Rachael McCallum's Unicorn Spew,

Rachael McCallum's UnicornSpew ~The online journal of Artness as-it-happens.


Monday 25 February 2013

"Own" my work?!?


Now, im not at all sure what this means. ..

"This year; You need to own your work"- Merran Esson

I like the sound of that. I initially thought it was about keeping the work a secret so, like a patent, so no one else could make it. But no, thats not it at all!

Its not about other people who care about your work, its you understanding yourself as you interpret and understand your object.
The object has come from you, and you need to understand the relationship you have with it; it could be a therapeutic tension release, I way of understanding the world around you, or a satirical comment to provoke thought.

After only a few exhibitions, I am starting to understand;
making art and exhibiting it is a way of exhibiting yourself

Its a little piece of you and your decisions combined to make something beautiful, provoking, interesting.

So of course,  owning it is taking responsibility for these decisions, understanding where and why you make them and being able to communicate these reasons to make others understand.  You  need to know your work because it's from you and you will find it "makes sense", but even in that sentence there is a lot that the speaker understands but cant yet communicate. Some say its the art critics job to understand, but it's their job to spread the understanding.

know it like you know yourself

Sounds easy,  but it could take years...
Good luck!
(To me and you !)

Thursday 21 February 2013

Ben Quilty; After Afghanistan

Within the walls of Darlinghurst Gaol, next to a familiar ceramics studio, was the show of Ben Quilty's intimate experience of Afghanistan and the Australian troops which were occupying. The excitement is as the audience initially reads the expressive swipes of paint, but soon reads more than just liquid emotions. Globby paintings of impressionist people lying in pain, mourning towards the sky, or waiting for something worse to happen.  The portraits immortalise the 'beautiful' in the subjects agony, the good intentions that they suffer. It was a really meaningful show that allows the families of now to understand the drama and trauma suppressed by their brave. 
I cant help but find everything Quilty does as magic.
The thickness of the paint curling to the ground, the bare canvas that has been primed to bright white glowing in the lights, such a dynamic surface terrain would do crazy things with mingling glazes over the landscape. I forget the image often and get lost in the surface, zooming in to the junctions of colours and the shadows of ridges the brush left behind.

It has inspired me to develop slips that will act like oil paint in viscosity and gloss and to also have bare clay surfaces. I will also have pooling and mingling glaze, but the texture is the key to being satisfied, personally...

The picture is a close up of one of his paintings,  just one of the many places I can get lost in :)

How I'm keeping texture within clay

Its a fine thing, to see all the forms of dirt, in all its textures within clay... but preservation is key when you enjoy natural phenomena.
So I like raw clay...
And I have a sponge, 
Ill use em to preserve!

So ... taking baby steps here,  I made a surface I liked and found interesting with potential places of pool and dry of future glazes,
Then let it dry a bit (Vaguely,  a journata);
Then carved out the back to :
A; be lighter
B; not warp

And hopefully c; dry faster
But leaves open issue D; that it will dry, and shrink unevenly

Thanks sponge for absorbing the weight changes gently and keeping the immediate atmosphere stable for the precious clay to slowly cool :)
Next these will be painted on, but depending on size require weeks to dry :/

Tuesday 19 February 2013

Latest imaginings

I figured if I set up an accident,  I can like it without guilt or fear of contrived results. I am imagining a firing that uses no kiln shelves , and its an exciting thought :)

The paintings are stacked, with holes and separating props, complex flat support scaffolds inside, and mountains of glaze on them, so that it runs off the sides and paints the next one , until it reaches the bottom :) ideally I use glazes that change colors depending on temperature,  so than the series will look different but decipherable  as the same glazes repeated. ... it's an experiment, one I can't wait to try :)

Saturday 16 February 2013

Latest contemplations

The other day, whilst twirling my hair and evaluating what is a 'balanced looking thing', I realized that not only is;
Colour; high/low chroma
Shade;dark/light
texture; smooth/rough
Shape; defined/organic
Shine; gloss/matte
Details; fine/sparse
Repetition; pattern/unique

But softness/hardness must be added to the list!
Interestingly, it was when observing a fur item next to a studded leather item in a second hand store.
But to balance the solid sense of the stud metal, the fur was complementary by exhibiting the polarity of the two, making the leather a kind of middle ground,-and yet if leather were on a pair of canvas shoes, the leather would be the solid limit...
I wonder how long this list will reach..?

