onefourfour: October

Our theme for October was COLOUR.  I really love the work everyone made for this theme, you can see them all on the onefourfour blog here!

glee

onefourfour: June

Our onefourfour theme for June was PLACE. 

Not surprisingly I returned to my spiritual home - the bush near where I grew up.  But I did want to photograph it a bit differently than I have before.  Shooting through leaves is something I do often but this time I have made the landscape more distorted and darker, I didn't want a straight sunny landscape photo.  Anyhoo I hope you like it!  onefourfour.blogspot.com

onefourfour: May

Our theme for May was SPACE! 

This time I thought I'd try something different, a very literal and straight photograph.  I photographed the full moon on the 15th of May - I only remember because it was my son's birthday!  You can check out all the other wonderful submissions at onefourfour.blogspot.com

onefourfour: April

Our onefourfour theme for April was FORM and this is my piece.  I put on as many dresses as possible, was pretty hot under there.  Plus I forgot my remote so lucky Erika was there to press the shutter!  Check out the other eleven awesome works at http://onefourfour.blogspot.com.au/2014/05/april-form.html

I've realised that my three projects (onefourfour, This Wild Song, and my upcoming show thisplace.  about motherhood) seem to be overlapping with themes of camoflague throughout...

onefourfour: March

For the onefourfour project we work to a different theme every month, and March's theme was COLLAGE. 

It took me a little while to come up with an idea for this theme as it was so broad, so I started where I always do - thinking about where I was at in my life at that point.  And it so happened that I was feeling pretty jaded with the arts industry and questioning my arts practice.

I had splurged and bought the Art Collector magazine, I didn't even finish reading the mag and started cutting out the pretty pictures to make a collage instead.  Once I removed the colour images I realised I preferred what was left behind.  I found my favourite page where you could see glimpses of the rest of the magazine and turned it into a mask that I could tie on my head for the photo.

I shot this in the afternoon using window light.  I set up the camera, put my dots on then realised I had 10 minutes before I had to pick my son up from school!  I tied the magazine to my head and wrapped the string around my hair to keep it in place.  I knew exactly how I wanted it to look so I used the remote to take a lot of photos, and continually moved my head to ensure I photographed the magazine at the right angle.

I love how it turned out and it looks beautiful printed on cotton rag paper.  My idea for onefourfour came about from wanting to push my practice further and develop ideas that have been floating around my head for a long time, and it's working!  I love this project and I love promoting female Australian artists, there are so many talented women and I hope you enjoy the works that are being created for onefourfour.  Good times.

http://onefourfour.blogspot.com.au/

onefourfour exhibition as part of Art in Public Places

We're very excited to have been invited to participate in Art in Public Places where onefourfour will be exhibiting its first three months of work to the themes of LIGHT, SURFACE and COLLAGE!

OPENING SATURDAY 5th APRIL 1-3PM
Exhibition dates: 3 - 27 April

Location: Narelle Byrne Gallery, 2/13 Cole Street Williamstown
Hours: Thursday to Sunday 11am-4pm

studio visits for This Wild Song

I'm currently doing studio visits with artists that I've asked to be a part of This Wild Song and this week I met with Melanie Fitzmaurice who makes beautiful sculptures like the one above, plus Hannah Bertram who creates amazing dust works and does 24 hour drawing projects.  Yup, you read that right.

I've been following these artists for quite a while so it's been great to meet them in person and collaborate on this project.  We've come up with quite epic costume ideas for both of their portraits which is equally freaking exciting slash oh crap am I going to be able to pull this off??

behind the scenes with Kim Buck

Hey Kim, soooooo any chance you'd be up for me covering you in charcoal and taking your portrait? .......... my proposal went something like that.

Kim Buck creates photo-realist charcoal drawings and the theme of the This Wild Song portraits is for the artist to become a part of their work.  My idea for Kim was to have her amongst the trees, covered in charcoal so she blends into them, creating a shape that was similar to one of the poses in her own work, and with a white sheet as a canvas.  I found the perfect spot which was the Black Forrest behind Woodend (Victoria), another reason for choosing this area is that my sister lives nearby so Kim could shower afterwards!

We shot the photo on a muggy and overcast day in December.  I'd been flat out with the kids that day, picked up Kim, drove to Woodend, dumped the kids at my sister's, and drove to the location.  The light was fading, which was extra pressure as I'm shooting these portraits at f11 at least, and we still had to make the mixture and cover Kim.

It has been a mad rush all day and I found it difficult to make the transition to artist-brain, to quieten down and look at the compositions of the landscape.  I danced around for longer than usual trying to pick the perfect location, wondering whether the white sheet as a canvas was going to work or look just plain naff.  I was really feeling the pressure with the light fading, photographing someone else, not wanting to subject poor Kim to a reshoot, and wanting to create a freakin awesome portrait.

We made the mixture of charcoal and glucose, with some water and black acrylic paint.  Then Kim got covered in the lovely mixture which you can see above, and I threw some ash and extra charcoal bits on her for more texture.  I couldn't believe it when I got the negs back and I got the shot in the fifth frame, instincts for the win!

By the end of it I was completely exhausted, sweaty, stinky, dirty and totally in my element.  It was a hard day but also super fun and definitely worth it.  Thank you sooooooo much to Kim for being a total trooper and going along with my crazy idea, you are all sorts of awesome.

check out the final portrait and Kim's interview on the This Wild Song blog

behind the scenes - Susan Wirth for This Wild Song

When I first discovered Susan Wirth she was creating mixed media works, like the following piece.  I approached her to be a part of the This Wild Song series and when we met in person I was surprised to learn how her practice had altered course, and she was currently working on wearable sculptures and forms.  I was intrigued how she felt changing direction, and as she mentions in her interview it didn't feel like a huge shift as she's always worked across multiple disciplines.

Susan is currently an artist in residence at Laughing Waters which was Clifton Pugh's studio and residence.  Located close by is The Black Dam which is a small watering hole, and it's said that Rick Amor gave it its name.  When Susan sent me some photos of the dam I knew that was where I wanted to shoot her portrait, waist deep in it no less.  Thankfully she was up for it and didn't mind getting the beautiful suit she had made wet.

We shot her portrait on a warm morning in December and I played around with a few ideas (just in case) and saved the dam images for last.  I was shooting on film and I love the following photograph but it didn't quite have the impact I wanted.

As it turned out the photograph I selected as her portrait for This Wild Song was one of the last pictures I took, and it was on the digital camera for safety/back up.  It had been overcast all morning and when we were just about finished a little slice of sunshine came through highlighting her in the water.  Lucky timing!

You can view Susan's portrait and interview on This Wild Song here

Thank you so much to Susan for agreeing to be a part of the project, I had an absolute ball shooting this portrait.  Good times.