art taking over the house..

far better art than mold!!
My studio is smelling very damp.

incubating

Beyond The Measures

An Amazing stark of light
Would Bright, pierce the shrouds of haze
A wonderful blaze from the insight
Reflecting how images from the cave of our delight
Nostalgia, the glimpses of rough old footpaths, black
Touching the blare of hazy blown rain drops
And chasing the night oblivious sublime
The streets in lost foggy deep self to the wind of an ancient mariner
The words of fallen letters
And the letter that shin to a consciousness of a moment
Waiting, for lovers to meet
And fingertips to collide
Sounds jumping to the corner of my mind
And the voices of all my memories chasing me to the deep
Touches my veins and shivers my whole
I am the all in one, anticipating, inviting my inspiration to approach
Beyond my whole measure

Thank you for this precious collaboration of a great moments of our lives to be inspired and reflect upon.

I'm truly honored to share with you all this constructive and creative thoughts of every moment of our project

Thanks for your effort, time and devotion you give.

To my fellow artists, Tracey,Wanda and Fiona

Shiha

super nature

Hi all, had a fantastically inspiring drive home after our last get together, my creative brain went into overload, fueled by the great Asian noodles suggested by Fiona, although not the best thing to eat whilst driving! Any ways after letting my creative thought process go wild, the practical side of me has now started to reign in my ideas to try and decide on one achievable concept, a piece of work that explores our themes of- shared memories, interaction, reflection, illumination and hidden stories - During my process of 'concept elimination' I explored and really thought about the 'core essence' of my own work, and what makes me do what I do.
I'm always tempted to fling myself into the unknown to explore totally new methods of working for new projects, but this time round I feel with our relatively short production time line , I'm going to feel far more confident if I continue to develop some of the ideas and materials I've been working on and in over the past 12 months - I feel the fusion of hand made felt fibre with synthetic resin and perspex have really exciting prospects with beautiful illumination qualities.
A concept I keep being drawn to is the idea of a large scale floor labyrinth, interactive with pressure sensored illumination, hidden secrets, and many paths of life all leading to a central light. Labyrinths them selves are something that every one has some association with, or memory of. For me labyrinths are very representational of life journeys, twists and turns, some shared some alone , some light , some dark.
So thats my ramblings for now - on a practical note, i'm very excited at the challenge of constructing a false / raised floor, that the perspex and felt pieces could be inserted into - DO ABLE, will have to really explore the pressure sensor light technology, and cost of weight baring perspex. Start on Marquette next week
Some great friends of mine in the UK who work together under the name of 'collective nonsense' worked on a project called 'super nature' part of it was to construct a large scale outdoor disco dance floor ' so have emailed for technical info .. check it out visit www.johodges.co.uk and I think its under collaborative projects, shes also got some nice projection installations
x ramble again soon
Wanda

imagination . .

Hi all, so good to meet again, even in the sticky late afternoon heat!

Do you like the blog description? I am loving this shared creative space, what a wonderful thing to be a part of!

I am hearing some themes emerging, let me know if you think this is on the right track . . .

Shared stories: secrets, disclosure, revelation, recognition, sensory triggers, archetypes, collective memory

Transitions: dark to light, hidden to revealed, silence to sound, mystery to unveiling

Responsiveness: participation, interactivity, play, discovery by doing, viewer/audience invited to share

Wishing you a cool night,

Trace

Trees

Hi again,
I have just read through the rest of the blog and How bizaar, you would not believe the coincidence that I too have been thinking loads about trees.. particularly.. BANYANS.. dododododo ( weird cosmic/ sci fi sound effect:)) , both in connection with our project and also as a possibilities for an additional visual aspect for the river rock to mountain top festy.. My glow bug workshops went down really well, the last one being out in Gargett, and I got speaking to Vern from the festival re the possibilities of getting UV spots to be suspended around one of the large trees in the parks and one of the community workshops being used to created weird, wonderful and beautiful UV creatures and plants to attach to the tree. This then led me to day dreaming images of very ethereal, illuminated branch like structures, with vines and hidden nooks and how they might connect to paxtons.
Hmmm, so yes even whilst on hols the brain has been ticking over,
see you all this evening
wanda

helllooooo

Hi guys, wahey i'm blogging!!, and yes it is truly easy for those of us who are slightly cyberly challenged, I'm impressed. Apologies for being slightly slow off the mark guys, I should have explained that I really try and totally take time off during the summer holidays, for me this is a really precious time with my kids and I find it's really important as both working from home, and doing work that you love can sometimes mean you never take a break from your work, so for me the Xmas school hols are my yearly break, And its been fantastic, well needed and I'm feeling all recharged and creative again!. So don't worry guys we are now sadly counting down the days until the end of our blissful break, and I will be once again 100% engaged in our project and the wonderful world of art. So that's it from me, thought I'd better make a quick entry before tonights get together. AND GUYS I THINK THIS BLOG IS GOING TO BE GREAT,
love and light,
Wanda