Wednesday 13 February 2013

The best advice

The unusual thing about advice is that it is so hard to take your own but other people's is easy. To cancel such a problem out I simply adress my sensible side as a separate friend of mine and all of a sudden their advice is detailed and ideal. But then, the catch is, they see everything  the advice can grow to be criticism...

Tuesday 12 February 2013

"If your thinking about what everybody wants, you wont get what you want "

Best advice today

"Dont underestimate your own uniqueness"
Anne-marie Jackson

Friday 1 February 2013

Lime trumpet

Lime trumpet is the epitome of luck.
This piece came to life because I stumbled to find a collection of clay discard and saved it, hoping the the hole that was the trumpet shape would one day become a window of glaze. One day close to crunch time,  a hero stepped in and gave me some fibre for the glaze to fuse to,  instead of the shelf,  and thus I was able to mix and paint and set up the glazes so that they could mature in the kiln to a beautiful state. The colours are bright yet alerting- which I find good because it is quite fragile. The window required a very slow cooling, and what I allowed wasn't slow enough I observed from the slight crack.  But luckily, the day before the exhibition,  those was ready for show and it is proof that glaze is the feature and clay is the frame!
I even think that the hanging device is now a part of it, its industrial aesthetic contrasts subtly.

Everyone is special

I have come to the realisation, whilst twirling my hair and trying to sleep, that I have been ignoring the world in order to feel special.

I am not sure as yet if this is a bad thing.  To be specific and self-critical,  and I hope isn't offensive, I am not interested in current affairs,  unless directly going to affect me (thus Im selfish) , I am not interested in artists other than ones I encounter through chances of life (narrow minded), and I'm not interested in being rich. I have been isolating myself as if it were to make me concentrate. I understand the benefit of these interests allows oneself to be part of a community,  but it feels like such a chore!

To continue to scrutinise myself, I expect 'Poor middle class creative failures' often hope that the excuse of isolation will inevitably lead them to define them in their uniqueness. But in time, as I have discovered myself,  it leads to essentially losing your conviction. 

Shame really.

All those lonely poets,  upset that it's not quiet enough to think, need the noise to object to for subject matter.

But once you identify the need for chaos,  surely you can soak it up by the bucket  as soon as you go outside or look online. It would be easy to find something to become passionate about to build your life around,  right?

Perhaps,

It's like knowing you need a change,
So you go on a holiday,
Even though you really need a whole new job.

The disadvantages of being middle class have left me bare of conceptual, understandable passion. I don't care about causes that heckle me in the street just asmuch as I don't care when someone tells me I'm attractive. Issues solved with passion are the most moving and powerful,  and I wish I was a part of the greats,  but how can I be when I can only adopt an issue I didn't experience.

I do have passion, however.  I am passionate about inexplicable sensations,  about textures, colours and balances that sing. I just want to make it. I have made myself poor doing it, searching for the right sensation in a captured object.

Recently I have learned that if I stray too far from reality,  I lose the drive to make. Its because why make when I can just think it, especially if only me will see it. This is where dear blog comes in.... this platform acts as my window to the world, so that I'm not too far away from it. I can see it, it can see me. It's a two way street. Such a handy device,  the screen. 

My computer,  existing thanks to my middle class ness,  simultaneously is demotivating and encouraging. Everyone had the ability to do what I do, but because I can see that they aren't I am different and special.
Yet,
Everyone is special