Installing rocks

Installing Newfoundland Fissure 2010 Photo courtesy of Art Affairs Gallery

Summer has arrived in disguise; the greying clouds and bursting rain falls feel more autumnal than weather for July. Things are quieter now the Mapping the Art exhibition has been installed and opened in Amsterdam (it continues until the 27th of August at Art Affairs Gallery, Veemkade 354). It was my first show I had co-curated and I was priviledged to have the help of Antoinette de Stigter the gallerist with this. 

It was so easy to persuade me to take a few days off afterwards and I had a "busman's holiday" in Brittany. I returned to the rocks I drew early in the Coastlines Project. There is nothing like stunning pink granite to really cheer me up.   

Pink Granite Coast, Brittany

Rock structure

For the first time we drove from the Netherlands. It is a very long journey with challenging traffic en route. We went via the coast of the Somme Valley. It is an incredibly powerful landscape because of its recent history. We both have great-uncles who were here, mine returned to South Africa but two of his remained buried in France amongst other Australians and the very many others who were lost. This landscape of loss is so very beautiful it is almost bewildering. The soil is so productive and the earth folds in gentle hills before slipping towards the water. On the lip with the sea a medieval town remains: Joan of Arc was imprisoned here, William the Conquer left from this region. It is a place of remembering and we stopped.

On the road with dimming evening light

Flying sticks

Quietly recovering from the extraordinary experience of building a large installation sculpture in under two weeks. A few months ago I was approached to make a work for Natuurkunst Drenthe, I had put in an application the year before and due to funding problems it did not go through and suddenly this year the project was on. It turned out to be a really busy time for me: a group show opening in Padua, Italy, another group one in New York and this sculpture. (Prior to departure for Drenthe I spent several days packing artwork for shipping).

The theme was "borders" and the work was to be site specific using forest materials. It was a project jointly supported by Stadsbos Beheer in the forest of Schoonoord which enabled me to use the local materials and my thanks go to Stadsbos beheer particularly Bernard who helped me source wood. My work is called the "Flying Wall". It is the simplest form of border, the fence division. It recalls earlier wattle and daub architecture. I wanted to show both fixed rigid borders and the fluid nature of these borders, demarcation lines change.

Rear view of "Flying Wall" during installation, photograph: Jantje Tijmes

Early morning light on installation

 The piece is made using American Oak, a non-native species chosen originally for its ability to act as a filler in the woodland but now growing rampant and is regularly pruned back. The oak sticks are tied to rubber cord that gives the piece its flexibility and allows it to bow under the weight while maintaining the wall shape.

"Flying Wall" note ground cover of American Oak saplings

 

Detail and already intergrating into woodlands so much that spiders are starting to spin webs within it.

The tallest point (approximately 6 metres above ground) the fence continues around the trees

The exhibition will continue until the beginning of January 2012. I want to go back and see how it weathers in snow. It is intended to be on show for six months and the designed lifespan of this is approximately 2 years.

Thanks are due to many people and organisations, I'd particularly like to thank Natuurkunst Drenthe, my sponsor Derby Rubber Products Europe BV for the rubber tubing and tie cord, my first assistant Jantje Tijmes for helping tie many of the sticks and for her help when I had an accident during the construction. Thanks too Stephen Sheppard for his invaluable help chopping and preparing the sticks and installing the highest section of the piece also to Lucas and Gerda Tijmes who also helped in this project and Dick Lubbersen who brought a ladder and his help exactly when it was needed. Best wishes to my fellow artists on this project whose company made this project all the more interesting.

flying over orange rock

Watson's Bay, Sydney

What a way to spend a birthday- on a bay in Sydney harbour. Five nights in Sydney and the city felt like my own again. To return to a place you haven't visited in more than 20 years is an amazing experience. The distance isn't as far as before when bridged by the Internet. It remains a place that makes me look and analyze my own environment, all is so different, the trees, animals and birds most of all. It is wonderful to have the view broken by the flight of an ungainly cockatoo or to wake to kokaburras.

Like birds facing the onset of winter we flew back to Amsterdam. The plane flew for five hours over the interior of the country and for most of that I was glued to the window. The earth here is so piercingly beautiful. Ripples of hillocks wrinkled the ground and the earth changed in shades of orange and red ochres. The plane flew over the coastline and in the ocean there were stretch marks, -fissures in the plates. I wanted to stay.  

