silent parrot press

'mytho-poetics 1'

2012-02-13T23:00:00.000+10:00

Toy trailer, cheese cloth, thread and bone black etching ink.

Narrative & myth

2012-02-06T22:01:00.000+10:00

I grew up with very little ever being explained to me as a child...which I remain thankful of...I think it continues to be the reason I make art...a continual questioning of the relationship between things that I never expect any answers to...sp

Rimbaud & Aeroplane wing

2012-02-01T23:09:00.000+10:00

For several days I have been reflecting on these two images in my studio wondering what dialogue they share...perhaps they remain silent in each others company...never meant to share the same room...separate poetry...separate myths...sp

silent film...

2012-01-23T18:18:00.000+10:00

"all of the things i could have told you about birds"

Bindings

2012-01-15T05:36:00.000+10:00

A continuum of binding transparent envelopes made from cloth...suspended histories...

waiting to be collected...waiting to be sent...everything a de facto memory.sp

Image & Text...

2011-12-14T21:07:00.000+10:00

Image and text are the vessels that bring us to language...collecting our senses...at some point in time it seems we must choose between the two...suddenly one proving to be inadequate... or simply one surpasses the other and it chooses us...as someone who painted signs for 20 years text was not only a vehicle for expression but something that needed to be constructed...everyday a new language had to be invented... of course it is more interesting when text evokes image and image begins to suggest text...sp

Silent Parrot...21st.one last memory

2011-12-06T08:05:00.000+10:00

Silent Parrot 21st. memories...early etchings

2011-11-29T20:21:00.000+10:00

Allegories from the Botanical Gardens...(i) (ii)

Dark Books & Identity

2011-11-26T14:30:00.000+10:00

All books have a darkness...regardless of the inviting persuasions of their covers...as a child the colouring-in book that my mother had hidden in a new wardrobe as a surprise was shrouded in mystery...coming from some dark corner...the puzzle of discovering that book stayed with me... forgotten...unsolved until recalled as an adult... a darkness to the books in the modest bookshelf of my childhood home...books on WWII...encyclopedias...darkly covered...grey pages...an occasional coloured page...colours from some other reality...an atlas...long and thin...a third of the height of a child...sheltered by the darkness of the maps of foreign places...the night sky...strange creatures from the ocean...then the darkest of all books often on a side table of the lounge room...the bible...as a poor reader I feared books...my first holy communion prayer book offering some comfort with the illuminated holy pictures and sparse text...the pictures evoking so much more than any words ever could...seeing a book in the hands of the nuns that taught me presented the book as a veil...regardless of its content all books became a pious experience...a book was never just the words it contained...the places where books were kept were silent and dark...away from the light...libraries were rooms of half light...the plays I read at school were full of darkness...plays were the darkest...bible like in their darkness...history books seem to evoke a light that belonged to the twilight...I'm not certain that this darkness has ever fully dissolved...sp

Dark Books...

2011-11-24T23:12:00.001+10:00

When I first arrived in Brisbane I commenced a series of page 'mock-ups for a book I was intending to make...but that was as far as things got...they didn't seem to fit in with anything in particular...the figurative element was always stronger than I wanted...since the last series of bitumen and mono-print works they suddenly seem to have found a place...the possibility of a place...sp

silent parrot's 21st anniversary...

2011-11-23T22:17:00.000+10:00

In 1990 after my first solo exhibition in which a series of etchings titled 'silent parrot' appeared I named myself 'silent parrot press'...it would be 10 years before I was able to afford a second hand press but in those first 10 years I found ways of making prints in more resourceful ways...the most interesting was the heavy one person push roller used to flatten the clay tennis courts behind the house where I grew up...mostly wood block and lino relief...later I was given access to the art room at my old high school...they had a small intaglio press that reignited my love of etching...the name 'silent parrot' came after I had completed a series of etchings that used harpie like human/parrot figures floating above landscapes that I felt a certain affinity for...for days I searched for a title...then when I was painting a sign at a second hand shop in Townsville I could see a 1960's 'boys own journal' style of book amongst the second hand books...on the cover was a scene from a pirate story...reminding me of Treasure Island...the title read 'the silent parrot'...sp

In between things...

2011-11-17T22:50:00.001+10:00

The in between things of writing and research...someone recently asked me if I thought doing post- grad studies really benefited ones art making...it was asked in a way that I felt was already answered in a negative light...the questioning of the value of the process that requires students/artists to engage in a split program of research and studio practice can only be answered by each individuals reasons for placing themselves in such a position...my reasoning for entering into the post-grad program was decided on two things...the most fickle was that it provided the greatest opportunity to get out of a once interesting and culturally layered town that had suddenly become immersed in the regimented and sterile persona of the mining industry...a process of formulated cultural homicide that is being carried out within small communities by the mining industry throughout Australia...the second reason was that it was a decisive moment in simply surrendering myself to a creative life...I continuously question the formulaic structure that is provided by art institutions...I'm not convinced that the research structure encourages the opportunity for 'new creative knowledge'...it is a rather naive view but if what I am writing about was to be as connected as closely as possible to what I make then my research component would for me at least read as a blend of diaristic, free association and poetic references...the writing would find its own sense of making sense... I feel that the creative process needs to flow into the academic writing... for myself the articulation unfolds like a conversation in the process of making...the kind of making that leaves you wondering if it was really you who made it...a conversation that can ever only be re-presented as a reflective process of interpretation...something secondary...I talk to too many students who find themselves second guessing what it is they make because it doesn't fit into a formulaic conceptual frame...I guess like water we find our own levels...this wasn't the answer I responded with...I think I simply said I was still finding out...sp

'material thought'...

2011-11-10T10:19:00.000+10:00

Weeks of research reading...deciphering...discovering threads of possible connections between the making and the reflecting...the making confined to sketches...beginnings... in the way a writer finds a beginning...my studio wall a series of seemingly disparate opening sentences...sp.

'interior music'...

2011-11-05T23:33:00.000+10:00

Like most teenagers in the 70's the radio played a significant part in forming my musical tastes...but it was more from a romantic perspective...Saturday was request night on 4MK Mackay...the small North Queensland town where I grew up...you could write in to the radio station and request a song for family or friends...but more interestingly to your teenage sweetheart...who often was oblivious to the existence of any such relationship....the song choice had to come from the top 40 chart which was available at one of the record shops in town...your choices had to be in by 5pm Friday so part of school class time on Fridays was taken up with choosing songs and writing a cryptic note to girls who were always very good at acting as though you didn't exist...we had something of a gang thing happening even at the age of thirteen...each of our bicycles had been modified with extended forks and high handle bars...smaller wheels on the back completed the 'Easy Rider' look...we were all too young to see the movie but the poster was enough to convince us that this was the look and the moment on the streets of Mackay...so almost every Friday after school we would drop off our requests to the radio station... I remember finding it difficult to choose the right songs... I didn't connect with a lot of the pop songs they played on the radio...as the youngest of five my two older brothers had a significant influence on the music I would connected with ... there was a ten year gap between myself and my older brother...his acoustic guitar was the first instrument in our house... others were quickly added...an electric guitar, a saxophone, a harmonica, a clarinet, a banjo, an organ...each of my two sisters soon taught themselves to play the guitar and organ...each of us picked some musical influence from the other... my brother joined a mail order record club that seem to supply our home with new sounds on a fortnightly basis...but the most influential time was when he would return home from his university years...from the age of nine the words and music of Dylan and Cohen were a constant presence in our home...there were other voices of course but these went deeper... like all creative influences often we are too young to fully comprehend the meaning of such experiences...but even at that age I felt as if what i was hearing was far deeper than Saturday night radio requests ...something that I could never articulate to any of my friends...playing music was a ritual in our home...often it provided a bond at extended family gatherings as a guitar would be passed around into the early morning hours...but there was also the quiet almost covert moments of a singing voice and slow guitar sound barely audible behind a bedroom door that provided a sense of ritual that transcended all exterior existence...sp

