AIR – Geelong Grammar School

Good afternoon, it has been quite a long time since I have written and there is much to share.While I am writing to you and I am most of the way through an artist in residence at Geelong Grammar. I am staying in the artists flat, where Hirschfeld-Mack lived and worked. I can’t believe how lucky I am to have this opportunity. It has come at such a good time for me too, I’ve had a number of big things come my way and knock me off of my feet a bit. This place has given me so much in terms of time, art, history, geneous and enthusiastic people.

I’m on a roll and starting my sixth painting since being here, so here I go.

Photo by Drew Ryan

Vessels

I’m impatient for all of the things that are to come this year.

Around mid to late January I get restless – everyone is back at work, except me. School hasn’t started yet and I want the routine and that sense of purpose which comes with work and study. ( Not complaining but sort of complaining.) I used to be worse at managing these inbetween moments than I am now. So grown up. And even though I am super keen beans to get back to it I am enjoying all the little moments I can each day: the cute things my daughter and her friends say, my cat snoring, magpie song, coffee, books and the soothing that comes with sorting out ones life.

I want to make new drawings but I also live in my studio at the moment and am unsure of my income so it’s tricky. My paper ain’t cheap. It ain’t small. So here we are, another self portrait but in watercolour and then I got carried away with looking through one of my medical dictionaries and my anatomy dummy that you can pull apart! .. I haven’t put it back together just yet..

It’s my birthday on Friday.

That’s my story for now.

 

Covid selfie

I don’t know what took me so long to do a self portrait with a mask. Probably everything that has been going on.

I live in my studio now and it’s interesting sitting with my drawings, paintings and work mess. I’ve been slowly sorting through it, everday I do a little bit. Many things I have forgotten about. I made a little green house cubby on my balcony, which daughter was very excited about. It’s a strange sort of balcony that is exposed to too much weather for me to do much else with. I plan to sit and paint out there but the weather has been a little wild of late. I won’t talk about the weather though, that’s very boring.

Over the months I have been struggling to write a piece that I was asked to write. Then the words that I had forced out I accidently deleted. I tried again and what is wrong with me I can’t write! I stopped working on the series of paintings I was really excited about at the start of the year. Well, apart from little inks and watercolours I have just stopped making my Art Art. The big stuff.

Anyway not much point other than sharing a picture and writing words. The website is a little sluggish and it is getting harder to upload images. I will have to deal with that soon.

Happy holidays and drink your water, regularly.

LMM

Learning new things

I have done many different things with my time this year. It needed to happen. I am a curious person, I like challenges and I channeled that into a full time bridging course at University. It has been a ride, I found aspects of this course hard but I kept on at it despite a couple of set backs. You know, Lockdown 2.0, all the kidlets missing school and being stuck at home adults. We managed. Together all the time, we managed.

I’ve been learing algebra and am about to plunge headfirst into statistics. At the beginning of this course I dreaded maths and now it is my very favourite. I can’t do it so well but I love that there is always a solution. That is soothing.

I’ve not made much art, I just can’t. Though I have been busy with other things I still love to make it when I can. It looks different at the moment. But that has always been the case with my practice, it shifts and it is important to explore different aspects. To fit it in around whatever else is going on with life at the time.

This year has been heartbreaking. I can’t see my cousin, of whom I am very close, she had her first baby on the otherside of the world. Like I did with my baby. It crushes me that I can’t be there. We still can’t see our family on the otherside of Victoria, first it was the bushfires that ripped right through the area and now lockdown. I know there is a lot of people going through monumentally diffuclt times, I know how lucky I am and this year has really been a catalyst of change in me. I need to do something more helpful in this world.

 

Listen, things will never be the same again and I think that I have come to terms with that. It’s time to really engage with community but also understand myself and who I truly am. Whatever that looks like.

Please, wish me luck on my upcoming maths exam.

Stay kind

LMM x

Hello,

It has been sometime. So long that it took me a while to work out how to log back into here.

September next week. Most of this year has passed and it seems to be both the longest and shortest year. Many things have happened, so many things that words don’t seem to really work at the moment. Or pictures. Or anything really. Just sort of passing time with the new way of life, getting used to walking with masks on. People dying and being born and you can’t go see anyone.

Lockdown 2.0 is different this time around as I am still working and now I am studying full time. I can’t say it is the easiest time, but I also know how lucky I am. If I am successful with my studies I think I will write more about that, but no point right now. I will just say that I am using my brain in a very different way and I think it is a good thing.

Work is my haven. As I am sure it is for many people. It is the only place that I am actually creative at the moment. I had just started this job at the beginning of the year and it has been a wild ride for all.

I’ll write sooner next time.

Here’s me in my PPE for work – it gets super foggy in there.

COVID19 Diary entry #3 – school from home

Get up the usual time. Have breakfast. Get dressed and, ideally, I’d love us to go for a brief walk but I still haven’t managed to achieve this just yet.. Do your teeth and hair. Set up the computer for a meeting with the teacher and check the ipad for the days shedule. Wait out the the resistance and maybe I’ll do some boxing or take a deep breath in another room and then keep on waiting. I try and remain as calm as I can. Get some school work done, I get none of my own work done. Cook healthy meals, punctuate the day with snacks, meals, walks around the block. Reading time of books she wants to read and not the books she hates. More emotions and reassure and be calm. On the internet lots of people have very strong opinions on parenting, who are not in this situation, I want to punch them. But I don’t say that on twitter because, violence. She misses her teacher, she misses her friends, she doesn’t like video conferences. I miss my jobs. I miss Arthur Studios and nutting our ways to approach different art practices and the people. I miss the National Gallery of Victoria and teaching lessons like foreshortening where I wrapped black tape around my arms for an activity. We miss Jemima. I have got a very small amount of work done. We’ve somehow worked out how to navigate all the glitchy technology. I’ve realized some things about my kid that I probably wouldn’t have otherwise. Doesn’t mean that this doesn’t suck. I do watercolours and sketches and have an idea for a new project. Log back into the school schedule and realize that we didn’t get all the work done. I turn off the ipad and tell no one.

