| Listen Livejournal, we need to talk... |
[Apr. 18th, 2009|11:26 am] |
Hey Livejournal, we've sure had some great times. I can't thank you enough for hosting my blog here since 2006 but it's time I told you - I'm seeing another blog host and I've moved all my stuff over there.
No, no it's not Blogger, it's Wordpress.
We've moved in different directions Livejournal, you're so great at the community thing but y'know I've never been much of a joiner. Wordpress has an interface I prefer, gives me statistics and most importantly, doesn't plaster my blog in advertising for non-members. Advertising for which I get nada.
I know this will be difficult for you, it's been hard for me too but we've just grown in different directions.
When you're ready to talk again you can look me up at my new adress http://sallyhasblog.wordpress.com
You'll always be my first...
x |
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| our house is the easter house |
[Apr. 12th, 2009|09:27 am] |
I got a Terry's Chocolate Orange which goes magnificently with my morning coffee. Health care routine be damned (yet to write about that but I'll catch up).
Working very hard on something but soon all will be revealed.
Enjoy your loved ones, your holiday and your chocs.
Love from my house.
xxx
p.s. excuse clicky vid sound. Shot on my still camera and test driving Facebooks video application. I love how impressed Matt is with Gino's 'prancing'. |
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| ..with a truck full of splinters no less. |
[Mar. 29th, 2009|11:21 am] |
Anna Russell of Incoherent Ramblings has a five point plan to save the economy (I am unsure if her vision is global or simply for the US. I think it could work either way.).
1. Legalise street drugs (protect the users and tax heavily)
2. Legalise prostitution (protect the users and tax heavily)
3. Let's all be Swiss (and save money on defence)
4. Stop legal loan sharking (no more credit cards handed out to those who can't afford them)
5. Stop being greedy
Our consumer society has become a disease that feeds on the worst traits of human nature. The elite rich won't let things change because they're terrified they'll have to cut back from 3 private jets to 1. Fuck them. Seriously, fuck them with a truck full of splinters.
Atta girl.
If you doubt the sense, do not doubt the passion of her very convincing post which you can read for yourself HERE. |
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| i heart kate bush |
[Mar. 28th, 2009|11:13 am] |
Always have, always will. She, along with Blondie were the first formings of my musical taste beyond Bucks Fizz, the Smurfs and Londons Burning played on a plastic recorder. Simultanueously, I understand perfectly why she gives so many other people the niff; the shrieking and the googly eyes being but two of the things I'm sure put people off.
But I love everything about her and these days can even see how a little of her has snuck into my photos and videos. I'm also quite good at both shrieking and making googly eyes.
So I was thrilled this morning to find that the fellow at FourFour had created this awesome tribute in an overload of animated gifs, a mere few of which appear above. Clicky, clicky and make a cup of tea while it loads. It's worth it.
Don't be so distracted by the action however, that you miss that it's also a lovely, thoughtful bit of blog writing about what we-that-love-her truly love about her.
...she was made for me. No other entertainer I've invested myself in has ever struck the balance between awe-inspiring technical proficiency and utter nonsense so well. She has the paradoxical effect of a retarded genius..
My thoughts precisely.
My favourite album is The Dreaming. What's yours? |
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| If I had money to buy art... |
[Mar. 21st, 2009|11:58 am] |
...and not the conscience that tells me I should be spending my money on Tasmanian art, this month I'd buy:
This signed Mark Ryden print. Fur Girl is being sold through has been released by Roq La Rue gallery in Seattle (being sold in Australia through Outre Gallery based in both Melbourne and Sydney). I often like to think I've moved beyond Mark Ryden but it's not true, I still get seduced by the pretty, pretty paintings. Especially simpler images like this.
I would also buy myself Emily Valentine's Pair of Pugcocks:
or maybe her Cockiborzoi:
 .
I've always been drawn to both images of fur-people and creative mash-up taxidermy.
I sometimes worry that I am too seduced by hipster culture... the sub-culture not the pants. I have never been seduced by hipster pants. Well maybe once... *shudder*... |
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| Tweet me. I am a Twit. |
[Mar. 19th, 2009|11:16 am] |
Time to own up. I have become a furious Twitter-er. Come follow me if you wish. I go by the incredibly clever and deceptive code-name of sallyr.
Eddie Izzard (@eddieizzard)suggested mounting a campaign against the current Twitter terminology (followers, following, follow me etc) and I agree it all sounds a bit Jonestown and that there are a poultice of other terms that could be adopted instead. I hope he is successful although I suspect he is too busy being all lovely and doing some acting and swiping on the odd bit of lippy n' that to seriously get the changes made.
Twit is my own term for the users. It's probably not going to take off... I can see that...
Anyway - I must own up because I just realised I have swiped two of my last three blog posts from URLs tweeted by people I follow. Thank you Susannah Breslin, The Reverse Cowgirl (@reversecowpie) for Terry Richardsons camera and Jonathan Ross (@Wossy) for the hedgehog.
I had worked out the manners of re-blogging and even re-tweeting but tweet>blog I'm still working on. Bear with me...
