Insiteout: Orange Botanic Garden, New South Wales, Australia

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

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'

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

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

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

Opening: 6pm, 17 August 2007
Some installation shots

from Rhonda

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. '