 

COVID19 Diary entry #2 – more pictures and words in isolation

I thought I’d try and write weekly, just to keep up some kind of practice during this time. A lot of people have said to me that I would get heaps of art made in this time. I’m sorry people, but I’ve got an almost ten year old to home school, among other things.

Look, I am making things, just not the things I should be making. But I believe all creativity speaks to, informs and folds back into itself. I also believe that sometimes there are bigger things to attend to, and this is one of those sometimes with bigger things. The days that I don’t want to, or rather, cannot reach out to a pencil, pen or brush – I don’t. The days that I do and all that comes out is rubbish, I accept. The days when I have the energy and the drive to make pictures, I just bloody well do it. Unless there’s lesson to assist the kid through, lunch to prepare and dinner to work out.
What’s for dinner? 

I don’t mind, most days. I mean, if I love you I feed you. I feel really happy making food that my family and I enjoy together. I do resent it sometimes and yesterday I cracked, I ordered in. Noodles. It cost me almost 50 bucks though and do you know how many food supplies I could have got with that money? How many books I could buy? I won’t do it again but I had just sold an artwork and it is ok to celebrate, sometimes. 50 bucks, for one meal. I know that businesses are suffering, everyone is. I am cautious, for the most part.

Books are the one thing that I tend to indulge in. Daughter and I have a reading ritual and it is pretty much one of the best things in life. Gosh we have read so much already. I slip between non fiction, fiction, crime fiction, short books and longer ones. I don’t want to read the internet, it is depressing and screens do not great things to my mind. Plus it is too tempting to look at rubbish that just makes me spiral. I don’t need to spiral right now.

Anyway I am between watercolouring and sketching in my visual diary. I planned to write a lot more today but I am going to tuck back into my current read – The Yield by Tara June Winch. I’m half way but I already recommend that you should read it too.

Here are some recents, I’ll write soon.

Be safe and be kind. Read a book.

x

COVID19 Diary entry #1 – Art in Isolation

What a time we are in.

I started a new job this year, a job that I absolutely love, and it’s on hold – as is much of the rest of life at the moment. We three are at home and have been for a number of weeks now. We take it day by day – some days are really tricky. There’s emotions and uncertainty and boredom and grief. This time is so hard on kids. We older people ( who are really just bigger, saggier, hairier children ) are trying to act like we have control and try and keep things normal but at night I wake up and just think

I’m not cut out for this, I’m not cut out for this, I am not cut out for this. 

To fill out the hours of our days Kidlet and I have enjoyed many craft projects. We’ve put bears in our windows for kids who walk by. We’ve made an easter display of bunnies, bunny ears, chickens and eggs. We’ve made puppets of ourselves and furntiure to go with them. I am pretty pleased that I have a well stocked craft supply. Though, we have gone through a lot of it in this last week 😀

 

I also started a series of watercolours of Australian animals for my daughter. We talked about their diets and habitats. That was nice to do because there is no pressure and it was something that brought joy to us.

We all need a bit of joy right now.

 

I’m also keeping a sketchbook, but I’m not saying to myself to do a drawing a day or even every week because there’s already enough pressure and we have to look after ourselves so we can get through this, and try and be productive when and if we can.

There’s others but they are wither scanned in badly or drawn badly.

I’ll write more soon as there is more to add, however we are navigating online learning for the kid and it is, well, it is interesting!

I hope you are all keeping well in mind, body and spirit.

xx

What do you say

in a time like this.

Not much. Just what needs to be said. I guess a time like this is more suited to doing – what you do and what you don’t do. Check in, grocery drop offs, make meals, check the endless empty shelves for toilet paper ..

It is incomprehensible.

It’s a take it as it comes sort of time. It is wow I thought in a time like this maybe I would panic more.

Perhaps the panic is yet to come.

 

 

Exhibition Openings

Guten Tag!

Thank you to all who could make it the the Overburden exhibition launch at the Eureka Centre a couple of weeks back. Thank you Cr Belinda Coates for speaking and officially launching the show. Thanks to Anthony Camm, manager of Eureka Centre.

Essay about the centre and the exhibition here: Overburden – Art and the Weight of History 

Full Essay here

 

Overburden is on view until the 2nd of August.

 

Last Saturday there was the launch of SHE 2020, an exhibition featuring eight artists from around Australia. Those artists are  Lily Mae Martin, Deanne Gilson, Nyaruot Ruth Ruach, Kumantjayi Nangala, Tai Snaith, Alana Hunt, Tiffany Parbs, Vonda Keji.

Here is more about the exhibition and about the artists: SHE

As part of the exhibition there will be a series of readings, here is a link to the program which begins tomorrow: SHE READS

Thank you to curator Esther Gyorki for inviting me to participate in this exhibition alongside some incredible artists. I feel super, super lucky.

Tschüss!