small collisions...a documentary

2011-11-03T00:13:00.000+10:00

A visit to a Sunday morning market...a mix of cheap fresh produce and bric a brac...the junk market contained within a golf driving range which I have never been able to decipher if it has been abandoned or if it simply surrenders itself each Sunday morning to trash and treasure... at times I stop to follow the suspended cage like netting that surrounds everyone...I often wonder if anyone else notices just where they are...for $2 I bought a collection of photographs of military planes printed on cards in a box set...I usually avoid anything connected to the military...I'm not certain why...perhaps because I associate such things with people who find some kind of glory in all things connected to war...perhaps I really think that all of this needs to be forgotten...so why buy them?...although there were colour photographs it was the images in black and white that triggered some deeper response...something that went directly to 'the reflective' moment...Barthes purity of the black and white photograph...the resurrection of the past... the war plane as human photographic portrait...then there was the women who was selling them...a woman perhaps in her early seventies who seemed somewhat detached from what I imagined was her one off experience of 'getting rid of stuff'......her stall a mix of house hold items,crockery,a small collection of souvenir spoons, toys...an assortment of tools...there was a sadness about her that made me think of who these cards once belonged to...then I bought them...sp

The Bricoleur...small collisions (i)

2011-10-31T21:24:00.000+10:00

Early military aircraft and etched, cut-out aluminium figure...sp

ophelia's vest...

2011-10-12T20:09:00.001+10:00

Several years ago I made a series of etchings that went by the title of 'Opelia's Vest'...it remains the seed of an idea that hasn't really been fully developed...the concept started with a play that I wrote and was performed as part of an artist in residency program at a high school in North Queensland...my research included dozens of interviews with women actors who had played the role of Shakespeare's Ophelia...I was interested in finding out how playing such a role affected them...if at all...there is a holistic portrayal of womanhood within Ophelia that has always interested me... there is a part of Ophelia in every woman....just as there is a part of Hamlet in every man....sp

boxed traces...

2011-10-05T20:45:00.000+10:00

A continuum of connections with the past...like reading the pages of a diary from another time and place... part of you but detached...drifting threads...a place between you and the clouds...here in Brisbane the clouds are closer to the ground then any other place... but still never within reach...assembling past narratives...silent stories that never resonate beyond a box, a page, a print, a book...the continual folds that extinguish our momentary connection to place...a vague transparency...sp

Nostalgic traces...

2011-10-03T22:10:00.000+10:00

Making connections between the traces that place, person and myth present has found me reflecting somewhat nostalgically on works from several years past...another century in fact...how odd that seems...the trace as a presence of absence hopefully becoming less obvious...sp

'documentary'...etching, photograph & coloured thread.

2011-09-29T21:48:00.000+10:00

The opposite scale of acquiring a sense that 'something is something' is that bridge of uncertainty that presents itself with the arrival of new associations...this has residues of the fragmented collages that I played with earlier in the year...there is a continuous questioning of the relationship between 2d and 3d relationships...always the desire to allow things to resonate as long as possible...like the lingering meaning of a word fully expressed in a sentence of a dictionary...sp

bound traces...

2011-09-26T23:07:00.000+10:00

There comes a time when you sense 'something is something'... profound I know...but that is the best description I can offer when you reach a stage of making and you can literally tie it up with a piece of string, put it in a cupboard and move on to the next thing...this series isn't yet complete but I know that it is something and that it is worth my while extending it... I have put these away so that next time I take them out I hope they surprise me in some way...like a child finding a toy they lost behind the sofa...suddenly its like a new beginning...in a sense a deliberate surrendering of things to memory... to the past....sp

'enveloped traces'

2011-09-15T21:06:00.000+10:00

The waxed muslin envelope series continues to grow...the subtle etched surface embedded between the two surfaces...if the lithography people at uni. discover they are short of muslin for applying gum arabic its because I desperately needed to make more envelopes last week..they are the ones that have a tea stain glow about them...I know it has become something of a throw away comment within fine art circles that you either make it big or make lots of them...well I'm afraid this is on its way to fitting both criteria... of course it has nothing to do with either...just the obsessive/compulsive nature of the making...sp

'illuminated place'...

2011-09-09T23:27:00.000+10:00

A revisiting of past interests...searching for new connections...new stories... a series of gold-leaf etchings on wood cut backgrounds...echoes of an early interest in illuminated manuscripts...the use of decorative motifs is something I have slowly dissolved in my work over the past five years...at times I am tempted to resurrect it... a motif that referenced a connection to a certain European sensibility...the decorative as metaphor...always a difficult thing to do...sp

'fatal shore'...

2011-09-04T15:26:00.000+10:00

Tentative beginnings...a time of searching for a new question for my research paper and therefore the premise of discovering new connections within the studio...the alternate version of the collage/assemblage book series that is at Port Jackson Press is something of a starting point...the notion of a trace being re-presented as the absent/presence continues to underpin what I am wanting to make...but rather than the ephemeral dialogues that notions of trace offer I am wanting to find a connection with a sense of cultural identity...a concept that for myself as an Australian has remained abstract and at best ordinary and cliched... this has been something of an under-tow for all that I have made in the last 10years...a constant reflection upon the individuals experience as part of a community/nation and the deeper sense of what it is to be an artist...to be human...culture as something that is capable of illuminating the individuals experience of both self and community has always left me with a sense of detachment...something that I have avoided making specific reference to in what I make...so I am beginning to think it's about time I made an attempt to reflect upon this absent/presence more deliberately...to sift through the constant accumulation of contradictions that this nation continues to assemble...sp

transparent envelopes revisited

2011-09-03T07:26:00.001+10:00

Not as much studio time as I would have liked in the past 10days...something of a revisiting of a collage series I commenced perhaps 2 years ago...a combination of hand made cheese cloth envelopes, etching, collage and bees wax...they may be something...if nothing else they seem to form an interesting transparent catalogue of cut-outs...I have recovered from my nostalgic return plane flight from Melbourne, the French twist and the teenage angst it revived in memories of being 'dropped' by my first high school girl friend for a trainee pilot...as an odd coincidence I got into the lift at university yesterday and two female students were having a conversation about how one of them had just learnt a new way of tying up her hair in a bun...I couldn't resist in asking if they had heard of the French twist...unfortunately the elevator journey ended before I had a chance to explain why I had asked them such an odd question...I just hope one of them knew what I was referring to otherwise they may never want to get into a lift with me again...sp

2011-09-02T20:24:00.002+10:00

Assembled books...Port Jackson Press

2011-09-01T21:54:00.003+10:00

A moment from the book installation at Port Jackson Press...'books from the library of phenomenology'...the works divided into four different suites...

'suite for piano and emotional voice'...'

you can't look at yourself in the ocean' vol.i-iv.

'the small book of hours' vol.i-vi..

'flesh' vol.i-iii...