NSW 2

black Angus and Angus cross cattle

 

 

 The Balck Angus has a very straight back. They are gorgeous looking beasts. Our journey was punctuated by sightings of these and wallabies.

Roadside in Coff's Harbour

 After the Merino I insisted on finally visiting the Big Banana in Coff's Harbour (en route to Mullinbimby). I confess that it wasn't quite big enough for my imaginings. I was crazy for the roadside signage everywhere in NSW but Coff's Harbour has reached heights that many can only aspire to! Rarely was there the same letter font to be seen. It may seem odd but I loved the chaos and the contrast with stately trees and wild cockatoos and the kitsch touch of man.

The big prawn Ballina

Almost by accident we happened upon the Big (faded) Prawn in Ballina as we headed southwards.

A beach at Limeburner's Nature Reserve near Port Macquarrie

 So many delicious beaches so much surf. this was enroute to Port Macquarie where we stopped for a lunch of Balmain bugs. The prawn earlier must have sparked off a hunger for them.

Newcastle Harbour

The last night before returning to Syndey was spent in Newcastle. It is a huge coal shipping port. The industrial past is fading and the city is reinventing itself. It is a surpringly cheery place.

NSW

A real road trip. This is such a car country and an amazing chance to see the rural landscape as most people experience it. We were definitely off the tourist radar as we wandered into areas of mining. I had never experienced places where the major roads would shut to allow explosions and even as drivers passing we were expected to turn off our mobile 'phones.

We started heading South to Nowra then northwards via Golburn and the Big Merino. We stopped near Orange and followed that by a day trip to Parks to see the Dish- the telescope out there. (There was also a film starring Sam Neill of the same name). From there to Mudgee, a place with a gorgeous name from Wiradjuri language meaning either "Nest in the Hills" or "contented" both which suit the place. Then as we headed north we discovered the coal mines and the land was broken.

 

This is the sort of rural NSW I have lost my heart to. These are also the sort of landscapes that are proving so rich in natural resources. Fortunately this remains farmed.

the road near Dorrigo

 We drove for hours and kilometres. As the sun set and antracite dipped storm clouds hung stationary over our destination we headed to Bellingen via a mountain pass from Dorrigo. It looked so simple on the map... visibilty went down to less than 5 metres, there were oil spills on the road, rock slides and roadworks where earlier storms had washed half the road away. Ealier a car had spun out of control and fortunately come to rest at 90 degrees to the traffic rather than slipping towards the edge. We came across the police reassuring two dazed but healthy tourists.

Sydney

[This time the blogs are posted on my return. Much to my surprise internet connection in rural New South Wales is no where near as good as I had expected.]

Anzac Bridge Sydney

Bridges: Sydney has more of them than when I last lived here. The Anzac Bridge is a pair of leaping air pyramids. The whole city is now crossed by tunnel systems and bridges that make the traffic flow.

 

Sydney Harbour Bridge

Sydney Harbour Bridge II

 My first week was urban. Spent in the city staying in two different suburbs. I gave a lecture at the COFA (part of the University of New South Wales). That gave me a sense of connection to the arts environment here and a chance to share a little of my experiences.

Kuala Lumpur

The sun disk slid under a cloud, burning a trail to the horizon, stealing day with it. This is my second night in Kuala Lumpur and a strange place this is. I am in a hermetically sealed hotel with comfy beds, air-conditioning and a balcony out onto the 13^th floor view. We hover over the road, train track and station, this place feels like it is developing daily. I know I am in Malaysia because a big lit up sign on a building beyond tells me so. There is also a 11 storey high hoarding for Kentucky Fried Chicken. I suspect many places feel like this in the tourist centre, it feels so artificial. It is easy to say this at this distance. All the time I am thinking: there is someone who lives with stair windows obscured by a fried chicken advert, people walk behind the profile of a luscious chicken thigh.

On the superfast train from the airport we were rushing through palm oil plantations and gorgeous shacks with corrugated tin roofs. These are rapidly being replaced by high rise pagoda style blocks of flats and the personal expression is now relegated to the hanging of washing from windows. The ex-architect in me loved the low-rise buildings organically following the earth and crowning tree line. From the abstraction of a train view it seems beautiful. The palm oil trees flood the landscape and in the distance a mosque rose above it.  

Tomorrow I fly to Sydney.