November 2013

ART SHED TALK 2pm -7th December 2013. Free Entry. All welcome 174 Montague Rd West End, Brisbane, Queensland- opposite Davies Park.

Annoying disruptions and pressing matters can keep us from working at our creative best. Artist and author Lyne Marshall will give an interactive presentation on maintaining enthusiasm and finding inspiration while dealing with the twists and turns of the creative journey.

Christmas 2013 Mixed Exhibition at NEO GALLERY opening 30th November. See the June Alchemy exhibition on YTube

There is sometime indescribable about walking on the sand of a beach that has been washed over seconds before by ocean waves. It is as pristine an experience as we might have in this modern age where we just have to put our mark on everything in nature.  The very act of walking on a beach can settle a restless mind. Beaches often show the ravages of nature. Trees fall helplessly on the shoreline as their supports are washed away. Nature is not open to being tamed, and will do its will despite our best efforts to hold back time and tide.

Being inspired by the wilderness has been an ongoing passion and as a bit of escapism I reread a book by Joe McGinniss titled Going to Extremes. Written about his year in the Alaskan wilderness in the late 1970’s during the oil boom, Joe describes the spirit of the people, their love of the wilderness and desire to keep it as nature intended.  He also relates how escaping the modern world and dealing with the ongoing cold and isolation has its downsides.

This caused me to revisit in my mind the amazing journey I took in 2009 to Atlin in British Columbia, to visit an inspiring artist Gernot Dick, who had influenced my own artistic journey nine years before when he visited Australia. Travelling via the Alaskan Marine Ferry, the people’s boat, which took us from Bellingham in the state of Washington to Skagway in Alaska, gave me a taste of the spirit of the Alaskan people who had their trucks and animals on the boat. We then went across the historic gold mine railway and into Whitehorse in the Yukon before hiring a car to drive to Atlin.

The inspiration, from my many travels, lingers in the backwaters of my mind and this jumble of information leaves emotions, impressions, and yearnings to express it somehow through artworks. I personally love the way nature erodes the surface of all things creating patterns and designs that seem effortless.  As artists we may expect to recreate the wonder of nature with tools and paints, impossible task really considering how long it has taken natural patterns to occur.

Safe in the knowledge that the brain has the capacity to extract memories from any part of our lives, continuing to feed the creative spirit with what it requires will ultimately allow images and impressions to emerge from a bigger picture perspective. 

Esplanade Coonarr Beach

Coonarr Beach near Bundaberg Qld