An event

Bergs in foreground and Blizzard in background

Sunday afternoon's artist's talk and poetry reading event at ArtsPost for the Imagining Antarctica exhibition went very well. There were about 15 people in the audience, who seemed very attentive and asked good questions. I talked quite a lot about Antarctica and why it is meaningful for me, and how particular pieces in the show relate to my particular concerns. It was great to have the big My Antarctica relief map to demonstrate distances and identify places. Much of what I talked about is covered, more or less, in this interview with me published last week on Books in the Trees.

Part of my audience.
I've been unable to get a good photo yet of work on the wall behind them, the glass reflects the window light in the mornings so I need to go of an afternoon to document that part of the show.

I brought along a couple of props as well. My well-thumbed and much beloved copy of Kim Stanley Robinson's novel, Antarctica, which launched me on this creative path. I also did a small demonstration of how I needle felt the blanket layers to create colours and build height (and depth) in my 3D works.

Demonstrating preparing the wool for felting (this and photo above taken by Janice Meadows)

It was a treat to read lots of poems instead of the two or three max required in the group readings I participate in occasionally. I read my Antarctic hero poems, and some with evolutionary themes relating to the Deep Time work I showed last year along with others from the extraction series relating to my mining pieces seen in Melbourne earlier this month. And various unrelated poems of a science fiction bent. All 15 poems were written within the past two years, so even though I don't feel like a very productive poet (and certainly this year has been a bit dry on that front) I could see I'm not doing too badly, when they are all gathered together as on Sunday.

Me and My Antarctica (photo by Marion Manson)

Poems and Interviews etc

I'm very honoured to have my poem 'Ponting's Genius' featured as the Tuesday Poem on Tim Jones' blog Books in the Trees. It's one of the Antarctic poems I will be reading on Sunday 28 August 3pm at ArtsPost, surrounded by my Imagining Antarctica exhibtion. As well as the Antarctic series I will be reading other recent poetry, mostly relating to same environmental themes that inform my visual arts plus plenty of science fiction poems like Cake (coming out in Enamel 3 next month).

And in the special bonus artist's talk portion of the event I will be discussing my visual art- the thinking behind this exhibtion, and my technique. Questions welcome (though you may find many of your questions answered in the interview that will be appearing in Books in the Trees later this week).

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Here's some of the print media attention I've received this month.

In the Waikato Times Arts Page on 19 August. The lovely photo is by Jody Saturday, a photographer friend with an extraordinary talent for taking flattering portraits. Despite my wan, worn-out countenance lately she managed to make me look good, along with Melt. (The Waikato Times link takes you through to the full story)

In Riff Raff 3, Hamilton's 'edgy' arts magazine I got a full page of photos of my stitching.

Opening Antarctica

Imagining Antarctica is at last successfully installed and opened. Its wonderful to see all the pieces I've made over the past 18 months finally all unpacked and hung together, filling the space beautifully.


There is more to say of course, but truthfully I feel a little shell shocked and completely inarticulate. The lead up to last night's preview was intensely exhausting and stressful. Right now all I want to do is sit in the sun and reread favourite novels.


If I had been up for making a speech at the preview it would have included a lengthy list of thank yous, worthy of an Oscar winner. My deep gratitude goes to so many people who have provided all kinds of support, but most especially to those whose help has been practical and/or saved me from crisis. Stuart Briden, Grace, Emily Rumney and Stephanie Chalmers each contributed with invaluable advice, materials, curation and/or installation and without these professionals my work would not look nearly so fine. Chris Fairly and Robin McIntyre have been tireless transporters and interested problem solvers. Lynda Johnston saved me from being buried under boxes of finished work by offering secure storage. Anna Littler, Sarah Oliver and Eleanor Lefever Taschen have all saved my sanity on more than one occasion in the past months. But most especially I must thank my parents, Norman and Martha Simms, for their ongoing generous assistance is what makes my life as an artist sustainable. Also they make really excellent opening food.

