Getting Ready to Say Goodbye

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I am sitting behind this lovely door of a cottage built in 1860. Three bedrooms, a sitting room and one step down to the dining area on the right and kitchen on the left.

Through another door with an old fashioned apron hung on a nail is the access to the bathroom. It is also the door that locks you safely in at night or while you are wandering about the town during the day. The bathroom, or “toilet” as they call it here is through another door off to the right through a small open entry way from the alley in the back.

The “back” has a lovely old table built around an over-hanging fig tree that is just now bearing fruit.

 

The only figs I have ever had other than the dried ones are here in Australia. I drew this one just before popping it into my mouth at my friend Anne’s house in Melbourne.

Anne is the most amazingly hospitable person for us from the US traveling in Australia. This time she was working very hard getting materials ready for the tutor of a workshop she was taking when I arrived. It was so much work and preparation but she greeted me, the tutor and her dear friend arriving from England. She even managed to get me to the offices of Treasury Wine Estates for a memorable encounter with a public relations manager who could advise me on which winery is responsible for the 19 Crimes wines we so enjoy at home and the vintner to contact.

This time I recorded Anne in just a general conversation among a group of us women after class sharing a delicious wine. Now I can hear her voice whenever I want to feel I am in her company. So thank you, Anne and Tony, for taking me in, getting me where I need to be and giving me the very best memories of Australian hospitality. I hope to never take advantage of your kind generosity. Thank you.

Today I went out to find gifts to take home, contact those at home wondering how and where I am. I thought I would have dinner out tonight but most places are closed on Tuesday night. Well only those that have an “all you can eat” menu which means batter fried fish with “veg” as they say here are open. I came back to the cottage and decided to pour a glass of wine…maybe two. I had a lunch earlier of olive bread, mixed greens, grapes and cheese.  That seems enough and I can always have a bit of Greek yoghurt with passion fruit later with that second glass of wine.

It is getting dark. It is 7:30 pm. My pajamas and a good book on the Kindle are waiting. Tomorrow morning I will post this on my blog while using the local library’s internet. I will have to copy and paste into the blog with the appropriate pictures. Then it is just two more quiet days on my own in Goolwa before teaching a three day class on Memory Vessels before flying back home to construct my own memory vessel of this wonderful trip back down under.

 

The Magic of Eucalyptus

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I am back in Australia…back with the gum leaves of Eucalyptus trees. They are magic. I start at Baldessin PPress Studio in St. Andrews north of Melbourne and gather the leaves before my workshop on book bindings. I bring them back into my apartment and into the studio.

I sketch them.

My students use them in their work.

I make time in my schedule to do some dry point etchings and prints while at the studio.

And then I pack up and arrive at my next stop…another workshop….more gum trees.

And more trees are here with seductive shapes, colors and aromas.

And this workshop too, has gum leaf inspired pieces waiting to be completed into Memory Vessels.

Then it is me and the gum leaves. Adding more drawings.

And trying my hand at contact printing with those lovely leaves.

I will gather more at my next teaching stop. And again I have factored in extra days just to explore and try to capture the magic of these leaves. The ones I have gathered at this stop will be packed with the sketchbook. There is no way I can leave them behind.

I will be back next week and show you what comes next. I think it will be another white line print of the gum leaf since that is the class I will be teaching. Till then, can you smell the Eucalyptus from these pictures?

Back to Australia

Posted on by Sandy Webster

I am leaving tomorrow for my twelfth trip to Australia. I want to get lost in the country like the girl in McCubbin’s painting above….actually titled, “Lost”. His work is always so dramatic in subject, palette and scene. This is one of my favorites.

This time I return to Melbourne and the friends who get me to where I need to be. One day with them and then it is off to Baldessin Press in St. Andrews.

First a flat white. Melbourne has the best coffee anywhere and especially in these little back city cafes.

 

 

We might just drive by my most favorite sculpture in the city, the Burke and Wills Bronze statue. Hopefully a trip to the National Gallery of Victoria.

