OMG Waste as Art opening YAY!

So excited about Sunday's Waste as Art opening. Festivities start at 2pm, the big shed down at Honeysuckle that used to house the markets. I have three sculptures on display, no idea how it's all going to be laid out but I'm sure it will be fabulous. Especially interested to see how they dealt with the large scale chandelier style one. Will definitely take photos and post them on here for all to see.

The exhibition opens to the public on Wednesday the 4th of June,

Opening Hours: 4 June to 13 July 2008
Wednesday to Sunday 10.00 am to 4.00 pm
Closed Monday and Tuesday

Hopefully you all get a chance to come along and see it, there are some fascinating artworks on display there. Favourites so far include a giant seal made out of wire and plastic bags and an incredible ferris wheel of mythical creatures. So come on down, support your local artists and the new recycling.

Much love, Em.

To market to market...

My market stall at the Newcastle Farmers' Markets is roughly divided into two halves, the toy side and the origami side. Pretty happy with the layout at the moment, but I think I need to get/make lighter coloured material for the top of the table, I think the red satin on the toy side may be making them a bit hard to see.

So let me walk you through the layout. In the purple basket on the left (which was in a past life my shopping bag) holds the silver branches that I suspend my pre-made origami strands from. The square things in the forefront of the picture are the "Make Your Own: Origami strand" kits, with more in the basket behind. The little yellow suitcase on the right (which used to be my lunchbox at pre-school) holds boxes of origami paper that I get in Chinatown and kits to make "Lucky Stars". The painting behind the suitcase is of my sister. Unlike most of my paintings it has stars on it, which is useful when customers pull out the star kits and say "What are these?"

;)

Here is my (prototype) Notice Board. The real one, a work in progress, will have "Emerald Arts News" written on it and painted girls rather than these material critters that I found at Hawks Nest SoLo Prices. News for Sunday May 25th was:

- New Voodoo Susan kits available in many different colours.

- Raw Jaffa school holiday art program taking enrolments now. Lessons include Painting, making toys and origami, I am the teacher.

- The Waste as Art exhibition at Honeysuckle is opening Sunday June 1st at 2pm. I have three sculptures made from origami on display. The exhibition is open to the public throughout June.

These are the gorgeous flowers by Tim Neve (http://timneve.com/eden) that I bought for Grandma, her birthday was on Sunday. The markets before that I bought some for Mum (Mother's Day). Next time I may buy some for myself. I love having flowers on the stall. So pretty 0_-

The display for the Voodoo Susan kits. Presentation is in the development stage. Am painting a sign, as the handwritten one is a bit shoddy. The kits are selling well. I can't wait to see how they turn out. I ask everyone who buys one to bring it back and show me when they are done, or to email a photo, hopefully they will start coming in soon.

So that was last sunday. Thanks to the lovely Zephyrama for your advice and for moving me back inside with the crafty/arty people. Unfortunately next markets falls on my birthday, and given my track record of shenangans on said day, I'll be giving that market a miss and will be back in a month with many more kits for people to make. Am going to update this blog much more regularly too, keep ya'll posted...

Em :)

Learning is fun

Found an amazing designer today, Lostvalues. This little guy "SeamuSays" helps kids to learn Welsh. Their parents can programe it with phrases that they want to teach their kids. Such an interesting way of going about things. Always interested to see functional toys.

Check out their website here:

http://www.lostvalues.com/projects/toys/

It's just gorgeous, so many facets of design and textiles worked with.

Big Day Today

Very exciting day today, dropped my artworks off at the Waste As Art exhibition. They're taking in all the artworks today, arranging the displays, then the prize ceremony is on the first, sometime in the afternoon I think (will post details later). The first sculpture is the biggest, strands and strands of colourful cranes, about a metre and a half long. It's lying down on a plinth at the moment, having a bit of a rest. The girls that from WAA are going to hang them from a big chain, very high ceilings in the Honeysuckle sheds. Best of all I got to have a wander around the place with one of the organisers, such amazing stuff there, can't wait to see them all up properly.

Rather shocking shot of the bonsai tree but it gives you the general idea. My lovely friend at the flower shop in Hamilton gave me some moss for the base of the tree.

The everlasting flowers. I love having flowers around the house, but I'm pretty picky. Hate gerberas and commercial roses (home grown ones are a whole different story) especially if they come in a wierd plastic test tube. Anyway, these never need to get their water changed and I'm not deriving any inscets of their dinner ;)

Waste As Art exhibition

This is the beginning of one of three submissions for the Waste As Art exhibition. They have to be taken in either next tues or weds, but am aiming for tuesday so it's done :P It can be done, I swear :P

These pictures are actually the wrong way round, but that doesn't really matter. This second picture (or first if you want to be pedantic) shows the strands of cranes before they were attached to the frame. I'm working on smaller ones atm to intersperse between the larger ones, and I don't want to say too much before it's on show.... so yeah, this is the sort of thing I have been doing for the past few months if you were wondering why I dropped off the radar.

Not quite sure how I am going to suspend the whole thing though, I'm hoping they have a really big ladder, because the thing really needs to be hung. Well hung. hehe

Won't you please, pllleeeaaasse help meee ;)

I am currently assembling an artwork for the Waste As Art exhibition.

There are about fourty long strands of cranes hanging around my house atm. The cranes are made from various materials I have collected in the past couple of months (magazines, champagne foil, postcards etc.) and are suspended on offcuts from a ribbon factory.

Only problem is, I had the flu and missed the opportunity to scavenge goods from the curbside collection before it was... collected.

Does anyone have anything spare hanging around that would work as something to suspend them from? Something wicker or wire or whatever.

The prize, to the successful and caring supplier, will be one of my paintings. I will draw a person to hold the strings of the crane balloons as you dictate and fold the cranes from whatever you want.

Please, thankyou.

entry one: Everlasting Flowers (Waste as Art exhibition).

The beginnings of one of my artworks. So far the cranes on sticks are definitely going to be a feature, I think I may fill the bottle with something like stars made from paper complementary to the cranes... or the sands of time... who knows :P The ethos behind the work comes down to the transient part paper and flowers play in our lives. For the past month I have been collecting every piece of paper, foil, whatver is foldable basically, in a box in the kitchen. Every couple of days I sift through, picking out materials that appeal then cutting them into squares that I then fold into origami cranes.

Materials include the following: artworks in Frankie magazine, postcards, cereal boxes, champagne and cigarette foil gathered from various social gatherings, graphics from Giant Robot (an American magazine focusing on Japanese culture), medicine boxes... I think you get the idea. I have a complete list which I will submit with the artworks when I take them to the exhibition hall later this month.



The backdrop is one of my life drawings, the material below from our Japanese exchange student of many years past, Mie.

The Sketchbook

I thought that for a bit of a change I would share a little of my process diary. Since about six years of age I have been creating these visual reminders of things that fascinate me, ideas I have, works from other artists that I admire... I think you get the picture.

This is the origional sketch for Voodoo Susan. Since her creation she has travelled to Melbourne, accidentally gone through the washing machine (she's fine... honest) and had various adventures around Newcastle.