art – Stefanie Robinson

Artsbox Residency

For the month of April I was in residence at the City of Maribyrnong Artsbox.

Where I continued my exploration of clay and rope, discovering new ways they can interrelate. I invited visitors to make a pinch pot from clay and to share their clay stories. These pots and stories were woven into an installation that emerged over the four weeks of the residency.

I had a steady stream of people popping in.
Everyone was keen to get their hands dirty
Most had a story or previous experience of clay. From traditional vessels and practices in Vietnam and Nepal,a fathers who was potter and have left a stash of clay for his daughter to use…. to schools experiences, art therapy experiences and just playing in the mud experiences…

Artsbox Residency

Colony

The clay nests installed as imagined…

At the Yarra Sculpture Gallery end of year exhibition…Bonanza…

nest… upcoming installation

Today is the 1st of August… I have 17 days until …

Nest

Stories in rope and clay

“Today I bring inside the heavy brown rope and start to pull it apart

    It is thick with dirt, dust and oil. It holds a story of work.

    It is rugged and strong, like an old farmer who has spent his life in the fields…”

These nests have been woven from rope and formed in clay.

Fragile containers for hope:

an invocation for

shelter, security and safety

for all.

This work is my response to her experiences as a community artist, bearing witness to stories of trauma that flow from or lead to the loss of a home, a safe space, a community.

“If only rebuilding a home, a community, a future was as simple as twisting some found rope and reclaimed copper…”

Hope is a fragile thing, so easily lost sight of in the barrage of media and world events. But it is “the thing with feathers that perches in the soul – and sings the tunes without the words – and never stops at all.” (Emily Dickinson)

Opening     Wednesday 17th August 6 – 9pm

Runs          17th August – 3rd September

Hours   Wed – Sat 12 – 5pm

at

Rubicon ARI

Level 1/ 309

Queensberry Street

North Melbourne

VIC 3051 Australia

Please come and join me at the opening on Wednesday 17th August 6 – 9 pm

This work was developed in a Creative Spaces managed studio.

Creative Spaces is a program of Arts Melbourne at the City of Melbourne

The Village….. part 2

So quickly it happens….

The Village has gone up, and been taken done and now rests in a box in the studio.
Except the shipping rope which is still sitting in the back of the car waiting for that extra person to be available to help us lift it out!

Thanks to all of those who made it to have a look.

I received a lot of positive feedback and have the vision for the next one….

Here are some photos from the opening….

The Village is up and open…..

On Monday I installed The Village at Trocadero Gallery In Footscray.

Paul Blackman, an old friend and fabulous artist with a great eye for installation helped.

getting the shipping rope up the stairs was a challenge but totally worth it.

This exhibition will be open from September 2nd – 19th
Wednesday – Saturday 12 – 5pm
The opening is on Saturday 5th 4 – 6 pm

These are just a few of the photos I snapped after the installation…. there will be more!

The Village

The post cards arrived today….

How exciting

Its been a gentle 5 year process of sewing and weaving these vessels.

I am looking forward to seeing them hang together in the gallery.

Sometimes the materials want to tell there own story…

Wire burnt in the Black Saturday Fires
given to me by a farmer
has been sitting in my studio
quietly gathering dust
until recently
when I was looking for something to weave…

Some made is way into the base of a nest

The rest wanted to tell its own story
and all i had to do was hang it on the wall

It soft twist and lines of straggling wire creating a 3d sketch

Today i made this…..

Still working the the notion/form of the nest

a little obssesed with clay

Inspired by last terms teacher challenge – to make a nest in clay by thinking like a bird

(these are the ones i made in class!)

I up scale…

Its my first attempt at working with clay outside a class situation…. so the test will be in the firing…

have i made the paper clay right?…
Will the mix of clays i have used work?
Whoops i forgot to run a wire underneath the second one…will i get it off the board

all those great learning questions…

Contained

In January I took up a fellow artists offer to make an installation in a shipping container.

WildWildGoose Contained was a 3 month residency by Dagmara in 2 shipping containers next to the Maribrynong Rver in Footscray (Melbourne)
Check put the other work that was created in this space on the Facebook page Wildwildgoosecontained

On the overpass bridge next to the container are two enormous pasted up photos of Uncle Larry, gently watching over us, and those who pass by.

Across the river
a depot of shipping containers
a 24 hour flow of trucks and cranes

Next to us
a freight train line
a constant stream of ‘goods’ coming and going

Beside us
The river
rising and falling with the tide
heading always to the sea
On that sea
containers travelling to and from the port

And woven through this landscape
conversations
about migration
about refugees
about things

Already hanging in the space was Dagmara’s net with folded boats.
I added a shipping rope curled into a nest with the end of the rope stretched across the wall.

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