The Ramblings Of Linden Langdon

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New Year

Sunday 31, December

Well here it is, the eve of a new calendar year! We are waiting for the clock to tick by with a couple more hours, and then we venture down to the wharf to check out the fireworks display. So hopefully there will be a few photos of the show tomorrow... that is in 2007... Resolutions? Well there are always ambitions to complete projects, change habits, have a bit more outgoings happening etc. But for me the biggest aim for 2007 is to have my masters paper pinned down at very least in a reasonable draft form. So it is research time, reading, writing and being specific with my ideas in printmaking.

But tonight, it's just Happy New Year!

Art School Potting

Saturday 30, December

Today I had my first attempt at potting at art school. This is possible because everyone is on holiday, so it was just me and the vast empty spaces to rattle around in. Oh and the guard. The pottery area is a mess. Clay on everything and everything is everywhere. This is because ceramics has actually shifted to Launceston, so there is no teaching of pottery at Hobart anymore. Which is kind of sad really. The ceramics work that is done is sculptural, and more often than not is cast work.

So I guess I should not have been surprised to discover that the wheel, the only wheel, is spinning clockwise, which is for a left-handed person. Perhaps there is a switch somewhere to make it go the other way? Anyway, I chose to keep going and learnt quickly that I actually prefer throwing this way! There is something quite calming about throwing pots, and I could have stayed there for hours despite the emptiness (or perhaps because of), but I ran out of clay.

It is a start though, and each visit I will clean it up just a little and hopefully each visit I will be just a bit more at home and things will start to work. Of course no firing can be done until the tech comes back from break, which is late February.

Bill Handbury

Wednesday 27, December

This is the current exhibition at the Entrepot Gallery, Hunter Street, Hobart, and I think it is really worthwhile checking out if you have the opportunity.

Bill writes, "At the break of dawn I looked out from our tent to see a small drift of smoke lazily rising from a bed of embers some eighty yards away. Around the smouldering fire were three Aboriginal women, together with my five year old son, all seated on the ground and all wrapped in army disposal blankets. They were playing cards; chatting, laughing. This was at the base of Ayers Rock a short time before Azaria Chamberlain went missing. We left a few days later to cross the Tanami.

I returned this year, three decades later. A five star resort sits on my old campsite. The corrugations and bulldust have gone. Separatism is even starker, but the vast mirage filled never-never remains, dominant and its spirit untouched."

Now I'm even more inspired to venture out into the desert centre, so lets pencil that in for 2007... The exhibition "feelings:west of alice" runs until January 12th.

Christmas Eve

Sunday 24, December

What to do on Christmas Eve? Well there is always the recylced Christmas movie that plays on TV every year, or more cooking, or drinking that secret bottle of gin, or maybe a family board game? No we took to the drawing pads and sketched a peaceful little doggie called Saffy! Saffy has been in the family for 12 years now and she is the most steady faithful little friend you could ask for. Except when a bike goes by, or another doggie, or a cat... but tonight she yielded to our wishes and lay still while we scribbled!

Abi called hers "Saffy" and mine is "Saffy is a long dog!". So to Ross in Paris, Amy in Prague, Craig in Canberra (and all the partners too) we are all thinking of you here in little Tassie, and Saffy looks forward to giving you a big lick...!

And Merry Christmas to all who are enjoying the festive season!

Flash Files Moved

Tuesday 19, December

I have made the shift with my two Flash galleries, so if you have a link to either of them, it will need to be changed as well. Sorry for any inconvenience, but it seemed the simplest solution to my bulging website account! The two links affected are Sculptural Forms and John Langdon. Guess that means I will have to go through my own website and make the changes too!

Dad And Petunias

Tuesday 19, December

My Dad used to love growing deep purple petunia flowers. In hanging baskets. I have always struggled to get a decent growth in mine, until this year. The plants are actually doing quite well, and even flowering! This is how I like to remember my Dad, gently watering his petunia plants and admiring deep rich velvet purple tones.

Abi Is Thirteen

Tuesday 19, December

Yesterday was the big day for Abi. With the family spread out so far and wide (Europe and the mainland) birthdays are always a bit of an extended event as wishes trickle in through the conjested postal system! Ross took a very clever short cut through the mail service and went straight for a direct to the door service! What a beautiful gift!

So now there are no children, only teenagers in the household! Oh and the doggies...

Happy Birthday Miss Abi!!!

Screening Bitumen - Yuk!

Saturday 16, December

It really is quite a disgusting process to go through! It started as a possible idea for me when I realised that my silkscreen is really in need of a new mesh. So what have I got to lose? Then I noticed someone who had used bitumen to screen an image onto a plate before etching. Of course I am such a shocker for needing to try out things when I see them and think about the possibilities!

