Last weekend the Ku-ring-gai Wildflower Garden celebrated it's annual festival, and for the first time held a Sculpture Walk at the festival with 16 sculptures on display. The festival is over, but the sculptures will be on display this weekend, so if you have nowhere to take dad on father's day, go and show him the sustainable art that it on display. My faux bronze figure (Rame e Stagno in Plastica - Ictus) is on display in the garden area near Caley's Pavillion. I wonder how he has held up in the rain. I imagine he's fine since he is made from used plastic shopping bags, reclaimed coat hangers and a recycled piece of wood, all finished to look like a bronze cast piece.
This project has been my focus for the last couple of months. Art 61 is a fundraising initiative that included a 3 day art exhibition, and social evening, a live auction component for some of the artworks, and a silent auction of goods and services donated by local businesses and members of the school community.
I coordinated the artworks - more than 120 2D artworks created on identical square canvases supplied to artists by the school, as well as six larger pieces donated by local professional artists and auctioned by guest auctioneer, Elliott Shoebridge of Cunninghams Property. The website has so much more information, including images of all of the artworks that were on display, and the names of all of the artists involved, and the two curators and all of the supporting businesses that made it a successful event. We raised more than $10,000 that will be shared between the school's bands program and hall refurbishment. Visit the Art 61 Website: http://art61.weebly.com/ I just drove over the Stuart Somerville Bridge in Queenscliff again this morning and the Weaving Bridges Birds are still there. A couple of weeks ago they were definitely gone, so I guess it's a seasonal migration thing. It was lovely to see them again. Pity I didn't have time to stop and photograph them again.
Matt Leiper of ArtHouse Productions has posted his film on this year's Weaving Bridges Project.
https://youtu.be/1XOM6mt7stY Matt's film is is a brilliant summary of the project whose theme this year was birds. There was about half a minute of focus on my part in creating the bird framework for the weaving to be attached to. I carried out all of the steel bending and welding at the Kuringai Community Shed (KuShed). It is a brilliant space to work, with plenty of extremely knowledgeable and experienced members who are so obliging and helpful that you just want to spend all of your time there. If you are looking for somewhere to feel like you belong to a community, and where you can dabble in woodwork or steelwork, and contribute to community projects, have a look at their website... http://www.kushed.org.au/ . You can catch a glimpse of the space behind me as I am talking on the clip. I was disappointed to have missed the launch of this installation, but it was a treat that it was still on display on the day I was discharged from hospital. The beautiful winter weather showed off the colors and textures of these birds beautifully. Well done to all the community groups and individuals who contributed - a great effort.
All 28 of the birds that are destined to weave bridges of friendship amongst our communities have been delivered and are already in the process becoming full bodied creatures. It was an amazing project for me in many ways. * Firstly, I was fortunate to get to know a heap more members of the Ku-Shed (Ku-ring-gai Community Shed). I have been a member for a couple of years, and have been able to skill up in picture framing, MIG welding and some of the cool wood-working equipment there even though I was only a seldom user of the space. This project has seen me attend almost every day for a couple of months and so I have met many experienced, knowledgeable and very helpful fellow shedders who offered great advice and were extremely supportive and enthusiastic as my birds grew and flew. * Secondly, I learnt to use a cool tool at the shed - a small scale manual steel bender (compared with the the huge industrial strength equipment I have previously used at TAFE). Without it, I would have struggled to get the beautiful lines for the birds out of the steel rod I was using. * Finally, the constant practice and daily routine meant that my work flow and efficiency improved incredibly and the last batch of birds bent, welded and finished themselves in nearly no time at all. So here are the "Before" photos of all 28 birds, in their finished metal state before being covered with any woven feathers or skin at all.... So many benefits to creating these birds... But the best bit... is that the Brookvale Curl Curl Scout group Cubs section have adopted one of the pelicans and will be adding their feathers this week at their meeting. Thanks to Ann and her fellow Cub Scout Leaders for making this possible and helping to plan for the night of Weaving. This means that the Cub Scouts are another community group contributing to the Weaving Bridges Project this year (part of the Guringai Festival) and they can go to see their adopted pelican with the rest of the bird life that will be on display during NAIDOC week at the Queenscliff Surf Life Saving Club, Bridge Rd Manly. The birds will be launched on the Stuart Somerville bridge on July 7th, 10am-12noon. You can keep up to date with the project through the Weaving Bridges Facebook site (https://www.facebook.com/Weavingbridgesproject) or the Manly Environment Centre (http://www.mec.org.au/whats-on).
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AuthorThe northern beaches area of Sydney is a lovely area and I am lucky enough to have lived here all my life. Archives
October 2017
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