Tree Place - a Guide

INtroducing

the artists

exhibition 7TH DECEMBER 2018 TO 27TH JANUARY 2019 NOOSA REGIONAL GALLERY, QUEENSLAND, AUSTRALIA

Amanda Cole Ancient Tree Angus McDiarmid Anika Annels Anne Harris Bianca Beetson Bill Dorman Caitlin Franzmann Carol Russell Gary Field Jandamarra Cadd Jeff Fraser Jill Sampson Joolie Gibbs

www.treeplace.com.au

Leah Barclay Lyndon Davis Melinda Heal Melissa Stannard Noosa Pengari Students Rebecca Ward Richard Vaughan Robert Andrew Ross Annels Scott Pilkington-Jones Shane Christensen Tamsin Kerr Tim Johnson Viki Murray Copyright © 2018 Anne Harris

The Story

Native Bee Hives

WHEN A TREE FALLS THERE IS A SPACE THAT IT LEAVES BEHIND, THERE IS A PLACE WHERE IT WOOD HAVE BEEN, ANNE HARRIS

Native Bee Hive Collaborations: Wood Carver Shane Christensen created native bee hives from the original Tree Place Wood. There are four of these public sculptures, and the bees are from Sugar Bag Bees.

‘Tree Spirit’ uses the universal connection of people and the tree spirits to bring this ancient log to life. This can be found at the Wan’din’in Arts, 73 Memorial Drive Eumundi.

An Ancient Eucalyptus tereticornis tree fell across a road in September 2015, it stopped traffic. A woman saw the place where the tree had been and went to record the story, she followed the trunk to the rubbish dump, where it sat abandoned. The caretaker offered the tree to her, she hesitated, but to say "no" was admitting the tree was rubbish. Here was an opportunity to turn a tragedy into a new beginning.

And so the idea began to grow, the tree would be used as a teacher to share stories of culture, inspire creativity to build connection, and start a new story of optimism for the future.

‘Honey Pot’ a collaboration with local Gubbi Gubbi/Kabi Kabi artist Lyndon Davis. Tells the story of Yurin the Crab. This beehive Is located at Noosa Pengari School, Nyell Road, Doonan.

‘Home to Many’ another collaboration between Lyndon and Shane shares the stories of the animal’s local habitat and incorporates a shield designed by Lyndon sharing the traditional patterns of the Bunya (Bunyi) tree, this beehive is located at Eumundi State School.

Native Bee Hives

Workshops WHAT TOOK ROOT WAS A SERIES OF WORKSHOPS, COLLABORATION, INSTALLATIONS AND EXHIBITIONS THAT HAVE GROWN INTO TREE PLACE. Noosa Pengari Steiner School Noosa Landcare Pomona Noosa Regional Gallery Gympie Regional Gallery University of the Sunshine Coast Old Ambulance Station Nambour

Eumundi Art Street Arts & Ecology Centre Tanawha Fusion Festival Cooroy Spoon Carving Cooroora Institute Wild Printing Cooroora Institute

‘United Journey’ a collaboration between Shane and Jandamarra Cadd, is about coming together in a United Journey. This beehive is located at the Noosa Library, Wallace Drive. Three hives are generously funded by the Eumundi and District Historical Association through ‘Arts and Culture Eumundi’ and United Journey was funded

by Noosa Council and the generosity of the wider community.

facebook.com/Shane.Artisansugarbag.net facebook.com/gubbigubbidance (Lyndon Davis) jandamarrasart.com

Bunya Collaboration

Tree Place’s first collaboration was with the Bunya Tree, Araucaria bidwillii, known as Bunyi/Bonyi in local Kabbi Kabbi (Gubbi Gubbi) language, it is a mighty teacher and holds the story of the history of this place.

Community Exhibition

Artists: Ross Annels, Bianca Beetson, Bill Dorman, Anne Harris, Tim Johnson, Jim Martin, Melissa Stannard.

