Christine McMillan: Symmetrical Planting

Caylus

2010-07-09T06:58:00.001+10:00

To DRAWinternational

2010-07-05T16:24:00.003+10:00

DRAWinternational

2010-04-13T12:55:00.006+10:00

Space 2010

I have an artist in residence at DRAWinternational in Caylus, France

http://www.draw-international.com/about-us.php I will be exploring ways for moving from my installation and constructed work into drawing and back again. I will also be working with Margaret Brooks, developing ways of collaborating.

Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery

2009-12-02T14:49:00.013+11:00

Seeds and Blocks

Imagine my delight when I arrived in Bundaberg and found a town where breeze blocks have been used with gay abandon. Yes, breeze blocks lovingly laid in patterns to delight the eye. Some painted, some ceramic, to let the breeze and light through. I wasn't able to find any stipa seeds (grass seeds) to create blocks. Lots of widmill grass and sand flies. The animated grass seed work is projected in the dark Vault Space at the Bundaberg Regional Art Gallery. The seeds are projected onto layers of gauze and create a block of moving seeds in the space. The Xanthorrhoea seed breeze blocks works 'Ordered' and 'Random' flank the viewing area in the vault. They are seen in the dim light from the projection or in the light which come into the space as the curtain on the door is moved. The contrast of the black and white remains in my sight repeating the pattern of the block.

South coast

2009-09-17T15:55:00.002+10:00

Falling apart, building again

South coast: a new design

2009-09-17T15:51:00.002+10:00

Newcastle wall

2009-08-30T20:53:00.003+10:00

Just another bessa block from Karen

2009-06-21T14:23:00.000+10:00

Salt made blocks

2009-05-26T21:23:00.003+10:00

This is part of a long wall on the north coast of Bali. The wall contains a salt works.

half off

2009-05-26T21:17:00.003+10:00

Working with patterns of breeze blocks walls

2009-05-26T20:41:00.002+10:00

Childrens response in workshop

2009-03-24T22:02:00.002+11:00

Grass seed animation

2009-03-24T21:57:00.001+11:00

Xanthorrhoea Seeds

2009-03-24T21:54:00.004+11:00

Stipa Seed works

2009-03-24T21:46:00.004+11:00

Artist at Work

2009-03-24T21:43:00.003+11:00

terracotta

2009-03-07T23:05:00.004+11:00

Designs in Dubbo

2009-03-07T22:59:00.004+11:00

Just a few fences from Dubbo NSW Australia

Workshop stories

2009-02-25T17:58:00.002+11:00

I ran a workshop at the gallery on Tuesday and collected some stories about breeze blocks.
'Bricklayers didn't like using them as they need to be lifted with 2 hands therefore slow to lay and difficult to get up a rhythm.'
'The blocks that were used in the 1940 were heavy. The ones in the 60's were much lighter'
'The bocks were very cheap, could have been about 20c each.'
"We called them bessar, (besser) blocks.'
'We had a mould and would go in to the back yard and help dad make blocks. A family day.'
'My dad made cement flower pots. He got a mould and packed a dry mix of cement into the mould and press it down.'

How are they are put together

2009-02-10T09:31:00.002+11:00

How are the patterns repeated? Symmetrical or Assymetrical. Do you reflect an assymetrical pattern to make it symmetrical? Do you combine two symmetrical patterns to create an assymmetrical one? Did you have enough of the one pattern to finish the job? Do they put in one that didn't match? Did you put in one that didn't match?

On the way to Newcastle

2009-02-10T09:26:00.003+11:00

Large walls made of individual blocks make the pattern begin to operate in a different way. How the pattern operates is dependant on many things: on your distance from the wall. The angle it is viewed from, the angle of sunlight, the shadow cast or a reflection.

Bali

2009-02-10T09:22:00.001+11:00

Some pierced wall are created by building with unpatterned bricks in patterns. Some made by carving or casting.

In Canberra

2009-02-10T09:17:00.003+11:00

Just a few from Australia's capital. These remind me of elements in the architecture of Frank Lloyd Wright.

Breeze blocks

2009-02-10T09:10:00.003+11:00

These walls have been in my life for over 20 years, a view from the kitchen window. The concrete is rotting and the masonry is breaking down. Stan who built these walls has past away. He at the age of 75 used to ride a dragster bike with a small cart attached and ride along the road to collect blue metal from the edges for this concrete mixing.

Cutting of the Y

2008-03-30T13:36:00.004+11:00

I was away at the time of the cutting of the Y. Jan took these shots for me. One just before the cutting, the other after the cutting.