Although it is only a narrow window space the work seemed to adapt well to its thinness...it was a beautifully clear, cool day in Melbourne...perhaps it was the very new plane, its clean lined interior, its smell of newness and the thankful absence of any intrusive digital screen in the seating but the flight back to Brisbane left me feeling a sense of nostalgia for the days when travelling by plane was a social occasion in peoples lives...an experience that people felt the need to 'dress-up' for...at least that is the perception that was formed in my teenage years and it is one that has remained with me...on the rare occasions I traveled by plane in those teenage years I remember secretly wanting to fall in love with an air hostess...one who had long hair that would be tied up in a bun...about as close as I came to fulfilling this romantic dream in the glamour days of plane flight was when my high school sweet heart got her first job with the Avis car rental company and part of her time would be spent at the Avis desk located at the airport. Susie had long hair and she use to tie it up in what she called a French twist or a French slide...I think I fell for her even more when she told me that. At some point Susie talked about becoming an air hostess and so naturally I told her she would be great at it...for a few short weeks in 1975 it seemed as if dreams and reality shared the same horizon line and one that was within walking distance...that was until Susie met a pilot and all in a day I wish I had never heard of anything known as the French slide...a few months later I discovered the so called pilot was only a trainee at the time and he never went through with becoming a pilot...for a lot of years I use to him at the baggage check-in counter at the same home town airport...Susie left Avis, got her hair cut and went to uni. to become a school teacher. On the flight home from Melbourne one of the flight attendants had her hair combed back in a French twist..

melbourne bound.

2011-08-27T18:14:00.000+10:00

Packing an exhibition into a small carry-on suit case has a sense of secrecy and concealment about it that appeals to me...objects only available on the streets of Melbourne...which in fact is partly true with the work being installed in the window space at Port Jackson Press...only visible from the street...sp

collective narratives...

2011-08-23T20:43:00.000+10:00

The works for the small Melbourne window installation completed and bound...the first time I have used newly bound books with the assemblage elements...this brings uncertainty...but new possibilities in the collective gathering of individual pieces..completion discloses new beginnings...the connection to story unavoidable...but one of inevitable detachment and wonderment...sp

book parts...

2011-08-21T20:27:00.001+10:00

What transpires in the studio continues to offer suggestions as to how these works will be presented...part of me wanting to dissolve the formal arrangement I have in mind...suddenly there seems to be several possible outcomes...essentially the books and the motifs come together in their own natural way...I continue to avoid any specific concept...trusting in process and form...at times I tire of meaning...believing in all that transpires from experience and the individuals ability to comprehend and interpret...forever in the hands of the viewer...sp

'books...objects and studio shadows'

2011-08-20T19:55:00.001+10:00

The near completion of a new series of print and book assemblage works..in some respects a continuum of previous encounters with things of a bookish nature...but this series has a deliberate referencing of printmaking methods...etching in particular...I have always found it difficult to revisit things from the past...the use of second hand books as a matrix for these book assemblages no longer interests me...but binding my own series of books together with printing the slip covers as well as the cut-out assemblage motifs is a difference that I am yet to reflect upon...it is a departure of a certain aesthetic which I am not sure I am completely connected to...I have allowed them to evolve as they always seemed to suggest to me...more refined... hopefully they retain a sense of the reflective glimpses of life that the book as an object possesses even before the cover is opened...sp

'books from the library of phenomenology'

2011-08-18T19:54:00.000+10:00

'bound book, wax thread, etching sleeve cover,cut-out figure and coral trout...sp

Port Jackson Press: Little Window of Opportunity

2011-08-17T21:14:00.001+10:00

'books from the library of phenomenology' is an installation piece that will be exhibited at Port Jackson Press:Little Window of Opportunity... commencing Sunday 28th August...the works are a combination of etching and assemblage book pieces that continue my interest in the embedded meaning and identity made available through our encounters with objects. In the past I have been content to use second-hand books in creating a series of phenomenologically based descriptions but in this latest series I have bound each book myself and printed the slip cover...it seems to make a difference but one that I am yet to reflect upon...more to follow...sp.

Devotional Coffee..

2011-08-15T20:13:00.000+10:00

sp.

Artist in residence...Cannon Hill College

2011-08-11T22:31:00.001+10:00

For the past week I have had a short residency with Cannon Hill Anglican College here in Brisbane...it has given me the opportunity to introduce secondary students to both dry point and mono-print techniques...the response from the students during my stay has been very positive...with great support from the perceptive and enthusiastic art teachers...the most rewarding experience has been observing the students willingness to experiment with materials and surfaces...all very brave (if only more experienced print makers would embrace the same wild uncertainty)...in-between I have been making a series of book assemblage pieces for a small installation piece at Port Jackson Press in Melbourne later in the month...more books from the library of phenomenology...sp

Mid-night binding...

2011-08-05T16:15:00.000+10:00

At mid-night I started to cut and prepare 36 sections of blank butchers paper for binding into a book ... one of several books that will be used in connection with 'the trace project'...at mid-night the sound of a wax thread and needle pushing through folded paper sections is like hearing a dog howling at the moon...it always feels like its just the moon and the dog...nothing else exists...some book makers may question the value in spending the time on making a book with such 'poor' paper..to evoke a certain sensibility at times the practical or the rational need to be discarded...it is a poor paper but for that reason i like it even more...it has a familiarity...a memory.. at eye level to a child a slab of butchers paper on a shop counter can be a monument...uncoloured concrete silence...its layers continuous and meditative...like a book...sp

(1) completed book

'The Yellow Book'...unfolding pages

2011-08-04T21:09:00.000+10:00

The pages of 'the yellow book' are slowly unfolding...as with the previous books the sequencing of pages will be decided once the images are completed...it may seem as though these pages are simply a repetition of the last volume rather than a significant trace...perhaps the notion of trace does imply a degree of repetition...the transition not always dramatic or immediate...a gradual journey to a point where absence supplants presence....sp

Trace..'the yellow book pages'

2011-07-31T20:02:00.000+10:00

The pages of 'The Yellow Book' have been proceeding slowly...the plates have taken a little more time than expected...this is one of the first proofs...the idea is that each new volume is a trace of the previous book...each page a trace of the previous pages...the approach remains essentially random...the text of the second volume has been dissolved into calligraphic marks...image and text both slowly becoming minimal resides...sp

Studio traces...

2011-07-30T08:17:00.000+10:00

A moment this week to play with further traces...things seeking refuge from the past...sp

'The Intuitionists'...untitled works.

2011-07-26T22:40:00.000+10:00

V.G.

Perhaps these reflections from the diary of Enid Baker are simply that...reflective streams of consciousness...I imagine that her experience of having been part of the audience during the Dada sound poetry performances in Hanover left an impression on her...each of her works remain untitled...as do the post card collages of Vera Goodman...sp.

the room

opened shutters

shadowed face

silent

pale

flesh mask

searching eyes

unseeingly watch outside my door

music

slow

deliberate

a placid velvet voice

floods the lingering darkness

as uttered words swim

to the other side of reality

a drowning chair

introduces me to a vision

the message deceptively simple

pain and blackness

mirror the limitless harsh blue of the sky

detachment

finger pointed

quietly in the end

like a drowning woman

trapped and immobile

fault

reason

instinct

recollection

indulge in wild flights

and there had been dreams.

E.B.

V.G.

'The Intuitionists' Post Card collages II...

2011-07-25T21:44:00.000+10:00

Further post card collage works from Vera Goodman of 'The Intuitionists'...I thought I would include several short poems from Enid Baker's diary pages...which seem to float like small streams of consciousness...

Silently

fallen

faith

glanced up at the sky

and the small blocks of colour

flooding the house of illusions

and the wooden chair

dancing by the window

gestures

kiss me.

Sunday

strangely silent and deserted

the remembrance of things past

day trips to the edge of the sea

praying at the edge of the sea

returning

falling asleep

upon a book of fish.

the tapestry of mans fallen vision

history

desire

spirit

abandoned

and beneath the banner of love

the bridegroom and bride

walk on in silence

as painted wall-flowers

standing with waving flags

ask to be remembered.

