I Now Live in a City

I was at a bit of a loss  as to what to do with myself- I am trying to arrange for things to come out of storage but it all takes time and  fitting in with people and removalists...blegh...at least we don't have to pack up the house.

Then I remembered- I live in a city now- one with an Art Gallery and a very good print collection. There weren't many prints on display- but there were one or two old favourites .I need to reconnect with Australia!
Frederick McCubbin- The Burial- he's captured the harshness of settling, the losses and despair in what sometimes seemed an unforgiving bush

Rosemary Gascoigne- Assemblage of Wood- recycling

Fred Williams- i love love love the work of Fred Williams- his take on landscape is breathtaking sometimes and his seemingly minimalist marks are intricate and dense- and the scattering is so like the messy Australian bush- I don't think  Williams would have read the quote from Henry Cross which I quoted in my previous post but it seems to me this is exactly the sort of thing he had in mind .

And these last two images form an exhibition entitled Mary and Max- which was an animated film created by Adam Elliot. the entire film was made from photo stills- not computer generations, so each puppet was entirely hand build and hand embellished- for example if they wanted to show drops of sweat running down one of the characters faces- each droplet of sweat had to be put into place- they used glycerine to create that effect- but every time a drop rolled down it had to be repainted and photographed.They took 132,480 still photographs to create the animation.Obviously it required a team of clayologists and artists to bring this all to life and this exhibition was a wonderful insight into how such a film might be made. Many of the props were on display plus some of the letters and films to show how the film was made.The story sounds quirky too ( not having seen the film) it is  the story of a 20 year penpal relationship between Mary Dinkle and lonely 8yo living in Glenwaverly in Melbourne ( the "burbs") and Max Horowitz a 44 year olf obese Jewish man with Asperger's syndrome living in New York.

It's obvious what needs to be done to climb out of this lack of work- just do the work! never mind what just do it!