Autumn

2008-03-30T11:33:00.003+11:00

kare ichigo ware ichigo aki fukami kamo

he says a word
and I say a word - autumn
is deepening

Kyoshi

Haiku, ed: David Cobb, The British Museum Press 2002

Education Wall

2008-02-22T13:08:00.003+11:00

Basalt

2008-02-22T12:52:00.003+11:00

Returning to Tomah

2008-01-31T21:29:00.001+11:00

After time away I visit the large gauze

given over

the authorship

to the rain

the wind

it's fragility exposed

it's strength

Falling apart

2008-01-31T21:27:00.001+11:00

Drawing around basalt

2008-01-31T21:07:00.003+11:00

Round and round the rugged rock the ragged rascal ran

The basalt stairs cleaned, swept and neat. The wall drawn in gauze.

With the gauze what has been washed onto and off the steps I would like to record its distortion. Copy the pattern and translate it into another fibre. Possibly in PVC tube, which would catch the light.

for more tongue twisters

http://www.repeatafterus.com/author.php?f=&l=Tongue%20Twister

2 meters on Basalt

2008-01-31T21:03:00.001+11:00

Well it's about 2 meters. The same 2 meters that went to Tasmania. This follows Adair's comment about the lines of gauze being like drawing and is an experiment for a larger work.

New Wall

2008-01-31T20:53:00.000+11:00

Grass Y

2008-01-31T20:52:00.000+11:00

Grass Y

2008-01-31T20:50:00.001+11:00

Coconut fibre with netting

2008-01-31T20:35:00.000+11:00

The bark of the Betula utilis curling off in the afternoon sunlight
The coconut fibre with netting, in huge rolls, looks as if it will break down just as the gauze has. Also it looks like it will act like the jute that was used in Tasmania to protect the fragile high country ground cover.

Stairs

2008-01-31T20:22:00.001+11:00

Stairs after many days of rain, 25th January, 2008

The horizontal spun gauze has begun to pull away from the edges. The warp and weft have crept together in some areas and pulled apart in others.

Basho

2008-01-21T07:23:00.000+11:00

Jewels of small shells
in ripples
of sand, tangled
with kelp and rubbish
Basho

Haikau Harvest
Japanese Haiku
Series IV
Translation by Peter Beilenson and Harry Behn
The Peter Pauper Press, 1962

William Kentridge

2008-01-20T13:48:00.000+11:00

podcast directory. http://www.podcast.net/show/36732#SODE11 MOCA Audio L.A.-
William Kentridge Podcast Date: Apr 5, 2006 16:20:51

In this podcast William Kentridge talks about film and his work. I liked his discussion of walking and thinking. Promenade, after lunch. His extension of the promenade, to the ongoing walk between camera and drawing being an essential and important part of the development of his works. I think about my wrapping of the trees and the people and the images of physically unrolling the role of gauze. I recall the concentration on the unrolling, the swiftness, the placement, the tautness, new ideas, new pathways, moving, many ways of moving, the slowing and the weaving on a human scale. Also cutting of the gauze. It dividing in front of you, wide to narrow. Also the time spent cutting the gauze is a time to develop ideas.Kentridge also talks about painting with honey to attract ants to animate, love that.

Eva Hesse

2008-01-20T13:36:00.000+11:00

image from: http://www.drawingcenter.org/images/artwork/sigimg/HESSE.jpg

for more images of Eva Hesse's work

http://www.evahesse.com/work_contens.php?kat=2&artist_id =

Thoughts on 'Elizabeth Sussman on Eva Hesse' and my work

MOCA Audio- Elisabeth Sussman on Eva Hesse Drawing -
http://www.podcast.net/play/36732/1 (from Museum of Contemporary Art, LA)

Sussman’s referred to Hesse being viewed as the as the first post modernist, as she 'took herself as ego in control out of it- let the other thing become the author’. Sussman identified the post modernist characteristic as – ‘the thing itself or task at hand or the material that’s going to generate everything, everything- every transformation comes from and suggests something to her’. The material in one example is 'thread' that she found when she worked in Germany in an old factory. The thread made its way into her work.
Some of Hesse’s sculptures had not been exhibited before her death and had not been see outside the studio therefore there was an uncertainity about the orientation of the work. Sussman says that Hesse would have been OK with the installation of the work as Hesse had said that ‘she thinks things ought to change according to who installs and where it is installed, each installation being a transformation’.
I feel that the willingness of Hesse to allow the ‘curator’ install her work, and in that, change the way it is viewed is another example of taking herself as ego out of the work. Sussman says the ‘Taking herself out of the work, especially at the end of her life when she was very ill, this could parallel with ‘taking herself out’.... of her sickness. Maybe a Buddhist type thing...’.

