The Ramblings Of Linden Langdon

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Pulling Apart The Exhibition

Monday 29, November

So its time to take down all the artwork that has been quietly doing its stuff on the walls for the last week or so and pack it away somewhere safe, hopefully to see the light of day on another wall, sometime. My gallery piece, 'Pacing' is the steel plates I used to print, while 'Pacing' (print form) is the resulting prints. Due to time and financial pressure I have only printed these plates once in the manner that is seen here, and so both artworks are 'one offs' despite the underlying belief that most prints are duplicated many times! Personally I haven't done a print run of more than 10 of any print. So the image here shows the eight prints that are each 700cm x 900cm creating quite a large display in total! Anyone got a big gallery wall???

Awwww Shucks...

Friday 26, November

Well its official, I managed to achieve the highest mark of my degree and get the first class honours tag! Despite many childhood years of strict adherence to the no acknowledgement of reports and marks, I can't help but feel a little tingle of extra oxygenated blood rushing about inside and the strange desire to bounce repeatedly on the spot. MMMM, oh that does feel good! Ok enough of that, time to get back to the grind stone and justify my existence for the next foreseeable future.

Trickles And Pours

Tuesday 23, November

Gallery sitting today at the Plimsoll was a good experience as for the first time I got first hand view of the way people interacted with our honours exhibition. Shy steps on the deep bed of salt glowing under a ceiling of blue, careful reading of the summaries, cautious movement around the sculpture and intense viewing of the video installation. All good news, and plenty of great comments. Also starting to happen is a trickle of people heading back into the print room for some quiet time printing a few Christmas cards or presents. And then there was Alexi. Broke as we all are at the end of the year, Alexi was printing up his large drypoint plates in anticipation of sales to boost his post degree purse. Good luck Alexi, and don't forget me when your famous!

Point Of Departure

Monday 22, November

Its kind of shattering to reach a point where you can see change, change that you have anticipated and pursued, and find that it is really an ocean of possibilities with the added sensation of standing on the edge of a crumbling dune face. Anyone who's done it would know what I mean. The uncertainty of what is 'next' is consuming. It doesn't stop the progression of time and forward waltz of the tempo of life however, and there is plenty of action happening about the place as the year compresses its final gasp of show and tell into the last moments. My daughter Amy is on her way to Asia and Europe after a gruelling first year at uni. A trip she has been planning since childhood. My son Ross Langdon has completed his architecture degree with his final exhibition in the Queen Victoria Building on Wednesday 24th, and home life feels like a big soft bean bag once again despite the absence of their company. I look forward to news of their exploration for years to come, no doubt.

Aftermath

Saturday 20, November

Getting out of bed was a bit slow this morning. Not because I consumed vast quantities of brewed beverages that leads to a poisoning of the system, or because yesterday was extremely demanding in a physical sense, but purely because today I can get out of bed slowly, sip my tea and gently awaken to the new day without the pressure of wondering what to produce in a creative sense for my honours project. Yes, today I am free. But after the big opening night last night the news that I have been selected to go to Perth to participate in the Hatched exhibition next year is slowly sinking in, and after some quick research on the net this morning some bubbles of excitment are starting to brew! Hatched is an annual exhibition that features artists from the postgraduate assessment around Australia. Three artists were chosen from the Tasmanian School of Art. This years exhibition is highlighted on the Perth Institue of Contemporary Art (pica). Better start saving up for the trip! I wonder what I'm going to wear...

Assessment Day

Wednesday 17, November

So today is the first day of the rest of my life, as every day must be, but some of more significance than others. So today is that day, the significant one that seems to cast a shadow of the past and projection of light into the future. I left my display of work at about eight thirty last night content that there was nothing much else I could do and everything was up to the mood of the powers that be and how frazzled they are when they finally get to see my work. Oh well, was only a year of my life...

One Day To Go

Monday 15, November

Today was the major day for putting up the second display area and the support material. It was a looong day to say the least and after climbing up and down ladders and nailing into hundred year old beams (ouch) I'm feeling like today will be the last big shout. But tomorrow is another day and hopefully everything will be up and ready for the assessors to come and stamp their approval (or not ) on Thursday. Most of the third year students work has drifted down from the walls and waltzed clamly out the doors with sighs of relief as people contemplate their life without a school routine once more. Some still have theory units to complete next year, while others are busy planning life as an artist. Allan Mansell will still be gracing the art school corridors with his works reaching into his cultural heritage for another year. I guess that having a couple of theory units to keep the uni doors open is one way to maintain access to those fabulous printing presses!