I also feel the need to own up to the fact that I just realised a couple of days ago that my list of those I follow (apart from a few mates) consists nearly entirely of British wits with a couple of American sex writers thrown in for good measure.
My every morning is made better by an inspirational tweet from David Lynch (@DAVID_LYNCH) and something that reaffirms my undying devotion to the glowing goodness of Stephen Fry (@stephenfry) but mostly it's stalking an entire range of comedians who I adore and admire.
Fellow Twits, I love hearing what you had for breakfast. I love you all. Come join us.
P.S. M just suggested that the past tense of 'tweet' must be 'twat'! Ha! |
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| Recommended reading |
[Mar. 17th, 2009|06:56 pm] |
Since we started our literary/penpal exercise nearly four months ago I have had the pleasure of regularly receiving some really thoughtful and beautiful writing.
My penpal has now started a blog of her own, PUBLIC OFFICE.
She is a romantic, flannelette superhero, incensed by injustice and fighting for the side of good, not evil.
I recommend you drop in and visit and absorb some of the good stuff I have been lucky enough to have just dropping into my inbox every other day. |
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| Stop press: Hedgehog eats carrot |
[Mar. 17th, 2009|06:50 pm] |
..because I have recently sounded like a whiny bitch and I wanted to make it up to you.
Are we square now? Good. |
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| In which I replace the word 'dealer' with 'pimp' and the word 'artist' with 'artstitute'. |
[Mar. 11th, 2009|12:08 pm] |
So here’s the thing. I’ve never had any commercial representation (well, DUR like I haven’t mentioned that about a zillion times before but stay with me...) and to be honest I have, for some time been terrified of it. My time ensconced in a happy studio collective a few years back was both fun and educational but I was pretty exclusively surrounded by artists who were and are taken pretty seriously in both the art community and the marketplace, who made some (if not mucho) income off their practice and to a man seemed to be full of resentful stories about the wrongdoings of their dealers.
While once it had seemed to me that the logical way to make a living as an artist was to match-make yourself with the right dealer and if your primary practice didn’t seem to have a market, develop a sideline, once I had vicariously lived-through-my-studio-neighbours, I instead saw this path as a trap. A trap I figured I was smart enough to avoid.
However here I now sit a) having failed at art teaching b) having failed at arts admin and worst of all c) with sketchbooks, notepads and odd dusty back rooms of my brain piled high with unmade works that have not had the equipment, time or money to be realised (those good ol’ art-related jobs that keep your toe in the industry are, to be fair, immensely valuable for the experience and knowledge gained within, but the pay is beyond shite and the demands on both you and your time stretch way beyond the boundaries of your employ). This means my art practice has a particularly slow burn and what’s more I seem to be skint.
So what’s the next step? Well, monkeys and squeaky pigs are pretty cute but for whatever reason (honesty, practicality, plain old snobbery...?) I don’t view them as a part of my practice. Sure, I hope to find a place to sell them because I really need some cash (hey, the brain assisting naturopathic supplements I’ve come to rely on aren’t free you know... ) but they are pretty much without philosophy or concept. A product. A simple toy. And what I imagine I will be able to charge for them actually leaves me on less than minimum wage for their production anyway, to tell the truth.
But I know I could make ART that sells. I have a good eye for trends, memes and waves of ‘taste’ and if I knew I had an art pimp ready to take stuff on I could be churning that art out. I don’t mean to be facetious of course, I really couldn’t make things that I didn’t at least like myself, but at the moment I could quite happily pass myself over to life as an arts-titute. I know there are artist acquaintances of mine who think I am nuts in that I never expect to make a buck out of what I do... but am I just fooling myself if I believe otherwise?
I ask you my tiny readership - how do you get pimped? Are disgruntled complaints about the pimp system justified or just a bit of a whinge? Would the artist-neighbours I once had really have been better off without the pimps? Is it really so predictably naff as you being ‘discovered’ by someone? How does the whole pimp-deal work? I mean I know the general going percentages for the art-pimps cut, but are they pimping you, day in, day out and occasionally advising ‘we’re running low on art, can you please do some more pitchers?’ or do they only go a-selling when you are the feature of the week in your bi-annual, just-me exhibition? So many questions because I am so naive about this whole system... I’m not joking... I just don’t know.
My artwork is one of the rare things in my life I have very few doubts about. I stand by it. I have received a lot of great positive feedback about it lately, both here and by email and so I am really interested in the lack of response here to my monkey-product (as opposed to the capital A - ART). You are small but usually so regular, Readership... are you telling me by your silence to screw the product, just make the art?
If so dear Readership, could you please do me a favour? Unlurk and give me a piece of your mind. Also, tell me your experiences (and those of others you may have) of the dealer/artist (I still rather like pimp and artstitute as terminology though but let’s be clear...)relationship in the comments. No names please. Let’s play nice. Informative but nice.
And now I’ll go ‘cause speaking of art I have a fantasy of a creeping cat-fungus that I want to realise... |
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| Four monkeys |
[Mar. 8th, 2009|06:44 pm] |
See? I do more than just browse the interwebs for videos... I made four monkeys!