I can see parallels in my work for example the gauze installations. The gauze is fragile in comparison to more traditional sculptural materials such as wood, bronze and stone. The gauze installations are controlled by the wind, rain and sun which changes them from their original white tightly stretched form. I also sometimes work in collaboration with other people . In ‘Working at Peartree’ I gave control to the individuals I was working with. Those people who had cut the gauze. The cutting of the gauze is different with every group and with every place. The ‘Peartree’ cutting was with the largest group of people to date, the gauze formed lines in the landscape, turned around trees, stretched against the breeze. The people working with me, the collaborators, defined the work. While we were cutting I tossed the idea around in my head that I should give the 4 rolls of gauze to those participating to install a work. This was giving control to others. What would they do, it wouldn’t be my work, how would it look!!! I set guidelines: a comment on the place. The works become more about that process of sharing both the physical work and the ideas rather than the finished works.
Sussman also discusses Hesse working with the children of a friend while in Germany. Drawing the alphabet leading to using little boxes and thinking in a grid. These experiments were recorded in note books.
Sussman says of Hesse: ‘Teaching the alphabet, drawing with them the sort of dumb kind of things that you do with children, like playing games...... drawing, alphabet experiments she is doing appeal to a kind of dumbness that she likes that she transfers into gridded works.’
I think that Hesse has become involved with a complex unpacking of the process of learning and communicating. Hesse is experiencing the process. A letter of the alphabet, a symbol simple, essential and emblematic. An embodiment of language and communication. I see Hesse as possibly going back to things learnt as a child, that are the forgotten building blocks. I have found wonder and surprise, in working with children as to how letters go together to make language and communicate. Hesse’s development into gridded works seems is as if all the extraneous meaning has been removed and the underlying essence remains. Getting into the physical making of a letter, she found ‘drawing to learn’.

'drawing to learn' is a link to Margaret Brook's web site where she documents a Visual Ethnographic study that examines young children's use of drawing in a grade one classroom.
I particularly like Hesse’s grid work, also wonder if the exhibition smelt of resin? I can also see that the light captures by the resin on the string would have been wonderful

Link to Lisa’s site
http://www.antarcticanimation.com/content/animation/iceforminganim02info.php

Working with Lisa and Yoris we responded to a diary entry by
Jack Ward

Mawson diary

2 April 1955

The cold transparent blue
of the ice plateau
has become a softer
blue opalescence.
Clefts and hollows
in the ice have lost the glowing
almost radiant
blueness and
become dark shadows.

Lisa read we moved
Yoris read I moved
Lisa documented

In response
I moved through the words, imagining the description, being part of the words, being part of the vista, looking at the landscape, the words, the vista, flowing in and out.
I began to remember the movement and thus the words.
My body remembered the movement and began to pre-empted the words, began to repeat without thinking.

Then my response in words

cold stiller

angular inside

yet hollows rounded as voice

draw with body

see far the plateau

sun changes

cold transparent blue

soft opalescence

lost radiance

colder stiller

Dickson

The body has memory as well as the brain.

coastal shrink

2008-01-16T16:20:00.002+11:00

A rock on the coast with a membrane which has dried and become tightly stretched reminding me of the way the gauze acted on the steps as it was wet and dried.

Cabin at Mount Field National Park: day and night

2008-01-16T15:00:00.001+11:00

At Mount Field National Park

2008-01-16T14:53:00.000+11:00

Margaret and Mike with 2 meters of gauze, rolled at each end.

Boardwalk

2008-01-16T14:10:00.000+11:00

The boardwalk at Cradle Mountain has chicken wire laid over it to help make the surface less slippery.The boardwalk made of timber, built to walk on above the wet and fragile land. This reduces the impact of the huge number of visitors that walk around the lake. New year 2008 it was unusually dry. Tasmania had not the rain that we enjoyed in New South Wales. Mount Tomah Botanic Garden as its basalt pavers and Italy too. Here they would (in a normal rain year) sink into the mud.

White

2008-01-16T13:56:00.001+11:00

Guarno gauzing the rocks on Isle des Phoques north on Maria Island, Tasmania Cliffs on the eastern side of Maria Island
Limestone and dolerite area on the east of the Island: water and limestone action forming a drapery of stalactites

Triabunna Wall

2008-01-16T13:49:00.000+11:00

This resting place is located at the front of the council building at Triabunna. A dry stone wall. I can imaging sheltering from a blasting wind in its curve.

White Wall, Tasmania

2008-01-14T18:50:00.001+11:00

Top of the cliffs at White Wall, allocasuarinas make a soft spot to rest and they draw with their shadow 2 meters of gauze at White Wall with Mike at the other end and Haydn taking the shotWorking, firmly attached to the gound.