Mandy Renard And Third Year Pack Up

Saturday 13, November

The third year exhibition is coming to a close and tomorrow will be pack up day for many people. I'll be checking my space in the painting area to see if I need to do a midnight paint job on the walls in preparation for setting up on Monday. Oh I hope the previous people were extra fussy and painted the walls to perfection! Mandy had no problem as her work was hanging in the main corridor where the powers that be had recently upgraded the surfaces to super smooth and freshly painted them for the display. Her work stands out with a strong sense of the feminine, capturing soft, graceful movement and moments in time. Combining her painting skills with printmaking she was able to develop images that complimented the mediums.

Corinne Costello

Thursday 11, November

Today was busy in the Plimsoll Gallery as we were setting up our displays for assessment and exhibition. Corinne was quick off the ranks to have her work, "Pulse 2", in position, though she says there is still plenty of fine tuning to do! She allowed me to offer a sneak preview here and despite the lighting not yet being configured, her piece is glowing gently with movement and form. Her project is concerned with the connection of the heartbeat between the mother and baby and the messages that are conveyed beyond physiology. Using lithograph images depicting the blood flow structure, her prints have been carefully molded into a pregnant form.

Martin Walch

Tuesday 9, November

During the year 2000 I travelled to the West Coast of Tasmania with Raymond Arnold as part of my Natural Environment and Widerness major. We went to the Mount Lyell mine in Queenstown which has been mining copper for many generations. Back in the bad old days the pollution from the process caused all the flora on the surrounding hills to die, creating the landmark 'bald hills'. Copper has formed in a column so the mine gets increasingly deeper each year. Martin Walch had the opportunity to work as a photographer in and around the mine site, and had some stunning results. He also managed to take our group on a tour of the exterior of the mine which was an awe inspiring experience that left most of us pondering how something so disgustingly destructive could also inspire such creative thought. MIneral polluted water sat in huge hollows and brilliant lichens clung to rocks forcing new life and reclamation. Martin features on quite a lot of websites, and the arts up site has an interview about his project.

The Countdown

Monday 8, November

In the last days of working on our projects, we are counting the minutes as all whole years work comes down to finalising all the little details that pull together the work. It seems that you can never think of everything and there is always one or two obstacles that halt progress and send us flying about trying to find a solution. I have been struggling to work out how to display two of my prints and after cycling through a range of choices from the cheap foam core, alluminium and professional framing (ouch on the pocket), I have decided to just pin them to the wall. Just like that, just good old sewing pins right through the corners! I can only hope that they sing as loudly as they can! It is actually a conventional way to display print work, but is hard to push that first pin through after all those agonising hours of lovingly developing the print and callously disgarding any with imperfections. The steel plates I have been working on are now inked up and in the process of being sealed with lacquer finish. It is a product designed to coat those shiny brass bells and copper fittings, but it seems to do the job!

Third Year Exhibition

Saturday 6, November

Yep its on. The third year students at the Tasmanian University School of Art have taken over the building in dramatic form with artwork hanging delicately from stairwells, poised poignantly in select locations and proudly displayed on freshly painted walls. It really is a great collection of work and worth making the effort to have a look if your in the area. From my perspective it means the printroom is even quiter with only a few of us still working on images or putting our displays together in preparation for our opening on the 19th. Most honours students seem to be in the same boat - a few words gleaned from chance meetings on the stairs always focus on the same thing - lack of time.

More Time For Frida

Wednesday 3, November

As the year winds down I can't help but reflect on some of the comments made by lecturers and other students over the four year period. At times these comments have been enough to stop me in my tracks and sit moodily contemplating my belly button for a while. I think this is a normal part of the art making process, and quite frankly if I hadn't had some severe knocks during my uni years I think it would be hard to take the knocks in the real world that awaits without even a hint of bated breath. Yes it is up to me to have some strength and conviction in what I do. I take heart in Frida Kahlo's lithograph 'El Aborto' of 1932. An insightful expression of grief and nature without any concern for others expectations, I think the work is an inspiration. The copy I found in Frank Milner's book 'Frida Kahlo', (2004) has '2nd proof Frida Rivera' written in pencil on the bottom. Along the side is a jewel of advice, no doubt similar to some that I have had at times, which was possibly written by the person who printed the lithograph. It reads 'These proofs are not good and not bad considering your experience. Work hard and you will get better results.'. I can't help but wonder, did this comment colour further ambitions for lithography?

Plate Construction

Tuesday 2, November

Finally the plates are being transforming into objects that pose questions about what we perceive printmaking to be. The etched steel plates, each 900mm x 700mm are being secured onto steel frames so that resemble canvas paintings in form. Currently I am inking the plates, and after a week or so of drying I will seal them with some horrid varnish stuff (yet to buy and read the toxic warnings). These plates, eight of them, will be my main work on show in the Plimsoll Gallery for honours assessment. Our metal work supervisor at uni has done a fabulous job on the construction of the plate come 'sculptural form' and he has even had a smile on his face while he has been doing it. Such a rare commodity in the often over stretched technicians.