SOMETIMES THINGS JUST DO NOT WORK OUT

A ROMANTIC NOTION

For an non-artist, an artist's life can seem quite romantic...painting away in a 'garret' with inspiration pouring onto a canvas, which comes alive as if by magic or divine guidance. Yep...that's pretty romantic perception. But, the reality is that whilst there are times of flow and oneness...or whatever you wish to describe the creative pursuit of image making...there are also times of discord when things just do not work out.

I spend long hours in my studio [aka garage] and I love it. I also work long hours doing all the admin 'stuff' from photographing my paintings, to promotion and marketing, writing my Blog, updating my website etc etc. I also love most of this work too, especially writing for my Blog.

Most of the time things work out. Sometimes they work out without hassle, sometimes they need a bit of coaxing....

But, sometimes things just do not work out no matter what!

I have spent the last few weeks working on a new painting. I had hoped to show it to you soon. But, the painting has been 'fighting' with me. I did what I normally do when I sense that things are not quite right. That is, I walked away from the painting...numerous times. Before I left the studio I'd place it in a spot where I'd see it, first thing with new eyes, as I re-entered. This kind of 'intervention' normally brings new insights and ideas, recalibrating 'flow'. But, this particular painting continued to 'fight' with me. The paint would not do the right thing! The colours seemed to suck energy, the balance was not quite right. One night bugs got stuck in wet paint...so I painstakingly picked them out and repainted!

I persisted.


UNTIL TODAY!


I put the painting on the bonnet of my car to look at it in clear uncompromising daylight. YUK!!!! I was not happy....not happy at all.

This painting was NOT going to live.

So, I poured turps on it, to begin rubbing and wiping the paint off...BUT, the turps spilled onto my car...panic set in as I imagined the paint peeling off my car....quick dash to get soap and water....I washed the car, hosed it down. There's one thing driving a 23 year old car, but it does not have to look its age with turps induced peeling or stained paint! I then returned to the task of eliminating my painting.

Rubbing, wiping, more turps, scrubbing and scratching, more turps, until finally I now have the linen canvas at a point where I know I can create another painting without the 'shadow' of the combatant one lurking underneath.

The photo above is me scrubbing...wiping...

The photo below is the scrubbed painting...I am going to let it 'breath' for a bit, before I put paint anywhere near it! I will take a few big breaths too...

PRACTICAL ISSUES

I was not game to leave the painting again, because as paint dries it becomes harder to remove. Even though I had been working on the detail of my now-dead painting for a few weeks [about 3] the surface paint had not completely set. You can see from the photo of the scrubbed painting that there's plenty of red paint left. That's because the red was the first underlying colour. I painted that many weeks ago and had waited for it to dry before painting a blue background. Fortunately the blue had not completely set...and neither had the other colours I had painted on top of it.

I use Belgian linen for my stretched 'canvases', which I get custom made. And, Belgian linen, whilst wonderful to work on and of the highest quality, is very expensive. So...making sure I do not waste or destroy the linen is an economic imperative! The fact that the linen, and its primed surface, are of such high quality also makes it easier to wipe paint off without compromising the integrity of the stretched 'canvas'.

LOOKING FORWARD - FLOW

All is not lost.

I have saved the linen 'canvas'.

I now have a new and rather interesting looking base to imagine with...see I am already thinking like the painting and I are in partnership!

And, I have learnt from past experiences [yes this has happened before] that I have been given an opportunity. Problem solving, re-imagining, re-calibrating are wonderful stimulants for creativity. Otherwise I'd be painting the same thing over and over again...maybe?

In a way, this impasse - agitation - battle, is still part of 'flow'...after all many rivers have rapids and waterfalls that disrupt a calm flow. Even dried up rivers come alive again with rain. And, flooded rivers return to their banks. 'Flow' is just going with it all!

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JUST IN CASE YOU MISSED MY NEWS

PANDORA WEB ARCHIVE  AND MY BLOG
I received an official request from the State Library of Queensland to allow PANDORA [Australia's National web archive - National Library of Australia and partners] to archive my Blog...

 YES this one you are reading now! 

 

PANDORA is an official site for archiving 'online publications and websites of lasting significance' and 'research value' in perpetuity. I am really so very happy that my eight year old Blog has been acknowledged this way. 

 

AND

 

DINNER PARTIES

I invite you to read my last Blog post Time-2015-And Dinner Party Conversations  where I write about the wonderful benefits of having art in your dining room...and I've written a hypothetical conversation based on the paintings currently hanging in my own dining room.

 

AND

 

BILLY GOATS GRUFF - GOLDILOCKS - EXOPLANETS

If you are curious as to the connection between Billy Goats Gruff, Goldilocks and potential habitable exoplanets please read my Greener Pastures post.