Natural Gauze

2008-01-14T18:43:00.000+11:00

On Maria Island, Tasmania we found an inlet which was trimmed with white 'gauze'.

Jute gauze

2008-01-14T18:17:00.000+11:00

Found this gauze in Mount Field National Park, Tasmania. The jute gauze holds together degraded parts of the track and surrounds. It pulls apart and rots into the ground as its purpose is accomplished. The linear pattern is also reflected in the structure of this timber, Cradle Mountain NP

Stairs after rain

2007-12-16T22:24:00.001+11:00

I'm really like the way the warp and weft of the gauze are distorting. The gauze is both settling into the steps and pulling away. The horizontal areas are bunching up in the low areas and pulling apart over the high spots. The vertical pulling away from the steps. I would like to remove the gauze before it falls apart too much. I plan to hang the gauze vertically when it comes off the steps. Have to experiment with ways of either setting the distorted gauze in place or holding the gauze in place with a stable netting sewn into the gauze, or excepting that it will change again when hung. Oh well, I can try all.

The stair walk

2007-12-13T22:31:00.002+11:00

Large gauze work

2007-12-13T22:02:00.001+11:00

Lisa and Marion helping with the installation

Basalt walls and steps

2007-11-19T23:13:00.001+11:00

The basalt walls at Mount Tomah are constructed of mainly hexagonal or pentagonal blocks. At the present basalt is sourced from a quary at Peats Ridge. There is a continuing building program. A team of stone workers are at present working on walls around the new education building.There are many older walls, one of my favourites is the wall behind the waterfall.

Making the dark light, an idea for gauze.

The lower steps in the garden have been built out of trachyte. Another volcanic rock. It was collected from the old Homebush sale yards in Sydney, when they we demolished. The trachyte is in square blocks.

Grass growing

2007-11-19T23:05:00.001+11:00

The grass was left uncut in a 'y' shape that followd the garden bed pattern as planned with Dave.

This is the growth in about 5 days. As the time passes this grasses height will be more noticable and the varieties of grass in the lawn will hopefully become more distinctive.

Statement

2007-11-13T09:23:00.000+11:00

When I was invited to exhibit ‘Gathering’ and install gauze works at Mount Tomah Botanic Garden I was reminded of all my visits to the garden over the years. I recall the early days when we climbed a windswept bare hill. The energy in the wind could sweep away or invigorate. The site developed into diverse spaces, from the symmetrical formal garden, to the South garden (displaying plants which lie to the South of the equator) to the recent addition of the bog and all those wonderful spaces in between. Each area poses questions about environments. Each area informs and delights and is in constant change. The challenge of installing works in the garden is, to say something about the garden that adds to the garden, emphasises a characteristic, and enhances the experience of the visitor and the people who work in the garden. I aim to create work that takes the garden into the future, encouraging a dialogue that moves people into areas yet undiscovered and that pose questions and answers others. The Botanic Gardens Trust’s mission is ‘to inspire the appreciation and conservation of plants’ which is also one aspect of my practice. Installations in the garden will be developed from themes, materials that I am engaged with in my current practice.

Aerial view 1994

2007-11-12T17:39:00.000+11:00

A photograph of an areial photograph of the gardens,1994
For a plan and mud map of how to get to Mount Tomah Botanic Garden : http://www.bluemts.com.au/mounttomah/info.htm

Regional Art Review

2007-11-12T10:04:00.000+11:00

For a review of gauze works by Owen Leong
www.regionalartsnsw.com.au/docs/artreach/07_aug_decade_of_the_windmill.pdf

Planning for Tomah

2007-11-11T23:07:00.002+11:00

I have been planning gauze and grass works for Mount Tomah Botanic Garden to be installed from 2o-24 November, 2007.
Walking around the garden with the different people who work at the garden or have connections to the garden is an experience in diversity. Each person has their own unique view and their own stories. This communicates a depth of understanding of the garden coloured by passion, alive and vibrant. With each journey you take a different path, see through others eyes and experience the garden in a fresh way. Thankyou for all the journeys so far and I look forward to many more.

Stair series: The basalt work at Mount Tomah is one of the gardens features, making it 'Tomah'. The stairs series acknowledges the qualities of the basalt, an integral feature of the Garden. For me it has become part of the gardens identity. The garden is on a basalt cap. The soil has been formed through weathering of the basalt. The structure of basalt is often columnar, or shaped like a column. These short columns of basalt can be seen in the many walls around the gardens. These stairs at the edge of the 'Forest Walk' have be be regularly blown clear of leaves. The next image shows the first plan for one of the stairs: the width of the gauze across the stairs will be less so that people have more room the walk on both sides. I also wanted to respond in Australia to the Italian project 'Walking on Art'. In common is the use of a volcanic rock as a paving material.

