pulleys and thread

BTS with MISO for This Wild Song

 

I was thrilled when Stanislava Pinchuk aka MISO agreed to be a part of This Wild Song.  I absolutely love her work and she generously gave me her time two days before she's was going overseas for 6 months.

The theme behind the TWS portraits is for the artist to become a part of their work so for MISO I wanted her to be absorbed in the galaxy or stars.  I used The Art Room to shoot in and hung lights from the roof to encase her but it wasn't quite the look I was after.  I then projected a galaxy onto her which worked great, MISO had also made a small work to project light through but the light I had wasn't strong enough which was really disappointing!  I shot digital, 35mm film and some polaroids which I need to scan.  

These are my favourites, there were so many great shots which is always a good thing!  The portrait I've chosen for TWS will be revealed on the website I'm building as we speak, I'll hopefully finish it in a couple of weeks after I've gotten past some other deadlines.

A huge thank you to Stanislava for not only saying yes, but saying yes to squeezing in the shoot, and just being lovely in general :)

Ps. I've now created an instagram account dedicated to this project which you can follow at @thiswildsong

winter reshoot for onefourfour

I'm getting all my onefourfour pieces ready for our show and have decided to reshoot a couple that I'm not happy with.  Today the kids and I went exploring in the bush and while they played dragons and pretended to chop down trees, I found the perfect trees for me to use as a backdrop.  Today I reshot August's theme of WINTER, very apt as it was 11c!

The last time we were out the bush exploring/trying to take photos a certain someone accidentally dropped my remote in the creek so I employed Mr. 7 to press the shutter for me.  Having kids definitely comes in handy sometimes!  Not always though...  I had another place picked out where the trees had been burnt (controlled clearing from summer) and the blue gum leaves had grown back, it looks so beautiful.  Buuuuut as soon as I picked my spot someone needed to go to the toilet, then someone wanted to go 'mining' at a different creek, so that didn't really work out.  Funnily enough that spot was where my remote was lost last time and I had the worst shooting day, I just couldn't get a composition and didn't shoot anything actually!  Maybe I'm not meant to use that location for a photo....  Anyhoo this is what I made today.

onefourfour exhibition

We're very excited to be exhibiting the complete one hundred and forty four works from last years onefourfour!  A huge thank you to Erika from The Art Room for hosting the pop up exhibition.

There will be free drawing sessions held on the Sunday as well!  Please come say hi, I'll be there both days :)

art & australia

So you may have heard the horrible news that our government has cut funding from the Australian Council for the Arts and they've received $23 MILLION LESS than expected for the remaining 2015 and 2016 grants.  What does that mean for artists?  It means the June grants have been cancelled for a start, of which I was about to send in application.  It didn't really sink in at first but when you read the statement on Ozco's website it hits home how badly this is going to affect artists.  The changes include;

• the Australia Council June grant round, including government programs, will not proceed
• existing applications can be assessed within the September round, which will include multi-year project support for individual artists and arts organisations
• the six-year funding for organisations program is suspended
• the Australia Council will honour the current contracts of multi-year funded organisations until their conclusion at the end of 2016
• the ArtStart, Creative Communities Partnerships Initiative and Artists in Residence programs will not be offered in the future.

I'm at a bit of a loss really...  It takes so much work to write a grant application and get it ready, and the odds aren't great to begin with.  And now they're even less!  I'm working on the hugest project of my life This Wild Song, and it will probably become a lifelong project.  I believe in it, it's important, I feel driven to support and promote women in the arts yet I'm going to need help to realise it.  But who is going to help me?  I'm determined that TWS is getting made despite these cuts.  I'll keeping applying for whatever grants are left and probably crowdfund to get it started as well, I'll make it happen no matter what!

so.

Long day today.  Blood test in the morning helped me justify not achieving anything.  Stuck in a bad cycle of too tired to do anything, the cluttered and messy house is zapping my energy, ergo walking in circles aaaand getting out of trackies feels too hard.  Anyhoo!  The one minute I was allowed to take photos of Mr. R in the beautiful and fleeting afternoon light was ace.

pulleys and thread

I'm not really sure where to begin, so I guess I'll start at the start...

My maternal grandmother passed away from breast cancer when my mum was 7, my mum had breast cancer when I was 21, and my aunty had breast cancer last year.  I was tested about 8 years ago which confirmed I have BRCA2, the gene defect that means I'm high risk for breast and ovarian cancer - I think the stats were 60-85% chance of getting cancer.  Ps. Hey doctors if there's 3 of you coming in to give someone results it kinda gives it away...

The next step was to become a part of the Peter Mac family and go in every 6 months for a physical check up, and have a mammogram and MRI every year.  It hasn't worried me to have the gene I just found going in so regularly with two young kids in tow slightly pesky.  It was only when my aunty got cancer that I had a reality check, that it's probably a case of when I get cancer rather than if.

I've decided to have a mastectomy this year which will take my chance of getting cancer down to 1-2%, and I'll have a hysterectomy in a year or two.  And then no more Peter Mac!!!!  (don't get me wrong, everyone at Peter Mac is super lovely)  I've also decided to take part in a clinical research which consists of having a biopsy of breast tissue, I'll have a few injections, they'll take another biopsy at the time of my surgery, then they can compare what the drug does to the cells over time and hopefully it will help someone!

If I get cancer I'd have to have the surgery anyway plus chemo and maybe radio.  So rather than get sick I'll have the surgery, be sore for a while and then be on my merry way.  Well that's the plan anyhoo.

I was a little unsure about going public with this but decided that I want to keep a journal to help me process these experiences.  Taking photographs helps me file away thoughts, extra room in my brain is always good - it's valuable real estate up there.  I've been shooting black and white film, using my phone when I can't use my camera, and will do some self portraits.  No gory stuff don't worry, but more observations.  I see this body of working coming together as a photo book with a fabric cover embossed with gold lettering FREE BOOB JOB.  I've called the work pulleys and thread though, searching for free boob jobs on the internet doesn't seem like the best idea somehow...  This body of work will be shot from the hip, often literally, lofi and honest.  It might totally suck and I'll never exhibit it but I definitely need to make the work.  I'm sharing images on my instagram account and will write about it here.

So far I've had lots of appointments, a MRI, a biopsy, an injection, and blood tests.  I'll write about those experiences next time......