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My first Blog!!! Hip hip hooray - at last another Virginia gets her act together and does a post!!
The tea towels are rolling in and a big thankyou to everyone who has donated their family heirlooms, dusters, scraps from the bottom of the linen cupboard as well as the carefully saved souvenirs.
I am off on the Awesome Arts Residency Challenge late May and early June. It's Leonora this year and my fellow artist is a young man from NSW. All of this means of course that most of my 100 share of Virginia's teatowels will have to be completed before I go!! Yikes, the heat is on and I am sewing, printing, embellishing, embroidering and sewing the found objects just as fast as I can.
Better get back to it!
Helen
Monday, March 22, 2010
SPIN CYCLE MANIFESTO
Some of you may not be aware of Virginia's intention for the BRAG Showcase exhibition this July so here is the manifesto that guides us:
SPIN CYCLE
(INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE)
Pre-wash
Wet
Dry
Pre-wash
The Tea Towel is forever in a spin. Wet. Dry. Wet. Dry. Wet… Always rubbing and polishing, shining and wiping, busy servicing our needs. Greetings from SANDFIRE ROADHOUSE. Often gifted out to friend and family as a ‘great time’ souvenir, the resilient Tea Towel is caught in a cycle, trapped in the machinations of the machine, tangled with the tights, slapped taught then hung out to dry.
The Souvenir Tea Towel, related to the common variety Tea Towel, is the rarer and more desirable form within the Tea Towel genus. Her plumage is gaudy and cheaply printed with pictures and anecdotes of a conquering past. WITTENOOM W.A. Caught in a game of Captain Cook she is bought and sold, given and received as a flag-type symbol of ‘we was here’ reinforcing the colonization cycle: Wet; dry; wet…
The Great Australian Roadhouse; small-town general store; tourist bureau; Wombat Lodge or your altruistic fundraising charity distribution chain (CWA, P&C) are the preferred habitat for the Souvenir Tea Towel. She is desired by the panicked traveler sans imagination, the sensible shoe brigade and the astute collector oblivious to the inherent values embedded in the object itself and it’s covering decoration. CARNARVON WA jostles for provenance with MADE IN CHINA.
The Tea Towel ends up on the line. She is hoisted up dripping and bleached by the Australian sun until rigid. Pulled down she is roughly folded then jammed third drawer down on top of the Souvenir Tea Towel. Too good to use and too sentimental to throw away, she languishes nibbled by silverfish until recycled by the local Red Cross. I swam with the dolphins at BUNBURY WA.
Wet
An examination of the production and use of the Souvenir Tea Towel will be the focus of exploration for this exhibition. It will be examined as a metaphor for and symbol of culture, society and the individual.
The Tea Towel is a signifier of our colonial past and an icon of colonial conquest. The origins of tea and ‘tea time’ rituals indeed come into question here as loaded meanings inherent in the Tea Towel itself. These will be explored further in the exhibition.
In addition the Tea Towel is stamped and marked with other meanings creating a layered effect, like culture over culture. This will be interrogated in the creation of a new range of Tea Towels which will be produced (BUNBURY,WA); gifted (we was here); used (wet, dry, wet…) and recycled into exhibition (spin cycle).
Dry
The exhibition is cyclic in nature and will constantly change.
The audience will encounter a quiet, still laundry room caught mid-cycle. Tea Towels were laundered on washing day. They now hang, filling the space; a moist, laundered scent mixed with the fetid odour of a thousand roast dinners will fill the space. Piles of tea towels are strewn on the floor.
Several days later, the tea towels are miraculously transformed. They are folded, crisp and dry. They are ironed in-situ once a week as part of the laundry cycle, a performance element of the installation.
The fresh Tea Towels are sent out for use as the next batch arrives to be strung up. This installation is designed to evolve to emphasise the cycle of production and use; supply and demand; wet and dry. Laundry is always getting done yet is never actually done.
The audience will notice that each Tea Towel is a unique response to the multiple meanings embedded in the Souvenir Tea-Towel (see pre wash, above) and how this layering reflects a false sense of Australian culture.
Spin Cycle reminds us to look closely at those things we take for granted and have forgotten to see.
It is a reflection of the false values we allow into our homes stamped on a tea towel that become normalized and overlooked over time.
The performance element of the exhibition emphasizes the endless Groundhog Day of daily ongoing rituals that give meaning but in themselves become meaningless. Silent endeavour.
The installation will be a unique “creeping” style exhibition where the viewer experiences a different exhibition each time they visit.
This exhibition promises to reach beyond the realm of the typical exhibition experience in the South West in that it will be a large-scale conceptual installation. These types of exhibitions are rare – even in Perth – and establish a sense of art as beyond the object or the process itself encouraging discussion and debate.