Hi again

I thought I would post this picture. I took this while in Central Australia, I love fact that nature will take hold where ever it wishes. I love the thoughts provoked by this solitary tree, humble in its strength and so beautiful with the light, shadow and colour in this image.

Fiona xo

Trees

Hi all

There is a sacred fig at Queens Park I think I have some info on it from Sharon (MR Parks) at work, will have a look and get it to you. There is also the Leichart Tree on River Street (this is a very significant tree to many, and holds history for the Australian South Sea Islander People), you will find alot of info on it in our history books. Berenice Wright is a local historian who would probably have many stories to tell us about the trees around Mackay.

There is also the Jubilee tree (Now located in Queens Park). It has many historcal stories associated with it too. I may have a recording about it from old interviews I did for previous projects...will have to look...

I also have been collecting a photographic series of trees..Will collect them up some day soon and show you.

I have a fella here at the moment (Eduardo) He is an IT wizz from Colombia and is restoring my old PC that had died and taken with it all my old recordings and installation work. He is backing it all up now and will fix my computer...He's says I have to treat it like a baby now, and if I do this it should continue to work!! YAY!!!

Nothing else to report...other than today being hotter than I would like and I hope rainclouds take away the light from the sky and replace it with lots of cooling rain!!

Fiona xo

Tree Musings

Hi all, I hope you find your way onto here soon Wanda and Madgy!

I might be getting a bit ahead of myself here but I woke up in the night with "Ban-yan" in my head, so got up and did a bit of research - I've been thinking of a tree, a large spreading tree, like a banyan, that sends down new roots from its branches . . thinking of internally lit pillars of cut boxes for the trunks, hanging white leaf skeletons . . anyway my imagination is off and running, like the sourdough starter on the top of my fridge, all bubbling and fermenting furiously!

Today I've been reading about significant trees - the Great Banyan in India, a banyan that covers 4 acres; Yggdrasil, the great tree of Norse mythology; Celtic stories of the branch of white blossoms given to Bran on his voyage; Tolkien's Trees of Valinor (Telperion and Laurelin) and the White Tree of Gondor, decended from the White Tree of Numinor, which was saved from Telperion; the Biblical Tree of Life . . . many many trees . .

And the sad remains of the avenue of glorious figs near Pleystowe, and the strange desire of people to cut down trees for no apparent reason . . . in Celtic culture a large tree would be kept when land was cleared, and the greatest outrage you could perform against your enemies was to cut down their mother tree (echoes of all this in Avatar as well - lots of archetypal references in there.)

I need to to go the Botanic Gardens and have a look at the Banyan tree there, and find out about other significant trees in Mackay.

check this out! very interested in how they get the LED strips into the acrylic like that!

http://www.inhabitat.com/2009/11/04/living-light-is-an-interactive-real-time-map-of-seouls-air-quality/

My first Post!!

Well...I welcome myself to the realm of Blogging!! Hello Wanda, Tracey and Magdy.

I'm impressed I got this far, for a digitally challenged girl such as myself it was a bit of a challenge to work out how to make a post...but I got there and feel better for it. Might take me a while to work out how to leave a video message now, but promise I will at some point.

Glad to be at the end of my work day, four days into my first week and I'm already feeling the pressure of local government ways!! Oh well...what with my new work ethic of a well lowered bar...I should be fine!!

This whole blogging experience has also inspired my ideas for this year's Regional Arts Awards...won't divulge too much until I know whether this blog is going to be public or just between us....

It would be interesting to gain input from potentially anyone who cares to, although for an introvert like me it also might cause me to edit my contributions....oh, it already has....

Anyway, I look forward to the evolution of this process, and will enjoyit where ever it takes us.

Bye for now

Fiona xo