maryjanegriggs

Monday, July 8, 2013

Second Week of the Winter Break

Monday July 8
I love this cold weather especially if the sun is out and the sky is blue or full of wonderful clouds. The dear old Albury Art Gallery has closed for two years to undergo the $10.5m refurbishment. July 2015 will be pretty exciting when the new Gallery starts operating. Meanwhile there will still be lots of visual art in Albury Wodonga - there are exhbitions planned for the Museum-Library, GIGS, Arts Space, and Creators Gallery.
No painting in my studio since last Wednesday but certainly a lot of thinking about it. I traveled through some beautiful countryside between Albury north to Bethungra over the weekend.
Called into the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery to have a quick look at Fate - the TAFENSW Riverina Institute Art and Design Staff exhibition. The opening is on Friday July 12 at 6pm. Also on show is the 2012 Art Express Touring exhibition of HSC Visual art works.

Today in the studio continued to develop the tree paintings. It's about playing with acrylic colour. I'm using diluted layers to catch the texture on some canvases and rubbing back to get a burnished effect on others. This part of the process needs to be unrushed and enjoyed. I'm working on the table and until I get through the forty canvases I'm not going to worry too much about the effect of the whole.

The drying time is important and acrylic paint is wonderfully flexible and especially good to get the sort of effects I'm after.

I like the contrasting paint effects.

Because of the light tone of the textured layer the colour will retain a sense of luminosity

Quick drying time will allow lots of additions and development of the surface

Colour and paint can be adjusted. Because acrylic is waterproof when it dries, very thin washes can be used to make subtle changes and shifts in colour temperature.

The impasto talc additive has given me the porous surface I was after to soak up thin washes and rub back colour.
Lots of work to do.

Wednesday, July 3, 2013

Weather Change

Thursday today.
Remove the exoskeleton of paid work and this creature is very much affected by the elements. It's bleak and overcast today so inside near that fire.
There is heaps of written work to do. I keep a Visual Diary and have done since I first started teaching at the art school in Albury - the one that became CSU School of Creative Arts for a short but illustrious period before the slow death by change of name and eventual shutdown and move to Wagga Wagga CSU campus.
The art students at the Albury TAFE art school are encouraged to keep diaries and some students love it and others find it a challenge. But just as an aide memoir it's worth it. They become terrific resources over time.
I find a break from the studio is worthwhile. If I had a large studio...well I'd probably live in it but i would operate by Susan Rothenberg's advice - just get in there everyday even if you don't paint just read or do whatever - you have to be with the work. She is such a superlative painter - her show I saw in New York was one of the highlights of my time there - HUGE works, so painterly and audacious and wonderful.
Anyway I'm beside the fire inside!
Yesterday was productive except I couldn't go near the small paintings with the over the top red lacy layer - have to have a think now before I go back into them.
The tree works are developing still early days but am enjoying the layering and managing to keep it open ended and not tightening up.

I have had much fun with the talc mix again and like using it from thin through to thick. The danger is if it starts to look like an iced cake! It's a good way of keeping the surface open and fresh.

I put another rough layer of the matte impasto additive on one of the larger canvases and quickly sketched in the start of the image of one of the panoramas. The larger works have to speak with the small paintings and will be tied together by technique and concept - that's the plan!

The studio is chockers because I share it with Richard. He is a night owl and works in the wee hours setting up fabulous still lifes to photograph under special lights. I can't work at night. This is a pretty good situation.

I work on the table and will use the easel later in the process. Advantages of this studio - over head lights, sealed now against possums, neighbour's cat and the odd brown snake all from whom I have been visited (terrorised) over the years. Disadvantages, too cramped for very large canvases (I take them outside) and freezing cold. But the idea of a fantastic studio is just an idea, good work is not dependent on the studio it comes from.

Studio

Two shows...very different - for the August show I have had a few meetings with Nan and Susie to start organising. I have decided to do a mini installation of many small works basically arranged around an eye level but assembled in an asymmetrical hang. I enjoy small format works and have done many series using a small scale over the years.
I have also reclaimed works from previous shows as a starting point but work changes and evolves when you start the process. I love the saying from William Kentridge - let your hands do the thinking.
I have had some round canvases for years and am contrasting then with small square and rectangular pieces.