They are, once again, gocco prints on recycled fabric and while I was wondering if anyone would even want them, before I could even post this blog - the yellow one sold and I've been asked to hold the purple until someones payday this week. How awesome!
Anyhoo - I was going to get brave and do a trot to a few shops around town this week to see if they would like to stock monkeys and some squeaky pigs and goats. Any suggestions as to where would be good and how much I should charge?
Or should I just sell them on the interwebs? Using Etsy? Or another storefront system? Or should I just suck it up because I actually know what I'm doing a bit with web design and just build my own webstore...?
Hey, peoples. Hey, peoples who sell things and have a clue. Help out a gal who doesn't have a clue about making a buck out of making things?
Your advice in the comments please... |
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| Sneak Peek |
[Feb. 20th, 2009|08:22 am] |
Matt's PhD submission, Suspension of Disbelief - The representation of poetic faith through time-based media opens for public viewing tonight at 5:30 and will remain open over the weekend before being dismantled on Sunday night.
Edit: at the Plimsoll Gallery, Tasmanian School of Art, Hunter Street, Hobart. D'oh for not mentioning.
The work pictured is a recent one, In Haunted Attics, a sound and video installation.
Although obviously biased, I think the whole submission is pretty amazing and you should really try to check it out if you can. Matt kinda suffers the same fate as me in that it's not often that you have the gear and the space to show this stuff so don't miss the rare opportunity to see this great collection of work in the context of one another.
It's just beautiful and I am immensely proud. |
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| "TASMANIAS OLDEST EMO HAS ART EXHIBITION" |
[Feb. 14th, 2009|09:30 pm] |
From The Advocate newspaper ("covering West and North-West Tasmania since 1890"), Friday, February 6.
Can I just say that I'm not sure how the (very lovely) journalist who wrote this piece got 'renowned artist' from me telling her I was relatively unknown. I guess renown...unknown... they sound a bit alike... but what sort of douchebag would tell a journalist that they were 'relatively renowned'...
Ah well... the vegemite thing is a bit queer too but never mind... the main thing is it's positive and VERY Advocate.
(Click here to see big enough to read - just...) |
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| Proof |
[Feb. 14th, 2009|07:09 pm] |
Sorry to have been late to post about the exhibition. At this time a week ago we were driving home from the NW and since then have been mostly perched atop a scaffold wiggling projectors back and forth in the Plimsoll Gallery at the School of Art because now we are installing Matt's PhD submission.
But here finally, is proof that the show did indeed go on and that I survived the whole experience intact but just a little tired. My documentation is a bit rubbish (I'm currently looking for a photographer up there to do a better job for me) but you might get a sense of the room.
The wrestling works (Mascara contra Cabellera 1 & 2) are finally installed as I initially intended - that is on two separate screens. Interestingly I have had two comments already from people who would rather see them composited into the one screen (one who has already seen it that way, one who hasn't) which I think is interesting.
I am also very happy with this installation of The Groove in this show. Shown on a lovely, hefty Panasonic analogue monitor (dontated to me by my pal Susie's parents - thank you Jenny and Geoff Findlay), it sits on the floor, tilted up to face you on a big wooden wedge. The headphones hang in front perched on a mike stand and it all feels a bit 'rawk'.
I found the week a hard slog, although my lovely Mum, Ruth came and helped hang for the first 2 or 3 days and I got to spend the early evenings between returning from the gallery and eating dinner, diving under waves and generally splashing about in the sea.
Mr Hobba duly arrived on opening night and, having already delivered a great catalogue essay under pressure of a very restrictive word count (Got a PDF of it if anyone wants a copy. Let me know if you do), gave a beautiful opening speech that not only proclaimed me as the 'mother to all rabbits' but also as the reincarnation of Joseph Beuys' dead hare (!).
This all made me feel very relevant and special, which I guess is what these things are meant to do. There were a couple of (pleasant) suprise appearances, but nothing of the sort to knock me off balance and then friends, family and a nice dinner came afterwards.
Of course it was all fine, just as all of you predicted it would be, but I'm still exhaling a huge sigh of relief.
Thanks to all concerned and to those of you who made the trip. It meant a great deal. |
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| Mag cover love |
[Jan. 31st, 2009|11:48 am] |
I need to make a living somehow. Although I've been bizzarely lucky enough to sell a very few video works in Tasmania as a relatively unknown artist, generally speaking in this state - video doesn't sell. Especially if you're not well known. Especially if you're from Tasmania itself. Especially if you have no commercial representation. I tick all three boxes. I'm probably repeating myself, please forgive me.
As I can only work at the pace I do, have no plans to relocate and have no commercial galleries sniffing eagerly around my art-loins, I think that I need to take more photographs, print them and frame them and then get them piggies out to market.
While not all precisely the subject matter that I think is going to tap the aesthetic veins of the middle market that I'd love to find a place in, this gallery of 60's and 70's covers for French satirical magazine Hara Kiri (collected at flabbergastedly) display a great deal of the kind of style I aspire to.
Colourful, stagey and grotesque visual puns with a really healthy dose of the ridiculous. I would also say 'yummy' but SPECIAL SCATO and Je ne suis pas riche, mais je ne nourris prevent me... |
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