AND

 

A reminder that you can now buy Cry Ma Ma To The Moon by Lesley Synge with images by me as an e-book at Amazon 

 

This is a collaboration that began in 1995

Please read my previous post

The Aroma Of Eucalypts

 

Cheers,
Kathryn
www.kathrynbrimblecombe-fox.com

MURRAY DARLING CURRENCY

Murray Darling Currency Gouache on paper 30 x 42 cm

Regular readers will know of my interest in water; its cost, allocation, various uses, infrastructure, entitlements, and so on. Water is a very significant issue in Australia, as it is all over the world. Each locale has its own particular issues, but the overarching ones are about sustainability and equitable access, not only for us now, but also for future generations.

The new painting above is one that has been percolating in my thoughts for some time. As many readers will know, the Murray Darling Basin and its water, having attracted major debate and argument over the years, are currently under another review. This is generating even more heated debate between the various players, including farmers, government departments, basin townships. The debate also obviously touches the wider community through the environmental, economic, social and business ramifiactions of any review that sees water allocations for agricultural use restricted. Here's a link to the Murray Darling Basin Authority website http://www.mdba.gov.au/

But, to the word 'currency' which I have previously discussed in an earlier post; http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2009/06/currency-of-water.html  I have called this new painting 'Murray Darling Currency' to suggest not only the currency/flow of water, but also the currency/flow of money which is generated by the economic outcomes of this vastly rich resource. As well, there is the idea that this issue is current, thus 'currency' is also about notions of contemporaneousness with other allied and non-allied issues of national and global importance. The word 'currency' also alludes the Murray Darling's power to generate political currency.

Now to the painting...the dark blue area in Australia's bottom right is the demarcation of the Murray Darling Basin. I have painted it with an array of small blue $ signs. From a distance they are not clearly discernible, but when observed up close, they are clearly visible. Regular readers will recognise that this play with close and far distance/perspective asks questions about how much do we notice, and ultimately care about and value. Australia and its surrounding oceans are painted with my much loved transcultural/religious tree-of-life, to indicate that life is interconnected and that perhaps notions of value include, but are far more than $ value.

The painting below 'GAB: Great Artesian Basin', is another recent painting which is similar to 'Murray Darling Currency'. Here's the link to the post I wrote with some thought about this 'GAB: Great Artesian Basin':

 GAB: Great Artesian Basin Gouache on paper 30 42 cm

I am reading a book called 'Water: The Epic Struggle For Wealth, Power, and Civilization' by Steven Solomon [Harper Collins, NY, 2010]. I have not yet finished...indeed not even half way through. It is fascinating. I knew as soon as I started reading this book, that its incisive message was going to be that we need to take water seriously...very seriously. I quote from the prologue, 'The lesson of history is that in the tumultuous adjustment that surely lies ahead, those societies that find the most innovative responses to the crisis are most likely to come out as winners, while the others will fall behind. Civilization will be shaped as well by water's inextricable, deep interdependence with energy, food, and climate change.' [p.5]

Hopefully political currency will not blind powerbrokers to the extreme importance decisions about water will have, not only for us now, but also for future generations. Just like the human body, our planet Earth  is 70% water. However, only 2.5% of this water is fresh, and a small % of this is accessible. [Solomon p.9, 12] As I have written before, water is so much more than just a substance which keeps us and Earth physically alive. It is also a primordial symbol of the continuation and flow of life over time eternal. It is a symbol of the subconscious, and as such, holds secrets we are yet to discover. Now that's some kind of currency!

Cheers,
Kathryn

RISK

I am currently working on a large painting which I'll be able to load up on the BLOG soon. This new painting causes an oscillation of perspective...and as regular readers of this BLOG know...I am fascinated by perspective and distance. But, until then I am going to introduce you to RISK!

RISK, above, is from my series looking at water and the various issues that surround this fundamental life giving and sustaining gift to the planet. My last post 'Airspace and Phantoms'  http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/08/airspace-and-phantoms.html showed you some of my recent works on paper that also look at issues of water ie: irrigation, entitlements, coal seam gas industry [CSG] and so on.

But, RISK, whilst still inspired by water issues, is a work where I wanted to question how risk is analysed. For instance, the Coal Seam Gas [CSG] industry promotes itself as a provider of  'cleaner' energy...reducing emissions etc. This declaration has been questioned, particularly when the entire CSG process is examined. Plus there is the fact that methane is a more dangerous contributor to warming than carbon dioxide. In the process of extracting gas, there are concerns being voiced by farmers, scientists and environmentalists with regards to the potential degradation of prime and strategic farming lands, and the depletion of underground aquifers. In the gas extraction process underground water also comes to the surface. This water is a 'by-product' of the extraction process. It has to be stored as there are no immediate broad usages for the water due to its salt content. I recently wrote about this issue in a post called 'Salt' http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/07/salt.html  Soil salination is a major worry.

