Today my interview with reporter Jo was published in the South Coast Register. I also spent time finding a local source for bulk vinegar in preparation for tomorrow’s shroud processing. In the studio I have been obsessively painting the colourful shells that were made into traditional Yuin necklaces by Julie Freeman, which I bought from the Galamban exhibition at CMAG a few years ago.
Yewande and I walked to the shroud site yesterday and saw the stingray very dried and the kangaroo losing fur now and internal liquids. In the studio I have been stitching canvas soaked in eucalyptus and wattle leaves to the back of the woodducks shroud to fill the holes in the body stain. I have also been working in ochre on ‘Nebachudanezar making a Cloud (after Boyd)’. Today I began working on the Woollamia Rosella shroud using oils and find the fumes a shock after using ochres. Yesterday I also began a mural project with local school student Eliza. The design and painting method were all her idea and its looking good!
The Following works reference original works by Boyd in title and/or composition.
The personal significance is in relation to my son Zephyr Nebachudanezzar born on the Shoalhaven river when Adam and I lived in a farmhouse across the river from Bundanon.
Margot Curtis and I are having a small exhibition in the foyer gallery of Shoalhaven Arts Centre and Regional Gallery opening 6th June 12-2 and on till the 4th July
I just have to talk about the wombats.
Wombats are really cute and noisy (so they keep me company). They peak through the window at me while I work and leave their poo on the verandah, I gotta be careful in the dark…
Alicia, who was Visiting Bundanon for a couple of days, found another gift beside the apartment. The colourful rainbow lorikeet. I placed her on thick paper between two heavy boards. Thanks Alicia.
Yesterday, Bundanon staff moved the dead daddy kangaroo away from the homestead to the stingray shroud site. Today I estimated and cut a length of canvas from my roll and walked out in the heat of the midday sun to the site. Ravens and a wedge tail eagle greeted me. The kangaroo is big but young and fibrous and so I was able to drag him by his thick black tail onto the canvas I had laid out beside him. It was, miraculously, a perfect fit. His death pose is strong and dynamic. The stingray is drying out nicely and should create a neat silhouette.
I jogged along the Cedar trail this morning and discovered dead lantana bunches hanging like crazy nests from trees and rocks. I checked on the stingray and it survived the night, but two ravens were hanging around calling to each other. I filled up the copper cauldron with water from the lagoon and found a dead daddy kangaroo. Maybe he had a fight with another daddy so I told Jennifer the collections manager and she said it needed to be moved. I suggested he could become another Bundanon shroud. Jennifer’s husband had found a ‘skate’ at a similar time to me on a Vincentia beach and photographed it. They had also found it serendipitous considering the Boyd show featuring the Skate was on at the Jervis Bay Maritime Museum at this time. I think both should feature in my stingray works. I put one coat of rabbit skin glue on 6 canvases including the Woollamia ringtail possum and rosella.
Darren and I collected the shroud equipment from Woollamia and took it to Bundanon in our new Falcon ute. Installing on the warm clear Sunday was so peaceful. I placed the stingray (found deceased on the beach where I jog each morning) on a canvas beside another canvas that will be left exposed to the elements without a decomposing body. I collected the nearby wattle leaves and put them in the copper cauldron. Looking to see if I could get to the river to collect water to soak them I found a piece of barbed wire, which was serendipitous as we needed more wire for the installation. I took the copper to the lagoon and put water in it there to make a wattle leaf dye for the stingray canvases. In the late afternoon as night fell I resolved another work on paper adding delek to a paper shroud containing fish.
It was crisp and cold early as I jogged down around the paddocks to the river. A cow sitting near the fence watched me open the gate while further down I encountered the big daddy grey kangaroo again. As we stared at each other and I walked slowly around him in a wide circle he then slowly made his way toward his mob. As I approached the herd of black cattle I wondered at the aesthetically pleasing contrast between their hide and the green grass as I love silhouettes. I thought of a painting with the black cattle looking at me with a large white galah in the foreground. I startled the ducks on the lagoon and the mob of grey kangaroos again. The wombats seem to be in hiding now, their burrows are everywhere.
Laomedia 