And maybe I can whip up some savoury muffins again in Anne’s AGA stove. So good!

Then it will be off to Baldessin Press to teach a book making workshop and do a bit of my own work. The country and the studio have inspired much of my work about Australia.

I love the Saturday market there in St. Andrews. I have found such treasures there.

After that I will have two more days in Melbourne before heading off on train to teach in Allansford. I have not been there before and look forward to more time working with students and doing some of my own work. Catching up with sketchbooks is always important to me on these trips.

Once finished in the southern part of Victoria I will be back at Grampians Texture in Halls Gap for the third time teaching. This time it is another masters class with students I have known for years. Some of us will spend a few days together before heading out to Adelaide and Goolwa, SA for the final leg of the trip. Here is some of their work done in my classes.

I will miss this country and miss the iconic imagery that has inspired more than just me. Here are a few more pictures of “Australia”.

I will try to post a new blog while down under. Here is one last detail of a piece I made about being in Lake Mungo.

 

A Time For Protest Art

Posted on by Sandy Webster

There is something about making art that has a clear message of discontent. And I truly believe that as artists we have a responsibility to be visual in that discontent. Some of the best art work of protest can be seen in the posters from the March on Washington. The clever phrasing and graphics that got right to the point of protesting the unbelievably sorry state of what the election here in the United States has dragged us down to as a society. We all know that we are better than this but somehow we just let it happen. We ignored our ability to process the consequences of the votes some of us cast while others gave in to the indecisiveness of who was worthy and kept those votes un-tallied. Rather to make no choice through a fear of making the wrong choice.  And then a vast number just preferred to stay home on election day. So here we are, waiting for a government of some of the most ignorant, self-centered politicians to chip away at our rights and our freedoms. And if not ours, then someone else’s. Either way we are all losing.

So this past weekend with two long-time resident students here in my studio we talked and worked on little else. Luckily I have no artist friends who are not liberal and progressive in their political views. I respect those who have different views than mine and would fight for their right to maintain those views. But I have lost patience with the their willingness to stay so incredibly uninformed on the facts of where we are headed as a nation, a society and responsible steward for the environment of future generations.

I added to my pincushion collection by making a second in what is surely to become a series of notorious nincompoops working in concert to keep themselves in power by being arbiters of their falsehoods presented as truths. And unfortunately this is easy for them to do with an angry population of discontented citizens and a Congress filled to the brim with a need to push agendas that ten years ago would have seemed extremely uncivilized and detrimental to our diverse population. They can’t work fast enough to shove through their small world views while we are distracted with the constant machinations of an inner circle in need of some therapy.

Needless to say I have ordered additional colors of  felt to make up more figures for holding the pins that are such a pleasure to plunge into them.

We checked to make sure that using the American flag as an art statement is protected under the first amendment. So one of us got right on that while artists are still being protected…perhaps no longer educated or funded, but protected. I really like where this particular piece is going.

Our losses and injuries as a nation with added text and more references to healing.

And another one worked on this book.

The interesting thing about this period of American book covers is that most of the covers were designed by women as were the illustrations and in most cases the authorship as well. Interesting.

So once opened it was stream of consciousness writing inspired by our present political situation and the words in the titles.

And other pages rich for interpretation.

I feel more hopeful spending time with these two artists/writers. We won’t be silent and we won’t “go along”. It was heartening this weekend to also hear from friends around the world who like my pincushions and shared suggestions of how to pose and photograph them. And still more are making their own to poke sharp things into.

I also heard this weekend about friends designing postcards to mail to those politicians experiencing the protectiveness of self-imposed isolation. Bravo! We need to keep making our voices heard through actions and art. It is going to be a nasty and bumpy road as we try to reach some agreements on who we are in this country and earn back some of the respect we have lost in the world. Thank you to those who march, those who write letters and those who make art. We all need to pay attention.