Block 2, Term 3, 2010
September 6th – 10th

* Encaustic: Painting with Beeswax and Pigment, Marci Tackett
* Holding Up Seven Fingers, Robert Franken
* Everything you wanted to know about Paint. Part 2, Marc Hill
* Raku Firing, Hanne Eriksen Mapp
* Cold Connections. Jewellery/Body Adornment, Craig McIntosh
* Putting It All Together, Perry Scott

By Jonathan Milne

When you create art you’re taking the lead.  You have to make your own decisions and follow them through.  You are in charge.

If people acknowledge you as an artist they are probably thinking about your work.  Without putting it into words they are also saying that you have made effective leadership decisions with your own particular skills and ideas.

Art-making is Leadership 1.01.  It isn’t as if every good artist is a good leader, but every good leader is going to have some of the qualities of a good artist.

The second challenge for an artist (Leadership 1.02) is to create the means to make more art.  Typically (but not always) this involves money.  Selling requires something beyond the art itself – artists need to engage with others.

The early stages of an artist’s career can be frail and unpredictable.  Picasso, for example, now appears as an art colossus of the 20th century but, had it not been for Daniel-Henry Kahnweiler, an art dealer, he may well have remained poor and unknown.  Picasso wrote, ‘What would have become of us if Kahnweiler hadn’t had a business sense?’

Picasso’s work, particularly ‘Les Demoiselles d’Avignon’, was championed by Kahnweiler and became famous.  Teamwork was crucial to success.  Both artist and dealer had leadership roles.

It turns out that this kind of ‘distributed leadership’ is overwhelmingly more common than ‘pyramid leadership’ where a person called the President, King, General, Mayor, Chief Executive (or whatever) appears to be in charge.  The pyramid system requires a chain of command – people are supposed to do what they’re told.  Trade unions sometimes expose the shortcomings of the pyramid by ‘working to rule’.  They meticulously follow orders and the result can be worse than not working at all.

Nations largely work on distributed leadership.  Everyone is ‘leading’ simply by doing whatever it is that they do.  Most of the time no one is giving orders.  We make choices based on a subtle interaction between personal and collective thinking.

When you make art you also make decisions that go beyond the work.  If you get stuck or bored you must decide how to respond.  If you become famous you will need to decide how to manage fame.

The secret is to find open-ended patterns which are ‘growthy’ and sustainable.  You don’t have to be Picasso to be successful.

The paradox of ‘distributed leadership’ is that you can find a way to serve others and do what you like. Then it no longer matters whether you’re the president.  You’re free to lead through your own creativity.  It’s the best of all worlds.

By Adele Q Hickford

Dry Collage takes time – but it is very satisfying!

You will need

• Support – card, 300gsm paper, canvas board, etc
• Acrylic gloss medium
• Brush to apply the gloss medium
• A design/composition to inspire you – or go free form and see what you can create
• Table space with a sacrificial cover such as a thick towel
• Racks or some other surface for drying the collage paper – rows of empty icecream or yoghurt containers work well
• An iron, and ironing board, or layers of towels on a flat surface such as a table/floor.
• ‘Release paper’ I assume you can buy ‘release paper’ in art supply shops, but I’ve used heavy tracing paper with good results.  Baking paper would probably work too.
• Papers to create the collage – see below for some ideas.

Materials to use in the dry collage process

• Pictures from magazines – although if you want to sell your art, you have to be aware of copyright issues. I use magazine pics for practise and inspiration in my visual diary, but try to use my own pics for anything I want to exhibit.
• Photos – I find that photos printed on ordinary printer paper, or quality cotton paper work well. When I used glossy photo paper I had issues with the top layer lifting off.  Using photos in collage brings a whole new dimension to your photography!
• Light card in various colours.  Again, some of the top layers of colour may lift off if the iron is too hot – sometimes that can enhance the overall effect.
• Paper napkins.
• Painted papers/light card.  Water colour and acrylic washes work well.
• Shredded paper – a bit of a challenge to coat, but you can produce some intriguing effects.
• Oil pastel rubbings/frottage provide great background patterns or see-through overlays.  There is an opportunity for recycling; if you do the frottage on heavy tracing paper you can:

1. Iron the frottage over parts of / all of a picture.  Be careful to face the side with the oil pastel down onto the paper, otherwise the iron will get a bit messy.
2. Once you have ironed the pastel off, the colour remains on the frottage, and you can then coat it with acrylic gloss medium and use pieces in your collage.

The Process

• Coat the support (cardboard, board, etc) with acrylic gloss medium.  Allow to dry.
• You can sketch your composition onto the support before or after coating.
• Coat both sides of your collage pieces with acrylic gloss medium – dry between coats.
• Cut/tear your collage pieces into the desired shapes.
• Arrange the composition on the support.
• Place clean‘release paper’ on top.
• Iron the pieces into place, starting with the iron on a warm setting.  The silicon paper should lift off freely.

