New Year Projects

My friends and I agree that 2011 is the year of doing. Taking everything we do further. Pushing ourselves to take risks and seek out new opportunities.

So, no time like the present to post a little update on my goals and projects for 2011!

Thus far I have completed a logo design commission for a Melbourne-based artist run record label and applied for an artist residency in Dayton, Ohio.

This year I really want to participate in an overseas artist residency to further my professional practice. I am also applying for a residency in Singapore.

My list of things to do has so many applications on it - applications for exhibitions, art prizes, residencies and grants. I think I am getting better at writing these things!

And most importantly I want to complete a new body of work! I have a fairly good idea of what I am going to do, and am going to get started today.

Now in fact!

x

walking

Photos by me, while walking last week around my new neighbourhood. It's a fairly normal mixture of industrial and suburban. I can't help loving the mix, it's what I know.

Home shoot & NAVA news

Photos of some of my artworks around the house. I thought it was about time I took some product shots since I actually have the works framed for the Craft Hatch market at State Library of Victoria next month. The first Craft Hatch was a lot of fun, and it was a thrill to make some sales to some lovely women (yes all women!). I'm hoping to raise some much needed funds at the October market to cover some of my costs of printing and framing my work for the exhibition in November! I put every dollar I make from art sales back into art costs, in case anyone was wondering.

I recently joined the National Association for Visual Arts (NAVA), figuring it's about time to support the industry that supports artists. NAVA advocate for the arts to the Australian government, prepare reports on the state of the arts in Australia and also administrate a few grants for artists. (Among many other things!). I am quite chuffed that NAVA selected me and my newly created artist gallery on their website to be the featured artist this fortnight. Have a look! 

Here's a little screenshot for posterity:

I'm going to spend the rest of today working on a new embroidery! Happy Tuesday!

busy busy

I have been busily getting ready for my forthcoming trip to the States. It's only ten days til I go!

Yesterday I finished my internship at the Next Wave Festival, which was sad because I've had a ball. The Festival will take place in May while I am away so I won't get to attend anything!

One of the most exciting projects for an animal lover like me is definitely Dachshund UN. I edited this video below whilst interning. You must watch! So cute.




Also, I want to let anyone who is thinking about ordering one of my prints at the moment (am I being presumptuous? sorry!) please think about making your order before I head off overseas! I will still be able to post prints while I am away but I will probably only set aside one of two days during May so there will be a bit of a delay.

Happy Tuesday!
x

Easter weekend

Did you enjoy the break over Easter? I found that having an extra long weekend was great for getting things done around the house. I had a bit of a spring clean in the kitchen - I even cleaned out the fridge! Also I planted a few succulents in some cute tins to decorate the backyard.

On Sunday in the late afternoon I had a lovely time over a few glasses of prosecco with Joy, Lana and Kristen, who you can see in these photos. It was Joy's birthday. That's me on the left in the bottom photo with my girlfriend Kristen. Hi!

PDX!

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I hinted about it a few weeks ago, and I have finally caught up enough time to post about it. I am going to live in Portland, Oregon for the month of May, 2010!

If you live in Portland, or have been there, or have ever dreamt of going there, now would be the perfect time to send any recommendations my way. Restaurants, bars, cafes, craft shops, art galleries, museums, bookstores, parks, bridges, picnic spots, vintage shops, etc etc. I want to hear about them all!

old family photos

I love looking at other people's family photos. I love to get a glimpse of where people lived, how they dressed, how they stood, how they grinned or posed.

My sister and I scanned hundreds of our family photos for my mother's sixtieth birthday last year. We digitised them so we could put them on a digital photo frame for her to keep in the family room. It seemed a shame that all these photos of many decades of our ancestors were just sitting in the hall shelves unlooked at. I was just looking through them again and some are so wonderful I thought I would share.

The photos below are my grandfather on the beach, then a few of my mother as a child, then one of grandad and a group of men. I put more photos in a set on flickr. 

rain rain

It's been raining for days. I spent Saturday and Sunday at the Golden Plains music festival wearing a plastic poncho and gum boots. This morning I found this drawing/painting that I did a few years ago and it seemed strangely poignant!

fingers crossed

 Photo by isphotography

I may get to do something very exciting in the next few months. Cross your fingers for me!

new tattoo

I've been meaning to post for a month or two now about my new tattoo! Only thing holding me back was waiting til I was in Brisbane to show my Mum before I put it online for the rest of the world. Heh. She took it pretty well - good on you Mum!

This was my first tattoo, after wanting one for about four years and even chickening out in 2006 after having the picture drawn and an appointment booked. Being a pretty normal girl, I am afraid of pain and commitment, ok?

The drawing which I eventually went with was almost decided upon on a whim - I booked the appointment for the tattoo three months in advance and had an artist drawing a bear for me - however she became very busy in the lead up to my appointment and we couldn't resolve the drawing in time. So I had about three weeks to go and no drawing!

