I have been writing less to allow my right arm and shoulder to heal. It seems to have taken forever.
With making artwork, I use different muscles and the work takes my mind of pain. I returned to some of my old paintings. These were mostly unfinished artwork, to see if I can finish some. Here is one of my work from 2014, “Liklik Meri” which means little girl in Papua New Guinea (PNG) pidgin. She is from the highlands. I enjoy painting our highlanders because they have gorgeous and colourful dresses. Often these traditional dresses are completed with absolutely stunning headdresses. (See my earlier post on head piece).
I should have taken a ‘before’ picture, but I didn’t. I began painting her six months ago with watercolours. I tried to keep the same medium but after working on the young lady for a few months now, I decided to use inks, mostly black ink pens for the outlines. I hope you like the end result.
I joined the zazzle.com through a blogger friend Tibaraphoto and tried to set up a website to sell my art. I am not a technology-clued person, and while I love the convenience of it, technology often drives me crazy. In Papua New Guinea pidgin we say, mi foul ya! which means, I am fouled. I am also not good with reading ten million instructions in several layers. I like instructions to be simple.
Anyway, you may have seen a link on my blog : Tribalmysticart on the left side barand tried to click it several times, and it did not take you anywhere. That’s because it is only a counter for visitors. I have NOT uploaded any art nor given you a link yet. On Zazzle, I got confused about how to upload, then the commissions and so on. I am almost ready to build that store.
Tribalmysticart counter recorded 6,700 plus clicks. To those people who clicked, I apologise. My art will come soon. Please be patient. I am sharing some of the new artwork that will go on Zazzle. Please wish me luck and stay tune. If you are interested in any of these work, let me know.
Discover the remarkable story of one of the world’s oldest continuing cultures in this major exhibition.
The show is the first major exhibition in the UK to present a history of Indigenous Australia through objects, celebrating the cultural strength and resilience of both Aboriginal peoples and Torres Strait Islanders. This culture has continued for over 60,000 years in diverse environments which range from lush rainforest and arid landscapes to inland rivers, islands, seas and urban areas today. Hundreds of different Indigenous groups live across this vast continent, each with their own defined areas, languages and traditions. The exhibition runs from 23 April – 2 August 2015.
And here is another view of the exhibition has sparked.
Exhibition Sparks Protests
Published on Apr 23, 2015 (YouTube)
On 21 April 2015, the British Museum’s BP-sponsored ‘Indigenous Australia: enduring civilisation’ press launch was disrupted by activists, criticising oil sponsorship and calling for the repatriation of stolen indigenous objects.
25.08.79 #2, 2010, soil, wheat seeds, recycled metal, fabric, 110 x 90 x 40 cm. Exhibited at The Invisible Dog Art Center, NY.
Mathilde Roussel is a French artist. Based in Paris, Roussel works in various materials for her sculptures but one of her most remembered work is the Living Grass. This collection shows the transformation of soil wheat and seeds, fabric and recycled material to show the effects of transformation of material as a metaphor of the human body. After installation, the figures transform over the period of exhibition showing. Time sculpts the forms, makes them change and then decay.
For more of the grass sculptures. The artist’s statement can be read here
25.08.79 #1 and #2, 2010, soil, wheat seeds, recycled metal, fabric, 170 x 150 x 60 cm and 110 x 90 x 40 cm. Exhibited at The Invisible Dog Art Center, NY.
Graffiti – is it art, writing, or both? A freedom of expression. I have posted this question on this blog before. Here a documentary explores the work of street painters and gives them an opportunity to speak about what motivates them to colour the streets.
For Cool Stuff I want to introduce Jimmy Diresta, one of my son Christopher’s favourite contemporary artist and craftsman. Being a craftsman himself, Chris follows Jimmy’s work and admires some of the unique objects and art pieces that Jimmy has re-created from ordinary things he found in junk and re-cycled yards. One such beautiful creation is Jimmy’s collection of guitars he has crafted.
