Turtle Swamp

So happy to make it to the August Mudlines gathering on Canaipa, Russell Island. Travel on the ferry passed swiftly with Jo and I discussing strategies for the future of Lines in the Sand - reiterating the necessity of the slow and steady pace. On Canaipa we explored the Binging Trail which has stands of Banksia, Paperbark, Eucalyptus and a large stand of Casuarina. The idea behind the gatherings is to wander in nature and then use the wonders of nature to create.

Sharon talked about how much easier it was for her to be immediately inspired to make Nature Art than it is to contemplate new work in the studio. Watching her you can see it's true, Sharon found a gully full of potential - converting a discarded lawn mower into a shaggy sculpture with the addition of pine leaves, then creating a spiral on the forest floor by lumping the pines leaves and back-filling with gorgeous yellow ochre soil.

The rest of us painted, photographed and worked some sticks into sculptural forms hugging the landscape. I found a quiet place to study the casuarina forest floor strewn with needles, up to ten centimetres deep. The dashing of lines on the page settled into a meditative rhythm as I added layers of colour.

On the way back to the ferry we went to the Island Made exhibition. Trisha Dobson and Maria Cleary have put together this exhibition of exceptional things for ordinary use. Each artist is celebrated with a display of their work, handsomely highlighted with black and white portraits by Jo-Anne Driessens.

Mudlines helps us to articulate the offer of Nature Art Connect into an intimate, site specific discovery of nature art and the Southern Moreton Bay Islands.

Naturally inclined

Walking through the forest on the weekend, I stooped to gather maroon gum leaves admiring their colour variation. Yesterday I waxed the leaves as an experiment to see if that would preserve the colour. They feel smooth and have a slight sheen, but I'll have to wait to see if the colour remains. So now I'm thinking about what to do with the leaves, maybe something sculptural with wire - it will be fun to play around with.

Also gathered on my ramble were hardened blobs of exuded gum which has gorgeous amber hues of red or gold depending on the tree. I was hoping the process to melt down the blobs would be as simple as applying heat, but that was not the case. The gum is water soluble so I need to work out a hardener I can add, then I'll be able to make objects from the blobs.

It occurred to me that both Mindsettle and Nature Art Connect come from my love of nature. Should have been obvious I know!

Patterns

Last week, child number three and I spent time watching Vi Hart videos on the Khan Academy website. The films lure you in with the hypnotic into “so you’re math class and your teacher is droning on about –insert math principle- and you’re bored so you start doodling”. She then fills her notepad with doodles that cunningly illustrate the math principle that the fictitious teacher was unable to engage you in. As a consequence we have been trying to make hexaflexagons, drawing snakes that slither under and over their own bodies and replicating Sierpinski’s Triangles. The fast pace of Vi’s speech, the many coloured sharpies and the casual reference to mathematicians as though they are friends has a hypnotic effect, Vi is an effectively eccentric tutor. Number three isbusily filling her notebook with colours and shapes which are the basic tenets of patterns.

I find that drawing patterns has a meditative effect. I start with a blank piece of paper, then I invent a rules about colour, line or shape and proceed to fill the page using the rule. I then assess the result and puzzle over the next idea. I realise that I use a pattern to make a pattern.

This making of patterns often leads me in to a state of flow, which Csíkszentmihályi describes as “an intrinsically rewarding or optimal state that results from intense engagement with daily activities". Conversely, I often start to make patterns to disengage from the intense engagement of the demands of my progeny. I also find that getting into the flow can solve problems seemingly unrelated to the task at hand. Nice huh?!

The Sierpinski Triangle is a fractal construction: the image is self-similar and therefore similar at any point, by magnification or reduction, regardless of scale.

littoral

Sharon invited me over to her island on Thursday. Instead of making our usual Lines in the Sand on Minjerribah (North Stradbroke Island), she encouraged us to explore Mudlines in the Mangroves of Russell Island. Also known by the Aboriginal name of Canaipa (rhymes with sniper, which is apt as it means land of the pointed spear), it is a fifteen minute sojourn on a cat from the mainland. Six of us have shirked our usual routine to find artful meaning in the littoral.

When we get to the site and wander down to the shoreline I can see across the Canaipa Passage to the western shore of Minjerribah. I have never seen this side of the island, a line of trees descends into small sandstone cliffs that descend into the sea. The mangroves are alive with bird-call - small honey eaters dart through the branches while ibises honk in the sky. We wander round stumbling as we get used to the suck of the mud as we walk. Abandoned boats are being reclaimed by nature, exposing old copper nails greened by the elements.

I settle away from the group under the spreading boughs of a mangrove, it's soothing looking up into the branches. I settle to sketch the scene, tucked into the curving trunk. When returning to base-camp I find Sharon experimenting with the idea of scale. Using the grassy marshland as a canvas, she is arranging fallen branches which to my eye looks to be a dragon rising from the ground.