Open cut mines are also a great concern for farmers and environmentalists who are not convinced that prime agricultural land can be rehabilitated, after the lifespan of a mine, to re-instate the richness of soils. A mine's life maybe 20-30 years, whereas some of the farmland in Queensland, which is in jeopardy, could produce food for thousands of years. Farming in Australia has become increasingly ecologically driven. As a farmer's daughter I have witnessed the evolution of farming from often unsustainable practices to sustainable ones. Most farmers love their land, and if they have stock, they love them too! Most farmers are not anti-mining, but they are anti mining on prime and strategic farm land, plus mining without due consideration of water issues.

So, there are a few issues to be examined. A broad one is whether the so called 'cleaner' energy provided by CSG is worth potentially degrading the prime agricultural land which produces food for a growing global population. Is it killing the goose that laid the golden egg? Alternative fuel is a much more attractive idea than alternative food! In this day and age where food and culinary programs on tv, books etc seem to swamp us, I doubt that many people would enjoy the thought of eating alternative food, just so mining could strip the land for so called cleaner energy. 

Back to water...farmers are required, by law, to adhere to strict regulations with regards to pumping and using water. I've written about this many times before. Water infrastructure is complex and the legalities are not well known in the general population. However,  the mining industry does not fall under the strict regulations required by government water resources departments and legislation! So, whilst a farmer needs to comply with rules regarding pumping from rivers and aquifers, the CSG water 'by-product' does not. Farmers are worried that the water extracted during the CSG process will deplete water levels in the underground aquifers and destabilise pressure, thus restricting use by farmers for such things as drinking water for stock, some irrigation, and domestic use on remote properties/stations and municipal use in remote communities. The potential for across aquifer contamination and introduced contamination is a major concern. Please look the Basin Sustainability Aliance site http://www.basinsustainabilityalliance.org/ for predictions on how much water will be potentially extracted from underground aquifers. It is enormous.

RISK
So back to risk! It seems to me that risk is a highly nuanced consideration. If I want to jump out of a plane I need to take account of the risk to me, and the potential impact on my family and friends if I smash to the ground. However, the risk is not far reaching beyond the sadness of my family. The risk of degrading prime farmland goes way beyond the 'now' to future generations and their food supply. The risk of depleted or contaminated aquifers is not just about impacts on farmers and communities now, but also into the future...for all.

I am reminded of various things Lord Martin Rees, Royal Astonomer and Professor of Cosmology and Astrophysics and Master of Trinity College at the University of Cambridge, wrote in his book 'Our Final Century' . I have previously written about this book and its influence on my work. http://kathrynbrimblecombeart.blogspot.com/2010/04/idea-sketches.html

The book is essentially an examination of risk. On pages 7-8 he writes,

It may not be absurd hyperbole—indeed, it may not even be an overstatement—to assert that the most crucial location in space and time (apart from the big bang itself) could be here and now. I think the odds are no better than fifty-fifty that our present civilisation on Earth will survive to the end of the present century. Our choices and actions could ensure the perpetual future of life (not just on Earth, but perhaps far beyond it, too). Or in contrast, through malign intent, or through misadventure, twenty-first century technology could jeopardise life’s potential, foreclosing its human and posthuman future. What happens here on Earth, in this century, could conceivably make the difference between a near eternity filled with ever more complex and subtle forms of life and one filled with nothing but base matter.
Martin Rees, Our Final Hour: A Scientist’s Warning: How Terror, Error, and Environmental Disaster Threaten Humankind’s Future in This Century—On Earth and Beyond (New York: Basic Books, 2003) p.7-8

RISK, gouache on paper ,30 x 42 cm is painted with little $ signs to question 'value'. The underground water, the river depression and the rain falling from the sky are all $ signs. The word RISK is also painted with $ signs. These are red to make an almost SOS or DANGER statement.

Currency, [playing with all ideas of currency] and value are not the same...especially when one thinks of the future...ha!..currency can really only mean NOW. 'Currency' is a play on the idea of money, flow and being current ie: contemporaneousness. If you read Martin Rees's quote, consideration of the future is vastly important.

A scientific risk analysis is very different to one business would consider. Would business ever consider a .05% risk too much? NO. But, in certain circumstances, science would. My impression is that the rush to extract gas and increasingly larger amounts of coal [and other resources] has more to do with business risk than a scientifically based one. My impression is that governments and other players are even applying a business type risk % parametre when considering environmental, health and sustainable food production impacts. However, surely these should be scrutinised with a stringent scientific analysis?

Added 28-1-12
This painting sold just before Christmas.
Cheers,
Kathryn