A picture is definitely worth a thousand words.  This blog is also a safe place to put up some of my poems that I tend to keep hidden away, unlike my songs, which are easier to share in the real world.  My favorite post on my own site is always the one I am working on, as it is good to live in the moment.

I work from home so have the luxury of being able to view others posts on the laptop in breaks of my own choosing.  When viewing other blogs, I try to keep an open mind and respect different opinions from my own, but I have found that a lot of us creative bloggers are on the same wavelength anyway and rarely view anything distasteful.

Now this is where the synchronicity comes in.  Carl Jung coined this term when explaining “meaningful coincidences” with no causal relationship.  The most commonly given examples of such coincidences are when you are thinking about a friend and they ring you on the phone, or a song comes into your head and you turn on the radio and it is playing.  I have found that often when I am thinking about writing or have written a post on a particular subject, then I look at WordPress reader and another blogger has done something similar at the same time.

It is not as if I am reading masses of posts.  These coincidences occur in the small circle of people who I follow or read and on the posts of the subject tags that I like to view.  You could say that this is because creative bloggers are interested in the same things.  You know that great minds think alike and all that.  But “there are more things in heaven and earth, Horatio, than are dreamt of in your philosophy” to quote Shakespeare.

Over the years I have heard some scientists poo poo these types of coincidences by quoting statistical data and claiming that because you are thinking about an idea then this will increase your awareness and anything related will have greater significance.  But there could be a scientific explanation for meaningful coincidences after all.  A recent study in the field of Quantum Physics has offered an explanation of synchronicity with the concept of Quantum Entanglement.  Not being a scientist I will not attempt to explain this myself but here is a link to an article on the subject (quantum physics explains coincidences? ). The authors of the study suggest that coincidence can occur on a collective and global level through the Quantum Entanglement of mind and matter on an atomic level.  (Please read the article for further clarification).  If this theory is correct it could mean that our thoughts are in some way bouncing around out there in the world.  Mind boggling idea.

I think that it is wonderful to imagine the blogiverse as a great font of collective, as well as individual wisdom, that we are all tapping into.  It makes everyone that much more connected.  To quote The Police’s Song Synchronicity, which is where I first heard of this concept:

“A Star Fall,

A Phone Call

It Joins all

Synchronicity”

So fellow bloggers and any other interested readers, although our thoughts might be influenced by the strange laws of Quantum physics, we each have our own individual ways of expressing universal ideas so no blog will ever be the same as another.  I look forward to reading and viewing your posts.

Kat

(And thank you Inkbiotic for starting this dialogue)

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Goanna Samba

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Heath Goanna (Varanus rosenbergii), Kangaroo Island, South Australia,  Photo Cody Pope, Wikimedia Commons

Sometimes a line gets into your head and leads you to create  something from this small beginning.  That is how it was with this poem.   I could not get the words “goanna samba” out of my mind.  The idea of a Goanna doing a dance move tickled my imagination.  Creativity often comes out of incongruous associations.

Goanna Samba

Monitor Lizard, patterned wizard

In the bush invisible

Disappears standing still

Chases down smaller prey

Hiding in its clever way

 

Great Goanna, beneath verandah

When it’s hot, will meander

Doing the Goanna Samba

 

Sleek reptile, very agile

Climbing trees, with an ease

Catches barest noontime breeze

Beat the heat, sleep and laze

On dusty dry summer days

 

Goanna not salamander

Ancient dragon, so much grander

Doing the goanna samba

 

Smart Goanna, disaster planner

Good defense, survival sense

Finds escape beneath a fence

When bushfire comes suddenly

From raging flames quickly flees

Doing the Goanna Samba

Doing the Goanna Samba

© The Artist’s Child 2017

The Goanna, an Australian Monitor lizard, doesn’t always get the same attention as the cuddly marsupials, unless it does something dangerous to humans.  Yet they are amazing creatures and can be found all over Australia, except Tasmania.   The  Goanna can move very quickly when required.  It has a wonderful undulating gait that reminds me of the Samba dance step.

The following video shows a Goanna visiting a back garden in rural Australia.  Fabulous reptile to watch.

Kat

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Memories: Your Own Creative Database

We all have memories of past experiences that give us pleasure or haunt our dreams.  Our memory is a wonderful resource that can inspire artwork.  It is a way to relive a happy moment in your life by transferring the feelings of joy and wonder into something new and tangible.  Or to use a bad experience and transform it into another form so it no longer has any power to cause too much grief, or at least lessens the impact.