Wand’in’in Art Space, Eumundi Dec 2017: Included in this exhibition were spoon carvers of all levels, including work from well known carvers Jeff Fraser, Gary Field, Carol Russell and Corrie Wright also a collection from up-and-coming carvers at Noosa Pengari School. Added to this were the Tree Stories and Mythology from two local ceramicists Jane Welsh and Bec Lindemann, wearable art from Julie Gardner. Images from Dallas Sutherland and Viki Murray, Bunya Inspired Forms from the Bunya Artist Collaboration, and the unveiling of ‘Tree Spirit’ a collaboration between Shane Christensen and the Ancient Tree. A collection of artwork created by the wider community at workshops held around the Sunshine Coast, and a local 200 million year old Pentaxylon fossilised tree.

This project was supported by RADF, the Sunshine Coast Council and the Cooroora Institute.

The project was generously supported by the Sunshine Coast 50th Anniversary.

The Bunya inspired work was used at the Wan’din’in (Eumundi 2017) exhibition, and at the Bunya Dreaming Festival in January 2018.

The Cooroora Institute hosted the collaboration, which began with ‘Language of Country’ by Aunty Beverly Hand sharing stories of country and Bunya. This was a beautiful way for the work to evolve, and highlighted the importance of celebrating and learning about the place of this special tree, and the people that have cared for country and place for thousands of years.

Global Installation

Standing Here: Tree Place joined the Horizon Festival 2017, and used natural dyeing to share the story of people place, connection and community. There was a call out to all natural dyers around the world to be part of this global Art Installation that shared the beauty of 600 naturally dyed squares (created by 100 artists from around the globe), this was installed at the University of the Sunshine Coast, Sippy Downs, Queensland.

This project was facilitated by Anne Harris and Jenai Hooke. The story of these squares and the people who joined us to create ‘Standing Here’ can be found on @thetreeplace or #treeplace This project was generously supported by Queensland Government and the Sunshine Coast Council.

SevGen Collaboration

Natural Dyeing Collaboration: SevGen is short for Seven Generations which is an Indigenous organisation that represents the way of thinking that says we must consider how our actions and deliberations of today will affect our people seven generations into the future, whilst drawing on the wisdom of seven generations past.

In this collaboration, Anne Harris and Jenai Hooke shared their knowledge of natural dyes and in a cultural exchange of listening and learning, worked together to record the stories of place from an indigenous perspective. The artists at SevGen each produced an artwork sharing their contemporary stories.

This work was displayed as part of the Wand’in’in 2017 exhibition, and the collaboration was hosted by Deadly Espresso Cafe in Eumundi.

Artists: Amma Reed, Billy Joe Chambers, Kelly Mullaley and Terri Waller.

The project was generously supported by the Sunshine Coast 50th Anniversary.

Amanda Cole

Using photographs by Sunshine Coast photographer, Uwe Wullfen, her own recordings of Hildegard’s chants and her own translations from the Hildegard’s Latin, Amanda Cole creates a multi-media exposition of Hildegard’s poetry, music and theology.

“I want audiences to experience a unique and revelatory glimpse of humanity and to let it touch and inspire their own creativity. What stories are behind and inside the music, the art, the performer, that can inspire and uplift our human experience and purpose?”

Hildegard of Bingen (1098-1179) was not the first to associate “the eternal mother” with nature on earth, but she certainly took the Latin term viriditas - greenness - to new heights, infusing it with the sense of spiritual and physical health, oneness with all that is and the source of all growth. Playing on words, she mixed the ideas of nature, branch, virgin, Mary, music and motherhood, creating inspiring poetry and haunting musical chants.

amandacolemezzo.com PerformanceBrilliance.com

Angus McDiarmid

I’ve Always Been Hear Tree Place for me is about honouring the trees that constantly provide sustenance and nourishment through their oxygen and beauty. My work is directly linked to trees, one cannot be removed from the other.