Vincent boasted an almost feminine beauty

pale and translucent

falling

meeting his passion

Vincent was alone.

'The Intuitionists'...Post Card collages

2011-07-24T19:53:00.001+10:00

Although I was wanting to save these post card collage works by one of the members of 'The Intuitionists' for an exhibition I can't contain the desire to share them... especially for those o/s visitors who will never have the opportunity to see them in the flesh...each of these have an initialed signature on the back of them...V.G. From the diary pages of Enid Baker I can surmise that they were made by Vera Goodman...I'm not sure if you are aware of the works of the English collage artist John Stezaker who uses found photographs to create disparate and unsettling undertones in his work but there is a comparative element that resonates within this series...the most overt narrative seems to be the displacement of the masculine figure with the feminine...if not a substitution then a blending of both...I will shown you more tomorrow...sp

Suspended 'traces'

2011-07-16T20:38:00.001+10:00

I haven't really spent enough time with these to talk of where they fit in with things...something in the stillness of even the fragment of a photograph that presents a certain reflective consideration...its disparate nature drawing you in...being found and presented only as a fragment seems to evoke an even stronger sense of connection to memory...the possibility of new beginnings...sp

In between 'traces' and 'the intuitionists'...

2011-07-13T23:16:00.000+10:00

I have been crossing paths between the trace project and 'the intuitionists'...part of me wanting to investigate more of their history... yet there is something in its fractious incompleteness that seems complete...for a moment in the studio I revisited the human 'trace' series...suddenly attached to a hanging mechanical device the image is more potent...crossing over to some space that is closer to the moment...no longer the suggestion of a trace...perhaps...sp

"The Intuitionists":1929-1935

2011-07-12T00:35:00.002+10:00

I will not attempt to translate a cohesive story of "The Intuitionists" for the simple reason that one does not exist. It will remain a board game with missing pieces. What I know about 'The Intuitionists' is a combination of the details passed on to me by my aunt together with Enid Baker's diaries, a collection of her poems, a series of postcard collage works and a number of photographs. The diary entries are a combination of Enid's poetry and brief reflections of the groups meetings. A letter from her sister Amy also makes a fleeting comment to "those days of The Intuitionists". The name is first recorded in Enid's diary the day after a conversation with one of the future members of the group Florence Armstrong.

Friday May 3rd.1929...Last night Florence and I discussed the idea of forming a group of women artists and poets. I suggested the name "The Intuitionists"...after all we are women and it is intuition that remains our life raft.There is also something in the name that locates me back to my days in Hanover and the dada recitals, so unexpected, strange and fabulous.Our style will be intuitive and spontaneous.I feel as though the only way I am to continue writing is to form a group of like minded people with the possibility of discussing all things artistic.

The first formal gathering of the group took place on Sunday 9th June 1929. Beneath the title written in a formal Copperplate hand in Enid's diary are the names of all seven women artisans who called themselves "The Intuitionists", they were, Enid Baker, Elsie Baker, Florence Armstrong, Ettie McCabe, Vera Goodman, Olive Ayers and Georgina Olsen.
.
My aunt first met Enid in Toowoomba in the late 1960's at one of the art society gatherings when she was in her eighties.According to my aunt she had a reputation as a writer and poet but was someone that kept very much to herself. The impression she made on my aunt was someone who was not so much shy or over sensitive but very humble and perceptive. The brief case now in my possession was given to her a week before Enid left for Melbourne to live with her sister. My aunt said that they had only ever had a handful of conversations at different gatherings but Enid had invited her to visit before leaving for Melbourne. It was only during this one visit that Enid talked about the group of women artists and poets she had once been a part of. My aunt has never understood just why she had given the brief case to her. Although Enid would have known that my aunt painted and perhaps it was that creative spirit she felt a connection with. Perhaps it was simply a relinquishing of a vignette of her past life.

To me it seems that Enid belonged to that generation whose life time senses gathered and carried the vestiges of two horrific world wars so the giving away of, the tearing and the burning of personal histories could very well have been a way of letting go...a relinquishing of the burden of the past..at least an attempt to erase memories of their own marginal vignettes of history...unfortunately what they did not realise is that this giving away, the tearing or the burning of their own historicity brought about an absence of what the photograph as an object of memory is able to provide for all generations that follow....what they leave in the wake of their acts of non-memory is in fact no wake at all...no trace...I know this because my fathers mother, my grandmother destroyed photographs of my father of whom I have only 3 months of memory...or non-memory.

I imagine the groups gatherings filled a creative void in the life and times of living in Brisbane during the early 1930's and although there is a sense that "The Intuitionists" as a group simply provided a covert audience for each others creative talents they interest me even more for their self contained existence.
I hope to find more to write of them..sp.

"The Intuitionists" 1929-1935

2011-07-09T18:32:00.000+10:00

I wanted to take a moment to share a story about a tan leather brief case of memorabilia given to me by an aunt who thought I could use some of its contents in a series of box assemblages pieces I was making in 2005.I am always reluctant to accept or use such gifts because my reason for making use of de facto objects has always been connected to that salient moment of their unforeseen discovery. The absence of that unexpected connection to anonymous objects makes it difficult for me to find a starting point to engage their use in an assemblage piece. It is a subtle yet poignant moment within the unfolding creative process but one that I regard as most crucial. That is part of the reason why the contents of this case have remained untouched for the past six years.The most decisive reason though for it being ignored is that its contents possess a connection to those marginal confines of history that often pass unrecorded either due to their minor everyday nature or for the very reason that they transpire between the margins of the everyday and what is worthy of being named and recorded in history.

The contents of this thin, tan coloured brief case reveals a story of a creative group of mostly Brisbane based women artists and poets who, from 1927-1935 called themselves "The Intuitionists" and whose founding member had a first hand experience of the Dada art movement with her attendance of the groups Hanover sound poetry recitals in 1922...(to be continued)sp.

"The Intuitionists" founding member...Enid Baker+friend 1920

boxed fragment..

2011-07-06T14:45:00.000+10:00

This is the boxed collage piece I played with yesterday...I remain indifferent to it...it neither says more or less than as it was placed on the studio wall...although there is always the unexpected surprise in removing the lid and discovering what is inside...apart from the cutting and collage of combinations of medical illustrations and photographic fragments there is no drawing or personal mark making within this series...no trace of the artist apart from the selection and juxtaposition of elements...in a sense an objective detachment...an attempt to disregard the subjective mark in the hope of discovering a language that does posses that space of the absent presence...sp

fragments 6,7 & 8

2011-07-05T21:38:00.001+10:00

The last of the trace fragments...the additional object pieces may or may not belong...I am a little more familiar with these collage fragments now and I think they fit into the frame of reference I have set myself, 'somewhere'...perhaps the traces exist in the spaces between figure, photographic fragment and object...today I made a small box for one of the pieces...it is jig-saw like and suddenly there is a literal connection, unintentional but nevertheless there...I doubt that it fits in but I will give it a few days to see if something changes...what I do like is the intimation of trace embedded in the process of making...of construction...sp

Fragments 4&5

2011-07-04T21:21:00.000+10:00

I am beginning to deliberately stay away from words...explanations...reasons...meanings...as much as I enjoy their company they have the potential to destroy things at times... explaining things away to the point of exhaustion...that is why I enjoy what is made available through simple description...cut out illustrations from a medical encyclopedia,collage fragments of anonymous photographs found in a second hand shop and found objects...titles: 'fragments 4+5'... from the Trace Project 2011...sp

The Trace Project..fragments 2&3

2011-07-03T22:10:00.001+10:00

This series of fragments of found photographs, illustrations and objects offer the possible beginnings of a variation of the notion of trace...the experience of either the found photograph or the illustrated figures have reached a certain detachment from their original intentions...each a fragment of their initial use and meaning...there may be more or less to them....perhaps they belong in the file titled miscellaneous or hesitations...more items left behind on a train seat waiting to be claimed in the lost and found...we shall see... ('fragment 2...photograph, illustration and line drawing)...sp

(fragments,3...medical illustration and photograph fragment)

The Trace Project.'.the fragment as trace'...