'Walking on Art' is a project which focuses on the "Sampietrino" (also known as "flints") the typical stone paving used for the first time at the end of XVII century in Rome at St Peter's square (from which it takes the name Sampietrino). It has been used in the construction of streets, courtyards and squares, in many Italian municipalities, European cities and recently also in some Japanese cities. There is a strong presence of the "sampietrino" in the "Lazio" area, particularly in the towns of the "Castelli Romani and Prenestini", because the roman "flints" are, in fact, lava fragments originating from the ancient "Vulcano Laziale".
Today the "Sampietrino" runs the risk of being replaced by new modern material which is more suitable to modern life in the historic centres and more practical both for walking around and for the more silent transit of cars.
http://www.walkingontheart.it/

Sampietrino from the "Lazio" area, Italy

Paving in the car park at Mount Tomah

Meet Prunus Albion Park: a dancing trunk on the Plant Explorers Walk

Grass series: This plan for a Y of long grass in the middle of a mown lawn can be viewed from the Northern Pavilion as you look towards the African Heath. The Y echos the shape of the 'gauze cutting' which is the beginning of many of the gauze works. Check out this grass to find out how many different grass varieties make up this lawn and hopefully see at some stage how the grass looks when it is beginning to flower. A lawn like this is something many of us will never have in our own backyard. It needs watering, not as much as the formal garden lawn but watering and Mount Tomah gets more rain than many areas of Australia. Visit the rollypollie lawn in the Residence Garden- have a roll. The Eurasian Woodland: Tall Brown Barrels dot the slope between two people mover tracks. This is a steep slope, with a capopy high above. An area that people don't often walk into. Gauze works will be installed from the top to the bottom of the slope forming spaces worth exploring.

Orange Botanic Garden: Saturday outing

2007-10-30T09:46:00.002+11:00

Gabriella emailed me these images: the works in the casuarina forest have been disturbed. Hannah and Joanna gathered the ends and tied and tucked them back into the gauze. They have become part of the Gathering, experiencing the feel of the gauze. Normally Hannah and Joanna would not have touched the work, I hope they enjoyed working with the gauze. The nature of the gauze is fragile, like our natural environment. The gauze can be leaned against gently, (only stretching it a little) if you are sensitive to the material. Go too far and it can break. It can be repaired, new patterns becoming established. Even with complete remaking it would not return to the original, it would have similar characteristics but always different, inconsistent.

Richard Serra at MoMA

2007-10-30T09:12:00.000+11:00

The following images and text from http://scoboco.blogspot.com/2007/06/richard-serra-at-moma.html led me to think about a series of short walls of gauze between trees creating passages that undulate: disrupting the rows in a pine tree forest or in a vineyard. I will look for a site at Mount Tomah for this idea. One of these images is without people, the other with people in the space. I am interested in how the inclusion of people in the space changes your viewing of the work.

' Richard Serra at the MoMA
Try NOT swaying slightly from side to side in tune with the undulating passages as you walk through Sequence, his massive, interconnected spirals on the second floor... or leaning backward as you approach the inverted walls of one of the immense cocoons within Band. You can taste the metal in the air; you can smell it and feel its deep chill and unimaginable weight in your chest. You can get seriously disorientated here, even lost (well... we did, anyway), and yet it seems more comforting than dangerous, thanks in part to the stunning suppleness of these giga-ton works.'

' The exhibit is divided into three parts. On the second floor are the real show-stoppers: three new, enormous, enveloping steel sculptures, Sequence, Band and Torqued Torus Inversion, that you walk through and around and within, and that you'll have to run your hands over even though all the signs tell you not to. Made from weatherproof steel, there's none of the rusting and oxidation that you might normally associate with Serra's work—here instead are long, seamless, almost placid surfaces. These three pieces are literally breathtaking.'

Mount Tomah Botanic Garden

2007-10-26T15:01:00.000+10:00

gathering at the garden

Sat 8 Dec, 2007 - 3 Feb, 2008

Exhibition Opening
2pm - 4pm Sat 8 Dec

I will be installing site specific gauze works in the gardens. In the visitors centre I will have echidna works and grass seeds works including an animation. Some of the photos I have taken of the garden follow.