Box o' Bergy Bits

The technical term for small icebergs is bergy bits. I kid you not. I am finishing off the last iceberg for next week's Imagining Antarctica exhibition. Already I have a box of seven completed icebergs, which I think of as my Box o' Bergy Bits. All the finished ones got measured, priced and labelled today. Whew. Another job ticked off my list.

Last iceberg, to be finished in the next five days.

F*** Your Donation

Opening night

I've just returned from a whirlwind four days, three nights in Melbourne. I installed Spoil at the First Site Gallery at RMIT, attended the opening and then flew home. To cram all of Spoil into the checked baggage requirements of Air New Zealand, some assembly was required in Melbourne, so I spent several hours in the gallery stitching the stacks of gold coins to the acrylic mount.

Levelling the hanging gold

This was definitely the loveable problem child of my three pieces. Lovely assistant curator Kellie Barnes (who also let me stay at her house), patiently spent hours up a ladder with her arms above her head measuring and tying, while I stood at the base of the ladder, supported the work and complained about my own sore arms.

Kellie hanging gold

It was totally worth it, as the hanging piece looked exactly as I had intended and attracted a lot of attention at the opening. I was really delighted with how Kellie and Andrei Davidoff curated my installation with me, so that as visitors approach the main gallery down a long low corridor, they see all three pieces lined up. The gold hovering in the distance looks every bit as ethereal, science fiction-y and enticing as I hoped it would. The contrast between it and the low leaden weight of the grey spoil heap is balanced by the opencast Australia piece in the middle, which does not reveal much from a distance and required visitors to come close and lean in to see inside.

Spoil viewed from the gallery entrance

I enjoyed watching people engage with the installation at the opening. It seems to invite physical responses... not just your standard gallery looking pose. One guy couldn't resist touching all the pieces, but mostly people peered, bent, leaned, crouched and circled most satisfactorily. I tried to get people to tell me what they thought it was about before I answered their questions about my own intentions. Most people picked up the mining references pretty effortlessly, but there were also some food interpretations (cakes, kumara mash)- no surprise there!

Snow Progress

I'm feeling a bit calmer this week than I have been for the past month or so. It helps to have cleared some finished work out of my tiny studio into temporary storage, and very reassuring to be chewing through my to-do lists. For example, the melt water tunnel piece (Melt) is now finished and mounted. I really want to make another one, more of a straight crevasse version, but I won't have time before the exhibition, so this one will just have to represent all meltwater features for the moment.


And I'm making good progress on Stragusi (another wall relief showing wind blown snow features). Now that I've worked with beautiful ice blues of Melt, my standard white on cream stitching seems a little bland, but the textures and patterns of this piece more than make up for the monochrome palatte.

Counting down

Attatching Blizzard to its (hand-me-down offcut) acrylic mount using buttons.

Three weeks until the Melbourne opening, a month until Imagining Antarctica opens in Hamilton.

The momentum has definitely tipped towards completion. More work finished than not, more work nearly finished than merely started, more work begun now than not. But the work, both finished and unfinished, is pushing hard at all my limits; limits of time, money and most of all space available to realise my vision.

This is the point where it becomes impossible to maintain any illusions that I can operate independently or am remotely self-sufficient in my creative work. I gratefully accept all offers: storage, transport, materials, help, advice. Well, advice is always the most difficult to accept graciously, but I am trying!

The everyday challenges of life feel like an unbearable affont for slowing down the pace of my frantic preparations. Another flat tire on my bicycle, incorrect prescription in my new spectacles, damp laundry, spilled food, bills I can't afford, relentless rain or missed connections all seem disproportionally dangerous for the threat to derail my attention from the deadlines.

I'm on an emotional rollercoaster that feels rickety, precarious, desperate. But, underlying the fear and exhaustion are my memories of going through all this before. I've skidded along this same terrifying path and survived in the past. The memory of my proven capacity to do this is what enables me to sleep at night. I know the secret of success, which is to just keep going. To take the next step and the next step and the next, no matter how hopeless or pointless or useless I feel. Just keep going.