Early stage - these works will evolve slowly - I am treating them all at once ad will continue for a while before finishing each one individually. I find working in a series less stressful than working on one. The process becomes a matter of intuitive decision making and passing to the next piece.
These multiple works were started in May when I was finishing off 16 oil paintings for the Riverina Institute TAFE Staff show Fate at the Wagga Wagga Art Gallery.

On Tuesday July 2 worked two layers using a translucent paint and then a strong acrylic red runny paint so I could trickle it down the brush onto the surface. I've used this technique over the years mainly in the show Perfume from 1995. My students in 2012 had fun doing a project using runny house paint applied in a similar manner.
I'll leave it to dry and think about what comes next!

With the second show later this year, in late May I received the go ahead from Arts Space co-ordinator Jenn Wright on behalf of the committee. So... 40 paintings of trees as a metaphor for the diversity within our community and a series of panoramic views of the wonderful ring of hills that encompasses Albruy Wodonga.

It's very important for me to enjoy the process in the studio. I am using a mix of talc, glue and gesso to prepare the canvas surface to roughen up the manufactured pre-primed canvas. This home-made impasto is wonderfully flexible and I have used this medium often. It dries to a soft matte finish and is absorbant so that watery pigment soaks in beautifully and one can be reminded of a fresco finish.

Yes an empty bucket!

Ingredient - talc - just like the perfumed talcum powder!

Glue - using manufactured rather than arrowroot glue this time.

Gesso - just to whiten and smooth the mix instead of water

Mixing time!

Straight onto canvas with spatula, what fun!

This canvas 1.8x .6cms one of the panoramas.

When there are 40 canvases to get stuck into - you need to just get stuck into them. Because 'trees' are so familiar and so imprinted in one's memory these shapes are very generalised and I'm keeping the process very open ended. I'm using thick paint, watery paint, washing off, dry brush, wide brushes and rags. But there is logic in the colour scheme at this stage. This has to be enjoyable - the hard bit will come soon enough when I need to decide how I am going to resolve each one and also see the 40 as one work as well as individual works.

It gets dark around 5:30pm. Time for the fireside.

Tuesday, July 2, 2013

July - two weeks holidays to work towards two exhibitions

I have a two week opportunity to paint but so cold early in morning I thought I could do some documenting and blogging before donning my Michelin Man layers for the studio and painting!
One exhibition as yet untitled with dear friends Susie Losch, Nan Hoysted, Mary-Rose Riley and my daughter Portia Janson at GIGS in August.
The other exhibition which opens at Arts Space Wodonga in October is titled The Experiment - five artists - marking the 40th anniversary of Gough Whitlam's vision of decentralisation and the establishment of the Albury Wodonga Development Corporation.
Two very different exhibitions!
Here is my EOI for The Experiment submitted in April/May.

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Submission from Mary-Jane Griggs for exhibition at Wodonga Arts Space,

THE EXPERIMENT: Interpreting the National Growth Centre - Making a 'City in the Country'

1 Conceptual statement about the proposed work and description

By birth, by choice or by accident many people make this community surrounded by hills near the river their home.

I have responded in paint to my adopted surroundings for years. The motif of the tree has been used variously in my work since the exhibition SAP at the Creators Gallery in 1999.

For The Experiment exhibition at Arts Space I intend to celebrate the 40th Anniversary of the National growth Centre by referring to our diversity and complexity with an installation of 40 small tree paintings on canvases to be hung in either an asymmetrical salon arrangement or a more formal grid. The tree acts as a metaphor for the diversity that invigorates this regional centre.

Alongside the small works will be two panoramic canvases based on the hilly perimeter that cradles the community. These wonderful hills link and unify our bustling and diverse twin cities.

2 Draft images, support material - see attached

3 Images of Previous Work - see folder with jpegs or illustrations following

4 CV - see pages 9,10

Examples of work echoing theme for EOI The Experiment 2013.

1999, Plantation, Creators Gallery Wodonga. Mixed media, wood.

150 x 440cms (detail - will replace when I find the image)