Getting old and crusty

Matey, it's been a long time. "Hello Darkness my old friend, I've come to talk with you again", to quote Simon & Garfunkel. *nb. substitute 'blog' for 'Darkness'.

It's been a busy year as you can guess by the frequency of my posts. At the moment I am enjoying some free time after the opening of a show with myself, Carly Preston and Clare Fennessy at Allan's Walk Artist Run Space in Bendigo. We collaborated on our pieces and I'm pretty excited about a small blanket I made, even though I'm not a quilter and it shows (especially at the corners). The piece is a patchwork of squares printed with the silhouette of a dead swallow; I took the photo, Carly printed the squares and I sewed it up. I'm pretty happy with the way it turned out and getting excited about Carly's Gocco screenprinting set - it looks like a toy but it's an incredibly easy way to create your own screens if you're interested in printing on a small scale.

The prints are around about A5 size so anything bigger than that can be tricky, but seeing that they are the perfect size for a quilting square I'm going to bully Carly into trying some more screens out and see how they work.

After a hectic year I have realised that I am keen on blankets. Having made one for Next Wave (left), and now Flock, I'm getting excited about a rectangle of material that can have whatever you fancy on it. I really struggle to rationalize my work and there is no rationalization for making blankets, not in my mind anyway. But I enjoy the idea of having something crazy on the end of your bed, or on the back of your couch, or on your lap at the footy. Looking like possible Christmas presents. Don't think Mum will be getting a ruffled seascape one though, perhaps a nice Laura Ashley print.

Re craft activity, just Googled 'crafternoon' and it turns out there is a group in Tas that use the name - www.crafternoon.com.au - worth a look; and I had a very inspiring conversation with my ex-flatmate Christi this afternoon about resin cast bangles (the ones she makes are amazing) and craft websites that I should be checking out. When she sends me links I'll be posting them up. Have a good craftern'evening!

New elements

I've started working on a new sort of project with Andre Conate, actor extraordinaire from the Swinburne days; we're starting to take my costumes and create movement pieces in them. The Growing a Fringe festival in Benders is in two weeks and we are hoping to put something together for the performance showcase. I'm really excited because it's another step towards the kind of work I want to do, ie. visual theatre. I'm hoping that we can get something exciting happening for this piece then extend what we're doing in future projects.

I watched two fully sick films today - a Russian film called Stalker and The Maltese Falcon. Part of the Birthday series - I bought them both last Friday on the trip to Melbourne. It was a really enjoyable day, got to spend the day dragging James around town (he's such a trooper) and popped in to Swinburne and saw two of my lecturers - George, our lighting teacher who gave us a tour and all the gossip, and John, who forgot my name and called me Kylie. This is what happens when you aren't a star in the acting classes! But George loves me, so it's ok!

I think I'm going to be doing a radio show next month, so I'll post the details up here when it's happening. The broadcast is going to be within about a 6k radius of the station so don't get too excited if you don't live in Bendigo. And to be honest, if you don't live in Bendigo or know me personally you're probably not reading this so it doesn't matter. But if you are, I'm going to start practicing my radio technique: For the readers out there, do you watch theatre? and if you do, what do you like/hate when you're watching it? Go to www.cvcb.org.au to respond. I think that's the website anyway. Don't really, there's nowhere to respond. Just have a look or something.


Wow, look at the shit I've written!

Hello, boys

Long time no speak. I've lost my camera in the junk in my room so I've been putting off making an entry, but I've accepted the fact that if I don't actually look for the camera I'm probably not going to find it any time soon. I'll get onto that, I swear.

Well, the Olympics are almost upon us, and the title of this entry is a reference to Roy & HG's The Dream show that they did during the Sydney Olympics. They were commentating Men's Gymnastics and didn't quite know the names of the positions, so they made them up. "Hello boys" was the splits, and the 'Chiko Roll' was a forward roll, I'm assuming. Somehow it came into my lexicon when I was experimenting with different ways of answering the phone without having the person on the other end of the line pick up on it. Sometimes they do, sometimes not. "Happy House of Fun, Ellen Speaking" is a bit harder to go unnoticed with.