SPIN CYCLE
(INSTALLATION & PERFORMANCE)
Pre-wash
Wet
Dry
Pre-wash
The Tea Towel is forever in a spin. Wet. Dry. Wet. Dry. Wet… Always rubbing and polishing, shining and wiping, busy servicing our needs. Greetings from SANDFIRE ROADHOUSE. Often gifted out to friend and family as a ‘great time’ souvenir, the resilient Tea Towel is caught in a cycle, trapped in the machinations of the machine, tangled with the tights, slapped taught then hung out to dry.
The Souvenir Tea Towel, related to the common variety Tea Towel, is the rarer and more desirable form within the Tea Towel genus. Her plumage is gaudy and cheaply printed with pictures and anecdotes of a conquering past. WITTENOOM W.A. Caught in a game of Captain Cook she is bought and sold, given and received as a flag-type symbol of ‘we was here’ reinforcing the colonization cycle: Wet; dry; wet…
The Great Australian Roadhouse; small-town general store; tourist bureau; Wombat Lodge or your altruistic fundraising charity distribution chain (CWA, P&C) are the preferred habitat for the Souvenir Tea Towel. She is desired by the panicked traveler sans imagination, the sensible shoe brigade and the astute collector oblivious to the inherent values embedded in the object itself and it’s covering decoration. CARNARVON WA jostles for provenance with MADE IN CHINA.
The Tea Towel ends up on the line. She is hoisted up dripping and bleached by the Australian sun until rigid. Pulled down she is roughly folded then jammed third drawer down on top of the Souvenir Tea Towel. Too good to use and too sentimental to throw away, she languishes nibbled by silverfish until recycled by the local Red Cross. I swam with the dolphins at BUNBURY WA.
Wet
An examination of the production and use of the Souvenir Tea Towel will be the focus of exploration for this exhibition. It will be examined as a metaphor for and symbol of culture, society and the individual.
The Tea Towel is a signifier of our colonial past and an icon of colonial conquest. The origins of tea and ‘tea time’ rituals indeed come into question here as loaded meanings inherent in the Tea Towel itself. These will be explored further in the exhibition.
In addition the Tea Towel is stamped and marked with other meanings creating a layered effect, like culture over culture. This will be interrogated in the creation of a new range of Tea Towels which will be produced (BUNBURY,WA); gifted (we was here); used (wet, dry, wet…) and recycled into exhibition (spin cycle).
Dry
The exhibition is cyclic in nature and will constantly change.
The audience will encounter a quiet, still laundry room caught mid-cycle. Tea Towels were laundered on washing day. They now hang, filling the space; a moist, laundered scent mixed with the fetid odour of a thousand roast dinners will fill the space. Piles of tea towels are strewn on the floor.
Several days later, the tea towels are miraculously transformed. They are folded, crisp and dry. They are ironed in-situ once a week as part of the laundry cycle, a performance element of the installation.
The fresh Tea Towels are sent out for use as the next batch arrives to be strung up. This installation is designed to evolve to emphasise the cycle of production and use; supply and demand; wet and dry. Laundry is always getting done yet is never actually done.
The audience will notice that each Tea Towel is a unique response to the multiple meanings embedded in the Souvenir Tea-Towel (see pre wash, above) and how this layering reflects a false sense of Australian culture.
Spin Cycle reminds us to look closely at those things we take for granted and have forgotten to see.
It is a reflection of the false values we allow into our homes stamped on a tea towel that become normalized and overlooked over time.
The performance element of the exhibition emphasizes the endless Groundhog Day of daily ongoing rituals that give meaning but in themselves become meaningless. Silent endeavour.
The installation will be a unique “creeping” style exhibition where the viewer experiences a different exhibition each time they visit.
This exhibition promises to reach beyond the realm of the typical exhibition experience in the South West in that it will be a large-scale conceptual installation. These types of exhibitions are rare – even in Perth – and establish a sense of art as beyond the object or the process itself encouraging discussion and debate.
Climbing the BRAG Summit
Interesting to hear David Bromfield and Pippa Tandy's approach to selecting works for the 2010 survey. The set about subscribing a meta-narrative to the studio visit process and resulting exhibition to speak of how a sense of place infuses each individual artist's practice thereby creating a unifying whole. At least a whole for a sensible critique of a collection of works.
In many ways the artists of the south west region are no different from most other areas in that it can be a bit like herding cats without a central narrative core of focus to drive or dispel artistic purpose. For this reason one felt that any overarching theme applied to artists of this region extremely hazardous. There is no doubt, from a writer's point of view that to generalise or link commonalities across practice presents a nice package to write around and perspective to critique from. 'Tis our human nature to want to categorise and generalise to make sense of experience so one cannot be too harsh - perhaps the sheer diversity of the region has more to do with artist background, time lived in the region and purpose for being here... but one quibbles statistical analysis, not necessarily the purpose?