Tips

• Try a small collage first, to get a feel for the optimum ironing temperature, and to see how different materials work.
• Ironing – I think you can buy an iron especially designed for collage work, but my household iron does the job.
• Check out books by Gerald Brommer and others on “Collage Techniques”.

Some examples of my dry collages:

‘Kapiti Abstract’

Oil pastel frottage provided the background sky and sea on A3 card.

• papers –painted with acrylics
• paper napkins
• magazine cuttings – just the colour
• light card in various colours.
• pieces of ‘used’ oil pastel frottage

‘Rahui I’

I kept this one really simple – A4 card.

I used an oil pastel textured wallpaper rubbing for the background after I had ironed the oil pastel off, it still had good colour.

Then I added spliced pieces of my black and white photos; a sunlit fence, and Kapiti Island.

I’ve also done a version of this in acrylic paint on canvas – but the original is more satisfying – it’s crisper, yet more spontaneous. Also, I discovered that ironing oil pastel frottages onto acrylic pattern doesn’t really work – they smudge far too much.

‘Rahui II’

I decided to go for a different but similar version of ‘Rahui’.

• A4 watercolour paper I prepared with soft washes of blue & red watercolour
• ironed-on pale blue oil pastel rubbing of my favourite piece of wallpaper
• spliced coloured photo of a sunlit fence, and Kapiti Island
• coated with acrylic gloss medium.

By Rhiannon Stone

I hated high school. I scraped through getting NCEA level 1 and that’s all I have when it comes to qualifications. That bothers me. It’s not that I’m not smart; I consider myself quite intelligent (when I choose to be!) – it’s just that high school and I never agreed and because of my rather colourful history I have always been very scared to get into the whole education thing again. I have just stuck with working. I am also very cautious with money and have, so far, never bought anything on hire purchase or got a loan. The idea of paying interest irritates me. So the decision to start studying again was not one I took lightly.

I remember the day I first found out about TLC. I was at the hairdressers getting my hair chopped off and getting it re-dyed bright red. I was looking through some magazines to fill in time and came across an advertisement for a school that focused on ‘art and creativity’. I looked into it a bit more for about six months and toyed with the idea of quitting my job and studying from home full-time (the school is in Wellington and I’m in Auckland). After working out that financially I wouldn’t be able to do that I started to think about studying part time while working.

Three weeks ago I made the decision I was going to do it - I was going to study again. I found out that the next intake was 31st May so I needed to sort everything out quickly. After a few emails, filling out an application form, a trip to get documents verified by the Police (a relatively interesting event in itself) and applying for my loan, I sit here with a box full of materials and my first drawings in years.

The first exercise was to draw a face; a simple instruction. Draw a face – any face – however you want. I put it off for hours, convincing myself that bad TV (’Wife Swap’ to be more precise) was more interesting. I realised I was putting it off because I was worried about how terrible my face would be – I haven’t drawn in years and have never considered myself a drawer. Once I realised that and re-read “the purpose of this is to show where you are NOW in terms of drawing” I thought “for Gods sake just do it and get it out of the way.” I did and it was a little bit better than I thought it was going to be, but still not great. It was surprisingly hard for me to do, but I did it.

Once I had that out of the way, everything else was more fun and easier to complete. I am still embarrassed by some of the drawings I have done for the exercises but have forced myself to show my partner and have a bit of a laugh over it. In the end they will never be great, because you aren’t allowed to look at the page when drawing it! You focus on the object (in this case your hand), not the lines you are drawing. It’s teaching your brain to recognise what you see instead of what you THINK you should see (much harder than you would think).

My favourite exercise I have done so far is drawing what I see with a giant white waxy crayon (so far I have done a self-portrait) and then using watered down food dye to do a light wash. The paper absorbs the ink but the crayon repels it, revealing your drawing. I was going to try and draw one of our cats (the lazier one) using this technique but he wouldn’t sit still this evening, so maybe tomorrow.

I keep thinking back to my past and am looking at how far I have come in the last six years. I still can’t believe I have enrolled in this programme. Some people I knew would not believe I am the same person. By beginning my study with TLC I feel like I have overcome an incredibly huge and scary hurdle. It feels like a new beginning. I feel like a new person.

I will be sharing my experiences and discoveries in the art world through my blog. Everything from my experiments to my triumphs and my disasters; art is something that should be shared and I intend to do so!

http://rhiannonstone.blogspot.com/

The Artist’s Body
July 24-25 / Rachel Johnstone
What is Performance Art? This weekend class examines artists’ use of self and body as an object in their work and how this mode of working can be incorporated into your own work.
See more here

Every term students fill the walls with artworks in The Learning Connexion’s end of term student exhibition. The most recent exhibition also saw the floors, stairwells, cupboards and lawn covered, as students showed off the fruits of their creative labour.

