kaarina kaikkonen

Kaarina Kaikkonen is seriously amazing and seriously inspiring and I am taking her seriously(enought seriously). I loved watching her video yesterday found via her website. A recommended watch to see an artist talk openly about her process and the development of her practice.

Inspiration - Translating Emoji into a Giant Light Show

I love learning about other artists and their process, this project by Jennifer Wen Ma is on a monumental scale and truly inspirational.

 

are we still going on? by kaarina kaikkonen

The amazing and always inspiring Kaarina Kaikkonen.

via of paper and things

James Rhodes: 'Find what you love and let it kill you'

I like the no so subtle reminder from James Rhodes when he wrote for the Guardian. Sadly I almost let my job take that place and very pleased to have my art and front and centre again.

 

blog recommendation - Joetta Maue

A newly discovered blog and delightful inspiration with connections to other artists working with thread, stick and textiles. The interesting blog of Joetta Maue.

What do artists do all day?

I really enjoyed discovering 'What do artists do all day?' series on iplayer yesterday. I watched Cornelia Parker  and then needed to search online for the remaining episodes as they had timed out on iplayer.

For ease here all all the links:
Cornelia Parker on iplayer
Norman Ackroyd on YouTube
Polly Morgan on YouTube
Jack Vettraino on YouTube
 

I love seeing inside artists' studios and I would love to be doing art full time like these people, lovely inspiration especially for me personally Cornelia Parker. 

Watching the Cornelia Parker video was super special after going to the private view last week at Frith St which was pretty awesome.




 



 

Inspiration - Claire Watson

Inspiration to the maximum, Claire Watson.

I am always looking for artists that work with textiles to make sculpture. I need to learn, be inspired and reference what is happening it the broader art universe. I then search among the few to find artists who utilise worn clothing as their material. Here I discovered the inspiration of Claire Watson. 

Claire Watson Copyright 2012

the fabulous Mr Snelgrove makes fabulous New Eden

Dear Blog Universe,

You really must check out New Eden it is super fabulous and all created by Mr Snelgrove and his project partner Mr van Haagen.

New Eden follows the adventures of bickering odd couple Murray and Hamilton, two starship crewmen marooned and fighting for their lives on a primordial world after their starship crash lands on the wrong planet!

Can't wait for more.....

Red Ball - Inspirations

Discovered Kurt Perschke Red Ball Project which is completely great.  I also thought his interview was really interesting about his process and that of being an artist.

RedBall Project is a global art project by Kurt Perschke that exists as a series of temporary installations in a city over a few weeks. The work has taken place in places such as Barcelona, Taipei, Chicago, Toronto, and England among others. This film was created by the artist, who was later smart enough to get pro friends to help. So its early and rough, it literally is 'actions', or reactions.


As I consider could I install some of my work outside this man takes that idea to the maximum,  taking the inspiration to another level.  He talks about how sculpture wants to make you touch the work and feel it and that is something I think that is a really big compliment but how do you tackle that when you work isn't really built to withstand it?

Looking forward to it coming to England in Summer.

Inspiration via Ray Bradbury

"Books are smart and brilliant and wise. Love what you do and do what you love. Don’t listen to anyone else who tells you not to do it. You do what you want, what you love. Imagination should be the center of your life.”


via Brain Picking

Australia's hidden history

Discovered via  the oneness project an interviews that sheds a little light on Australia's hidden history, the personal experience of colonisation. This video is a good reminder why I am trying to tackle my homelands ugly history as part my work. 


I find it difficult to hear the impact of white Australia, being a white non indigenous Australian myself and therefore very important.

inspiration for materiality

though not really a word materiality..... in my current work 60 from 250?  I am always seeking to push the limits of my fabric wind and weave technique. Each time I look to change or push something just a degree more. I love looking for the limits and look forward to seeing all the many versions that will happen.

Margie Livingston

Study for spiral block #2

2010

Acrylic

5.75 x 6 x 6 inches

And today via Jealous Curator I found the most wonderful inspiration for pushing material limits, an artist Margie Livingston who makes paintings as sculptures. Margie's work jumped out at me as I looked and wondered and was touched, even through a screen. 


