"studio orphans"

 If I were still installing works within my studio window/once exhibition space these pieces would fall under the banner of 'miscellaneous'...at present they remain 'unresolved instruments'...potentially part collage...part assemblage...they are in fact the discarded...the orphans of my studio space...suddenly assembled on imperial measured wooded retractable rulers...I have many such rulers...it seems i went through a 'wooden ruler 'stage...no matter how much i tried to stop myself from being drawn to them at flea markets or collectible fairs...I gave in to their simple charms...in all some thirty-seven times...I am still not certain why... perhaps it was the sight of them folded..their full length of 36 inches contained within four 9" quarters...it is like opening the pages to a book...or perhaps laying out a scroll... no two rulers are the same..each possessing its own embedded history...and then of course there are the numbers...austere black numerals against the variations of stained and worn timber...the brass hinges like illuminated corners...a moment of play...sp

Brisbane Flood Appeal....wonderful response

Just a note to say thank you for the wonderful response from people in purchasing "the doll"

etching as part of the flood relief fund and making the donations directly to the appeal...the full 50 prints have now been ordered...so thank you once again...because of the great response I am a little behind sending out orders...all will be in the post by Monday/Tuesday of next week...a sincere thank you to all....sp

Brisbane flood appeal...

As a way of lending support to flood victims throughout Queensland I was wanting to offer this print for sale with all funds going directly to the Premiers Flood Appeal...I will print a special 'studio edition' of 50...details as follow: Title: "The Doll"...  medium: etching... size: 25x17cm...price: $55 (includes postage)

Available only in Australia...orders by email: silentparrot@iprimus.com.au

'The unframed'...

Installation wall piece (details 2010)...in making tentative preparations for my final Masters exhibition the quiet dilemma I face is how to present things...I am always left in two minds as to whether works need the formality of a frame or if they flow almost like a stream of consciousness across the gallery walls...the easiest solution is to divide the show into framed and unframed works...although framing is capable of adding  a certain austerity  to prints or works on paper that I often like, in the past few years I feel as if the prints and the fragments need their own space to breath...their own edges providing the only frame...often the expectation of the buying public is the need for things to be framed...sometimes all it takes is a little imagination...what the unframed structure provides is the uninterrupted reflective engagement with the work...a continuum of a single yet fractious experience...that way things are capable of staying close to how we connect and disconnect with the past and the moment within everyday experiences...this way there is very little lost in translation...for these works I think that a frame brings a distraction...an unwelcome interruption to proceedings...one could argue that a frame provides a focus...keeping the experience of the viewer captured for a longer period of time...perhaps these works don't require that kind of focus...unframed the viewer finds something but then before one is able to focus too intently the edge meets something else and so you move on...they offer that sense of a continuum of reflective experience...but the thing is that on a gallery wall you can always return...sp

the deltiologist

 I am often intrigued by the relationship between language and the layers of possible meaning...its often contradictory nature of defining the complex in very simple terms or the humble with bemusing complexity...in this case a single word...'deltiology' and how its definition as the study or collecting of postcards seems beautifully detached from such a simple,quiet interest...of course its Greek origin is more direct...deltos: writing tablet...I don't really want to delve into the 'phenomenology' thing again but the very simple notion of allowing 'the objects' we encounter to speak for themselves allows for a very subtle relationship to unfold between us and what we encounter...the introduction of any form of creative element brings about a heightened experience of that very relationship...in this instance the postcard offers its own particular encounter even before it is altered in any form...the altering of its surface with diagrams, text and clusters of numeral notations introduces an ambiguity to the way one perceives not just the underlying image but this most humble form of correspondence...in their original form it was against the law to write on the back of postcards...messages could only be written over the printed or photographic image...it was only in the early 1900's that both the message and the address of its receiver shared the reverse side...perhaps like language itself any form of creative response contains the same ambiguity...a detached familiarity..sp

'miscellaneous'...knowledge machines

 I have hesitated before commencing to type within this narrow frame once again...the "matchbox songs and gypsy hymns" space now back to its original window view of the city...a view that has witnessed several days of extraordinary drama with the flooding of Brisbane city..for the past three days the usually placid Brisbane River has been transformed into a mud coloured mythical beast...i live within a hundred meters of the river but where the river scape becomes cliffs...since the dramatic events began to unfold at the beginning of the week I have made several daily visits to the cliff tops...amongst dozens of onlookers the atmosphere each time was of quiet contemplation and disbelief as a constant flow of boats, possessions and fragments of building structures floated past ...by their very nature rivers embrace reflection but for at least the past three days this river has absorbed something deeper...in between visits to the top of the cliffs I commenced these pen and ink drawings onto postcard portraits...they remain as works in progress...sp