2011-07-02T21:09:00.000+10:00

Collage series 'fragments (fig.1)'...photographic fragments, post card, illustration,and etching...sp

New 'traces'...

2011-06-30T21:37:00.000+10:00

The pages of 'trace vol.3' are on hold until I get a supply of plates for the additional dry-point details...in the mean time I continue the collage and assemblage dialogue...so often the most direct sense of articulating a certain experience allows for the use of the most humble and available surfaces or objects...I'm not sure if these hard ground etching tins have anything to do with the notion of 'trace' but finding them empty and no longer of any use seem to provide a certain hint...there was something in their collective discardedness that caught me unexpectedly...trace also seems to follow a certain degree of repetition...not always but it can often be a strong element...the additional collage components, photographs and cut-out figures are fragments....traces in themselves...I just need more of them...sp

The Trace Project...

2011-06-28T22:02:00.000+10:00

It is far too simplistic to present the notion of trace as what remains evident of something that is past...i think it is closer to what remains within the connection between both the past and the moment...that is what i like about objects...they bring us to the very moment even though they belong to some discarded past...sp

Trace Vol.iii...'the yellow book'

2011-06-26T23:40:00.002+10:00

Although sign-writing as a trade was once a genuinely creative skill when I first learnt the art of hand painted signs, there were a lot of signs that followed a certain formula as to what colours made the most impact on the reader. Black on yellow is at the top of that list and there seemed certain weeks of my time as a sign-writing apprentice where every day there was a black lettered text on a lemon or chrome yellow background.The backgrounds were spray painted mostly onto thin zinc-annel metal sheeting ...each sheet had to be etched primed and sanded back before applying the enamel based lemon or chrome yellow...I hated yellow and I don't think I have ever recovered...the only one saving light of redemption arrived in the form of Aubrey Beardsley's "The Yellow Book"...at the age of seventeen he was my favourite artist...I never really knew what 'The Yellow Book' was...but some how it evoked something within me...something believable yet part myth...that sense of such a book has remained...the starting point for this third volume is no different to the previous volumes...I have started with drawing/painting directly onto both sides of the intended pages...then I have rolled up a large litho plate with yellow and printed over the top of the initial marks....some of them disappear but some of them stay just beneath the surface...enough to be a trace...sp.

'trace' Vol.2 bound

2011-06-23T23:23:00.001+10:00

The binding of 'trace ' Vol.2 completed...it is such a strange thing but this book, this object, remains in some way unfamiliar to me...i don't know what i expected from its pages...i am bemused by its oddness...it seems misplaced...as if it was left somewhere... on a bus or train seat...and now it has been recovered from the lost and found...perhaps with time it will become less unfamiliar...sp

;everything has meaning'...recent etchings

2011-06-21T21:55:00.001+10:00

I will write about these soon..sp

collage/sketches & trace

2011-06-17T18:57:00.000+10:00

I had a certain mind set that perhaps I had exhausted my connection with collage but as a medium it continues to present so many possibilities...I am convinced that collage is capable of providing the closest visual translation of a poetic sensibility...if we regard poetry as a process of gleaning of language that allows for the most immediate and visceral response, then collage exits as the most authentic visual representation...and in particular I am thinking of works on paper...there is an element within the surface of paper that translates a sense of fragility and nurture that no other media is capable of...such reflections brings one to the point of questioning just what is the most succinct medium...for me it is not the visual arts...but film...in my life time I can only name a small number of exhibitions that made any significant impression on me...the experience of which lasted beyond its physical presence...perhaps there have been one or two musical experiences that have remained embedded within me...two or three particular concert experiences that felt me with the impression that in fact music was the greatest translator.. and i know there are several theatrical performances that I carry a strong memory of...but for me film remains the most succinct medium...film has the capacity to remain embedded within ones psyche for weeks and the very best, for a life time...I envy the film director...so I return to the humble collage...the silent film...sp

Trace iii....sketches

2011-06-16T21:28:00.000+10:00

With 'trace ii' all but complete I am beginning to think of the possibilities of extending things into a book of collage works...these images/sketches are a starting point...I am beginning to realise the depth of this beautifully simple word 'trace'...sp

Bindings..

2011-06-13T23:38:00.000+10:00

I received a comment/question asking about my reasons for binding things...prints, found objects, surfaces...it is a question that i have never convincingly answered for myself... i am not being intentionally evasive but it is one of those things that if I ever rationally structured a definitive meaning for doing it then it would destroy the reason for doing it...but i am happy to reflect on its possible meaning...actually the initial reason was a very practical way of changing a flat 2D image into a 3D object...I had made a series of prints that I wanted to use text on the reverse side of...so by making a bound paper object the work suddenly became sculptural...it suddenly gave me a new way of engaging with etching...the simple binding of both prints and found objects gave them a certain element of mystery...in a way the binding presents these surfaces and objects as mysterious gifts...it seems a very natural human response to want to untie these things and discover what is hidden in between the wads of paper...which is something that only I know :-) ...there is also the actual 'doing' of the binding...a process that within a series of works is very meditative...to the point at times of not actually recalling having made certain things...that may sound strange to some ..but I also know there are those who know exactly what I mean...there is a deep sense that when I am binding objects, images or surfaces I am in some way binding them to a part of myself that can never be reached by any other method...perhaps only in pure meditation or for some in prayer...so I bind myself to these things as a way of letting go of them...the choice of different coloured threads is 'something' but I don't want to let go of too many mysteries...sp'

Trace...assembled pages

2011-06-12T19:19:00.000+10:00

The sequence of these pages will most likely be altered several times over before it seems to fit together...apart from the image making it is one of the parts I enjoy most...suddenly the flux of text and image begin to suggest their own relationships...and the thing I like is that those relationships would be different for anyone else piecing these pages together...I am suddenly very self conscious of the fragmented diary page entries...perhaps it is a matter of being more selective...although it is nothing more than a trigger...as soon as a certain narrative has the possibility of unfolding it is dissolved by another unrelated text or silhouetted form...the priority has always been retaining a sense of the notion of 'trace' and an implied narrative...something that not even I can put my finger on...that sense of the world that remains perpetually out of knowings reach...the realm of sense experience that is eternally elusive...making art in any form is as close as I think we can ever hope to get to that one step ahead moment of existence...i think that is part of the reason why i remain interested in the disparate relationships made possible by collage...which is essentially what both these books are structured upon...not so much the cutting and pasting in a physical sense but the kind of collage that unfolds in thought and reflection...sp

'trace'Vol.ii continues...

2011-06-07T23:06:00.000+10:00

The numeric details continue within each of the flat silhouetted figures...the sequencing of pages still remain unknown to me...I continue to be ambivalent about the structure of this second book...at times the figurative element seems to be too strong...I was more comfortable with the abstract shapes and surfaces of the first book...I have gone too far not to see it through to the end but there is a lot more uncertainty about how the randomness of both the text and the images will come together...I am beginning to feel that it is slowly abandoning me...drifting...each page puts a little more distance between us...perhaps it just needs a heavier anchor...if this is the last you see of it you'll know it drifted away in the night on the last high tide...

more distracting book moments...

