Tag Archives: lanterns

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.

INTO THE LIGHT – Cycles of Change

Finally
Here is the video of the event we created with the community of Whittlesea Township in September.

INTO THE LIGHT is a community process and event developed using art to explore ongoing recovery issues in the region, break down isolation and build connections. It began in 2011 in response to community needs following the 2009 Black Saturday Bush fires. Locals asked that the project be repeated, to continue a collective reflection, realising that community recovery is an ongoing and evolving process that takes time to unfold.
So for the past 4 years we have been engaging in a collective collaborative art project in the Whittlesea Township and surrounding areas, as part of a community recovery process.
Each September, members of bushfire affected communities from across the Kinglake Ranges parade together as a personal, public and collective ritual to welcome spring, reflect on the effect of enforced change in our lives, and look to their future, together.
Guided by a community committee of local people and artists, the theme changes each year to reflect communities’ unfolding issues rather than council boundaries or projected plans.
Working across municipal borders the process has involved workshops delivered in twelve schools throughout the Whittlesea, Nillumbik, Mitchel and Murrindindi shires and community workshops engaging individuals and groups of all ages and abilities.

Walk on the Wild Side

Waringa Park School
The completed animals……..
They did a great job

wombat
orange bellied parrot
orange bellied parrot
billby
orange bellied parrot 2
billby 2
billby 2
orange bellied parrot 2
wombats
billby
hummingbird
bilby 2
orange bellied parrot
(giant) pigmy possem!
lanterns
lanterns
lanterns
lanterns
lanterns

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

IMG_1878

 

time to reflect

It’s ‘Community Arts Day’
and I’m sitting in my studio reflecting on the last 3 months,

As I dither about, flicking through other web sites I find that on this day
Neil Cameron has published a book “The Cultural Development Handbook. An A to Z guide to designing successful arts events in the community “

Neil was the man who introduced me to the world of fire, lanterns and large outdoor community events. I worked with him for 7 years at the Woodford Folk Festival and in a few other places.

That time was wild, adventurous massive, exhausting, exhilarating  and the foundation of so much of what I have done since.

In fact, I returned to Woodford this year to create the opening ceremony (with Jyllie Jackson and Kate McDonald). The ceremony  was built from tools and philosophies I have learnt from Neil (and others who i meet through Neil and worked with on other projects) I felt that the opportunity I was given this year was a result of the work and time that has been layered into the festival by Neil and all the fabulous artists that worked with him, and those that followed….. over the last 25 years often with limited resources. I thank Neil and everyone else who has been a part of that journey for their time, wisdom, blood, sweat and tears!!

ImageImage

Also here is the video i have finally finished for last years INTO THE LIGHT event.

INTO THE LIGHT: Between and Sky

This was the 3rd INTO THE LIGHT, a community arts event working with the bush fire affected community in Whittlesea and surrounding areas.

A lantern parade was again the spine to the event. Workshops were run in 12 schools in the area plus a number of community workshops. We created a finale with Ian Hunter, the indigenous elder for the area, based on Bungil the eagle and how he became a star.

The core local  artist group that we worked with to create the event built a beautiful bird puppet, that became Bungilina, a cross between a Phoenix, rising from the ashes, and Bungil the creator spirit.

We stared with an afternoon of games and activities, including a showing of the Blacksmith tree (this is a very special project that grew out of the fires… blacksmiths from all around the world sent leaves to the fire affected communities after the 2009 fires… and now it is a tree

Black Saturday – The Tree Project Facebook Page

the treeproject

Our own lantern tree, revamped from the year before was dressed in leaves holding the hopes, dreams wishes of the community. We ran out of leaves. There was a strong desire/need to connect with this process. Some of the leaves were heartbreaking, and  showed us that there is still a need in the community for this work,that  the burn’s are still hurting, many below the surface, and many people still trying to rebond with themselves, their families, their partners and searching for peaceful place to exist.

This series of projects have been very powerful for me, seeing and feeling the great importance of community art. It does have a place, it is a gentle and inclusive, non threatening process that is more than a nice activity, but actually essential in unlocking trapped memories/pain and creating new pathways, and so  so so important.

June

June has been an exciting month.

Into the lIght – The Unfolding Story won a national Local Government award for active arts.

This was very exciting, a great acknowledgement for us and the community and for everyone that participated and helped to create this magical event…..

needless to say it will happen again this year.

Unfortunately i couldn’t join Mahony and Lee in Canberra to collect the award as i was once again wrangling 2300 people for the Lismore Lantern Parade. Which was amazing.

The shift to Oaks Oval was massive, and while there were a few teething problems, the show was magnificent. The weather was divine on the day and we all worked really hard to make it happen! (that goes without saying really!)

here are some beautiful photos of the show c/o natsky

and the parade

and  more photos from the local papers!

I’m now back in Melbourne, attempting to restore the emptied energy glass and prepare for the next Into the Light which we are beginning to plan in Whittlesea Township……..

and so it continues……

On a personal exploration i am also learning pottery, and have a collection of reasonably ugly olive pip bowls…..
and some not so ugly pieces

i look forward to the first cup I can drink  a coffee from

and the first bowl I actually eat breakfast out of.

INTO THE LIGHT-The Unfolding Story

was held on the 1st of September at the Whittlesea Showgrounds
in Whittlesea,  Victoria.

In follow up to last years event…. INTO THE LIGHT-The Unfolding Story was made up of a   lantern parade with 12 primary schools from the Whittlesea, Kinglake, Flowerdale and Nillimbick Communities,
a spiral,
video projections that filled the side of the cattleshed,
a 30 meter shadow play

and so much more……..

Here is the video of the night……..

reconnecting

How quickly a couple of months can go by

a crazy time filled with work, lanterns, children, paper and cello-tape

A time when personal projects/ my practice has been put on hold and the studio gathers dust and i lose track of what it was that i was doing and why i was doing it.

But….. my work is creative, and i am earning a living from it and quite possibly this too is “My Practice”

and
as October turns from empty
a space i was relishing as a time to return to ‘My Practice’

into overwhelming
as i try once again to pack all of the wonderful offers into my diary
and once again i surrender the idea of studio time….

I  do take the time to be thankful for the full diary,
and to reflect on what it means to work as an artist
and the compromises that entails…….
but i wonder (with a longing) how and when i return to that other project
The one that requires me to say no to income

and how i maintain the energy and focus to “do everything”……..
and if i really mean it when i say “never again” to doing events……

So
what have i been doing??………….

A Cecil st Fundraiser….. downstairs

A Paper Planet …. in Sydney

A community lantern parade
(12 schools + community groups etc….) in Whittlesea

A sticky maze……. in Newman
(that’s in the North of  Western Australia…a mining town in the out back…. ok i know this needs its own update…..actually they all do but ……)

which  brings that 10 weeks to a beautiful close

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Last weekend

was Williamstown Festival,

i coordinated a lantern parade and created a choreography with 18 seagull puppet lanterns (and ran a few schools workshops to make some of the 500 pyramid lanterns that were created for the event)

Due to events beyond my control (insurance and ignorance mostly) the candles were replaced with torches.
My favourite response to this when i was explaining to a school group was ” but isn’t it tradition to light the candle”

yes,
yes indeed it is tradition,
and may it stay that way in times to come.

Lead by a pipe band, it was an event very much enjoyed by parents and community members. yay!

The photos below were taken by one of the parents.