Anyway, that has nothing to do with sewing. Next big thing is Flock, which is Carly, Clare and I crafting it up at Allan's Walk with the theme of birds and nature. I've been designing for it in my *studio* (aka front bedroom that no one wants to live in) and it's slowly getting there. There is the possibility that I will end up creating works that use patterns and techniques I've used in previous works - ruffles from Foma, scales/feathers from The Reality Hour. Is that bad? Who cares, I'm doing it anyway.

In other news I've applied for a workshop with Next Wave - I just can't get enough! It's a thing to collaborate with an artist on work - something I want to do if I can find a dancer. It's part of a few things I want to do with my work - work with a dancer/performer and then get into filming. When that happens, it will be an achievement with my work. A pinnacle, if you will.

Super-fine, 100%!

Weaving together shredded parts

Well, it's been a while since my last post, and I just wanted to catch up and see what everyone is doing. Watched The Notorious Bettie Page before, had to turn it off and find a better movie to watch. In between I've been trying to attack my fringe with a pair of kitchen scissors in an attempt to fix a horrible, horrible haircut.

I went to an artist talk on Sunday at the Ararat Art Gallery, about conserving medieval tapestries at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. Very interesting, Tina Kane was talking about the techniques in conserving these tapestries which often come to them in pieces; the process is something that takes a great amount of expertise in a traditional craft, which I respect a great deal. It's made me realise that to get where I want to be and to have that expertise I have a long way to go.

Have to go - Malcolm, or Paris, Texas?

Foma variations

I'm working on some ideas for Foma and I'm liking this mask idea - the motif is a representation, for me, of the idea that most people deep down are scared, but it's ok, because we all are. It's something I don't like to forget.

I was trying to see what the wedding dress would be like with the blanket - I am someone who believes in a lot of the doctrine that organized religion teaches us, but don't believe I need to be told this by an organized religion. The blanket is a metaphor for the protection that a religion gives its members - from the responsibility of working for our ideals, our principles, our own process of rational thought. The wedding dress is my own tendency to have belief in certain aspects of religion despite my lack of faith. It's my own truth and lies. And how they work, or not.
I don't know, what do you think?Releasing Ceremony
This is my old flatmate Christi at the Releasing of the Costume Ceremony, where we took a costume that I hated and stuck it in a tree in Rosalind Park. I'd decided that it's time in my life was at an end, so we met up in the park and left it in a tree. When I went back the next day it was gone, so if I see any homeless people in Bendigo with it on, I'll be happy.

I think this is in line with an idea of mine that my costumes shouldn't really be in galleries anyway - they need to be on the street on people, or in trees, or hanging from telephone lines (if I was doing shoes that is, which I am actually). I'm going to investigate this further and get back you. Cheerio!

?

why do i hate my art so much?




I think there's a Freudian explanation in there somewhere.


After all, I do think of them as my children while I'm creating them.

Foma edits

I've been working on my Foma pieces for the upcoming touring show, and I'm a bit stuck. To be honest I hated the works and wished that I could have done something different for them, but I've been experimenting with the pieces and trying to do something I'm happy with. The result is that one piece I have changed into something I'm not sure about (but at the same time I love it) and the other I am trying to obscure somehow.

This is the piece that used to be a blanket, and now I've somehow turned it into a coat type thing, and now i'm just figuring out what's going on underneath. I don't know.

The other piece is a dress that I'd covered in silk cranes, and I'm not really happy with this one either and considering taking out my frustration by covering the entire thing with tangled string to obscure the front. It's almost there, I'm hoping that the mess will come out from the front a fair way. The question plaguing me is: is it Art or Fashion? And should it be one or the other for this exhibition?

Magic and thread #2

Jimbob said yes (i think on the proviso that I take around ten years to finish it). New project!

There is absolutely no way that I am domestic in any way. I can't even make Single Snack pasta without burning the milk. I used to have to write a P on my hand when I was cooking pasta so that I wouldn't forget I was cooking it. So in case anyone wonders whether I sew because I have a desire to express my connection to my inheritance of domesticity as a woman, the answer is No.

I sew because I think it's cool to do some of the things I do with fabric. I think it's cool to make people look a certain way by gathering this and circular cutting that. So yeah.

