a dream come true

 

i have wanted to stay on a houseboat in Sausalito ever since the first time i came to the Bay Area. i know the retired pirate in Swallows and Amazons lived on a lake

and i do love lakes

but i seriously love places with tides (which is why the Tay River also has a corner of my heart)

so when i discovered the Yellow Ferry i was delighted.

here was a chance to spend time living on the water

with the space to invite people to come and share in the poetics of the place

sometimes an event is so much worth the doing that it doesn't matter that it doesn't return a profit. it came out even and that was fine (and good for the local economy!)

and happily (at almost the last minute) i had the thought to ask Chef Violette to join us, meaning i didn't have to rise at the crack of dawn to begin prep...and also that the food was far better than anything i could have offered. she flew in on my frequent flyer points, bless her heart. cooked fabulous abundances of vegetarian gluten free food and served us utterly sensational desserts at afternoon tea time (with different ice-creams every day, all beaten by hand)

 (above) lentils, polenta, crispy baked kale leaves, and a rich tomato sauce

(below) shortbread icecream , ginger snaps, caramelized pineapple, fragrant rice pudding and blueberries

three brown feet

bundles (looking a bit like the seals that lolled on rafts just a little ways from the boat)

...

and of course i adore paeonies

in situ : in stall

the last time i curated an exhibition was 1986

a lifetime ago

when

my name was

Schwerdtfeger

and people took me seriously

because i had a title

"Visual Arts Development & Exhibitions officer, Arts Council of South Australia"

these days the Arts Council [as it was then] no longer exists, having been absorbed by the Regional Cultural Trusts

and my surname changed by marriage.

these days i am India Flint

of nowhere in particular.

two years ago i conceived the notion of an exhibition

"in situ"

about the sense of place, whether in the pristine wild or amid the clutter of the city, whether derived from the locality of our birth or a dwelling place of choice, whether acknowledged or suppressed pervades how we live and work. place is integral to human integrity and to our sense of being.

i invited eleven people i knew to participate.

and

over time 

it has gradually come together.

 ‘in situ’ comprises work by  Sandra Brownlee, Dorothy Caldwell, Helen Carnac, Imbi Davidson, Desiree Fitzgibbon, Roz Hawker, Nikki Jackson, Judy Keylock, Isobel McGarry, John Parkes and me; examining the experience of locality, exploring the intimacy of personally familiar places and the particular relationship each artist has with their environment. 

i will confess i struggled with including my own work. as curator, this is somewhat frowned upon. Directors of galleries certainly shouldn't do it, but in this case it is a sort of anchor point. at least, that's my excuse.

 

 so today i drove to work with my assistant

 

through a blue sky day, to grapple with the delight of empty space

and with arranging work to claim it.

much later i pootled home along the backroads

past stubble fields that looked like stitches

through Rathjens Gap, where one hundred years ago witches were reputed to fly

and where i suspect petroglyphs might still be found

if the sun were at the right angle

finding new puddles on the way

home to the studio

where it was time to burn a few boats

under the careful supervision of Tabitha

while Kubbi slept the sleep of the just

after which

i made a new drawing tool

one that does justice to the inkwell i found last year at McArdle Bay, Lopez Island

tomorrow it's back to the Murray Bridge Regional Gallery
to complete the install

ready for the opening on Friday May 22 @ 7pm

do swing by if you're in the region.







'If you don’t know where you are, you don’t know who you are'      Wendell Berry

getting ready to be (t)here

'being (t)here' is a class i love to teach. each time is an adventure in itself

it's a class which is suited as much to a forest as to a riverside

or even an industrial wasteland

magic is everywhere, the delight is in the detail

and everything has a fascination if you look at it with your heart

this week i will be in Tasmania

(i love islands)

installing back country for Ten Days on the Island  (recently renamed the Tasmanian International Arts Festival) before class begins - it will have a new piece in it to replace the one acquired by the Tamworth Regional Gallery last month -

the only really tricky bit is editing which resources to take,

choosing a teacup for the ride

and trying to reorganise the sewing box/tool kit

which seems to have a mind of its own.