I dig my clay at the end of my road, wood fire with off cuts from the local saw mill and use the ash to glaze the pots. When Anne asked me to take part in Tree Place I instantly felt a bowl would be the perfect pot for the occasion. Similar to the tree, the bowl inhabits tables all around the world. Every culture has their own form, it is always there, always filled with food surrounded by conversations, family, friends and joyous experiences. And, as the tree seems in a sense not to be there, it very much is enjoying every moment with us, ‘hearing’ everything. The bowl and tree live on, ever giving.

panpottery.com

Gondwanaland Tree (Chris Gaughan) Anika Annels

Ancient Gondwanaland Tree Pentoxylon, a small understory tree.

As a geologist who has spent years searching for gold and diamonds both in Australia and overseas, I was rewarded with the discovery of a lifetime – in the front yard at Doonan, while planting the fifth of five trees, I noticed a small rock fragment in the turned soil that did not match the local sandstone and clay.

Pit Fired Cups Pit Firing Eucalyptus tereticornis, leaves, bark, banana peel, coffee, copper sulphate, paper bags and string.

Firing with Eucalyptus and Pine Wood.

Eight Pit Firing Cups.

cooroorainstitute.org/mudlark-pottery

The sandstone-clay rock sequence at Doonan, the formation in which the tree-fossil was found, is part of the Myrtle Creek Sandstone, this formation was deposited in the early Jurassic Period and is 180-210 million years old. At that time, the earth’s continents were joined to make up the super-continent Gondwanaland. *The name, distribution and age of the Jurassic Myrtle Creek Sandstone formation was sourced from Rocks and Landscapes of the Sunshine Coast, 2nd Edition, 2007, by Warwick Willmot.

Anne Harris (Tree Place Founder)

Bianca Beetson

Messages, Silk, Wool and Natural Leaf Pigment This is the story of the ancient tree that fell. I became the custodian and the tree became my teacher. Working with the tree I began a twelve month self-directed residency, during 2017 I worked with different aspects of the tree. The flow of trusting and letting go, and allowing the tree to be my teacher in whatever format that evolved. I published a monthly blog (www.anniesworkroom.com.au) to record the journey.

Warrior Woman - Bonyi (2016)

This tree and it’s remains have become the inspiration and part of this way of life that connects people, environment, history and community – Tree Place.

Self-portrait as a warrior woman: wearing a Bunya Pine/ Araucaria bidwillii leaf (Bonyi) crown, the leaves cut like razors into my skin, connoting the crown of thorns worn by Jesus during the crucifixion.

The religious metaphors in these images portray this notion of the higher spiritual connection Aboriginal people have with the earth.

Whilst also signifying strength and endurance and a great sense of urgency and purpose. The purpose being their custodial obligations assigned to them as their birthright, to protect the Bonyi and all that Bianca takes on her custodial duties to protect the Bonyi and all that is required to maintain and sustain it. In these images, Bianca channels her ancestors and asserts her sovereign rights as a Kabi Kabi woman.

anniesworkroom.com.au

biancabeetson.blogspot.com

In this work I watched for six months as the once fresh leaves of the fallen tree, dried and decayed, slowly returning to the earth, a new tree began to grow from the stump that remained. The leaves in my work record the story. From new leaves on top to the decay, as the old leaves compost and feed the new tree.

Bill Dorman

Caitlin Franzmann

Mutual Making (Sacred Seeds), 2018

As a child, climbing trees and swinging on swings connected me to the sky and transported me to other realms. The hours spent up a tree were a huge part of my childhood.

This work is part of an ongoing series of in which artist Caitlin Franzmann uses hand-crafted divination cards and objects as the trigger for experimental encounters with participants.