Magic and thread

I've lately been directed to research the idea of process and slow making time when it comes to craft and in particular hand embroidery (maybe because I'm frustrated by it right now), and I started thinking about the magic of hand stitching:

"She saw it on one burning afternoon sewing with her on the porch a short time after Meme had left for school. She saw it because it was a woman dressed in blue with long hair, with a sort of antiquated look, and with a certain resemblance to Pilar Ternera during the time when she had helped with the chores in the kitchen. Fernanda was present several times and did not see her, in spite of the fact that she was so real, so human, and on one occasion asked of Amaranta the favor of threading a needle. Death did not tell her when she was going to die or whether her hour was assigned before that of Rebeca, but ordered her to begin sewing her own shroud on the next sixth of April. She was authorized to make it as complicated and as fine as she wanted, but just as honestly executed as Rebeca's, and she was told that she would die without pain, fear, or bitterness at dusk on the day that she finished it. Trying to waste the most time possible, Amaranta ordered some rough flax and spun the thread herself. She did it so carefully that the work alone took four years. Then she started sewing... Meme could not help thinking about her when they turned on the lights on the improvised stage and she began the second part of the program. In the middle of the piece someone whispered the news in her ear and the session stopped. When he arrived home, Aureliano Segundo had to push his way through the crowd to see the corpse of the aged virgin, ugly and discoloured, with the black bandage on her hand and wrapped in the magnificent shroud. She was laid out in the parlor beside the box of letters." - One Hundred Years of Solitude, Gabriel Garcia Marquez

also http://www.anahitagallery.com/aharch06.html - a look at traditional embroidery in Central Asia and its relationship to ritual and 'magic'

I just like the idea that a stitch is a marker of time, and that marker falls closer and closer to death. Not that I particularly measure the time between now and my demise, but I would be very satisfied somehow if I were to start making my wedding dress (nope, no plans in case you're wondering, and stop being so nosy), and say, "When this dress is finished, I will be ready to wear it." There's something very magical in that, and I'm not sure what it is. Maybe it's the idea there is no production schedule for an event like that - no RSVPs, no seating arrangements, no choosing between chicken or fish for the dinner, blah blah blah. No Bridezillas, because there's no deadline to stress them out. Just, when I am finished this work, when it is complete, I will step into the next phase. I like that.

I wonder if Jimbob will be freaked out if I start making the veil?

Foma #3

I've been working on Foma #3 for the possible touring show, I spent about 7 hours on the couch last Tuesday working on one section approx. 6cm squared so I'm a bit unsure about whether this is really a practical thing for me to be spending my time on. Why don't I leave it to the viewers? Have a look at the pics of the piece below, and you can comment on whether I should finish it or not. (In case you're wondering, the image to the left is of a painting I did about a month ago, it's currently showing at the Collage Wall in our kitchen.)

The piece below is two jackets (unfinished at the moment) sewn together at the sleeves, and I am embroidering the sleeves with Blackwork embroidery and other motifs that are memory markers from my life, and doing the same on the other jacket for my boyfriend (actually it may not be my boyfriend in the end, could be ghosts of memories of past boyfriends. Not sure yet.) Anyway, I like the piece.

Cake and feedback.

I received some feedback from my producer about my work, and it was a bit of an emotional moment because I don't really know how to describe what I do, or what my themes are, and I have felt that there is some pressure to be able to describe these things as an artist (for media releases, artist statements, etc.). I don't necessarily like figuring out myself what my work is about, but I do enjoy hearing what other people think it is. Here are Tam's comments, for posterity's sake:

Hi Ellie

Good to get your text.

In regards to your work I really love your work as an artist and enjoy the constant delight and surprise that your new body of work bring to me. Last week when we meet I think the key element we discussed in your work included:

investigation of body in costume and how this related to space as demonstrated by your two Next Wave projects and also the Reality Hour project

Themes that I read coming up in your project

- contemporary and personal readings of pop culture and mythology/fairy tale - such as little red riding hood/the bride


The two key works that you made for Foma are beautiful and I hope that you might finish off your black work for the tour - such sensational stitching.

Although it was clear that you hadn't worked very hard in thinking and planning to establish relationship between costume/body and place for this particular project (I have witnessed you do this numerous occasions to a really high standard including space issues and also your developmental outcome) I agree with this, just in case you're wondering....ell

There were interesting readings to be found in your work - such as the blanket - next to the Yarra - conjuring up imagry of pinicing/water/christianity/the body defying reality and walking on water etc

also the dress a formal dress covered in string birds nest - again constant play around the formal vs the unreal - the presence of the natural taking up residence in a formal setting and making a safe place to reproduce and bring up their young. Bridget made an intersting comment, at the nigh of your opening, between the falling of the string having a relatioship to my work in her first edition of her zine.