happily i can make do most of the time

so long as i have my trusty collection of readings with me

and a piece of string to hang them on.

the last piece of string stayed in Aotearoa

it was as long as the flight from New Orleans to Vancouver.

tomorrow i will make a string that will measure the distance from Adelaide to Hobart

while gazing out the window of the plane

i will confess i do love flying, though it's admittedly not the kindest mode of transport in terms of the environment

but

it would take a long time to get to Tasmania on my windsurfer

and my books would get wet. 

someone else has a mind of her own, too.
it seems Martha has taken Kubbi aside and given her The Word on suitcases
(in a few months time she won't fit in)



PS i'm not entirely sure, but i think some places remain open in being (t)here classes in Scotland and France later this year

same town, new eyes

yesterday i had to take the trusty Augustus

down to Murray Bridge for a grease and oil change

i love that i can take backroads there

through familiar bits of wide brown land

some visitors have described our roads as brutal

frankly most times i'd rather putter along on the dirt than hoon along the freeway

(unless i'm in a pony car. that's a different matter. entirely.)

after we dropped Augustus at his day spa

Kubbi and i faced a day on foot in the great outdoors

(they don't offer loan vehicles if you have a furry friend) 

also, we needed to carry supplies (drinks and snacks)

because unlike the customs prevailing in Europe 

where dogs are welcome even in restaurants

Australian canine companions are discouraged from darkening the doorways of local businesses

no matter how pretty they are

so it was a chance for me to discover that town through 

a different set of eyes

and accompanied by a different set of feet.

there's an evil local weed called caltrop

which has horrible and vicious spikes and is unavoidable in several places.

 i had to carry the Kubblet across several infested areas to avoid having her paws stabbed

we walked to the big river

met some other pups

and there was a splendid romp

(which was too much fun to be part of to waste time messing with a camera)

sat in the shade under one of the bridges for which the town is named

and watched corellas pretending to be pigeons

and also showing off by performing acrobatics and hanging upside down

and then went back for another swim

wandering about aimlessly

making the odd drawing

playing with feathers and bark

and an enthusiastic pup

was rather fun

(though i had a pile of work waiting at home)

and now i had better get on with it

out (t)here

for some years now i have been sharing a wonderful place in my country with just a handful of visitors, mostly those who have wandered in across the oceans and might otherwise only be exposed to urban life but also a couple of close friends

it's a place that infuses me with vigour, fills my head with dreams and magic (well, yes, ok, i can actually find those things most places, but) and puts good red dust on my boots (harder to find). it provided the foundation for my exhibition 'back country'

is a source of solace and a good place to rediscover who you really are (something that sometimes gets lost in the compost of the daily grind)

last October i was there with Dorothy Caldwell and Sandra Brownlee...a most happy confluence indeed. the place is Wirrealpa Station, owned by Warren and Barbara Fargher. they've done extraordinary ecological restoration work there and are splendid hosts.

i'd always considered it a kind of private and precious place to go but when Barbara asked me whether i would consider hosting a workshop there i thought about it a bit, pondered logistics and said, "why not"? sharing is a good thing.

so i've come up with

out (t)here 

a site-specific retreat centred on the deep experience of place through immersion in this very particular landscape

it's a big venture, we have to carry in all our food for the week and also reserve supplies in case of rain.* food will be completely wheat-free and vegetarian but with side-dishes to satisfy carnivores. (there are no stores so i'll be baking spelt bread daily)

i've also had to think about the best means of getting y'all there. the outback is not to be taken lightly if you're inexperienced so i figured the safest option was to have participants collected from Port Augusta by minibus (with a trailer for luggage)

there are only nine places available, two have already been taken

so

that

leaves

7

as a bonus, if skies are clear we should be able to see the Orionids meteor shower on October 21 + 22 while we're sitting outside by the evening dye cauldron

