'INTERMISSION"...detail of 'metaphor & text'...work in progress

Etching is never far from my mind...not that I have any profound thoughts on its process or its effects...though I do feel that it is a medium more so than any of the other printmaking mediums that have the capacity of choosing you rather than you choosing it...the etched line is capable of incision into the psyche... often printmaking is criticised for its detached immediacy... every visual arts medium retains certain degrees of a similar detachment...but I believe this is precisely why the process itself chooses a particular temperament...as an etcher you know from the very beginning that you are embarking on an often lengthy journey...with a vague notion of where you'll end up...the alchemy exists within the relationship between metal, acid, paper,ink...like a game of rock, paper, scissors...the properties of one offering contradictions of another... subtleties that can so easily be passed over...etchers remain the poets of the visual arts...(to be continued)...sp

"match-box songs & gypsy hymns"... intermission

The last intermission...one show remaining before my studio window returns to the view of Brisbane city and the interior of my studio...the last show will open next week...in between I will post studio snaps and the latest works in progress...a return to etching...at this stage a vague hint of something to do with the relationship between text and image...something once again that is only felt but reinforced in the doing and making of it all...I have been writing backwards on the latest plate for several days and at times when writing normally I get caught between the two...so nice to be returning to the alchemy of etching...sp

last view of 'your-self in the ocean'...

The last day of 'you can't look at your-self in the ocean'...of all of the works exhibited so far this may remain the least articulated...a continual dilemma for me...talking about what I make...even within the realms of post-graduate study I avoid it... on the few occasions where it has been unavoidable I survived with generalisations...bordering on cliche...it would be misleading to suggest that I simply do not know what I am doing...I do but I also do not...what remains the most familiar and knowing is the desire, the need to simply create...for the past two years this has required the gathering of ephemera and together with collage and etching... fabricating, articulating, hesitating...to simply make...returning to the things themselves.. and although I have been finally seduced by the clarity that research provides I remain committed to the vagueness and to the not knowing...so that very little is destroyed...sp

Collecting/gathering interpretations...

I remember reading an interview with Tom Waits where he was asked about what happens in the recording studio...often the only structure exists in the written songs or poetry...musically how the two meet can be a matter of throwing everything at the wall and whatever sticks makes the final cut...the gleaning and gathering of objects can often provide a similar structure as song verse or poetry...these objects and surfaces offer a particular dialogue that I can throw at the studio walls...often containing sediments of the past...I think of them as 'everyday' things but I guess objects like old postcards,black and white photograph albums from the 1930's-40's ,hand-made dart sets,dis-assembled piano keys and childhood board games are not the kind of things that are ready-at-hand...they are sourced from second-hand and antique shops...so inevitably these works offer intimations of recovery..rediscovery... interpretation of the lingering...their self-concealment remains

 in place... descriptions,translations and questions.....all of it made in the wake of appropriation of experience...but experience that seems to continually return to the past...so much of what is blanketed beneath the 'contemporary' is difficult to divide from a world of the consumer...the past is like finding something on the beach that you can poke a stick at...the present is too evasive...it belongs to speaking or writing..the making offers a retreat from it all..the difficulty is keeping track of what remains real...of course it all remains real but very little of it has a pulse...sp

"you can't look at your-self in the ocean"...last days

The last remaining days of exhibiting these current works...new works from Wednesday...studio visits still most welcomed...(detail of exhibition space and reflection of Brisbane city...DEC.2010.)

you can't look at your-self in the ocean'...'endless conversation'

I was asked today about the meaning behind this work...as you can imagine I could never answer such a question without allowing the time for at least a conversation...the prepared statement that sits on the window sill offers a general introduction to all of these works engaging phenomenology as a method for understanding notions of identity and meaning made available within the objects and surfaces we encounter...of course I avoided the question by asking what she thought the work was about..she was aware of a sense of narrative...of a particular story being told..or perhaps it was closer to poetry...of things being connected but retaining there own identity...to her the space it-self suggested the sparseness of  poetry... the title also implied this...for her it was as though she was being told something but there was no definitive ending...as if this could end in a number of ways...or in fact it has no ending...the central box piece seemed to be about opposites..masculine and feminine..of divisions between opposites...the box assemblage pieces were self-portraits...and the upside down drawings on the wall represented the idea of seeing our own reflection in nature or in opposites...she thought it seemed to be revealing a lot of emotions or a certain idea yet it revealed nothing...it remained a puzzle...she found it frustrating for this reason..I'm afraid I didn't offer too much assistance apart from the thought that she was right to suggest that it had no ending...it remains a two way conversation that only ends when someone walks away...sp