The Hill - March 25th till May 7th 2011

It has been two years now since our first residency at Broken Hill and the show is running till May 7th at the Bega Regional Art Gallery. The opening was a great night with a good crowd and the feedback has been fantastic.

The artist floor talk last week went well with 35 people in attendance to hear us discuss the residency and ask us questions.

At this stage we are talking with our RADO Andrew Gray to see if we can tour the show within our region as well as negotiating with Broken Hill RADO James Giddey to see if we can take the show back  to where it all started.

Acquittal sign off

Today was another big day but necessary for us all to get together again to sigh (oops) sign off the acquittal for the CASP grant. We worked from 9.30am to 4pm today getting all the support material together, editing our artist reports and then burning information onto DVD.

Sue was able to interview Poppy and begin the process of questioning in regard to how Poppy will shape her new body of work. I will let Poppy talk about that later. All very exciting and yes, yet another challenge. These interviews are becoming a pivotal force in our thought processes and help with how a show in the future may come together.

Both Sue and myself are heading overseas very soon. Sue is off to Prague, Italy and Venice to name a few and I am off to Berlin for a one month residency that will also see me take in Venice as well.

Lorna

fear to imagine - part of the process

This is a new video that I have been playing around with.

Since the return it has taken a while to let all the images, emotions and the landscape sink into me. The time has been spent editing over 220 clips then learning iMovie and working out how to put it all together into a format that would work as both a documentary travel type log and as a creative process in the video format.

In the interviewing process that Sue is working on there was, for me, the struggle to come to terms with the where, why and what of the creation of this new body of work. It has been like I have struggled from the beginning when I realised that the editing and the making of the simple movies has been just as creative as drawing and painting - I had begun. You are just using different tools and mediums. Now I am ready to make a statement in the work.

I then realised that where I did some interesting pieces plein air was on the banks of the Darling River at Kinchega National Park with the blackbird nagging me in the background. It was then that the idea of working with a poet might work too. I then decided to contact the poet we met at the Poetry launch at Broken Hill Regional Gallery.

This statement is now beginning to take shape in a more poetic form with a collaborative approach with Barbara De Franceschi from Broken Hill - an established poet that I met on our last weekend in residence. We have begun to correspond through email and snail mail.

This video has only my words at this stage. The work is titled 'fear to imagine' and it evokes the emotions that I struggled with those first days in residence and being challenged by new technology and the surreal landscape that we were confronted with on our first field trip. It is still raw but depicts those feelings that I felt at the time.

I have sent a DVD to Barbara this week and will let the images sink in from the places that I visited. Then the exciting stuff might just happen.

Lorna

Jen and Poppy - Insane sunsets at White Cliffs.

Day 17 Sunday May 24, 2009

White Cliffs notes will follow as soon as we can get back in front of a computer.

Today we are heading south to Mungo National Park for a few days camping, on the first leg of our return trip to the coast.

Please stay tuned for more excellent adventures from Poppy and Jen.

 

Jen & Poppy - FORMER GLORY

Mt Gipps and Tarrawingee

Day 16 Saturday May 23, 2009

After a slightly slow start, we were on our way heading north on the Silver City Highway in Deirdre’s band new Toyota Landcruiser. First stop, just off the highway at Yanco Glen. We foraged through the remains of the old pub and settlement trying to piece together what would have been there, with only footings, smashed bottles, rusty metal and corrugated iron to go by. We took a few samples with us, then we drove the 9kms of dirt to the gate of Mt Gipps Station. An 85,000 acre working sheep station, now owned by John and Kym Cramp. Mount Gipps Station was one of the first properties settled west of the Darling River in the 1860’s. Sidney Kidman worked there as a young lad. In 1883 Charles Rasp a boundary rider along with 6 other men working on the station staked out a mining claim to one of the richest silver, lead and zinc deposits in the world. They formed a syndicate of 7 and called it BHP in 1885. In 1891 a private railway line was built from Broken Hill to Tarrawingee limestone quarries. Evidence of this line can be seen today weaving its way through Mount Gipps. Mount Gipps Station has a geological history spanning from around 800 million years to 1.7billion years and there are also several old mines on the property.

When we arrived at the homestead, Kym greeted us with a refreshing cuppa and a slice of Australian Celebration cake. Kym first showed us around the station’s shearers huts and the old overseers homestead, which she rents out to interested tourists. They are in the process of trying to restore the property to its former glory, and they’re doing a great job of it.

On our way to Tarrawingee, we took a slight detour to check out the relics of German Charley’s hotel. Back in the Toyota again a few kilometres up the road, we came across the incredible letterbox of Poolamacca Station, pictured above. It was another big photo session here for Jen, Poppy and Deirdre, as Kym forgot her camera. Then it was on to the remains of the village of Tarrawingee. The only evidence left of this once thriving 300+ person town, is the stone train station platform, about 5 huge in-ground stone water storage tanks, footings of several dwellings, a stone verandah floor, millions of smashed bottles in every colour and loads of flattened, rusty tobacco tins. We looked around here for a few hours before the tall shadows moved us along. The sun was getting low as we headed north a bit further to see the old limestone quarry. We walked down into the base of the open cut mine and from here the ancient layers of stone are truly amazing.

It was a quick trip back to Kym’s station for a hurried look at their woolshed before the sun went down. We sped past the most amazing sunset as Deirdre drove like a bat out of hell back to the Hill.

Stay tuned.

Poppy and Jen

 

Jen & Poppy - Headframe

Day 15 Friday May 22, 2009

We were up super early and photographed the art exchange and Brown’s Shaft at the Junction Mine in the glorious morning light. Then back to the art exchange for brunch, fabulous pouched eggs and bacon on a crusty white loaf. Then we were back out in the super Rav, for more photographing around the Hill. After a long day with our fingers on the trigger and about 1000 pics later we were off to local artist Deirdre Edwards' for dinner. Her very kind son was our chef, which we came to learn was a good thing, because Deidre “can’t cook!” and that was in her own words. She also said “ he didn’t learn that from me”, dinner was great and we headed home for a good nights sleep to get ready for our next adventure out to Mt Gipps Station. 

Please stay tuned for our next excellent adventure, back out in the bush.  

For more info on Deirdre Edwards http://djdee.com.au

Jen & Poppy  

 

Jen & Poppy - Incongruous

Day 14 Thursday May 21, 2009

Today we spent the day gathering images from old shops around the town of Broken Hill for a prospective collaborative work. Corinthian columns, corrugated iron, fake bricks, pressed tin, timber, brick, fibro and beautiful sandstone. These are just some of the materials that can be found on a single building. This was our first opportunity to really spend some time viewing the disparate architecture of the Hill.

Stay blogged on to Poppy & Jen.