Then Margie did something very generous on her website.... a video where she talks to us the viewer about her process, I am hooked and well worth 9mins of your life.

it is all about the audience by Marcel

... the creative act is not performed by the artist alone; the spectator brings the work in contact with the external world by deciphering and interpreting its inner qualifications and thus adds his contribution to the creative act
Marcel Duchamp, The Creative Act, 1957

My new hero - Riley on marketing

Via Sarah Maple (by the way an artist I just discovered and very worthwhile checking out) this very inspirational video. I think Riley should take over and rule the world. 

Inspiration via the Ashmolean

As part of living the boy's dream life and living with him in Oxford while he is on tour, today I visited two great places the Ashmolean  Museum of Art and Archaeology and Pitt Rivers Museum. Inspiration on their own merits, and much more of the influence of Pitt Rivers later, I discovered the work of Angela Palmer.

Little did I know I would see two of her great pieces in my time in Oxford, Angela Palmer has done amazing things with Ghost Forest and Mummy.  Her art is often a collision between science and art, often tackling environmental issues.

Angela has clearly had an amazing education at Oxford and Royal Academy of which I am a little envious and she has achieved technically, physically and emotionally beautiful work which is an inspiration.


There is something about a particular artist whose research and creations walks a fine line with science and research, anthropology, ethnography and art which really interests me. Artists like Susan Hiller, Mark Dion, Grayson Perry, Fiona Tan to name a few that are intriguing me.

Boxing Day words from Louise Bourgeois

I have a thing for art books, a love and passion that I am often chastised about by the boy. Especially as piles of books in rooms are building along with our bookshelves that are groaning. I am also reminded that as we live in a foreign land one day we will be shipping all my books somewhere. But my love continues and this year it included a investment (somewhat wild when i consider the price) in Louise Bourgeois The Fabric Works Germano Celant.


I do reread the books, there are an inspiration an comfort, a pleasure and a luxury and when the TV box is on I often reading and flicking through an art book.  Christmas break brings about the opportunity of time in mooching and in which I have read some fabulous words in the opening essay which seems so pertinent to what I am working on at the moment which I share below:

page 13  
"....The lives and adventures of artists are traced by what they leave behind them: marks and tracks scattered over the terrain of images.  It is on the basis of this set of imprints and fragments left over the course of time, in different spaces, that observers can read an account and a story 'written' by the human being who has used different and varied materials to reflect her vision as well as existence.........these things and events reveal multilpe meaning s connected to a personal and linguistic story, one that can be told as a posteriori by someone who has not shared this set of lived and recorded events.  


...... So this observer does not set out aspire to set out a complete comprehensive and unifying discourse, but only aims to recount   the partial story of artistic adventure ... a wrapper if not an actual garment.....a fragile like all the theoretical mirages and adornments produced by the art historian who tires to define 'destiny" of an artist  but only succeeds in expressing his observation  of the visible and the potential invisible corresponding to a view from the outside, not from the inside. "

p.s. this also justifies my love love of books and my purchasing and wish listing of them

I remember you - pages

I remember you  - pages from the sketchbook

It always drives me forward I hope it reminds me to make the most of the opportunities I have, even the longest life is a brief run.

A saying that I stitched on one of the flags in my previous work, and just like the memories of the man who inspired the work this saying stays with me.

inspiration Emilie Faif

Inspiration plus plus plus - discover Emilie Faif a french artist with wonderful sculptures made with textiles and fabrics, such a delight.

stitched portraits, a-m-a-z-i-n-g

Via A Cup of Jo the discovery of artist Daniel Kornrumpf

Such amazing work, just when my last nine months of stitching was on the decline from my own doubts about the medium, I have been saved.

thank you interweb, thank you Daniel!.

Susan Hiller exhibition aand thoughts on my practice

Susan Hiller is just brilliant!! I had the best time seeing her exhibition at the Tate Britain with a friend from college. The exhibition was interesting and I really enjoyed the different mediums and her approach to the work. I am trying to convince the boy to visit so he can experience the show especially 'An Entertainment' which I think he will appreciate.

The work is so intelligent and thoughtful and it seems like devoid of the artist touch but in fact highly personal and at the same time scientific in style. I have been perplexed in a way about what this means for me and the way I make my art and questioning if my art is self indulgent. But then all art could be seen as self indulgent.

My challenge is I only truly know how to start from my self and work outwards I don't know what is truth and and what is fiction except about what I know about myself and how that impacts the world I know.