Monday 13 January 2020

PLEASE WAIT



Does this mean the end of the exhibitions or the end of an era or both?

When a friend and exhibitor asked me this I had to reply - 
it IS the end of an era!   NO MORE exhibitions!

Were I 30 years younger it would be only the beginning but being somewhat older means I am counting my time - jealously - and clearing the decks for two important writing projects.

WINDOWSPACE BEEAC has been a joy, engaged many, delighted many!
It has been an extreme privilege to have been able to share this wonderful space 
overlooking the Gulidjan lunettes, nearby Lake Beeac.



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To celebrate every contributor's input we published an account of the FIVE YEARS:

WINDOWSPACE BEEAC - ART MATTERS 
is a compendium
of some very interesting work displayed in a somewhat unlikely location.
Congratulations and thanks to all those involved!


If you are interested in a copy of the limited edition publication please email:

acsande@gmail.com







WINDOWSPACE itself is up for SALE
(and looking for a creative with vision to take it on)
The property comprises: 

  • a fine sustainable-living studio apartment, 
  • a huge separate studio/performance/exhibition space,
  • a walled garden oasis,
  • a third small, extremely handy and characterful shed at rear,
  • a building block further to the rear with its own street entrance,
  • 30 or so fruit trees!
  • 1.5Kw solar that generates income!


Enquiries:   acsande@gmail.com


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Thursday 31 October 2019

WATHAURONG GLASS November 2019

WATHAURONG GLASS

November 2019

Art Glass




Detail - slumped glass platter


When an art develops a signature style it secures its place in the visual lexicon – art that is recognizably by a particular ‘hand’ is understood to have achieved that significant position. Wathaurong Glass is just such a creation – somehow, in Geelong, a whole tribe has come together to achieve unique artworks, together, an amazing and inspirational contrast to the often ego-driven individualism of the ‘western’ artworld.

In 1998 the Wathaurong Glass company was formed to express Aboriginal art in glass. The techniques used to produce their products include the use of kiln forming (slumping glass), sandblasting and any other technique felt suitable to achieve a desired result.

Great pride is taken in producing unique artwork with the net result of high quality glass products. Current products include: slumped window and door glass, kitchen and bathroom splashbacks, platters, bowls and corporate gifts, and unique awards and trophies in glass. Wathaurong Glass also works on commercial commissions without cultural connotations such as glass light lenses, corporate logos and kiln formed textured glass.

Located in Geelong, Wathaurong Glass (WG) supplies and arranges delivery of all products Australia wide – an art in itself.

Wathaurong Glass began life when RMIT University and ATSIC came together to address employment opportunities for local people – all employees/co-operative members of WG are indigenous. Mark Edwards has been leading the ‘adventure’ for all 20 years of the group’s existence and when tough times threatened, (and they did), he managed to hold the group together and continue the project which now sees WG as a highly successful small business.




Detail - Slumped glass platter


The name WATHAURONG (wathawurrung or wadda wurrung) is a recognised Aboriginal tribe, comprised of 25 clans. The boundaries of Wathaurong are from Geelong (Victoria), North to Werribee River, North West to Bacchus Marsh, South West to Cressy, South East to Colac, East to Lorne & North back to Geelong encompassing the Bellarine Peninsula.

Wathaurong Glass is a not for profit business owned by the Wathaurong Aboriginal Co-operative Ltd which is an Aboriginal community-controlled organization, structured so that the community of Wathaurong and the broader community are the beneficiaries of any profit. Where possible Wathaurong Glass purchases its raw materials from the local community believing this is better for Geelong and the environment (less transport emissions). This sensitive wholistic approach to sourcing and creation is indicative of a fine co-operative ethos such as underpins so much positive and inspirational indigenous thinking and practice and provides a great living example to the young.


WINDOWSPACE BEEAC is privileged to host the fine work of this tribe.





Hand-painted - translucent glass platter



Bush toys in window by BRONWYN RAZEM!

Tuesday 1 October 2019

ANA JENSEN CERAMICS - October




ANA MARIA HERNANDEZ JENSEN

  October 2019
  Various ceramics






Spanish-born potter Ana Maria Hernandez Jensen's ceramics are simple, deceptively so. Simplicity and functionality in perfect tandem make for great design, and beauty. Achieving this duality is not as easy as it looks - Ana Jensen has been hard at work perfecting such balance for many years. 

Her hand-thrown domestic ware, made locally, is indicative of her cultural background which values clean contemporary lines. Jensen performs all aspects of the ceramics process, from forming to firing, to distribution, overseeing all stages to ensure high standards are met consistently.














‘My education in ceramics began in Denmark where I undertook a traineeship as a potter. The emphasis of this training was on production throwing, demanding the development of a high degree of skill on the potter's wheel.The traineeship also took me to England and France, including a time at La Borne pottery village. This gave me exposure to a wide variety of studio practices and methods of firing.’ 