I wonder how the results would differ had P & D the opportunity to do similar projects in other areas?
Nevertheless, opportunity to exhibit, connection with other artists, organised networking and critical writing were the general themes that seemed to present themselves as much-needed in our area. (no longer is it kosher to be a 'regional artist' or a 'south west artist' - apparently these terms are somewhat prescriptive and limiting... the play with semantics continues... you may consider us artists from the south west or living in a regional context however) Some great ideas were tossed about in the south west artist salad, oh, excuse moi, the salad tossed by the artists who happen to live in the south west but may not necessarily be south west artists! haha ha! Anyone seen MOnty Python lately?
More on tea towel production next...
Monday, March 15, 2010
looking through a pickle-tinged Fowler's vacola
It's not a rosy glow, it's a soft warm light emitted through a pickled-tinged lens. That pretty much sums up how we are all feeling having screen printed printed more than our first third of the souvenir tea towel quota ready for INTERVENTION...(where we pass on the prints for one another to add/change/modify etc - Virginia's special 'touch'.)
Surprises will no doubt be in store as we meet again to share our quiet labours from our individual studios...what will Virginia inspire each of us to do? How will the intervention/embellishment of one another's tea towel masterpiece turn out? Only Virginia knows. Surprises in store.
We each have a unique take on the cultural souvenir trade: from the halcyon daze of a romance-infused domestic drudgery of a bygone era (really? not still today?? stranger echoes have resounded...) to the culling of our national emblem - such a proud country, we harvest our national icon - and the colonial quest for civility & decency read between the lines of recipes, dancing or home management. The tea towel never strays far from it's sweaty purpose to mop up after a big feast.
The real joy, for us three musky-tears, lies in the discussion and artistic exchange surrounding Virginia. Ginny brings us together to share and discuss, inspire and challenge. Ideas are threshed out and interrogated until we satisfy a shared understanding. Three creative minds are definitely better than one.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
The Three Musky Tears
Welcome to the new Monday post as we approach exhibition July 30th. In an effort to be communicative we plan to write weekly posts for Ginny to count down the weeks of work until D-Day.
Virginia called us in for our second week of screening yesterday. Much relief now that the gut-wrenching grant writing process is behind us... We three have been awaiting this moment with baited breath: to throw ourselves into the process of printing teatowels for the upcoming exhibition.
We each have 100 works to prepare for Ginny's exhibition; the first stage is to madly screen-print our basic designs that we will pass around the campfire for additional embellishments or interventions over the coming months leading up to D-Day at the end of June.
We had planned to sew the 300 teatowels our loving selves - haha hahaha! After countless hours of sweatshop labour cutting, ripping, stitching, steaming and ironing ourselves into tomorrow we realised Virginia had been slightly ambitious with all her positive thinking and penny-pinching when we meditated upon the results: a meagre pile of 32 neat and tidy teatowels.
If we stitched for a week solid we might actually arrive at 300. Interesting as Ginny pointed out this little exercise adds another symbolic dimension to the 'cultural layering' at the core of her souvenir tea towel show - the teatowel sourced in India, printed in China and sold in Carnarvon as a token souvenir of one's adventures (inasmuch as 'adventures' and 'Carnarvon' may seem uneasy bedfellows to some) taken home to dry and be washed, dry and be washed, dry and be washed until holy. The cyclic layers of unseen work that forms our daily existence influences who we are in silent ways of blind acceptance; Virginia worships this holiness.
Taking this into account we have bulk-purchased teatowels (made in India) to compliment our natty little pile of home-crafted lovelies and the war-worn many that have been generously donated or rescued from the rag-bag. (beautifully demonstrated by Helen, below)
This gorgeous little gem is Virginia's shroud of Turin. What blessed miracles has this humble cloth witnessed? Such a relic is almost too precious to touch.
Working together we have discovered some interesting variations in work practices. We have had the occasional visit from Iris Krunkle (Helen's dear old well-meaning but absent-minded friend); we have discovered a delicious contrast in the neat, careful and ordered precision of Jean's process in stark comparison to the awe-struck horror inspired by Naomie's plunge into creative chaos where she manages by some miracle of paint to smear every surface in sight - and amazingly - including some quite well out of sight also and that Virginia likes a bit of cucumber & confessional. No, not linked. Cucumber (eat). Confessional (confess secrets, but not about cucumbers). Sorry if this disappoints.
Until next week...when Virginia intervenes
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