Insiteout: Orange Botanic Garden, New South Wales, Australia

2007-10-26T10:13:00.001+10:00

Tuesday 23 October, 2007
Installed 'Eco tone' at Insiteout

Thank you to all the people who participated in the installation, artists, Aileen Francis, Ros Auld and visitors to the garden from Canberra, Tara, Luke and their Dad. Tracy Sorenson recorded video footage. ‘Ecotone’ became another gathering of people joined together by a length of gauze. We each felt the softness of the material. We experienced working in a cooperative group. A rhythm is established, with the stretching, cutting and rolling to prepare the gauze and then with the passing of the gauze from one person to another during the installation. We shared associations and stories of place, families and journeys.

‘Ecotone’ was installed in a casuarina forest. It emphasises the difference between different ecological communities.

An ecotone is a transition area between two adjacent ecological communities or ecosystems. It may appear on the ground as a gradual blending of the two communities across a broad area, or it may manifest itself as a sharp boundary line.

The plantings in the garden generally fit into the second category having ‘a sharp boundary line.’ When bushwalking I have often wished to camp in an allocasuarina forest but they are generally situated on the top of a ridge, a long way from a water source. The floor of this forest is covered with needles, springy under the foot. As the wind brushes through the needles on the trees they talk, becoming ‘the talkative casuarinas’. They provide food for the endangered ‘Glossy black cockatoo’, that’s the one with the red/orange band on the tail.

Gooches Crater

2007-10-26T08:56:00.001+10:00

Walk on the 20 to 21 October to Gooches Crater.

Gooches Crater: edged by pagodas lined with ironstone banding

The white of the tree on the edge of the swamp in the Crater emphasises the lines of the tree.

When walking on the pagodas, the sound your shoes make on the iron stone banding is unique, so typical of pagoda country.

The ground beneath the feet.

Whipstick malley, site for gauze installation

Whipstick installation: narrow gauze wrapped around the base of the whipstick malley, forming a vessel shape

We walked through the heathland to get to the ridge ot the pagodas.

one foot in front of the other

hiding the face from the sun

shoe aimed between the allocasuarinas, isopogans and new banksia stems

the heath land in flower,

large tea tree flowers

the sound of feet on the pagodas rocking iron stone bandings

crouching in the shade

windows in rocks

cicadas sound, a wip bird responds, an aeroplane, half moon

Number 47 'Beyond the fence'

2007-10-06T14:23:00.001+10:00

While setting up the exhibition at Number 47 on Friday, Rylstone resident delivered some gauze that he had found in a cave near Tayan Peak, Wollemi National Park.

He added to the story: in the cave there were some other items, a bottle of caster oil and iodine and a box of Propain Powders: a mix aspro and caffeen wrapped in small paper pieces.

After From the Mud to the Stars

2007-10-06T14:06:00.000+10:00

On Saturday 22nd September, Terry Yates presenter of 'From the Mud to the Stars', Kandos Rylstone Community Radio KRR fm interviewed me about my exhibition at Bathurst and 'Beyond the Fence' exhibition at Number 47 Rylstone. I asked for donations of unused, unwanted cotton gauze to go towards the 'Gathering' work. One Kandos resident left a package at Kandos Post Office for me. What a wonderful surprise when a cordless phone box was handed to me and I was told it was full of gauze. Thankyou.

This is a wonderful roll text 'New Era, White open wove, bandage, neat edge, 1" x 6 yards, Johnson and Johnson Pty Ltd, Sydney, Made in Australia'

Performance

2007-10-03T15:32:00.001+10:00

On the last day of the show at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery we presented a performance based on Symmetrical Planting. Lisa Roberts , Karen Riley and I improvised movement. The movement was connected by white cotton gauze, if one person made a movement the other had to compensate. The ‘as the dry’ projection played over the gauze. Tracy Sorensen, whose background is in journalism, community arts and video script writing, videoed the Gathering performance. There is a link on Tracy's site to the performance on You Tube . Sue Clarke-Lindfield operated the still camera for the animations. The performance was another gathering.

Gathering: Bathurst Regional Art Gallery

2007-08-17T12:38:00.002+10:00

Opening: 6pm, 17 August 2007
Some installation shots

from Rhonda

2007-08-07T10:14:00.000+10:00

Rhonda was in the group of people who were involved in the installation of Symmetrical Planting at New England Regional Art Museum. She comments

'I was very attracted to the paper that wrapped the rolls. Remember that circle of navy paper that covered the gauze used at your work in NERAM, sort of crisp but soft. I bet there are many smells for you to absorb while you're working. I don't have any gauze to contribute.....one of those items that holds a lot of memories of first aid kits in my nanna and pop's cupboard, contained in a home made box. And rolls seen in cupbords over the years. '

Bathurst Regional Art Gallery 'Gathering'

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Christine McMillan

Gathering
Bathurst Regional Art Gallery
17 August - 30 September, 2007
Opening 6pm Friday 17 August
RSVP Monday 13 August 6333 6555