2011-06-04T20:12:00.005+10:00

I am beginning to think that the book form offers an interesting connection to the notion of 'trace'...even as bound and suspended objects...the difficulty is in articulating what it is I feel connected to at that very moment...and I know I have spoken or rather written of this before but that space between the sense of something and reflective translation and its need to be kept on ice before it melts in your hands...and for me it has to be immediate...otherwise things are simply lost to the objective and rational...perhaps in the end the suspended book is its own momentary trace...silent and without explanation...waiting for Merleau-Ponty's reciprocating dialogue between subject and object...sp

Book hesitation....

2011-06-03T19:34:00.001+10:00

\A distracting moment in the studio this morning...the desire to suspend several books from the studio ceiling as a starting point to an installation project...I guess it is the parallel of a sketch...or it may simply have been a distracting moment from my numeric traces...like any sketch it provides 'possibilities'...book pages provide a beautifully poignant connection to the notion of 'trace'...as to what happens to them when they are suspended and bound is something I am curious about...sp

trace figures and 'walls of orbit'...

2011-05-31T22:55:00.000+10:00

The sequence of pages for "trace" Vol.ii remains in a state of flux...in keeping with the sense of narrative that will unfold...I am beginning to leave white foot prints around the studio from the shavings on the floor from sharpening the white pencils...the numbers are quite small so the pencils need to be constantly sharp...I thought of illuminated manuscripts at one point today...you see I have borrowed particular references taken from the pages of illuminated manuscripts...the dots that sometimes surround the edges of figures or shapes relate to the same technique used in certain manuscripts that signified the sacredness of a figure or place...and the accidental notations often found in the margins and not fully erased have also been a source...of course the word palimpsest comes to mind...the notion of a permanent visible trace...sp

'Trace'...details

2011-05-30T22:24:00.000+10:00

I continue to struggle with these pages and I think it is because I have arrived at a point where both the intuitive and the rational begin to share a common ground...I continue to react to either the text or silhouetted figure in a spontaneous manner, allowing them to suggest where certain marks or notations are placed...I like the fact that often the figures or part of the text suggest a certain formal or austere presence and yet I feel that they are as intuitively formed as any more overt gestural mark...I don't know if that really explains how I feel about them..as always it is something that I sense that is happening and unfolding on each page...they seem to hold a contradictory element...some stronger than others...apart from the high school students at my workshop last week I have really only shown these pages in the flesh to a couple of people...I am always reluctant to reveal too much and only to certain people...which of course is odd seeing that I am so openly presenting things on this site to total strangers...but what I was thinking of was how other artists will often automatically compare the work to some other artists style of work...I don't know why but this annoys me...of course we are always stepping on someones bones and that may alter between conscious and subconscious traces...I just wish they could think of a more authentic response...of course i am beginning to grow impatient with the thought of wanting to bind the pages...binding each separate trace...sp

'trace' notations

2011-05-29T23:21:00.001+10:00

Today I commenced applying the same numeric notations to certain shapes and figures that I used in 'Trace' Vol.i...I don't really have a convincing explanation for this surface numbering although I do know it has some connection to my time spent as a surveyors chain man in my youth... the first job I had after leaving school...which was really just one of those jobs one does while deciding what one really wants to be in life...but something has always stayed with me from that experience in how I view the landscape and the translation of surface and distance into numbered codes...translation or interpretation...I'm not sure...that sense of the mapping/tracing of everyday experiences and the small journeys we encounter is of constant consideration...the St. Johns Wood I have in mind is not the Abbey Road or Lords Cricket Ground district...but the St. Johns Wood of Brisbane suburbia...I have never been there but I have always liked the sound of its name...in one center page I have written each of the names of the Brisbane suburbs...in some way these names are mythological.. I heard them from my older siblings when they returned home on holidays from university...or they were written on the letters my mother sent..Red Hill, St. Lucia, Fortitude Valley...I'm not certain how all of this fits together and perhaps it doesn't...perhaps it's a further notion of trace... sp

Slowly tracing pages...

2011-05-28T21:28:00.002+10:00

I spent a day as a guest artist with a Brisbane high school this week...the focus was on printmaking and artists' books so it was a nice opportunity to discuss ideas and the relationship between content and process...it was the first time I had really talked about the present works in progress and at first I was a little reluctant to reveal too much but these senior art students seemed very receptive to discussing their own methods of art making so it only seemed fair that I do the same...I wanted to make a point of allowing space for their own embedded response to all that they encountered in their daily lives...and that for most part there was still so much of that response that remains unable to be articulated at least not in either spoken or written language...and that essentially that any visual response must remain silent if it is to remain authentic...I am aware that within my present circumstances of having completed a MVA where the exegesis is a significant element in judging the value of ones studio practice and the theoretical component provides an invaluable element in relationship to the creative process but I remain unconvinced that the written word is capable of providing a totally adequate translation of the visual...the visual response needs to believe that it can stand on its own two feet without the crutch of the theoretical text...'trace' is really an attempt to detach itself as far as possible from any theoretical methodology from the very beginning...I might be wrong about it all...perhaps the foundation of a strong theoretical platform does make for 'higher' art but at this point in time I am willing to trust what remains unsaid and silent...sp

Trace...additional pages

2011-05-22T23:33:00.000+10:00

'Trace'Vol.ii...slowly unfolding

2011-05-20T23:55:00.002+10:00

The pages to the second book that explores the notion of trace continues to progress...but much slower than the first...the last third of the book has been difficult...I have found myself continually arriving at moments of hesitation with every second page...those very moments that make one question the validity of it all...it seems that even in negating things randomly there comes a time when the rational taps on the window...it seems at this stage that I may have exhausted this approach...although this morning I had a conversation with my theory supervisor who is just as perceptive with reflections on my studio work and she reminded me of using the cut-out technique with selected images...something I have used in my collage works...but I may save that for vol.iii...what seems to be developing is a disparate relationship between the mostly silhouetted illustrated figures and the altered hand written text...the images are there to evoke or suggest a certain narrative..the text itself is never related to the image...if it appears that they are related then it is totally by chance...but i am telling you too much...we shall see what unfolds...sp

"trace' Vol.ii...more uncertain pages.

2011-05-15T18:41:00.000+10:00

The process of putting these pages together remains constant but in explicit...nothing more than uncertain text taken from diary pages and images sourced from several scrap books I have kept for the past fifteen years...a cautious selection of text... preferring the suggestion of a narrative to anything specific..perhaps it is the idea that text is a trigger for the reflective and that to make it too explicit destroys the sense of what remains unsaid in any conversation...the presence of absence...like Sunday afternoons...sp

Trace Vol.ii

2011-05-14T20:24:00.002+10:00

The first pages of 'trace Vol.ii'...I have used the same process as the first volume...a combination of litho inks, coloured pencil and bitumen...the text is taken from random diary entries from the time I commenced living here in Brisbane...traces of text...the layout of pages remain random...simply treating each page separately...until the bitumen was applied I really thought it was going nowhere...we shall see... but the bitumen seems to embed both text and image creating a surface layer that submerges things...a distancing I guess..sp.

miscellaneous...

