This Month

My first polaroid (and real camera, ever...) has brought me a lot of joy. Unfortunately, I need to get paid (win the lottery?) in order to be able to afford some more film packs. I don't want to have to write "sigh", but that is what I'm doing.

The first few attempts are obvious self-portraits in mirrors around the place.




Salva took this one in Belgium of me grooming the Murga Mascot.



And this was taken at El Minuto by the Cordially Acidic one, otherwise known as Chukias Isolabella.




Then I think I got the hang of it. Now, I don't want to have to draw a smiley face ":)", but that's what I'm doing.



Please intervene if I write " I heart Polaroid..."

I've also been painting.




I've added these to my Flickr where I'm building an online portfolio. It's embarrassingly lonely over there. Just saying.

I went to Antwerp, Belgium this weekend.

It's all about bikes and beer.

No really, it's more about music, art, community, culture, and all of those nice things that we miss a little bit living here in Valladolid.

I've lived in a lot of different places ever since I was a child, and so am good at just adapting to my surroundings.

As content as I am here, however, this weekend made both of us miss living in a dynamic, arty city, and one other thing:

The friends that we stayed with live in a sweet little quarter with pots of flowers in the footpaths and a pedestrian-type pace.

Our house is beautiful, spacious, white and wooden, and filled with streaming light. It's also incredibly ours. However it is situated above the main road connecting Valladolid to Madrid, and most other places. Traffic. Horns. Sirens. -In other words, sometimes we also crave a bit of silence. Like now.

Poor neglected Blog.

I've been away for a while. Enjoying this:

Doing this

Photographing these

Living this

and dreaming about living here

Now I've been back home for a few days, and am really busy working on an artwork for an upcoming concert. I'll show pictures as I progress a little further. I'm also working on a little mini-exhibition for a bar which my friend is opening, and I plan to use as my own personal gallery, though he doesn't know this yet.
I feel like it's very easy to lose your rhythm, and hard to get it back again. I feel a little unsettled at the moment. Maybe I should tidy my house....

Indian Yellow

Has anyone read this?

I found it so inspiring, I actually went to buy a pad of arches and set myself the task of painting 14 watercolours in 14 days.

They aren't anything to write home about. Very reminiscent of my teenage paintings with a lot of wild lines, scribbles and collage thrown in. A big veer away from the collection I'm working on, but that's ok. Good to try new things, and GREAT to find such an inspiring read. I might post some pictures later (yes, I'm a little self-conscious).

An interesting side point- Last night I was splashing around in watercolour happiness using a nice, mid-priced set I bought last year, only to find it had no indian (saffron) yellow, or even deep cadmium. Cadmium pale and Primary Lemon.


I'd like to take advantage of this public communication vessel to celebrate the beauty of that colour, that's what that photo there is about.


We are so drawn to different shades and colours. I used to think I painted in blues to balance out the earthiness of my capricorn self. Now I use nearly all ochres, browns and beigey neutrals. So go figure.

...

Spaghetti con le Cozze

This is a funny French couple walking on the beach somewhere between Marseille and Toulouse (Sorry, I can't be more specific).  They were very calm and comfortable in each other's presence.

This Summer we bought a Fiat Fiorino and drove it over land to Valladolid, Spain, where we live. This was taken on the first day of the journey, somewhere around Naples.

A beach cafe in Puglia. (The South of Italy where Salva is from)

This is some grafitti we found in Puglia this summer. It reads 'Give me a kiss' which we found hilarious, as it is the catch phrase of the average southern Italian. 

Cages

I've been alone in the house for a nearly a week, as Salva spent 5 days in Italy... About 5 minutes after he left the internet connection here fell, which was a moment of pure panic for me.

I am so, so dependent on the internet, for EVERYTHING- Communication with my family in Australia, images, blogging.... just inspiration.

Anyway. All of this served as an opportunity to take a few steps forward in the cage installation direction. It is such a slow process! I'm also working on an artist's statement, but in the meantime I'll share these photos.