Christine gives a talk: 11am Saturday 18 August

Other exhibitions Twinned Together and The Polaroid Circus
Dr Louise Hamby, the curator of Twinned Together will give a floor talk on Twinned Together 5pm Friday 17 August

centre of gauze held together with grass seeds

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from Lisa, Ken and Flis

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A group of people that were in Armidale for the 'Symmetrical Planting' installation, each took home some gauze when the work was rolled up. Lisa used some of her's in an animation and returned this lot with a card.
Lisa's partner Ken sent these 3 samples of gauze tubes
Flis sent her donation along in a St John's first aid bag

From Jan and Rob

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This gauze roll has been in Jan's bushwalking medical kit for years, being mainly used by other walkers to bandage their feet to protect from further blistering. The gauze has been to the Wollemi Pine with Jan, who was with Wyn Jones the pair of botanists that identified the tree from fosil records. Jan worked on the site of the pine recording and researching.

This roll came to Australia with Rob all the way from New Zealand about 15 years ago. It had been kept in a metal tin and has rust stains on the edges of the roll.

Received Tuesday 19 June, 2007

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These belonged to an 83 year old retired surgeon, donated by his daughter from his medical rooms

At Peartree

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Point Cameron

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On a bush walk to Point Cameron

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A still from the grass seed animation.

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The gauze and the grass seeds. The beginning of the work for Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.

The next addition to the gathering

The first donated gauze

In the first aid kit too

The Gathering of the Gauze

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I’m working on my exhibition “Gathering’ at Bathurst Regional Art Galley, 17 August to 30 September, 2007 and need some help in gathering materials.

I’m after old gauze. Can you help?

It’s time to clear out that old medicine kit and send me the gauze wadding and bandages that have been sitting in the bottom of the kit for 20 years stained by time or betadine. Gauze that would be of no use to you. Your donation to the gauze works will be documented and added to this blog. The gauze I have received so far drawn attention to some interesting things in the first aid kits, a bottle of cod liver oil, the ‘cure all’ was in a school's kit. One first aid kit was used by a school football teams in the early 1970s and had a packet of asprin possibly 40 years old nestled within it. If you send you gauze by mail I will photograph the package and the contents. You can also add a story and a photo if you wish.

Some of the gauze that you send me will be incorporated in the disk work ‘gauze and grass’ in the "Gathering' at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery. Other pieces will be kept for works in the future. I aim to place the disk of gauze and seeds on the floor, in the gallery. The size of this work will depend on how much gauze I get sent. Now it is about 32cm diameter with 2 rolls of gauze. I like the patina the old gauze has collected over time and the waves which have been set into the gauze from the pressure in the centre of the roll.

I am looking at the grasses that grow just down the road, the roadside vegetation, there are at least 10 different varieties and after the rain they are busily growing and producing seed. Such a precious image after the years of dust and heat. I am collecting the seed and making work from the seed and gauze. The seeds move as the humidity changes and their awn (thin long tail like structure or ‘bristle-like projection’) bends and kinks and straightens with moisture. This works links into Symmetrical Planting, the installation from New England Regional Art Museum.

Your gathered materials will be documented on arrival and with your contribution of gauze you become part of the ‘Gathering of the Gauze’ project. Please send the link to anyone that you think would be interested in the project.

Thank you for your help,

Christine
Mailing Address:

Christine McMillan
PO Box 1
Kandos 2848
Australia

The first rolls of gauze given to
me in a first aid chest clean out and update.

Goulburn Regional Art Gallery

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Symmetrical Planting is on at the Goulburn Regional Art Gallery in 'A Decade of the Windmill' 14th April- 12 May 2007

Symmetrical Planting is a work that involves many stages. The original installation was followed by an education component that was presented at the Second International Art and Early Childhood Conference at New England University in February, 2007. This workshop was developed in collaboration with Dr Margaret Brooks (UNE). The aim of the workshop was to engage the artist, students and teachers in the artist’s process, developing a dialogue between the artist and the student. The delegates (other artists and educators) were invited to take part in a collaborative work using the gauze. Lisa Roberts a Sydney based artist has begun an animation using the gauze and links to this can be found on http://symmetricalplanting.blogspot.com/. I am now working with the gauze in other specific biological communities and patterns.