2011-05-11T23:15:00.000+10:00

It seems that when I am in between things I like to write...sp

Case for Trace

2011-05-03T22:08:00.002+10:00

With the slip case finished 'Trace' Vol.1 is completed...making books can be addictive and already I am planning the next volume...I'm not certain if it something that comes across in my documentation but there is a rawness to this book that I like...it is something that can never be deliberately fabricated... it is an element that comes from process...in keeping process, form and content as tightly connected as possible...but in an unconscious way...it is all to do with being prepared to be lost in something...I have said that the images that make up the pages of this book are somewhat curious to me but then I remembered the miscellaneous postcard series that came in between things...a trace in themselves...thank you to those comrades who have responded so thoughtfully to 'trace'...sp

'Trace' Vol.1

2011-05-01T23:57:00.000+10:00

I'm not certain if these pages show anything different from what has already been viewed...but in them are the moments that make the the process of creating such a book so rewarding...new relationships are formed in the folding and binding of each page...unintentional elements come together or at least face one another on opposite sides of the binding...inescapably connected...although the traces and notations unfold over two extended pages I find myself viewing it as if I were reading text...each page is read singularly...and as I do so often when reading...I re-read certain sentences...but really I have not really found that moment that one always needs to find when beginning a new book...nor the place...a chair, a couch, a bed...in this case it will be the studio...where I can read it from beginning to end...but really it belongs to that genre of books that can be opened at any page...perhaps like an atlas, a diary or a book of poems...I always feel somewhat conceited when taking time to look and explore what I have made...really it is like consciously looking at yourself in the mirror...but something that as makers we need to do...and we need to discover something there that we actually like...things we may not have noticed in the process of making...I remain curious as to how these pages arrived...even more curious about 'trace' vol.2.(perhaps)...sp

'Trace' bindings

2011-04-30T23:23:00.001+10:00

I completed the binding today...this is in fact the largest book I've made...I have decided not to include a hard cover but rather a folded wrap around sleeve...it seems to allow it to breath a little...the book itself reminds me of those Readers Digest world atlas volumes that I think every home in the 60's and 70's must have owned...making books can be addictive...I want to make a complete series now...perhaps 7 volumes...each one exploring a variation of the notion of 'trace'...as I knew all along with the sequence of the pages remaining a random act of creating relationships with previous pages and the present at hand, some of the relationship will always be a little uneven... but I am happy with the overall feel of it...it is a little more curious and surprising than I expected...if you haven't yet tired of it I will post images of the interior pages tomorrow...sp

Covering 'traces'

2011-04-28T22:04:00.000+10:00

Almost a half day of collating the pages and creating a folded cover...I intend using the journal stitch method to bind them...I will reveal more as that unfolds...tomorrow perhaps.I was unsure of the book format...some of the images were strong enough as individual works I thought...but the book form changes everything...its contradictory nature that allows for a continuum of containment and disclosure is part of the reason why I continually return to the structure of books...I am reading Jean Baudrillard's 'America'...mostly on my morning and evening train journeys...his reflections and observations are so beautifully concise and poetic that for me when I hold it in my hands it feels as though I am grasping all of America itself...all that is possible in a book...sp

Re-tracing...

2011-04-27T21:47:00.000+10:00

Still a couple of pages to work on before the books completion...slowly beginning to collate the sections...I am aware that I may need to leave pages out...some pages just don't seem to connect... which is to be expected when working in a spontaneous way...especially when the book form itself is so structured...of course there is every possibility that it falls short of making any connection to the notion of trace...it is all very well to have such conscientious

intentions... but not everything sticks...we shall see.sp.

Folding 'traces'...

2011-04-25T23:03:00.000+10:00

Although I have some way to go before its completion I though I would reveal the 'work in progress'...I am rather impatient and have begun folding several of the pages into sections just to get a sense of the continuity of the pages as they are turned...I still continue to work back into each page separately... unknowing of what page will follow...I don't believe too much will ever be lost working this way...it allows for things to continuously surprise me....sp.

'Remnants'...(v-vii)

2011-04-20T23:24:00.001+10:00

'Remnants'...I'm not certain that remnant offers the same potential as trace...it suggests something more substantial...the remains of a more specific event...the remains of some significant moment in time...whereas a 'trace' is what exists of the incidental, the unconscious...that which is the least deliberate...that is why it is so difficult to find the space between the conscious act of making and the intended meaning...but of course this offers a layer or trace of what flows through so many things...identity...identity through the stain of what remains anonymous..of what is always in between...already this series has gone too far...although I am hoping that the book structure will bring it back to the sensibility of a trace...we shall see...sp

'Vestiges'

2011-04-18T23:04:00.000+10:00

Vestiges (i-iv)...litho ink, bitumen and coloured pencil on paper...sp

'trace'...page details

2011-04-17T22:42:00.000+10:00

More details of the page surfaces...because the drawing/numbering is made in response to each new page the length of time spent on each page varies...although I am conscious of each page being folded and the relationships between surface and text/numbering being altered once the pages are bound, I continue to respond and to be absorbed in each single image...wanting to retain a certain degree of detachment from its intended formal structure...for me the notion of trace seems to be connected to acts of the subconscious...it belongs within the realms of the accidental and the unintentional...bound to the poetic...please keep the 'trace' offerings coming in.sp

'Trace' pages continued...

2011-04-15T20:30:00.002+10:00

The notion of 'trace ' that interests me is the poetic riddle that I borrowed from Levinas..."a trace is a presence of which properly speaking has never been there, of what is always in the past"...this is one of those fluid sentences you can read several times and only arrive at a thread of grasping its meaning...and when you think you have it...it is gone...perhaps that is part of the reason it interests me...the beginnings I have made here in paper, ink, bitumen and coloured pencil are somewhat obvious interpretations...when completed they will contain references to maps... the most illuminating of traces...the book form that these 'traces' are presented in is significant I think...the pages of books offer the most poetic and sublime notion of a trace...fortunately one that we are able to return to...although the trace is altered with each revisiting...trace is also present in routine and habit...my daily train journeys to the studio exist in that realm of 'what is always past'...even within the moment...thank you to those who have responded to my 'trace' curiousity, please keep sending them...sp

Trace....searchings.

2011-04-14T21:53:00.000+10:00

With the MVA show now a trace I have been back in the studio searching for new threads...I have it in mind to construct a book so I thought I would share the process with you...the images I will show you over the next few days will be the pages before they are bound...each image will be folded in half...they may appear to be mono-types but in fact they are drawing/paintings...in two small buckets I thinned down a litho red and black ink and started making marks directly onto the paper...once the ink was dry(which was almost immediate) I then turned over each one and did the same on the reverse side...the oil based inks of course left traces on the opposite side which I worked with...then with a little more drying time I prepared a bucket of diluted bitumen...each surface was rubbed with a rag soaked in bitumen...the next process, which is still in progress. is simply adding numeric notations to the parts of each image using white and grey coloured pencils...I will reveal more of the books intention as it unfolds with each page...which really means I have little idea myself at this point in time...

I was thinking of leaving this to a later date but I was wondering if there are any comrades out there who would be interested in sending me their own descriptions or concepts on what the word 'trace' means to them...I don't mind if they are the simplest or the most complex of meanings...even a single word...I have no intended use for them ...i am simply curious...sp.

...of what is always in the past...

2011-04-03T20:54:00.000+10:00

'trace' now back where it commenced within the confines of my qca studio.
some things to be dismantled and re-
assembled...others to wait for other opportunities...some components returning to the lost and found...and
others simply abandoned..deliberately hidden away...no longer in sight... one or two new possibilities to be continued...
either that or new beginnings...as much as 'new beginnings' are really
possible...I am convinced of the notion of trace...eternal residues in all that we encounter...some more visible than others...often evident in unconscious acts...in what remains absent as much as what is present...sp..2o11

'TRACE'...final day

2011-04-02T10:32:00.000+10:00

The final day of 'trace'....I will be at the gallery for the day so please come and say hello...I will be happy to answer any questions you may have about the works...the gallery opens at 10am and closes at 4pm on Saturdays....sp

'trace'...abscence of presence...