Miradas Sonoras

I wrote about the Miradas Sonoras dilemma earlier this week. The project is Salva's. It's a series of concerts to be held in Valladolid relating to the Department of Ethnomusicology at the university here. The idea is to take concerts that would normally take place within the university for an academic audience, and make them accessible for the public. The concept I came up with, was 'Sound Released'. 

The story is as follows. I've been obsessed with birdcages for a few months now, and as soon as Miradas Sonoras put this idea to me I saw the bird as the symbol of the musician, the cage as its confines. My idea was to show the bird singing freely on top of its cage. It looks like this will be the poster for the event. It is a photograph of a painting of mine called, (you guessed it, 'Sound Released'). 

Birds, flight, freedom, nests and cages, they are all pretty, well, I won't say banal, but well-worn metaphors. There is an interesting scene of relevance in this film, which I watched with Salva the other night, AND my extremely talented cousin on the other side of the world is also, for some strange reason, thinking about this, AND we discussed it at length today at the flea market when we debated buying a beautiful orange canary, considering that by buying him and letting him free in the house, we were saving him from someone who would buy him and keep him in the tiny cage... This argument didn't hold in the end, as we decided that our house would only be a large, extended cage, and that we needed to boycott birds in captivity, especially if this installation is going to have any credibility. As Salva so beautifully put it, birds belong in the sky.

Anyway.

Translating the idea proved very interesting. 'Music Room' in Spanish, is 'Aula de Musica'. 'Cage' is 'Jaula'. This allowed for a nice little pun, 'Fuera de (j)Aula'. (Out of the music room, (cage).  OK so this is half of my involvement, the poster. When Salva tells me the dates and venues of the concerts the poster will also serve its purpose in conveying information. Aesthetically, I'm happy enough with it so far, though I'm sure it could be improved. Any ideas?

I also agreed to prepare an installation for the opening concert. I don't know why I thought I could do this. I've never prepared anything 3dimensional. It's such a challenge. The idea is to somehow transform the space and I'm completely stuck on how to do this. I don't even have the aesthetics clear on what I want to do with my handmade wire cages. Wood bases? Painted gold? Feathers and cloth and scruffy bits and pieces or clean, geometric lines...I'm used to deciding on these things as I work, which is quite possible with painting but with Sculpture I'm learning one must have clear ideas before starting.. I'll post some photos on here in the next couple of days. I'm going to need some constructive criticism.

To-do list.

So I mentioned that I'm new here, both to the online community and the actual physical city in which I live. (Valladolid, Spain, see photo). I came here with just a box of acrylic paints (which I no longer use) so it has taken me a while to regain my materials and a little store of artworks.

Now I'm ready to have an exhibition! It's a matter of looking through the phonebook and emailing photos. Wish me luck.

Other artistic projects going on- I seem to have somehow involved myself in (partner) Salva's undertaking to organise a series of world music concerts in various sites throughout the city... 

I am designing the poster, which allows me to stay in the 2 dimensional world where I am most comfortable. Theoretically, I'm also preparing an installation for the opening night... It will be a mass of empty bird cages hung from the ceiling, and I want to make them myself from wire. The problem is that I am seriously inexperienced with 3D things, so I will be snooping around today adding blogs, in a bid for some kind of technical support!

New to blogging...

This is my first blog entry, ever. Everyone has to start somewhere! I'm an Australian artist, currently based in Spain. I painted with acrylics for about 6-7 years, but have recently made the transition back to oils, which is what I started with when I first picked up a brush as a teenager. I've also recently discovered the world of mixed media (thanks largely to this book and this one). It may be corny to say this is exciting, but for me it really is. There is just something about finding something to cover in glue and stick to a plywood board that gets some people's motors running. Here I'll leave you with a snapshot of my studio floor. I will write more about the studio and it's contents in the coming days...