My works in “A Decade of the Windmill” documents Symmetrical Planting. Renew, my work for the Windmill Trust exhibition, is constructed of the gauze that was used to wrap around the poplar trees. The gauze has retained the smell and patina from the poplar community, with areas of discolouration from the vegetation subtly marking the white. The work is held together with cable ties reflecting back to the technique used in Symmetrical Planting and stuffed with poplar leaves

The background to Symmetrical Planting follows:

During my time as artist in residence at New England Regional Art Museum I watched over Black Gully. The exotic willows gained their green. (Willows figure so vividly in my childhood memories: picnics by the water; of gathering enough long branches to swing whilst carrying the weight of childhood.) The willows that line the creek have escaped from a planting which echoed the desire for another land - (new) England. Long gone are the talkative casuarinas, the tea tree and bottle brush. Still, a sedge dots the banks and people caring for the creek have planted natives in places up- and down- stream, and the frogs call in the afternoon and evening.

The other popular tree (the poplar) was planted on the flat, long before the NERAM building was planned. One tree-trunk stands in the centre, another five surround it at equal distance. Its symmetry contrasts with the accidental rhythm of the bush. In one of my workshops we talked of a method of planting randomly – that being, to throw a handful of coins in the air … and plant where the coins fell. In some of my other works, I aimed to choose randomly, but have found that I need a method to make a ‘random’ choice, as our lived experience and history makes random choices difficult.

In Symmetrical Planting I linked the 6 poplar trees together using gauze. I have been working with gauze in my other work, using its netting characteristics to join together carp scales and echidna spines. Gauze forms a film, a network, a partly translucent layer that holds objects together. Its warp and weft can be pushed and distorted. The installation was represented in the gallery by a series of still images looping on a television screen, and weekly photographs were placed in the galley, in a vertical timeline, over its 12 weeks existence.

'Working at Peartree'

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I began the next installation on Easter Monday at Becky and Jaime's place onBurra Creek. This installation has became known as 'Working at Peartree'.

Becky and Jaime have been working on the land for just over a year, removing serrated tussock and planning the revegetation and healing of the land. Jaime chose to leave some dead trees standing to remind us of what was there in 2007 and of the damage that had been done previously. The majority of the original eucalyptus trees were ring barked, their textured skeletons break the place, 'where the land meets the sky'. The land at Burra Creek is suffering from drought and years of over grazing.

Members of our extended family gathering were invited to participate in 'Working at Peartree'.

I find that the conversations happening when people are involved in the cutting of the gauze need to be recorded. Participants link events, insights and memories from their life to the cutting, rolling and wrapping of the gauze. Some of those comments as remembered:
Colin shared a performance he saw in which the performer became hopelessly wrapped in threads after thrashing around, getting more and more wound up just as we can do with problems in life.

Julia recounted as a child, madly running around her large house with unwinding balls of spun wool and her mother Barbara not being at all pleased.
Adair looked through the eye of a camera until the card became full. Adair was standing photographing the group near a dead tree, which was holding the gauze taunt, Adair heard the sound of the scissors amplified by the tree. This reminded me of the fence at Dangar Falls humming in the wind.

Adair then commented on the way the gauze formed strong links between the participants and when wrapped around the trees made them appear flatter.

Sue mentioned her enjoyment of the mindless repetition of rolling the gauze. Alysia added her story of unwinding knitted jumpers to make gods eyes and wishing she could knit to create a jumper.

A changing group helped cut and roll the gauze. Then I asked them to use the gauze on a tree of their choice. Adair was asked to document the process through photographs.

Adair and I discussed her idea of how wrapping the object you were going to draw would teach you about that object giving you a more complex knowledge and understanding to inform your drawing.
Becky wondered about 'what the neighbors might make of it' and the dialogue that might result from their questioning. Sam and Becky took photos on Tuesday morning of 'Working at Peartree' in the isolating fog which filled the gully.

Photographs by Adair Imrie

A link to Lisa Roberts

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Lisa Roberts has been working with pieces of the gauze from Symmetrical planting, making animations.
For some stills of these animations go to

http://www.lisaroberts.com.au/content/blog/blogMarch2007.php

also for my animation of the shadow of a quill box go to Lisa's March blog

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Christine with the gauze from Symmetrical Planting.

In the backyard at Kandos with 'Rocky' (the mountain) in the background

At Kandos NSW

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This is the first time in 2 years that the grass has been growing and green.
The plants introduced to Australia are in the foreground, the mountain is covered with Eucalyptus trees and cliffs are sandstone.

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Symmetrical Planting was unwound on Thursday, 8th February, 2007. Balls of gauze from the unwinding travelled home with some delegates from the second International Art in Early Childhood Conference (which was held in Armidale). The gauze had taken on the smell of the poplar trees that had been confined by its warp and weft.

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Symmetrical Planting in the sun and snow: 2006

with shadow

compressing leaves

Images of installation

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Symmetrical Planting 2006
Artist: Christine McMillan
New England Regional Art Museum