tiny selections

Apologies for my sporadic posting lately - I am quite confident that my brain has turned to complete mush in the last two weeks - what with jet lag, house hunting, car hunting and now driving our new car to our new house in the country! Ooooo-wee! It's a massive time for change, but my horoscope seems down with it, so away we go!

In the mean time, amongst still living out of my suitcase and mystery taped up boxes (can't wait to see what's in them after 4 months!) tiny little works keep materialising from my workbooks. Hopefully they are small pockets of joy to keep the blog going while I set up my new studio (SO EXCITED!). 

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exhibition!

Last Friday I participated in an informal group show, 'Let's Have An Exhibition At My House' in Kreuzberg, Berlin. This was organised by my dear friend Renee, at her flat. A lovely little show with works on paper, sculpture and video to name a few. For the full wrap, with more pics and details of the other artists, check out our post on Anecdote - hopefully more pictures to come soon!

wrapping up

Getting close to the end of the trip now! Kent and I have been living in the same room for nearly 3 months, and if you want to see how that has effected our art practice, click here - we made these works at exactly the same time, without any idea of what the other was doing. Spooky, no?

don't think, just paste.

Well, as my trip is winding down, so is my will do do anything but bask in the sunshine. Spring is well and truly here in Berlin, and the prospect of sitting at my pathetic excuse for a table is quite dire. It's picnics all around, though I am now faced with a massive pile of collage material. So I have been having a few fun little sessions of random "grab a head, grab a body and stick it before you change your mind!" - sort of a speed-exquisite-corpse. Brings the productivity levels right up! Now ... to get it all home without blowing my baggage limit. Ew.

SWAPPED!

laserlamb!

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growth

dancer in the dark

I showed this work at 'let's have an exhibition at my house' curated by the gorgeous Renee. More details here.

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vogelplosion.

Spring is well and truly here. 

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the traveller

Lately, I have been seeing what I can make out of scraps of collage material, namely, the neverending collection of bird tails I seem to accumulate. Each tail piece is a little bit loose at the end, giving it a nice papery flutter. Mmm!

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the disguise

When I was a kid, my dad went to Perth (maybe - memories from long ago tend to have a slightly invented aspect sometimes) for work (or something - I thought his full time work was 'to make presents, mostly', so what do I know). Anyway, he brought me back a cassette tape (because we used those back then) with a read along book of Aesop's Fables. I practically memorised those stories. This image reminds me a lot of A Wolf in Sheep's Clothing, and has brought back all of those memories! (The cassette is long gone I believe, but I still have the rather crumpled and soft paperback in my treasured selection of picture books!) Bless.

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20th century sex education

I can honestly say that I giggled like a schoolgirl the entire way through creating this work. 'And the man pulls a special lever and then all the babies come out!'

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für deutschland

So, I think my my surroundings are subconsciously leaking into my work. What with lounging around my bed, parks and cafes of Berlin, reading material like The Book Thief and Neither Here Nor There (both with much undertones of Germany, wait, not undertones, how about one book is set there and oh right the other book travels all around it.) is all clearly rubbing off. I didn't even realise the suggestive colours of this lady until Kent pointed it out. (I believe being a zombie with a cold has influenced my lack of attention to anything much at the moment!)

The lady in this image was also found at the Mauerpark flea markets, I think circa 1940s. (I didn't find it in the 1940s, that would be impossible. But I think the photograph was taken around then.) I still feel a bit strange about using old photographs for my work, somehow encyclopedias are much more fun. Goodness!

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Geheimnis Pilz (Mystery Mushroom)

Another mushroom man for the collection (which I no longer have) - it's nice to have made this one - there is something so merry and creepy about them that I just go 'ooooh!' when I see it! (At least internally.) Because this Mushroom Man has travelled from Melbourne to Berlin with me, it seemed appropriate to give it a German name. Eeee! You can also see the other Mushroom Men here, though they now reside in Sydney, Australia!

busy with birthdays

So one of the main reasons I haven't put much up lately, is that I've been getting some things together for Kent's birthday! What with being on the road, and then living in the same room together (I had to banish him to the bathroom while I did some things last night) has proved challenging in terms of being secretive! Anyhoo, it has been a fantastic excuse to have an almost virtually handmade birthday - you can see more of the bits I made on anecdote, but here are my two favourites - the birthday card and an IOU voucher for Kent's preferred drawing pens. I quite like the voucher - I might continue this!

(And a very happy birthday my darling! xxx)

takin' it to the streets

Hello! I just wanted to include a few recent images of my latest adventures in the streets of Prenzlauer Berg. Kent and I have had our first mad dash by night to paste up some goodies for the locals - or for us at least!

This one is part of a series of 4 (though I hope to grow this over time) that is loosely labeled 'laser ladies of the night' and is currently being exhibited along the railroads of Schönhauser Allee (yes my tongue is so far in my cheek right now).

This particular one is on the side of a charity bin (I think? When you are a pasting virgin you tend to get quite panicky of every car that drives past, so there is much gluing and hurrying away, like it is perfectly in your business to be carrying a large shopping bag and a giant tupperware container filled with sludge and a paintbrush stuck in it.)


This is one of my favourites - the bandit bird is collaboration with Kent, and the flags are part of my current love of all things merry, with text taken from a Rilke poem: more and more i feel. I have an appropriately German language version in the works.

Anyhoo, if you would like to see the full post of our shenanigans, with loads more pictures, you can on our shared blog, anecdote! More bandit birds are on the way - until then,

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what I do on rainy days

Apart from mooching, drinking giant cups of coffee and regular sized cups of tea, cleaning, and eating, I sometimes do some art stuff. On Sunday I bought a pile of old photos from the market, and have slowly been sifting through and Disecting them bit by bit. So far it seems to be a pretty pink project ...


Yeah, yeah, I am still working on the photography part of this! Please understand that in my flat I currently have nowhere to hang anything! We have two precarious nails in one wall (see last pic!) reserved for extra awesome finished work.


A view of my studio (which is really the kitchen)



And the awesome string gallery. I've been working on some paper flags out of my bird-book offcuts, that will (hopefully) eventually make it outside. For now, they go in the string gallery. Until tomorrow! (Do you like how I wrote tomorrow, as if I will have something to post? I actually don't have anything to post, but I am hoping that by writing it, I will have to make it come true.)

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on my way

this baby is gouache and collage on paper, and is 17 x 24 cm. starting to get influenced by these spearmint walls ... aargh!

party guest

paste me up

This wee work is 13 x 15 cm and available for sale right here!

I miss the scanner!

soooooooo when we moved house we gave the scanner back to Kent's folks. (Which I suppose is fair enough, what with it actually belonging to them and all!) So now you will have to make do with my bodgy photographs! Here is some things I have been making in Berlin town! xx