* rain is also the reason participants should take out travel insurance. while the weather is likely to be fine with mostly blue skies it is, as my atheist (and metereologist) father used to say

"God's way of keeping us on our toes"

and who knows what the Dogs Above will send.

rhapsodies in blue

it was easy planning my clothes for this trip

all i had to do was throw anything blue into the suitcase

and then at the other end

take a daily lucky dip and wriggle into it

[too hot and steamy for boots]

packing the materials was another thing

handstitching indigo-dyed ecoprint bags

and stuffing them with selections from my cloth collection

was fun

[though i will say counting beads can be confusing for a bear]

and happily the baggage-mishandlers did not play football with my suitcase

because the blue-and-white teacups that were to stop the beads rolling off the tables all happily arrived intact.

Roz and i both brought fabrics from our homes and had a glorious time decorating the workroom on the afternoon before class

our wonderful host Tarla had grown all sorts of indigo-bearing plants

as well as madder [which is most useful in reducing an organic vat]

 you could almost think you were in Japan, with such fields

Tarla and her daughters prepared delicious food for us

with fresh ingredients sourced from the garden

where a Satin Bower Bird had busily gathered blues

from the surrounding district

 we looked at ways in which we could bring our blues together

sharing stories about the meaning of this beautiful colour

reading a little poetry

considering what the colour meant to us as individuals

 we stitched, experimented with fresh indigo

worked with the metals that Roz had brought

made string

and at the very end

overdyed the finished pieces in the gloriously rich vat

that Tarla had prepared earlier

thank you, all of you, for making it such a splendid three days

not yet saturated with the blues?

here are more stories

Roz's version

and

a few more links via our shared blue bower

out (t)here

 New Year, New Ideas...

photo by Dorothy Caldwell

you may have heard that i have a new friend

photo by my Ma

already we are getting into the habit of doing things together.

i have a hefty overseas itinerary for this year [planned before Kubbi's surprise arrival in my life] but once we've weathered it, i will be shortening my foreign excursions and spending more time in the Deep South.

having a roadtrip companion opens new doors. sleeping out in the desert on my way home from Tamworth was lovely but it will be so much more delightful to be sharing supper and my swag [that's a bedroll for those of you not familiar with the term] with my dog.

how satisfying it is to be able to write that..."my dog". [who is snoozing beside me on the sofa as i write]

Kubbi will be joining me at dog-friendly places including the lovely Crockett Cottage Studio at Mansfield in November and on a journey to the Flinders Ranges, a region that has inspired many artists including Hans Heysen, Imants Tillers, Antony Hamilton, Kay Lawrence, Dorothy Caldwell, a host of 19th century explorers gifted with drawing skills...and of course yours truly.

Barbara and Warren Fargher, the owners of beautiful Wirrealpa Station have several times suggested that they'd be keen to host a workshop group and even floated the possibility of holding an exhibition of work derived from being "in place" there.

so between us we have come up with an idea.

a journey to the heartlands.

the adventure will begin at Port Augusta, South Australia, where participants will board a mini-bus for the spectacular drive to Wirrealpa where we shall be staying in the historic shearer's quarters [which means i will be up at dawn chopping wood for the donkey that heats the shower water].

during the week we will have time to wander; to stitch, paint and draw, to construct sculpture from found objects, to write and to take photographs. there'll be a dyepot or two going. you'll be well fed. the week won't have a formal workshop structure, but is planned more as a rich opportunity to be nourished by this remarkable region.

we will begin in the mornings with discussion about possibilities and then you'll be free to explore these at your own pace. in the evenings we will gather about the long table in the cookhouse with a glass of wine and share the doings of the day. there will be excursions to view ancient petroglyphs and also a spectacular ochre valley, both sites of great cultural significance.

i'm so excited to be able to share this beautiful country with you!

the dates will be around October 19-23, 2015 and i'm still working out the budget and other details [there are no local supermarkets...everything will need to be brought in with us] but i am taking expressions of interest. please drop me a line if you think this might be for you.