xox
Author Archives: lilymae
Plait drawing
Reflecting Surfaces – Elwyn Murray
Today Toddler, Mum and I went to this exhibition by Elwyn Murray at the Counihan Gallery, it’s a smart space situated to the side of the Brunswick Library. I had been looking forward to this exhibition and I just felt I had to tell everyone I know to go and see it.
My gosh it’s good. It’s not something that you can capture or get an idea of in a photograph so this is part of the reason why I am telling people to go but mostly – you can really see the work, effort and love that has gone into it – it deserves peoples time.
This man has a lovely hand and I’m just so impressed and excited and wow – it’s one of those things I am going to be remembering for a long time.
Reflecting surfaces is open until July the 21st.
You can see more of Elwyn’s work on his website here: Elywn Murray
Gallery information is here: Counihan Gallery
Drawing our vintage camera collection
I’ve taken to drawing our cameras over the last fortnight – it’s good for my brain and nice to be doing something a little more freehand.
We have quite an large collection and I’m also making plans to draw and paint other objects I admire around our house. There’s the bulky type writer I recently bought – ugly but functional – the vintage kitchen cabinet I snatched up from Gumtree, then random pieces of crockery and tea cups. You get the idea. Lots of things.
I want to draw all the things.
Documentary Drawing for Pop Up School
I’ll be teaching a drawing class at the beautiful Abbotsford Convent for Pop Up School – Documentary Drawing. It will focus on turning the mundane and everyday into art.
Details:
Date: Saturday 20 July 2-5pm
Venue: Antique Bookstore, Abbotsford Convent
Fee: $75 Full $68 Concession Materials will be supplied.
Working, thinking
I feel like I have been drawing this drawing forever. Which is utter nonsense because I only started it last week .. perhaps the week before.
But I’m at that point where even though I work and things get drawn and it’s evolving – I feel like it isn’t going anywhere.
Perhaps this is the danger of focusing all of my time on just one artwork. Maybe this is why I ( usually ) work on many artworks at once. Because if there is just one work then I think about that work. I think about it while I’m working on it, I think about it when I am packing up from working on it, I think about it at dinner time, I think about it while I’m showering, spending time with loved ones, changing a nappy. I think about it on trains and in cafés and I think about it while I am trying to sleep. Which is the worst because with no other outside influence I think about it in a hyper-realistic state. I note the textures, the way the ink takes hold of the paper, the layers – I feel myself drawing it.
So then I am doing all of this thinking and feeling and it’s taken up so much of me it almost feels like it is going to implode. There’s too much and when there’s so much information and feelings it’s almost like I’ve experienced this artwork completely and then I think, well, I don’t have to finish it. Because I’m kind of lost to it and what’s the point anyway.
So this is the point I photograph and upload it onto this blog to say look, I’m making things and something is happening – even if my tired brain, eyes and hands tell me otherwise.
New works in progress
I have set up a new space. It’s bright with natural light, completely the opposite of the painting cave I had in Berlin – though the cave did serve me well! I do have to paint in a sunhat though, the Australian sun is so strong and I sit underneath a skylight.
I’m working towards my exhibition mid year. We will be exhibiting a collection of drawings and paintings – I’ve made a lot of work that has never been exhibited in Australia so we will be choosing from them as well as some newer works.
I’m focusing more of hands and feet at the moment, as well as improving my drawing and painting techniques. Which means the work is more intense but I’m feeling pretty excited about what I’ve been making.
I’ll be working on a few portraits we well, but I’ve been working – collecting and sketching – for these hands and feet for so long I just HAD to start with them.
It’s good to be making works again.
Lily Mae
x
Drawing my face
The Lifted Brow
I have drawings all throughout the latest issue of The Lifted Brow ( #15 ) it’s an nifty publication with loads of art, writing and commentary in it.I’m keeping pretty good company in this issue.
You can purchase a copy from here: LINK
Thank you Sam & Ronnie for your interest and support in my work!
Lily Mae xx
That’s it!
Well this blog has been quite. It used to be where I wrote to share my thoughts, travels, anxieties and joy but since it was hacked mid year and now turned into something I still don’t know how to use, I’ve neglected it.
Sorry.
I really don’t know how to use it and I’m not actually sure anyone reads this anymore but hey. I’m still here, it’s still here. We’ll give it another crack, next year.
This year has been a big one. I’ve faced challenges that I didn’t expect, been in hospital more times than I care for and moved country ( again ), made HEAPS of new and amazing friends and I got gallery representation. I’m super happy, exhausted, perplexed and I’m home.
Mid next year I am to have a solo show alongside Matt. R. Martin at the Scott Livesey Galleries. Though my current situation means I have no where and no time to make work, I have been researching, looking, nutting out in my brain and collecting photographs for a new body of work. So it’s coming. They are coming! I’ll be documenting and sharing my progress here – not on facebook anymore. ( I will post links to the blog posts though. )
Facebook along side all the other social networking media giants keep changing their stance on things and it’s making me pretty nervous. I don’t have time to maintain changing contracts so I hope people will make the effort – which I am trying to do too! and just visit other websites.
( Gosh darn I’ve gotten lazy with checking out new work, events, articles and even news because it’s all of the FB. )
Anyway, 2013 is shaping up to be a big year in terms of work. It’ll be a new adventure working with the gallery and exhibiting alongside Matt so I’m very excited. I’m mostly excited because all I have to do is make amazing work, and I can’t wait for that – now just to find the time and space.
See you in 2013,
Lily Mae
xo