Sooooo, then it was a matter of working out what I wanted to screen, and this turned out to be a few small plates which are to be part of a larger project. This was my first error, though I didn't know it yet. After three goes at getting the images onto the screen through the photo emulsion process (don't ask, it was just one of those weeks) I decided that working at home was probably going to easier. Mistake number two.

I set up to screen outside in the fresh air (which of course meant that the bitumen dried super fast - mistake three) and proceeded to test the images - yay they worked! But oh how fast the bitumen then dried into the screen! I then scrabbled about and managed to get the screen clear with white spirits (yuk) and decided that I would need to screen the images onto paper, lie the plates down onto the screened images, then screen again to get the bitumen to land in the right spot (because I chose to work with eight little plates rather than one big one). So working with as much speed as possible I eventually got the bitumen to screen onto the plates!

Then a huge gust of wind scattered the freshly screened plates, the bitumen managed to leak all over the concrete patio and the chair, plus my doubts about whether the bitumen is dense enough to last through the etching process has been raised depsite having double squeeged! Anyway, they will be in the etch tomorrow, with an aquatint layer, and maybe all will be worthwhile? Maybe not!

Images 9 exhibition

Thursday 14, December

This exhibtion has become a well supported annual event. Running from Monday December 18th until January 4th, the artwork will be hung in the Long and Sidespace galleries in Salamanca Place. There are over 45 Tasmanian artists involved, and the work ranges from sculpture to jewellery to fine art prints and everything else inbetween!

Last Pottery

Thursday 14, December

Last night we picked up the last of our pottery pieces from the term. The last firing is always the most exciting as things have started coming together. My last pots were at both ends of the clay scale as some were Buff Raku and some were porcelain. Not really fine porcelain though - maybe there is a considerable amount of room for improvment? Anyway, Buff Raku is a very course mix which is a lovely honey colour when it is fired and the dark brick throughout the clay creates a speckle of shiny melted bits. This is possibly my favbourite in some ways, but it is so course that throwing with it is problematic. The courseness takes off skin layers with ease! Potting with gloves on is an option, and one that I'll try.

The porcelain pots are so different with the silky smooth surface. The little pieces I did to go with my 'sculpture' are by far my favourite porcelain pieces. I used a water etch to create interest in the form, then some sparce glazes.

So now it is a matter of keeping up with a bit of practice until I can have work fired agin. I am able to use the few facilities left and our Hobart campus after ceramics moved to Launceston, just for the summer break, so hopefully that will mean a reasonable amount waiting to be fired in February when people have finished having a holiday! And hopefully things will be improving too...

Abi's Garden Grows

Saturday 9, December

It is nearly a month since Abi planted out the seedlings and seeds in her potted garden. I am so truly jealous of how fantastic it is now! My outdoor garden continues to falter beneath the peck of the birds, the burst of intense heat followed rapidly by icey cold wind and of course the occasional stamping by a dear doggie who manages to break through the fence. So it is to Abi's garden that I go to pick lettuce for the sandwiches in the morning, and she has just enjoyed the first pick of her starwberry plant! You can see just how effective a little extra protection has been over the last few weeks when you compare the first planting photo with todays snap.

Tassie Fires

Friday 8, December

The air is heavy with smoke as the summer suddenly hits the crispy dry forest. It is a nasty aspect of summer. We have had quite a lot of rain really, so it is not a good sign to have such a bad fire at the start of the dry season. Kellevie lies to the south east of Hobart, on the way to Port Arthur. It looked like the weather was on the firfighters side a couple of days ago, but the wind and heat have fanned it up again. The hot day predicted tomorrow means that there is little hope of putting it out, so more smoke filled air, more forest burning out of control, more firefighters risking all to gain control and plenty of worried people.

Maps On Show

Thursday 7, December

Here are a few snaps from the postgrad printmakers (and lecturers) map exhibition. It is on show outside the art school library, Hunter Street, Hobart

John Robinson Exhibition

Thursday 7, December

John has a wonderful sense of humour. He keeps it close to his chest until he unleashes it onto paper. His current exhibition is no exception! Gentle Annie, a name he finds full of mystery, so much so that he has turned her into a bunyip! He writes about a historical story, a legend perhaps, of a girl called Josephine who fell into a tank of water which fed a manmade waterfall, but as with all stories and legends, thing get a little hazy with time leaving plenty of room for some interpretation... "Has Josephine's spirit, now named Annie moved on or has it permeated the area that is such a popular picinic area today. Or has she becme a Bunyip that swims in the Waterworks reservoir, causing the segulls to scream out as they fly off from the water. Does she push the childrens swings when no one is watching. Is she related to the Bunyips that have been seen in other Lakes and rivers around Tasmania? I think she is."