In saying this an artist can never be aware of all the readings their work may take as you can never be in another persons head - however their are images/stories/language that we all share and your work can make use of these in a really strong way as you are using the body/place/dress.

I hope this is useful and assist you thinking and continued joy for your own artistic practice - as often I have witnessed your projects resolve themselves purely through joy for your own ideas and making them happen

Tam

Tamara Marwood
Associate Producer - Regional Projects
Next Wave

Hi Tam,

I think you are right that I hadn't worked hard to create a show that made sense in its location, themes and presentation tying together. I don't think I responded well to the themes that I worked with (my fault as I picked the bloody themes in the first place) and I feel that I came out of the festival wanting to work in a different way altogether - that is, make the work first, then look for the presentation (gallery, festival, outdoor) rather than making work that I try to squeeze into someone else's (or my own) rationale.

I think you are also right that I didn't have the same enthusiasm for my work as I did for previous shows. I think I put in the same effort for the blanket (if not more) as previous shows but the dress I was not too happy with.

And I think I would have been a lot more confident if I had have teamed up with a producer to manage the admin/publicity rather than producing it myself.

But! Aside from hindsight, I think that my work is about:

- interpreting social/cultural phenomena (memes as Richard Dawkins would say apparently)
- looking at objects, particularly natural elements such as plants, animals and taking inspiration from textures (trying to recreate them more like it)
- a surreal interpretation of people (a person, a character) using a free association style of interpretation

Oh I don't know. A lot of the time when I am choosing fabrics, materials, I just pick them because I like how they look. I love calico, brown paper and jute twine because they look so natural. There's no intellectual rationale for their use in my work.

Anyway, I'm rambling. I'd like to put a copy of your feedback on my new blog if that is ok? I haven't even set it up properly so don't expect much, but here is the link:

http://ellencoyle.blogspot.com/

Don't get too excited, I don't know what I'm doing yet. Hope all's well. What a month.

Ellie

I thought I was going to be working on some stuff today for my upcoming show Flock, but instead I made the cake in the above picture. I haven't even touched it yet, it's in the fridge. If anyone sees this blog and wants some of this cake, just put up a comment.

That difficult second- day blog.....

Well, I got up, I watched the news on TV and a bit of some ABC show on perpetual motion. The most enjoyable part was watching obese middle aged men from Dallas, Texas sit in a room talking about thermodynamics. Anyway, then I had a piece of toast.....

And looked at a group on Facebook entitled Philistines get your hands of Bill Henson's photography!

Now this Bill Henson thing has probably given everyone what they have been craving the most - the right to an opinion - and I confess that I have one myself. Last week the local paper rang me up and asked what my opinion was on the whole thing, and the interview took about 20 mins because I couldn't decide what I thought about it. Since that interview I've changed my mind about a dozen times but here are the points that I have decided on:

a) it is naive to deny the sexuality of teenagers, but equally naive to treat it with the same sophistication as adult sexuality.

b) being an 'artist' gives you licence to get away with a lot (not necessarily in this instance), and to present items as 'art' simply because you are an 'artist'. Basically anything you do is ok because you are an 'artist' (and I put the term 'artist' in quotation marks not to diminish the role but to emphasise that it is the term 'artist' that gives you this licence).

Anyway here is a picture of Colonel Penis, the plushie that my ex-flatmate Christi made for me last year. He seems to have an erect penis, so it is difficult to deny that his intentions aren't sexual and this image may be subject to removal by the New South Wales Police. Wish him luck.

Peephole, 2007

Can of Worms, 2007
self portrait
digital photograph

This is a picture I took in my studio, wearing a costume I made for The Reality Hour. The sleeves join this two bodied piece together.














Flannel Carly, 2007
digital photograph

Carly is a complete bogan who could only be photographed in flannel, so I made this ruff for her.

















Pirate Queen, 2007
digital photograph

Actually...

I was just kidding about that last bit. Enjoy!

Bloggy-McBlog Pants

My name is Ellen and I am a textile artist living in Bendigo. I decided to create this blog after participating in a festival which opened my eyes to the joy of feedback about what my art is actually about.

I'm hoping that I can put some stuff up and see what people think about it, if you like my stuff tell me, or if you hate it go to hell.