Happy New Year everybody!
Right now, (in fact, I began last week) I’m making work for a bunch of shows that are set to open in the first four months of this year.
I’m in the Transformation 8 exhibition – which I’ve referred to as the Elizabeth R Raphael Founders Prize before (since last year’s competition resulted in what they’re exhibiting in the show) which opens shortly. That’s been on the cards for a while now so that work is completed and arrived in the US early last month, in preparation for imminent display.
Hosted by, and located at the Society for Contemporary Craft in Pittsburgh, it runs for ages, and for at least part of that time the SCC is simultaneously running a charm show called Charmed III – Third Times a Charm, in which I was also invited to exhibit. As myself and the illustrious Jill Hermans have designed and created a bunch of charms in the last six months, for the upcoming JoyaViva exhibition in Melbourne (and touring – possibly for-ev-er), we decided to exhibit some more of those little beauties, which, luckily for us, the SCC accepted. So, at the moment I’ve just finished a couple of those cards ready for enamelling, and Jill is preparing two more of the same. Yes, these ones are getting the royal treatment now that the kiln is up and running.
So of course, one of the shows soon-to-open is the actual Joyaviva show, beginning on the 10th of February at RMIT gallery in Melbourne, and touring. We’re in the final stages of our part for that exhibition – the work is ready and the catalogue is in produciton.
When you look at it in terms of what’s actually on my bench, the main pieces that I’m working on right now are for my upcoming solo show at Studio 20/17, opening at the very end of Feb. I’ve drawn, emailed, received and started working with a new laser cut plan that I created for these works, with an aim of the show also being to display this laser cut pattern. I’ve been wanting to do this for a while, but this is my first opportunity to exhibit both a full iteration of the pattern that I draw for each series, alongside all of the pieces that come from it.
This time in creating the pattern I’ve worked with the idea that various sections are to be enamelled, and come up with what might be seen as a tiled arrangement of parts. I have made a break from the radial arrangement of motifs, which dominated all my previous laser cut series (and many of my hand-cut works too, though this too has been changing over the last year…), and this development, along with all of the other considerations of the series, is proving stimulating for me to work with.
Now to the final exhibition, being mounted in late April. The Heat Exchange exhibition goes on display in Phoenix, Arizona, as a part of this year’s SNAG conference. The works that I am preparing for my solo show will provide some of the pieces for this exhibition – especially the object works that come out of the new pattern. I will also work on a few more pieces for this show, but only once the works from the first full pattern are in the bag.
So, with all this work to do, you might not see me haunting these parts quite as frequently as I have done. There will still be updates to the Heat Exchange blog as well as the C3 blog (for the Joyaviva exhibition) as well as an upcoming Online Exhibition that I’m curating at Crafthaus, so don’t fret, we won’t have to be strangers 😉