Revamps And Shuffles

Tuesday 5, December

Steven has been busy doing a revamp of the Hunter Island Press website, and I think it is looking rather good! In the process he noticed all the areas that I have been a bit slack on updating, so it is head down time for me to make sure that all the information that should be there is on the website where it should. Consider me dutifully requested! Keeping up with the updating is probably the hardest part of maintaining a website. I doubt that people can comprehend the amount of work involved when first looking into owning a website. Time ticks by quite fast, and when you are in a business which has constant change, for example an artist creating new work, the website needs to reflect that change. So off to work on the HIP website.. and a very big thankyou to Steven who donates all his time and skill for this fledgling organisation!

Also needing an update was Tania's website. This is my baby, and I must admit I do really enjoy working on it. Tania has been busy expanding her skills in massage to include the Hahana Stone Massage, so her website has grown a little.

Another thing that will be happening shortly is that I need to move a couple of my websites from my account. This is because I am a prolific blogger, apparently, who uses up heaps of account space. So, my two flash galleries that I made fro my Dad's work will be moved. This won't affect anything much, apart from a different url showing in the browser, but the only problem is that any old links will no longer work. So when I make the shift, I will announce it loudly so that links can be updated to the new address. I must apologise for any inconvenience in advance for this move.

John Robinson

Monday 4, December

John Robinson has taken on the role of tech in the printmaking department at the University of Tasmania. He does a great job as he has worked in the industry of commercial printing for many years. So it is quite an achievment to work four days a week at uni, one day a week teaching at tafe and then to pull together a solo exhibition! John has worked primarily in lino cut for this exhibition, and I think it would be fair to say that it is his favourite medium. I will be in at uni in the next couple of days, having had a week or so off, and I will post an update with some images of the show.

The exhibition runs until December fifteenth and is at the Entrepot Gallery at the entrance to the School of Art, Hunter Street, Hobart.

The Tree Is Up

Monday 4, December

Just a note for all the family friends who are acros the oceans - the tree is up, the lights are on, and all is as it should be!

Are Competitions Good?

Saturday 2, December

It just keeps coming back, a bit like one of those rubber balls attached to a racket which is supposed to bounce theatrically off the strings but persists in wacking you in the face! It is an old debate, but one worthy of revisiting I think. My attention was sparked by a book I borrowed from the library about Margaret Olley (by Christine France, 2002). In amongst the 1948 Archibald Prize contest was an article about whether or not contests are harmful to the artistic process. William Dobell, who had won the Archibald twice at that point, said "the prize was a deterrent which developed a false sense on effort and brought out the competitve spirit, which was not conducive to art." and I am thinking that the same issues are present today, nearly 60 years on.

The article continues to talk about the judges, who in the nature of humanity can only be subjective, however the comments are definately dated as concerns such as the qualification of the people invited to judge and the need for work to be judged by what it has to say rather than merely technical ability is certainly a major concern in most current competitions. The other issue raised by the article is the prize pool. Now this is very relavant, as the issue of the larger prize receiving much more media attention still remains.

Artists are usually poor people - an article in a magazine recently pointed out that artists who do sell their work tend to earn about $7,000 a year - so of course the bigger the prize offer the more entries, and the more profit to be made by the gallery. Currently an entry fee is usually about $30 (Aud) which is quite a lot for a poor person, but the multiplcation factor of , for example, the 1,800 entries to a popular competition like (for example) the Linden Postcard means a substantial amount of money crossing the gallery floor. The winner gets a good slice, and then there are expenses involved, but surely it all seems a bit off the deep end? How could it be humanly possible to really assess 1,800 entries and select 'The Best' for the final jugement.

The 1948 comment was that "because the Archibald Prize was the largest in Australia the winner naturally received more publicity than artists who won competitions equally as important but not worth as much.", so in the end it all comes down to money. So I suppose that can be seen as a positive, with money being circulated into the arts that would not have been if the competition had not been run, but is there another way? I doubt that there is any simple answer, and perhaps it is as straight forward as 'enter if you want' and avoid if you don't. I guess my dislike for it is that unless you are selected as a finalist in a competition, you aren't considered a serious contender in the arts in the eyes of many. There seems to be far too much emphasis on the importance of competitions. But perhaps that doesn't matter either.

Now do I send off my entry, "Pierre", to for the Linden Postcard, or keep the money to buy much needed art supplies? Yep, I think I'll keep my dignity (integrity?) and buy another tube of ink.