A Jimmy DiResta guitar
As Jimmy tells it, “I have been using tools and making things for over 40 years. And teaching for over 20. I started learning how to make things while working with my dad in his wood shop. He put me in the environment to keep experimenting and learning. Through out my school years every job I had pertained to making things: carpentry, sign making, florist and props. I went to School of Visual Arts in NYC to earn my BFA where I have been teaching since 94’. Over the last 20 years I have been designing and fabricating many things including guitars, toys, furniture, clothes and more.” See more on Video Wood Workers. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eLmKrXjTwIo#t=49
The Llareta is a flowering plant as much as 2,000 years old.
I am about to celebrate one of my big birthdays and today was a mix bag of events. It started with a premature but a lovely morning tea birthday party from fellow staff. We ate ice-cream cake. Weird, but ok. The morning tea was followed by a reprimand from my ordinary boss, he was throwing a tantrum that is not worth mentioning. Then, I caught up with special friends from PNG during the course of X-rays and scans and medical tests leading to my doctor at 2pm, telling me, I must have surgery. I decided to return to work after the doctor’s visit and take a deep breath and keep going until the end of the day.
I have left that day and I decided that I will forget everything ordinary that happened. I only want to remember the extraordinary things and prepare a huge party for my birthday next week. And speaking of ageing, you may know, I enjoy art, reading and writing when I am not outdoors. I have been working on some art projects and looking at art. I found an interesting story about an artist who documented old things from around the world in the last ten years. I am not posting this because I am getting old, it just happened to be something I unexpectedly discovered and somehow, it made sense to link it to age. Aged things always interest me and it was part of my purpose in completing a Masters programme in Museum Studies. Rachel Sussman is a contemporary artist based in Brooklyn. Her photographs and writing have been featured in Smithsonian in The New York Times, Wall Street Journal, The Guardian, and NPR’s Picture Show. Her book The Oldest Living Things In The World sells for $1500 per copy.
From ABC Environment
8 things in nature so old you’ll feel young
THERE IS SOMETHING about extreme age that fills us with awe.
It’s hard not to feel it, when standing in the presence of a huge eucalypt that has raised its branches to the sun since long before European settlement. Or when watching the silent majestic form of an immense whale, which has outlived several generations of humans, glide through the dark blue.
Sometimes it takes a little more intellectual investment to find that awe, like when staring at a grey-green patch of lichen that grows just one centimetre every century and which has weathered the harsh climate of Southern Greenland for more than 3,000 years.
“In thinking about the natural sublime and awe and that sort of thing, a lot of it is tied to scale and to time,” says Rachel Sussman, a New York-based contemporary artist who has spent 10 years researching and photographing some of our planet’s oldest living entities.
Sussman has taken an extraordinary series of photographic portraits, published in her book The Oldest Living Things In The World.
An artist transforms written words on paper into work of art you can touch.
Jennifer’s practice focuses on creating work from paper; by bonding, waxing, trapping and stitching she produces unusual paper ‘fabrics’, which are used to explore the ‘remaking’ of household objects. The papers are treated as if cloth, with the main technique employed being stitch; a contemporary twist on traditional textiles. The papers themselves serve as both the inspiration and the media for my work, with the narrative of the books and papers suggesting the forms. Jennifer tends to find items then investigate a way in which they can be reused and transformed; giving new life to things that would otherwise go unloved or be thrown away.
Made of ultra-dense Styrofoam coated with polyethylene, the furniture-like sculptures are three-dimensional renditions of Arabic script.
My Cool Stuff feature for this week are these 3D sculptures by Marie Khouri. I fell in love with these lounges, a design truly created for dialogue. The beautiful pieces are on a touring exhibition. Look at them, aren’t they exquisite? What a clever design!
The sensual shapes in Marie Khouri’s installation, recently on view at Vancouver’s Equinox Gallery, spell out “Let’s Sit and Talk” in Arabic.
Design speaks to us on the most visceral level, but few can render its language as literally as Vancouver-based artist Marie Khouri. Her latest installation, Let’s Sit and Talk, exhorts us, in word and form, to connect with one another. Each of the 15 pieces is a sculpture you can sit on.
Together, they spell out the exhibition’s title, sculpted in beautiful cursive Arabic script. The quintilingual Khouri, born in Egypt, raised in Lebanon and trained in Paris, has made a career of conflating art with function: through her design studio, she also makes and sells jewellery, wine racks, benches, chaises longues and planters – all of which double as discrete sculptures.
Tribalmystic Stories 