Memories can provide inspiration for both realistic or fantasy works.  Some great literature and art has been created from artists and writers using memory as their starting point.  Just a few examples include Charles Dickens use of his early life as a basis for David Copperfield; Harper Lee’s To Kill a Mockingbird based upon her childhood experiences in a small southern town; and the painter Marc Chagall’s beautiful and dreamlike imagery inspired by the scenery of his childhood in Belarus, part of Russia at the time.  We all have our own memory vault full of unique episodes and images from life that can trigger the imagination and lead us in all kinds of directions.  You never know what will surface.

Sometimes unpleasant memories require a creative solution so that you can move on.  I had a bad experience with someone on a bushwalking trip who was a bully.  I effectively dealt with the situation at the time, but it still came back to give me some anxiety and put me off bushwalking with complete strangers.  I decided to turn the episode into a series of tapestry designs and have fun with my anxiety and fear.  I also wanted to create a sequence where the girl is no longer the victim, so I created a bogeyman who gets his comeuppance. My two favorite images of the series are where the girl is frozen with fear in a protective egg, while the masked bogeyman stands over her (Overcome by Fear) and then after he is reduced in size and she sprays him with insecticide (Overcoming Fear).  Creating these designs made me laugh and feel a lot better.  If you reduce you anxieties to a manageable size they can no longer affect you and you can stomp on them like a bug (that is in the series as well).

Overcome by Fear
Overcoming Fear

Happy memories are usually the ones you treasure the most, especially those relating to childhood.  When it is impossible to go back and visit people and places long gone, the only thing you can do is to recapture and bring them back to life through art or writing.  My grandparents lived on Melbourne’s Yarra River, with an orchard that stretched down to the river’s edge.  It was like visiting the bush with the eucalypts and wildlife, which were part of the river’s ecosystem.  Looking back with some nostalgia I wrote some short poems that try to capture a child’s uncomplicated memories of that place.

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Kookaburra (photo by JJ Harrison, 2010,Wikimedia Commons )

By the River

Kingfisher by the Yarra

Watching the still water

Looking for fish

In a log by the river

Tiger snake likes to slither

Better not sit

© The Artist’s Child, 2017

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Tiger Snake (photo by Teneche, 2010, Wikimedia Commons)

There were only two rules that Ellie and I had to obey when visiting our grandparents. Don’t go near the river’s edge and watch out for snakes.  A Tiger snake had been found asleep in the living room fireplace when my mother was a child. One was sleeping under a log near the river when we were children, and we were kept well away.  As these snakes are deadly, we did not ignore this rule, although I never actually saw one.  In fact I have never seen any snake in the bush at all, probably because I stomp and make some noise so they will hear me coming and disappear.  Or I have just been lucky.

The Laughing Kookaburra, a type of Kingfisher, would steal the goldfish from my grandfather’s fishpond, so he placed a removable steel grill over it.  We would hear them laughing in the trees and it always made you want to join in.

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Tawny Frogmouth Mother and Chicks  (photo by Alan U Kennington, 2011, Wikimedia Commons)

Frogmouths

Three baby Frogmouths

Small bumps in a gum tree

Impossible to see

Then one blinks

Illusion broken

Unlike mother, frozen totem

© The Artist’s Child, 2017

The Tawny Frogmouth is a member of the Nightjar family.  Their tawny feathers act as camouflage in trees.  In one of the orchard eucalypts grandfather pointed out a delightful family of Frogmouths to us as children.  The babies had yet to learn the art of staying completely still like their mother, and would move their heads to look at us.

Bellbirds

Bellbirds ringing, singing

In the river valley of childhood

How they echo in my memory

© The Artist’s Child, 2017

This is probably what I remember and miss most about being down by the Yarra.  The constant calls of the Bellbirds or Bell Minors. Some people find their calls annoying but I find them soothing.  It was hard to believe you were in the middle of a city.

Here is a You Tube video that will give anyone unfamiliar with these birds a sense what it is like to be in their environment.

Everyone has a fantastic database full of memories and it is good to get that retrieval system working.  Once you start delving you will remember all kinds of things that can inspire, disturb or make you laugh and these can feed your creative work.

Kat

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Art Studios and Ordered Chaos

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I love viewing images of Artist’s studios so I thought I would share ours as it might give others some ideas.  I follow the principle of “ordered chaos”(yeah I know this is an oxymoron), where in the studio I have a lot of tools, supplies and reference material and it is arranged so that I can find things when I need them.  This is not to say that the system is perfect, as sometimes I do forget where something is, but most of the time it works.  I could never be a minimalist and would find this too restricting, yet a complete mess would drive me insane.

Recent studies (Why Creative People Have Messy Homes ) have argued that messy people are more creative than the extremely tidy.  To a certain extent I would agree with this idea, but I also think that if you can’t find anything and have no space to work it just makes you stressed, which hinders creativity.  If you have to spend hours looking for something or continually moving things on a desk to make space, it is a waste of your precious time and energy.  As with all things it is good to have some balance.