Mutual Making (Sacred Seeds) involves six divination sticks, each relating to a medicinal plant. Participants are invited to hold the ceramic vessel between their palms, shake it and ask a question about their life. With eyes closed, one stick is selected from the vessel. The corresponding medicinal plant and seed packet provides a unique insight into the participant’s question. The seeds can be taken home to be sown or used in a personalised ritual that enables further reflection on what guidance this plant might offer the querent.

billdorman.com.au

caitlinfranzmann.com

I salvage materials from all stages of their life cycle; mostly materials at the end of their life found in a recycling yard or tip but occasionally new materials. I do whatever it takes to transform objects and raw materials into works to love, use, make you cry, make you think or just give you a laugh.

Where child meets the sky.

Carol Russell

Gary Field

Bush Collection

Seed Pod Form

I’ve always loved being in the bush, collecting sticks and natural objects with interesting shapes and texture. I try to use these elements in my work, leaving evidence of the original form of the tree and allowing it to evolve into refinement and purpose.

Each piece of wood is unique, therefore no two objects that I make are identical, the contours of the piece are determined by the tracks and patterns of the grain, like a roadmap guiding me to a destination. The character of the grain speaks of diverse landscapes.

Gary has created a Sculptured Bowl that shares the universal cycle of birth, life, death. Using the seed pod as a symbol of the new life that is given to this old tree as the parts of its wood are re-shaped and shared. The form of the bowl reflecting the gift of food and nourishment.

garyfieldwoodcarver.com

Where possible I try to work with hand tools only.

carolrussellwoodwork.com.au

Jeff Fraser

Jill Sampson

The Disappearing Big old trees are increasingly hard to find.

Jeff is a late and accidental starter in woodwork, having been encouraged into wood turning by a close friend after taking an early retirement from his job in HR management. To his amazement, Jeff found he could not only make things, but had some affinity with wood and could actually do a pretty fair job of it.

My tree is a tree of the past, it’s form created by captured images from an obsolete technology. We are surrounded by imagery, both moving and still; and this sometimes makes it difficult to separate fact from fiction. Have the big ancient forests of the world really been destroyed if we can still view photos and film of them living and breathing?

For Jeff, it is all about the wood – the grain, texture, colour and the special ‘feature’ bits and incorporating them into a bowl or spoon-ish shape that flows and shows the wood to its best advantage.

My tree is a ghost tree. It only exists when the viewer sees it and names it tree. My tree is ancient, yet, newly spun; a witness tree; a story tree; a tree of cycles; of loss; of sadness.

facebook.com/pg/Jeff-Fraser-Wood-Turner

bimbleboxartproject.com/jill-sampson/

Joolie Gibbs

“When you take a flower in your hand and really look at it, it’s your world for the moment,” Georgia O’Keefe.

With this series of work, I observed the young bunyas on my property near Gympie, working plein air, and after a bumper bunya crop (not on my property but very close by), I had ample resources to look closely at this amazing plant.

The core or shaft of the bunya shows the link to the fibonacci, like the pineapple, monsterio delicio and cycads, with its repeating spiral pattern. This may be the simplest and most economical way to maximize seed arrangement, as the Bunya.

Melinda Heal

Mighty Limbs “These Mighty Limbs we Stand to Lose” pays homage to mighty river red gums (Eucalyptus camaldulensis) found along the Murray River. I spent time drawing these majestic trees from life, awed and humbled by their mammoth limbs. Finding it impossible to convey or even truly grasp their size, I turned my focus to their powerful limbs and roots – in places exposed by erosion. As ecologically important sites for birds such as the Yellow Rosella, it’s important we recognise the value of these old ladies of the river banks. Their loss would be ours.

so-meru.com

Melissa Stannard

Rebecca Ward

River & River Bones I take the river with me wherever I go Inside I watch my rivers flow Barwon Darling Namoi Culgoa River Red Gums under flower, banks embraced by roots long, reaching deep, though some have fallen in flood times, a tangled heap.

The rivers still go on – dig deeper – they flow underground like our culture is sound, the rivers still go on.