And then - brainwave. I was in Brisbane visiting my Mum and looked through some old albums of photos I took in 1999. There were so many photographs of houses. Not houses I knew, but other peoples houses I saw in the street. Then I thought about artwork I made in 2004. I put architectural drawings of houses into collages I was making for my school work at uni. Flash forward to 2009 and I was still obsessed with other peoples houses. I walked around the streets I lived in Melbourne and took pinhole photographs of houses I saw. And I realised what I really want a tattoo of is my lasting obsession of the last ten years. A house.

So, of course, when I started thinking about who would have drawn the 'right' house, I thought of Melbourne artist Catherine Campbell. A very talented artist whose work I have been admiring since I first saw it in Melbourne a few years ago. I remembered seeing an exhibition about a year ago that contained a beautiful old house adrift in a woman's hair. I found the artwork on her portfolio site, emailed her, and got her blessing to go ahead with the tattoo all in the same day.

And so a few weeks later I went in and had the house inked.

It wasn't til afterwards that I thought about how badly the tattoo could have gone if my tattooist wasn't able to render all those straight lines perfectly. Luckily, Jai is an incredible tattooist! He made a few changes to the original artwork, as you will see in the images below. The delicate shading is probably the finest alteration he made to the image, but he also added a wintery gust of snow which he wanted to reference the blue waves in the original picture.

I love my house. I have had it for about three months now but it still sometimes surprises me that I went through with it! What also surprises me is how much attention it receives. This is no exaggeration - almost every person I meet either socially or just buying milk at the local shop compliments me on it! I had three client meetings this week and every single client asked me about it. Luckily I work in an industry where it's not career limiting to have an arm tattoo!

So here it is!

And here is Catherine Campbell's original artwork:

monday morning

I have just read The Little Prince for the first time. It is so sweet and profound. I picked it off my housemate's shelf last night when I couldn't sleep, and finished it just now. What a great way to recover from what was a pretty awful day yesterday.

I've caught a cold. Today is usually one of my work from home days, but I think I will spend it in bed, rather than working on art projects. Annoying. I found an Alfred Hitchcock DVD collection in the loungeroom which has 45 movies on it, so I'll be pretty busy with that I think.

I finally processed a roll of film shot on my Anny (plastic camera from the 60's). It's a Diana clone, so it takes 120 medium format film. I am thrilled with the vignetting and rich colours. Half the roll was taken in 2005, the rest in 2009. More Anny photos on flickr.

west brunswick

I went for a walk this afternoon with my Holgaroid and my Polaroid SX70. I mostly went out to get away from my cat who must have missed me on the weekend because he spent the entire morning trying to sit right on my chest so I couldn't get any work done. I also thought it might be nice to have a look at the local back streets, since I am fairly new to West Brunswick.

I discovered there are some amazing houses around here. There are quite a few 1920s california bungalows and some art deco rounded-front brick homes. I saw some pretty fantastic gardens too. Funny trimmed hedges, ramshackle english style cottage gardens, vines, japanese cherry blossoms.

I took about a pack of shots on the SX70, and posted a few on my flickr. I also took some Holgaroids but something bad has obviously happened since I loaded the film a few months ago, because they all turned out with light leaks along the bottom right. This is a valuable lesson in why you should shoot a whole roll while it's fresh! So annoying!

BEARS!

BEARS! in Hamish's kitchen: Me, Hamish, Kristen.

My new-ish band, BEARS!, recorded a couple of demos on the weekend. We started playing together and writing songs in January. We haven't played live yet so this is the first time we've had any music to show anyone. The songs are on myspace at the link below. We've got about 8 songs now, and we are hoping to start playing shows in the next few months. I play drums and sing backing vocals. My friends Hamish and Kristen do guitar and bass, and they both do most of the singing. We have a lot of fun, I hope it shows in the music.

Listen to BEARS!

note to self

dear liesl,
in the interest of staying awake all afternoon, in future do not spend lunch sitting in the winter sunshine eating a rich creamy cauliflower and pasta bake.
your friend,
common sense

Home again

This week I finished working at CCP and moved house. Two life changing events in the one week. This time last week I was feeling a little dazed with the pressure of training my replacement at work and packing for my move. Now that I am mostly unpacked in my new home and have had a chance to stop and look around, I am feeling pretty darn happy.

Right now I am settling in for a night at home, taking a minute to write while the goulash and dumplings I am cooking for dinner are simmering on the stove. Today was spent hanging pictures in my new bedroom, shopping for vintage books and making artwork.

Living in Brunswick is pretty amazing, with Savers and the Brunswick railway station within a 2 minute ride.

Nestled under my bed tonight is Cooper, my new live-in cat, adopted from my girlfriend and co-opted into moving with me. He's been too shy to venture out much since we brought him here yesterday. I am looking forward to his first proper entry into the world outside the bed.

Outside this room, are two lovely dogs, Edie and Lily, who followed me around from room to room today. What an animal filled house we have.

I better go check on dinner. Photos of my new home coming soon.

brain explosion imminent

there just isn't room for anything else in my crazy old head this week