Tag Archives: creative process

Nest

A review and images from my installation at Rubicon ARI, Queensbury St, Melbourne August 2016

 

“Very cool to drop in on Stefanie Robinsons installation at Rubicon ARI today……we walk into a white space, walls , floor and ceiling . Hanging from the roof detritus ropes, sun worn ,ocean swept , sometimes unravelled and frayed . At intermittent points the ropes flair out into beautifully woven nests before being drawn back to follow gravity and continue to the floor where some coil , frayed ends tickle the floor, a minute nest, the essence of intimacy and well being , nestles in the fraying…Where rope meets floor a heaviness of clay nests ground it all and their weight and earthiness are such a wonderful counterpoint to the lightness of the suspended elements of the work. Roughly modelled and fired their earth colour combined with the subtle hues of ropes, hemp and the weaving create this exquisite and reflective environment….I just sat down and dreamed away. you can touch !….Texture ! I moved through and just a gentle bump to set it all in slight motion and the weight of the earth elements holding us firm. Anyway I think it’s really bloody groovy and quite literally hangs together really well…twenty stars ! 309 Queensberry street, We’d to Sat…12 to 5 PM, until 31 St August…oh and it’s a side entrance around the corner.”

Simon Fisher

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A sketch

I am currently working towards an installation in August at Rubicon Gallery.

I have a vision for a wall of clay nests
I hung up the few that I had in my Studio last week

 

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I think its going to work!
Now to make the next 50 – 70 …

Warringa Park School

In November i was once again invited  back to  Warringa park special school. This is my 3rd project with them. I was  very excited to see the development in their skills …. In using the tape and the cane and understanding both what we are making and how to make it….

This time it was a tram ….

The first day 4 classes helped me to build the frame, and the following week another 2 helped my cover it in the paper and then add the drawings. The fabulous art teachers Andrea and Ruth, had worked with their classes to create a number of different styles of drawings and collages to glues on the tram for decoration….

They looked great and I’m sure they were the highlight of the end of year arts show.

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

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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

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Today i made this…..

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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!)FullSizeRender

I up scale…

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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

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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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tributaries feeding a river
branches of a tree
A road map

Then the mermaid. jumped in…IMG_2068

On the last day i invited 5 performers to come and explore the work….

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We created a 1 hour rolling improvisation, moving in and out of the container.
(Video to come!!)

(Black and White Photographs by Dagmara @ wildwildgoose.com )

Warringa Park School Residency

Warringa Park is a dual mode school which caters for all children with an intellectual disability and has a current enrolment of 431 students. (Taken from their website)
I am there every Wednesday this term working with 4 classes from the middle years to create 3d sculptures/lanterns of endangered species for their end of year performance “Walk on the Wild Side”

The event is during the day so they won’t be internally lit….

It has been a crazy journey….maybe a little ambitious but now they are made and papered and ready to be decorated ….

Lantern Season is over…for this year

Since returning from the  Bird Lab Residency is Sweden I have been deep in lantern land.

First the Lismore Lantern Parade
This year we celebrated the 20th anniversary of this fabulous event.

and then

INTO THE LIGHT – Cycles of Change.
This was the 4th year for INTO THE LIGHT, which started in response to the 2009 Black Saturday fires. Each year we have reflected on the process of healing and with a group of local artists,designed an event in response to where the community is at now.

It is a very special event. I feel privileged to be part of it
This years video is still in process but here are the last 2 years.

Between Land and Sky
The Unfolding Story

And now that lantern season is over
I have time to return to my studio.

This started with a shift from studio 2.14 which has been my home for the last 2 years to works in progressStudio 2.26 across the hall. (At River Studios in West Melbourne which is run my City of Melbourne’s Creative Spaces program)

A chance to dust of the dust and re look at everything that i have gathered or done or thought about doing. I now have a wooden floor, 2 white walls and a square space rather than a rectangle.

So i sat in it today
and stared at all the projects
started, played with , begun, thought about
and waiting
waiting
waiting
for me to start, return to , finish, begin , complete, start,
remember

So many threads and ideasIMG_1871
how do they inter link?
Do they inter link?

 

Is it all one creative journey ?

Or separate threads heading in opposite  directions?

Questions

always questions.

So I picked up some clay (my newest thread)
and blocked out the questions
and let my fingers play

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Ode to a bicycle

Bird Lab is over
I am back in Melbourne
I have been greeted with cold grey sky’s
rain and a flat battery……

So as i snuggle into the Autumn
I take some till to reflect
and thank the bike that
took me across army fields
and over roads
and tops of hills
to dinner parties and back again……