When times are tough and people rebuff the water and culture unseen. Yes, allow yourself to weep for tears are healing and back into the river they seep. Remember my dear to never have fear, the wisdom of the river, our ultimate wise women caregiver, will flood and flow smooth again, and wash away yesterday's pain. The rivers will rise again for we carry the rivers within us, inside they always rise flow and grow.

facebook.com/Melissa-Stannard-Artist-Jeweller

Bushcraft of the Apocalypse It was confusing, all the stuff that washed up when the oceans finally gave us back some land. Not many two-legged descendents were left to make sense of it and the other creatures scratching out their meagre existences bore only fleeting resemblances to the four legged, two winged animals that had come before them.

Slowly, gnarled and shaking hands tried to piece it all back together. It was opposable thumbs that had gotten everyone into this mess, maybe they’d get us back out of it.

Increasing anxiety around the impacts of plastic on the natural environment and the panic manifested in our growing militarism and sensational popular culture treatment of the looming environmental collapse has resulted in my Bushcraft of the Apocalypse work.

stickandstone.com.au

Richard Vaughan

Robert Andrew

Between Movements 2018 Working as a furniture maker means that generally the wondrous original surfaces of the tree get machined away to suit the design. And for many, trees are mostly about where wood comes from. My work for this exhibition is very much about the tree rather than the wood. This gum tree is a species that has been on this ancient land for millions of years. This work reflects on that and on the lives such trees have witnessed and nurtured over numberless lifetimes of countless forms of life.

richardvaughan.com.au

Held within the layers of this ancient tree are the experiences and interactions it had with the place it stood for centuries. Its growth and stories of the place are recorded between the bark and then archived in timber. It has been recording these stories before the land was known as Australia - before the colonisers.

My work explores this liminal layer between the bark and the timber, and looks at a snapshot in the tree’s time line. It explores a possible language of the tree, a language we need to sit amongst.

robotandrew.com

Ross Annels & Leah Barclay

Scott Pilkington-jones Sitting in Country In this forest we grew up strong Took me long time to grow this long My Brothers my sisters all gone today Left me here to stand all alone With only birds to call me home

Noosa Pengari Steiner School Students

Furniture artist and Sculptor Ross Annels collaborates with Soundscape Artist Leah Barclay to explore furniture that speaks with the voice of the trees.

rossannels.com leahbarclay.com

Slices of History The Students from the Steiner school and wider community have created a series of landscapes and stories carved and burnt into slithers of the wood, to create a narrative of how they share the environment with trees and what that means to them.

noosasteiner.qld.edu.au

Tamsin Kerr

Tim Johnson

Love -Trees ‘Bark scarred, hearts deeply carved into living tissue, love declared, presence announced.

Asphalt ruptured, roots outlined - sticky dripped calligraphy lines the road of our neighbourhood, bitumen seals the gaps where the heat of the day and the fig roots disturb and cleave the tarmac’ Newcastle Notes, Tim Johnson, NSW March 2017 Trees Speak Stories through their grains, I try to translate these stories, borrowing from words and research in the human world to begin to tell the story of this more than human place.

English artist and basketmaker Tim Johnson presents a series of images exploring urban trees - loved and abused, their surface appropriated for our use from notes of love to notices of lost cats

cooroorainstitute.org

timjohnsonartist.com

Viki Murray

Photographers Anne Harris James Muller Owen Lyons Sam Frysteen

Tim Johnson Uwe Wullfen Viki Murray

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS & GRATITUDE This Project was made possible by funding, mentoring, inspiration and ongoing support of the following organisations and community contributions from Crowd Funding.

Finding Solace Using the camera as a paintbrush, I employ the forms of nature to shape visual tales.

I collect and compose, my primary objective is to evoke the very essence of that moment in time.

To be alone in nature when the sun is low brings the sweetest feeling of belonging.

To impart the ethereal tone that the light quality brings to a place in those short moments, and give something of myself in that time and place is what my creativity is all about.

vikimages.com.au