The secret to ordered chaos is that you have close at hand things you use regularly and store those not used often in an accessible place.  I also keep related items together and this makes it easier to locate individual articles, as well as being more aesthetically pleasing.

The key to this system is that you need a lot of storage.  This way I can house a lot of stuff without going crazy and becoming buried like a chronic hoarder.  For this purpose the studio has a mixture of second-hand and modern furniture, the latter coming mainly from a chain store (and parents).  The largest pieces are high pine shelves and a bench with cupboards underneath.  Flat pack style shelving was necessary, as the studio is on the second story and you cannot fit large furniture up the stairs.  There are some smaller shelves, a bookcase and assorted trolleys and tables.

The large shelves hold lots of storage boxes, baskets and containers full of art materials, tapestry wools, weaving and sewing materials, tools and memorabilia.   As well as the doll’s house and toy wardrobe mentioned in previous posts (17 Oct and 21 Nov, 2016), there is also a toy dresser that houses a tin collection and several vintage suitcases and a hat tin to store items.  On the stairwell wall is a multi-cultural mask collection, with a couple we made ourselves (very difficult to hang as you teeter over the void).  A bamboo screen hides the narrow shelves used to store canvases and other artworks.  There is a roof storage area off the studio for extra equipment that is not used often.

On the large table is an easel with a drawing board and all the tools you would need, like brushes and pencils.  Under the table is a drawer unit that contains art materials.  Next to this is a wooden boot drying rack, found at an op shop, that now holds paper and folios. It’s fun to find a new use for something that no longer serves any purpose.  Plastic storage bins on wheels fit under the table and computer desk so no space is wasted.

The advantage of having a studio separated from the living area is that there is room to make a creative mess and you can leave project materials where they are until you are ready to work on them again.  Ellie has a small study for computer work and drawing and uses the studio for painting and textiles.  In the latter, areas are set aside for different types of work, from writing, drawing and painting to sewing and tapestry weaving.

In a studio you can store a lot of things that otherwise would be chucked out.  Things that are great for inspiration, like natural objects, old toys and items collected from op shops.  As a creative individual it is common to see potential for artistic applications in items others view as rubbish and there is a danger of becoming an obsessive hoarder.  It is important to be selective with what is kept otherwise it could become unmanageable, so every now and then redundant stuff needs to get thrown out to be recycled, if possible.  But I admit this can be difficult.

Due to lack of space in the house, an old exercise bike and some hand weights are kept in the studio, which is not ideal.  And there is a clothes drying rack used in colder months on the other side of the room, out of view in the photos.   Sometimes it can feel a bit like a laundry.  All the stuff in the room does takes up a lot of the floor space, but as most of the furniture is light or has wheels, it can be moved aside when necessary.  It’s just a case of being flexible.

Storage seems to be a common problem for artists and some of those who I admire work in some sort of organized chaos.  In a thirty-year-old magazine I found an article about the brilliant London theatre designer and artist, Yolanda Sonnabend, who died in 2015.  Her studio was full of wonderful old distressed furniture and lots of fascinating and creative storage units.  It was cluttered, but not a chaotic mess and full of unusual and interesting objects.  There was even a dead tree hanging from the ceiling.  Here is a photo of the magazine page.

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Yolanda Sonnabend’s Studio, The World of Interiors, June 1984

Local Melbourne artist and living treasure,  Mirka Mora, also has a wonderfully cluttered studio with lots of interesting artifacts and furniture.  She wrote an inspiring book called Love and Clutter (Viking, 2003) about the memories associated with the various objects in her collection.   It is full of great photos of her studio.  Here is a link to an interview that she did about her life and work, with many pictures of her workspace:

thedesignfiles.net – interview with Mirka Mora

Everyone needs a place for creative play and if you don’t have a whole room that should not be a hindrance.  Even if you only have one living room you can create a corner workspace on a table or desk.  All is needed is a work surface and good lighting.  For really messy work there is nothing better than a car port or garage and if you live in an apartment you can drape a table with plastic sheeting.

With limited space you would probably need to be quite organized with the storage of materials otherwise it would be difficult to work effectively.  Because Ellie and I have several fields of interest this requires more storage space, but if you only use one or two mediums you would not need so much stuff and a simple shelving or drawer system might be all that is necessary.

It is possible to have a balance between order and chaos in your workspace without any extreme tidiness or messiness that could hamper creativity.  But that is just my opinion and it all comes down to what works for you.

Kat

For a further fix on creative people’s workspaces go to wheretheycreate.com