Island time ends I'm dropped back to the jetty to catch my boat back to my usual regime. This seven hour adventure has given me the fabulous illusion of a much longer break. The winter sunshine, the listening to juicy art-talk, the travelling across the bay and the sanctuary of the natural environment have nourished my being. Days later, idly scratching at my midge bites I'm remind that I'm itching to get back out into nature - littoral or literal.

littoral |ˈlɪt(ə)r(ə)l|
adjective
relating to or situated on the shore of the sea or a lake: the littoral states of the Indian Ocean.
• Ecology relating to or denoting the zone of the seashore between high- and low-water marks, or the zone near a lake shore with rooted vegetation: limpets and other littoral molluscs.
noun
a region lying along a shore: irrigated regions of the Mediterranean littoral.
• Ecology the littoral zone.

Purple

"You and I know we're gonna die some day." And so it came to pass that at the age of 57, Prince is dead. "Ain't gonna let the elevator break me down" and yet that's where he was found struggling for breath at the end of his life. Listening to his music is to be privy to some fantastic erotic literature set to sizzling guitar or soft silky romantic commitments to love. I became intoxicated by this smouldering-eyed dandy when at high school. I loved those early film clips featuring Wendy and Lisa with everyone in the band dancing in high heels (no wonder his hips needed replacing). They all looked fabulous, the sound was thrilling to dance to, the lyrics often outrageous and he clearly encouraged talent regardless of gender.

Prince was dedicated to living his life as an artist on his own terms. INSPIRATIONAL! So, no I'm not mourning his death - but I am more determined to appreciate life while I still have it live.

"Before this night is through you will see my point of view - Baby I'm a star!"

The War of Art

Since Christmas I've being reading my way through the mega-bundle I bought from Black Irish Books. In the War of Art, Steven Pressfield talks about the challenges of being an artist, of sitting down to do the work. "Resistance feeds on fear. We experience Resistance as fear. But fear of what? FEAR THAT WE WILL SUCCEED. That we become the person we sense in our hearts we truly are." Knowing that this is the lived experience of an author, who has successfully published many books, is heartening. To know that even when we taste success it still feels risky to pursue a creative life. I feel this resistance rising up inside me constantly, my best defence is my routine. By having a strict regimen (and letting housework slide), I can apply myself to doing the work. Each week begins with targets for each project I am working on and I get a little tingle each time one of the listed items is accomplished.

It can be difficult being your own motivator, beavering away on your own, but it's encouraging to remember Pressfield's advice "Our job in this lifetime is not to shape ourselves into some ideal we imagine we ought to be, but to find out who we already are and become it".

Chihuly Garden and Glass

A spectacular site specific permanent exhibition of Dale Chihuly's glass art, including a glasshouse and gardens. I liked how much randomness played a part in the work. Clearly skilled in the process of blowing and shaping glass, when he was collaborating or leading teams he allowed happenstance to inform his artistic vision. It was a great reminder of the power of repetition, how a lot of something is really impressive, it looks like a lot of work because it is. The Persian Ceiling on display contains over 1400 individual pieces.

He has collaborated all over the world working with various glass or crystal makers, such as Waterford in Cork, Ireland. Chihuly has made site specific installations in Finland and Venice - floating glass objects down rivers, hanging them from bridges or trees, placing them in forests or seal-like on rocks. He uses mesh to tie the objects into their larger forms of organic shapes that sit in the landscape naturally.

Crocheting on paper

Drawing these small circles is a tranquil activity. My hand knows the form so well that I can enter a state of flow. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi coined the term 'flow' as a psychological term and has written extensively on his research in this area which falls within the realm of positive psychology. Finding flow is "an intrinsically rewarding or optimal state that results from intense engagement with daily activities". It can also be described as being in the zone and Csikszentmihalyi says that when we are in a state of flow our performance is at it's highest. This can happen if you're free to totally concentrate on the task.

So, though these tiny circles appear to be a lot of work and certainly did take time to draw over consecutive days, the process of doing had the same effect on my mind as meditation.

Triangulation

A while ago I scanned an article that talked about a new theory that proposed that a circle was actually a type of triangle. I don't remember any more about it than that, but it has stayed in my mind. Being interested in shapes this idea has seduced me into exploring the possibility by drawing. These shapes are definitely triangular in nature, yet I can see that if I push the three points into softer curves it could eventually become a circle.

Khan Academy tells me that you need to define 3 points to make a unique triangle or circle. Triangles are used as symbols in eastern and western philosophies and religions. In the west it is used to represent the holy trinity, while in the east it symbolises the connection between mind , body and intellect. Often a triangle is encompassed by a circle, which it turn represents a source of power, like the sun.

It's wonderful to discover how a snippet of information is processed by your thoughts over time to help generate your curiosity and creativity.