The swirly mustard beneath is an old quilt that forms an integral part of my studio equipment, propping up and/or protecting work as its made.

Melt in progress

I know, I know, the one I'm working on is almost always my favourite, but this piece, called Melt, really is my current favourite. The luscious ice blues of the glacier's melt-water tunnel are so deep, so rich, so creamy yet pure, and this time its my best yet graduation of hues. The sensual curve of the tunnel's negative space lined with satisfyingly plump layers of needle felted blanket are irresistible. I feel sure that Melt will be snapped up as soon as the exhibition opens.

There is also an elusive nostalgia associated with this piece for me. The top layer of ice blue thread on creamy felted wool reminds me of something I knew as a baby- perhaps a bonnet. That's it, a white woolen bonnet with satin ribbons in a classy 1960's style, covering my baby-head against the Canadian snows.

Open Cast Australia

The second third of the Spoil installation was completed the other day. The map at the centre and the images of flowers and animals and indigenous Australians around the outside are from a vintage souvenier table cloth. I sewed on tiny red beads to represent active mines.This piece is almost as big as the spoil heap element of the installation, over half a metre across (as the crow flies).

Stitching the rusty and golden brown threads onto orange blankets to form the sides of the mine, and beading the map reawakened my desire to someday make a leisurely roadtrip around and across Australia. My Cape York expedition a few years ago gave me a taste for the outback which has yet to be satisfied. I find the textures, patterns and comparatively limited palatte of hot desert to be as engrossing, in their own way, as the textures, patterns and palatte of Antarctica's cold desert.

Three views of icebergs

Break Up (detail)

I've recently finished stitching three iceberg pieces. Break Up, the large 2-D embroidery is at the framers right now. An iceberg tip with two towers is has joined the box of other smallish iceberg sculptures (where it is the biggest in that collection).

Newest two tower iceberg tip

And the monstrous full iceberg with below water base is all stitched up, but my Plan A for mounting it isn't going to work. I like to lie awake at 4am and imagine alternative plans that can be achieved within the budget and timeframe. Suggestions more than welcome.

My iceberg base lolls about still unsupported

With all this bergy goodness in my life at the moment I was excited to hear Gabby O'Connor on Radio NZ National's Arts on Sunday programme talking about her beautiful iceberg art. I wish I had time to get to Wellington for a look at it in City Gallery, the photos on her blog are amazing! Her iceberg base is over 12m long and made out of tissue paper on a geometric structure. Stunning, grand, gorgeous! I'm in love. I hope my Wellington readers will go along to her show and then tell me all about it ( E!)

Beautiful ugly

Here's my finished Spoil pile. One third of the mining installation for exhibition in Melbourne in August.

Colours for crevasses

Choosing colours to make into crevasses.

Work in progress (Icebergs)

After finishing my giant iceberg last month, I still have an appetite to make more, to keep exploring the forms and finessing the technique. Icebergs are much quicker to make when I'm not including the 70% below water. So these are just the tip of the iceberg.

Work in progress (Australia)

Eight weeks until my August deadlines start tumbling onto me. Juggling multiple projects in every waking moment. Here's one of them, part of the Melbourne installation.



PS I am managing to update the Response blog more often, check that out too.

Response

A contribution from Ampersand Duck, a letterpress printer based in Canberra, Australia

Two and a half years ago I conceived and launched a collaborative journal project called Response. I made a blank sketch book and invited friends and strangers to contribute a page or two. The book has finally returned to me, with collage, printing, writing, drawing, and paper crafts inside its covers.

Inside the book's front cover are the directions for participating in the journal project.

Response has its own blog, and I will be posting photos of the entire collaborative journal over the coming weeks, along with my own responses to the project. It is extraordinarily exciting to have completed a collaboration involving 10-13 people in 5 countries! The final stage of the project will be to edition the book so all the contributors can have a copy to keep. After that, I might make another blank book, to send out into the world as Response II.

The first pages were created in Melbourne in 2009.