A Repository of Memories

Step inside my studio, if you will.

This is the view from the work table. My works on the opposite wall span well over three decades. Like all the walls in the new studio, it’s a repository of carefully selected memories. The oldest by far are the undergraduate self-portrait, circa 1982, (upper left hand corner), posted previously, and another student work, the still-life painting on its right. Some pictures have been stored away for decades. I’ve a tendency to feel ambivalent about older work, seeing nothing but its flaws. For the first time, it’s occurred to me that I might actually learn something from it. Nevertheless, it’s somewhat disconcerting to be eyeballed by a younger version of myself on a daily basis.

Directly below the self-portrait is a poster of one of my favourite paintings, Portrait of the Journalist Sylvia Von Harden, 1926, by Otto Dix. I discovered the original work on a visit to the Pompidou Centre in 1993 and still recall the colossal impact of that first sighting. The poster was purchased in the museum shop soon afterwards and it’s been one of my most treasured possessions ever since. For a short biography of Von Harden, go HERE.

The oil pastel drawing in the bottom corner, far right, dates from the same period and is another work that hasn’t seen the light of day for many a long year. It was made at the Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris, where I was undertaking a three-month long Australia Council residency.

During this happy and productive time, Shane Jones, who I’d met the year before, joined me for several weeks and produced a substantial number of oil sketches. A selection of these, including a couple of portraits of me, as well as an exquisite, and (viewed in the light of recent events), poignant drawing of Notre Dame Cathedral, now hang in our Ballarat house. They too had been in storage, due to lack of wall space. It’s quite moving to be reunited with these fragments of our shared history after so many years. To view Shane's drawing of Notre Dame, visit his Instagram Page HERE and scroll down to his post of 10 June 2019.

NB: Since this was posted, Shane has published his drawing of Notre Dame Cathedral on his art blog. You can view it HERE.

Compliments of the Season

After seven months of serial house moving, Shane and I are looking forward to staying in our new house today and doing as little as possible, at least for most of the day.

This evening, we'll follow our long tradition of visiting a dear friend in Melbourne and enjoying a classic film at the Alhambra, his home cinema, along with a small group of likeminded friends. This year, it's the delightful My Man Godfrey (1936) with Carole Lombard and William Powell.

Meanwhile, our own home cinema is taking shape, although it still lacks a projector. At present, our Christmas tree graces the stage.

In the following photo, a seemingly benign Alice has positioned herself under the tree ...

... but soon blots her copybook by trying to eat one of the decorations, a miniature cuckoo clock from Germany.

However you celebrate today, or if you simply choose to ignore it, have a safe and happy day.

A house and drawing in progress

For the past several weeks, I've been juggling house moving with work, a balancing act that's becoming increasingly precarious as the settlement date for our old place approaches. Throughout this unsettling and disruptive time, drawing has provided a much-needed sense of equilibrium and continuum.

Several of the drawings will eventually form the basis for larger scale works, once the dust on our move has settled. The most recent drawing, pictured above, was started at our old place and further developed in my new studio (pictured below). Like the rest of the house, the studio is very much a work in progress. It's unlikely to remain in this minimal state for very long.

The following photos were snapped a few weeks ago, the day after Shane Jones and I got the keys to the new house. Our friends Tim Gresham and Gaye Britt popped in for an impromptu celebration that started in the cinema room on the first floor, then gravitated downstairs.

Our new home is gradually taking shape as we simultaneously cut ties with the place we called home for the past nine years. Pictured below is an updated view of our cinema room. The easel painting to the right of the windows is an trompe l'oeil work by Shane.

Alice is loving the new house and has made herself completely at home. The sculpture on the far right, below, is by Dean Bowen.

Pictured below is a cosy corner of our reading room. Originally the projection room for the cinema, it's my favourite room in the house.

On the table in the library is another trompe l'oeil painting by Shane, paired with the paperback novel, Shane, on which it's based.

On Monday morning the removalist will collect the really heavy stuff from the old house and studio, including our etching press. Setting up a shared printmaking studio/workshop in our new place will be among the challenges facing us in the new year, and beyond. The prospect is somewhat daunting. But we've already come this far, I reckon we're up for it.

Apiarist

Apiarist, ink and gouache on Khadi paper, 21 x 15 cm

Pictured above: Apiarist, a study for a larger-scale work, but also a finished drawing (or near enough to it), made during the interminable house moving that has dominated most of this year. (More about that soon).

The work is one of several undertaken during my stay in Melbourne for the 2019 Melbourne International Film Festival back in August, although the drawing was still barely outlined by the time MIFF had ended.

One of my favourite MIFF films was the documentary, Honeyland. Its message and real-life heroine, Hatidze, a Macedonian bee keeper, impacted directly on the making of Apiarist. 

Following are a selection of progress views.

Packing up

For the last few days, Shane Jones and I have been in Abbotsford, beginning the long, arduous task of clearing, packing and sorting a lifetime of possessions, AKA, Stuff. 

We’ve made considerable headway in wrapping our sizeable collection of artworks, some of them our own, many by friends and other artists whose works we admire. (The night scenes in Shane's cloud paintings, pictured above, top centre, are precursors to the work in his solo show, Glow, which opens this afternoon at Charles Nodrum Gallery).

We have settled into a smoothly coordinated production line, with me constructing bubble wrap bags, Shane packing them and Alice providing comic relief. For her, all this is heaven. She gets to indulge in some of her favourite pastimes, like playing on the table (strictly forbidden, but apparently no one told Alice, except me, at least two hundred times) and rolling around in bubble wrap, a particular obsession of hers.

As far as repetitive, seemingly endless tasks go, I’ve come to the realisation that I’d rather pack up artworks than books. We seem to have a bottomless pit of those too, despite periodic attempts at downsizing. Recently we boxed up our books at my Ballarat house prior to new carpet being laid. The process was so mind-numbingly tedious, I couldn’t face putting them all back, only to have to go through it all again when the house is sold. Most are in storage until we move into our new place. 

The thing is, books and artworks are such a big part of our history, that any serious attempt to cull is inevitably doomed. St. Martha, the Patron Saint of Housewives (as portrayed in my 1997 painting, pictured above), reckons that compared to moving house, slaying dragons is a cinch.

Meanwhile, the downstairs area is piling up with our possessions and looking more like the last scenes in Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane by the minute. A slight exaggeration, perhaps; nevertheless, if we find a sled called Rosebud down there, I wouldn’t be at all surprised.

Good news

In recent news, these things happened: whilst walking Alice last week, Shane received an extremely welcome phone call regarding his warehouse apartment in Abbotsford, which has been up for sale. Scroll through to see the happy outcome.

Of course, Alice is convinced it was the photo of her on the real estate sign (see below) that clinched it, and to be honest, the agent (whose advice throughout the whole process has been right on the ball) was keen to include her in at least one shot.

Thank you so much to everyone who left messages of support and encouragement when we placed the Abbotsford place on the market at very short notice, our fingers tightly crossed.

We celebrated with a celebratory glass of bubbles in the ACMI cafe before last night’s Cinematheque screening.

We’re still hard at work preparing my Ballarat house for sale. Meanwhile, we’re a step closer to moving into our Art Deco dream house and making Ballarat our permanent home.