The exhibition starts with an opening night where students and proud friends and family celebrate creativity. Student work covers a wide range of media, from painting, to sculpture, to jewellery, to video and animation. The exhibition is entirely organised and run by the students themselves and last term’s exhibition was definitely one of the best we’ve seen at our new campus.

Created with Admarket’s flickrSLiDR.

While many people make the trip out to Taita to see the work, we’ve placed a gallery of work online so those who have missed out can continue to appreciate what our students have produced. Our Flickr site is currently showing off over 80 works by TLC students at varying levels in their programmes.

Looking for a quick tip, short project or creative inspiration? Try Quickart!! TLC’s answer for boredom and inspiration. In this episode of Quickart Lucy Adams demonstrates felt making. She shows how you can pummel and beat straggly pieces of wool into a smooth and magical piece of cloth, ready for all your creative needs. Look out for more Quickarts, coming soon.

By Jonathan Milne

'Flambeau de noces chimiques' - Judit Reigl 1954, Pompidou Centre, Paris

Have you heard of Judit Reigl, or Simon Hantï, or Jésus Raphael Soto?   They are all on the walls of the Pompidou Centre in Paris, along with a legion of other artists whom most of us don’t know.  They’re interesting too, basking in their low-visibility fame.

They stand close to big names like Picasso, Kandinsky, Pollock, Braque, Bonnard and Matisse.  Many of the big name works were as unknown to me as Judit Reigl.  Some of them were remarkably unremarkable; others stopped me in my tracks.

Couple Pablo Picasso 1971 Pompidou Centre, Paris

When you walk through a giant gallery the art blurs a little.  It’s like an overdose of speed-dating.  Instead of slowly ‘getting acquainted’, each piece of art has two or three seconds to get through our defences.

Fame skews our attention because a well-known name inevitably attracts a second glance.  We look longer at Picasso than Judit Reigl.

I recall a photography exercise which tricked me into a different way of looking.  The tutor randomly threw hoops and each person made their pictures from within one of the hoops.  Instead of being flooded with abundance we were invited to discover magic in whatever was there.  It worked.  We found that visual riches were largely a product of our imagination.

Try the same tactic with student art work.  Pause in front of one exhibit and think about the qualities which make it amazing.  Imagine for a moment that it is signed by one of the great names.  Perhaps it is an early Pollock.  Wow.  You can really understand the beginnings of a spectacular career.

Critics and historians do this with hindsight.  They look at works of a famous artist and invent a logical sequence of steps to connect early influences with greatness.  The test of hindsight is whether it works as foresight.  Can the same critics predict which artists are going to be great in the future?

We don’t normally look at art in terms of ‘greatness’ – we look at it in terms of conversation.  It isn’t so different from what happens when we read a novel.  It might lead to new insights or it might be a passing entertainment.  That’s how art works.  Novels and paintings that trigger wonderful conversations have a better chance of becoming famous.  However, an ‘unknown’ artist may catch you by surprise and bring new meaning into your life.  Potential conversations are tucked inside each person who dares to engage with art and creativity.

When I search through a student show, I look for images that might work in the TLC publications.  I see new things each time I walk around.  The art questions my preconceptions.  It’s a sobering exercise.  Judit Reigls pop up everywhere.  Fresh, vibrant and packed with expressive power.

Take your time.  Be willing to return to look again and again.  Trust the elusive way our minds connect with what is around us.  With a little practice you’ll get into the habit of finding magic.

Wellington artists Judi Jenkins and Lucy Jerram Moore share a passion for expressing the experiences of New Zealanders separated by war. Judi’s series of paintings and assemblage, entitled ‘Letters Home’, is based on actual WWII correspondence from her father-in-law, Southlander David Sutherland Jenkins. During his service in the Western Desert, Italy and Europe with the 23rd Battalion from 1940-44, Dave corresponded regularly with his sister, brother-in-law and father, back home running the family farm. Drawing on the history and emotion of the time, Judi has created a series of canvasses and assemblages that capture the mood of these poignant letters.

Judi specializes in paint and mixed media and has exhibited, sold artwork and taught in Wellington for many years. In April and May of 2010, this collection was shown in Southland, bringing the correspondence between brother and sister home.

Lucy’s works in paint and textiles also explore the emotional impact of separation, absence and the difficulty of communication under wartime conditions. Against a background of fragments and images reminiscent of WWI, simple symbols such as dots, dashes and grids take on a code-like historical significance. The stitch in particular becomes a poignant symbol of the desire to connect two worlds – masculine/feminine, military/domestic, home/abroad, then/now.

Lucy was trained firstly in psychology and subsequently in textile design, jewellery and illustration. She has exhibited nationally since 2000 and now produces work on commission as well as furthering her research into the history and effects of New Zealand’s involvement in World War 1.

MISSING/LETTERS HOME
Paintings, textiles & assemblage
Toi Poneke Gallery, Abel Smith Street
July 23 – August 14 2010
Preview/opening 5.30pm Thursday July 22