Jensen’s work, to this writer’s eye, has a kinship to that of ceramicist Phil Elson, a North Central Victorian potter who began his career with clay at the CAE around Eltham in 1981. What seems common to each, beyond the simplicity and functionality of their work, is an attachment to place, which makes sense, given the weighty commitment to kiln, supplies and tools in a particular area. Ceramics is generally a grounded practice. Jensen’s Instagram images hint at her appreciation of this factor – the context of her workplace features sheep and sheepdog: the soft and the ceramic come together to create contentment.


In the context of WINDOWSPACE, Jensen’s clear functionality offsets the roving curiosity of Georgia Harvey’s ceramics (see entry for WINDOWSPACE April 2016 - http://windowspace-beeac.blogspot.com/2016/04/2016-3-georgia-harvey-2-30-april-2016.html )
Together, Jensen and Harvey, along with Rex Ashworth (WINDOWSPACE June 2018 - http://windowspace-beeac.blogspot.com/2018/06/bernadette-daly-and-rex-ashworth-june.html  ) - give a comprehensive feel for what constitutes ceramics.


AS

anajensenceramics instagram


CONGRATS Bronwyn Razem CARDINET at Yarra Valley




CONGRATULATIONS 
Bronwyn Razem

on your show at 

KOORIE HERITAGE TRUST CULTURAL CENTRE
Federation Square, City of Melbourne



BRONWYN RAZEM
Camping on Country (2019)

Opening 5 October 2019 @ 2pm




Current to 24 November 2019



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CAROLYN CARDINET IS AT


Yarra Valley Arts | Yering Station Sculpture Exhibition & Awards 2019
Opening and Awards Wine Brunch
Sunday13 October @ 11.30 in Yering Station’s Historic Barn

                
 


Image: Todd Stuart, Levitation, Silicon bronze on granite, 58 x 30 x 50 cm Photo: Robert Anderson



For more information please contact 

Dr Ewen Jarvis
Curator and Exhibition Coordinator
Yering Station Art Gallery
38 Melba Highway
Yarra Glen Vic 3775

Sunday 1 September 2019

ALLISON McCLAREN - September










Allison McClaren


Spring

WINDOWSPACE – September 2019




Sexual imagery is rampant in the natural world, particularly among flora in spring. Colour, shape and texture excite the spirits and fire the artist – think Van Gogh and sunflowers, Monet and waterlilies,  O’Keefe and calla lilies, Warhol’s flat gaudy ‘flowers’, more locally Celia Rosser’s ferociously fine banksias and Tim McGuire’s luscious tulips, peonies and fruits – the list could go on, for a long time, and the names of each artist-flower partner conjure an image almost instantly.

Locally there is an artist similarly ‘fired’, behind her quaint shopfront (once a billard hall and …) Allison McClaren cultivates a garden that meanders and weaves, perfumes, shapes and colours jostle, trees and vines tangle and wander around the fragrant path between house and hideaway studios.

McClaren had had no acquaintance with the work of Georgia O’Keefe when a random viewer observed that there was an affinity between their work.  Allison McClaren missed out on art training but she has been a practicing artist since a child – fearless – untroubled by a doubt of ability that constrains so many and hinders creative joy – McClaren remembers always being at one with her companionable imagination and its visual effusions. This writer is reminded of Patrick White’s Hurtle Duffield in The Vivisector (1970), who likewise as a child used to draw wherever he found a sympathetic surface. McClaren recalls drawing with chalk on the family fences: ‘I used to do that all the time. Constantly.’ At school she would draw in the margins of her exercise books – images appeared rather than words.  Surprisingly this ‘manuscript style’ infuriated the nuns.

‘My mother had pictures of thatched English cottages amidst beautiful gardens’, and this idyllic world attracted McClaren:  ‘the colours of nature make me feel happy, make you feel good.’ Among artist exemplars McClaren was naturally attracted to Monet. At home she created little tableau that would lead over time to her ‘felfs’ – little people she made without pattern or example to populate her world.

If anyone actively encouraged her creative tendencies it was her father, who bought her oil paints and gave her scraps of masonite he had primed for her use.  She took one of her works to school and asked that it be submitted to the Colac Art  Show – the nuns deemed the painting so capable they refused to submit it on the grounds it had been done by someone else. McClaren refused to be daunted by their distrust.



There was a time when rubber moulds and plaster were one of the craft  ‘trends’ – McClaren made armies of madonnas and decorated them, each uniquely – they were popular! Doilies from her mother’s linen cupboard also held her attention – some had been left unfinished and McClaren bundled a few off to school and sat amid dangling threads, making up stitches to give a semblance of capability. Fellow students hovered and she made up stories to go with the invented stitches. She was likewise fascinated by Asian artefacts and developed her own ‘Chinese writing’ which she was called upon to demonstrate in class – fellow students were fascinated and asked her to translate their name into Chinese which she obligingly did in ways no Chinese speaker would recognize. Fired by the derring-do of Enid Blyton’s the Famous Five she was a child constantly on the look out for ‘clues’. In her father’s paint shed she determined to become a gypsy and painted herself brown – painful paint removal cured that tendency.


Over the years McClaren has explored numerous creative avenues, pioneering the ‘let’s see what I can do with this’ approach. This spring WINDOWSPACE gathers together a collection of her flower studies to celebrate the season and plant her firmly in Beeac’s centre.