2011-03-27T23:08:00.002+10:00

"a trace is is a presence of which properly speaking has never been there,of what is always past" E.Levinas

I have avoided any definitive statement about this installation of works...partly due to feeling as though I've exhausted my theoretical explanations in the writing of my mva research paper...and partly as a deliberate decision to step away from the expectation of delivering an artist statement...preferring viewers to form their own connections and to bring it back to pure experience without the aid of text and interpretation...if people walk away with some vague idea about what the work evokes as a collective than I will be happy...there is that experiential element to theses works...something that is more concerned with how they make you feel as opposed to what they make you think...feeling and the kind of thought that are at times so close it's difficult to know which is which... the intuiting that connects with reflection and consciousness...the Levinas quote is like some poetic philosophical riddle...but there is a sense of these works as a presence 'of what is always past'...it was never a conscious thing on my part...perhaps the past resonates with me to a greater degree than any particular notion of a future...what delivers everything to the moment...is the making...process...that is the only tangible thing I have...the nicest compliment you could pay is that you like these works but you can't say why...sp

'opening regards'

2011-03-26T20:50:00.000+10:00

'Biography'....etching and post cards...2o11

A quick thank you message to all of those who attended the opening of 'trace' last night...especially to family who made the trip to Brisvegas from the Sunshine coast...I am truly grateful for the support of everyone who was there.x..sp

piano key assemblage & wall pieces ...'trace' preview...2

2011-03-26T13:15:00.000+10:00

piano key assemblage 2o11

main gallery wall installation...2o11

"trace"...last 'catalogue' page

2011-03-25T07:28:00.001+10:00

I was watching an episode of 'the good wife' last night...perhaps the only regular tv thing I seem to enjoy...I won't go into the details but there was a line of dialogue from a character who was a cyber space business man and in part of a final conversation he said "stuff (things, objects) no longer exists"....and I realised that so much of that is true...for better or worse...(to be continued)...for the sake of my little exhibition I hope for some people 'things...stuff' does still exist...sp

'trace'...preview 1

2011-03-24T23:00:00.000+10:00

Trace...detail:(i) altered pocket book dictionary, found black and white photograph, embedded maths rod, shoe repair tacks and antique dart...

(ii) collage paper globe, postcards, maps and sewing needle..

trace...'no statement'

2011-03-23T23:30:00.000+10:00

Death of the artist statement...I have not prepared an artist statement for 'trace'... as far as I'm concerned the artist statement has been dead for over 50 years...it died in the back seat of a baby blue, rag-top Cadillac on January 1st. 1953 somewhere between Knoxville Tennessee and Oak Hill West Virginia...aged 29...cause of death was 'acute rt. ventricular dilation...loosely translated...a broken heart...

trace...assemblage detail & shadows

2011-03-23T20:00:00.000+10:00

In the gallery there is an aside room that I imagine will be perfect for new media and installation works...perhaps what I have done with it could fall under the description of installation...but I remain ambivalent with classifications in art...it simply became what the work itself suggested...and for that reason it either works or it does not...the wooden crutch assemblages and the piano key collages are viewed in the one room...not that they are in anyway related apart from pure process...a single piano composition that is playing as you enter the room is the only element that links them....that mix of subject and object relationship...at times so subtle I don't recognise it myself...sp

'trace'...collage & assemblage works by glen skien

2011-03-22T17:14:00.000+10:00

Opening Night: friday march 25th from 6pm...Pop Gallery

12 Ipswich Rd. Wooloongabba...gallery hours..11am-6pm:tue-fri. sat:10am-4pm.

exhibition:march 22-april 2

trace...opening tomorrow.

2011-03-21T21:46:00.001+10:00

'trace'...collage+assemblage works by glen skien...

Tomorrow is the first official day of the exhibition after a day and a night of installing...one or two surprises but really it is a re-invention of the work that was shown over the 'match-box songs + gypsy hymns' installations...it is always difficult having to revisit work...to keep it fresh I simply took everything to the gallery with little idea of how to transpose it...but like the process of making I guess one has to trust that immediate reaction to shape and surface...it always leaves one with so many options...so it has become what it has become...a formal/random placement of works...mostly silent...sp

'trace'...orphan

2011-03-18T22:06:00.000+10:00

'trace'...the exhibition will feature a new series of book and etching plate collages...something closer to the tactility of the city...sp

'trace'...exhibition booklet...page extracts

2011-03-17T21:34:00.000+10:00

I have been thinking of further alternate uses for catalogues at exhibition openings...apart from using it as a decoy in avoiding conversation it has the most obvious and practical use as a fan...especially if you have already had too many classes of red before the usually over long opening speeches begin...perhaps galleries should take a page out of the academy awards ceremony...a theme song could be chosen for each exhibition and once a guest speaker goes over the limit the theme song would ascend... I'm convinced that most artists shouldn't be permitted within 10 meters of a microphone...which is usually a safe thing because most artists loath openings...I loath my own openings about two days before the event...in fact I usually have too much to drink on the night before the opening so by the time of the real opening I'm quite over it...I can promise those of you who are desperate or unfortunate enough not to have found something more exciting to do next Friday night than attending my opening that there will be no long speeches..in fact no speeches at all..(unless there is someone drunk enough to say a few impromptu words)which is always fun...there will be plenty of good wine and cold beer...perhaps it is the 'north queenslander' in me but I much prefer a cold beer to wine at openings...and there will be booklets available to make use of in any way you wish...sp

2011-03-17T07:29:00.000+10:00

'trace'...I've decided that calling this a catalogue is over-playing things somewhat...really it's a small booklet that will give people something to hold in their hands as they wonder through the gallery and pretend to read if they see someone they do not want to talk to...or something to squeeze tightly as that person does start a conversation...or for those who are there on their own who can pretend to be absorbed in every word as they think that all of these other people know so much more about art...which of course most of them do not...or for the bored spouse...reading it as slowly as possible to take his mind off missing friday night footy... mostly the writings are small reflections on collecting...relating to various series...a quote or two from Merleau-Ponty... who I may secretly wish to be in a second life..and of course the 'preface' to 'living with metaphor'...it seemed irreverently appropriate...I may try and think of other uses for my catalogue/booklet...sp

2011-03-15T20:50:00.000+10:00

page extract from 'trace' catalogue...

'the encyclopedia of metaphor'...preface.

1.the human metaphor in section (over 30 illustrations) 2.life plan for successful metaphor

3.careers in metaphor 4.overcoming metaphor 5.metaphor and marriage 6.vanquishing metaphor

7.metaphor anxiety 8.metaphor checks for men and women over fifty 9.safeguarding against metaphor 10.relaxation therapy for relief of metaphor 11.the common causes of metaphor 12.success in metaphor 13.slimming with metaphor 14.recent developments in metaphor (sp)

2011-03-15T06:57:00.000+10:00

catalogue...front & back cover..sp

"trace"....Masters exhibition 2o11

2011-03-13T20:38:00.003+10:00

'trace'...a trace is a presence of which properly speaking has never been there, of what is always past...(E.Levinas)....'Trace' will present the studio practice component towards my mva at pop gallery

12 ipswich rd. wooloongabba, brisbane... opening march 21 till april 2...opening night is friday march 25th.from 6pm...I hope some of you can make it...over the next week or so I will post excerpts from the humble catalogue that will accompany the exhibition...perhaps one or two images that may not be so familiar...still some making to be done..sp