ARTS ZINE SEPTEMBER 2021 by Robyn Werkhoven

s t u d i o

L A P R I M I T I V E

arts zine

issue 43 september 2021

DAVID MCLEOD

Harmony Parke , Acrylic on canvas, H2 x W3 Ft. David McLeod.

bigbreathproductions.com

SEIGAR

seigar.wordpress.com

instagram.com/jseigar

M A N

D Y R O

Instagram : mandyr2306

B I

N S O

Strings and Sealing Wax (L), A Pineapple Mystery ® Mixed media over stapled cardboard, approx. 120 cm.

All That Glitters, Maitland Regioal Art Gallery Mandy Robinson 2018. Photo: Solomon Wilks.

LYN BURNS page : 68

Left : White Peacock, Settlers Arms Inn, St Albans, Pastel , W75 x H55 cm . Lyn Burns.

slp

A R

studio la primitive

CONTRIBUTORS

Q Mandy Robinson

Reese North

Brett Masters

Peter J Brown

George Gittoes

Eric Werkhoven

Hellen Rose

Robyn Werkhoven

Lyn Burns

David McLeod

Mark Elliot-Ranken

Helene Leane

Lorraine Fildes

Barbara Nanshe

Bernadette Meyers

Art Systems Wickham Gallery

SEIGAR

Art Quill Studio

Maggie Hall

Timeless Textiles

Skylar J Wynter

Newcastle Potters Gallery

Black Crow Walking

Sculpture on the Farm

Brad Evans

Dungog by Design

U I

D I O

Ginkgo Tales. Technique and Media: The artists signature MultiSperse Dye Sublimation (MSDS) technique, hand painted, screen-printed and stencilled employing disperse dyes, native flora, low relief items, opaque and metallic pigment on synthetic substrate. Size: 13 cm wide x 23 cm high. Marie-Therese Wisniowski.

INDEX Editorial …………

Robyn Werkhoven

Studio La Primitive ……

E & R Werkhoven

Feature Artist ………..

Mandy Robinson

10 - 27

Poetry ………………..

Eric Werkhoven

28 - 29

Feature Artist …………

George Gittoes

30 - 33

Feature Artist …………

Hellen Rose

34 -39

Poetry …………………

Skylar J Wynter

40 - 43

Feature Artist ………...

Brett Masters

44 - 67

Feature Artist ……………

Lyn Burns

68 - 85

Poetry …………………

Brad Evans

86 - 89

Feature Artist ………..

Maggie Hall

90 - 99

Feature Artist …………..

Bernadette Meyers

Poetry ……………………….Reese North

112 - 115

Feature …………………

Lorraine Fildes

116 - 141

Poetry …………………

Peter J Brown

142 - 143

Poetry …………………

Mark Elliot-Ranken

144 - 145

Feature Artist …………… SEIGAR

146 - 153

Poetry ……………………. Black Crow Walking

154 - 157

ART NEWS……………….

158 - 183

FRONT COVER: Study, pencil on paper, Brett Masters.

100 - 111

Page 10 : Reasons to Be Cheerful, mixed media ( collaged drawing), H20 x W 30 cm., 2019, Mandy Robinson.

EDITORIAL Greetings to our September ARTS ZINE readers. We again in this month’s issue wish to stress the importance of the Visual

Lorraine

Fildes, our resident travel photographer and

writer features Sydney's Extraordinary Landmark Buildings.

Arts , Music and Literature, in these demanding times with COVID 19, to keep creative and stay positive.

International Spanish photographer SEIGAR features Btch in the

Beach (Featuring Candy Porcelain). - “a message of freedom,

The September Arts Zine features a selection of interesting and vibrant

diversity, acceptance, visibility, and inclusivity.”

Australian contemporary artists, photographers and writers.

Sydney artist and poet Mark Elliot-Ranken presents the poem

Newcastle artist Mandy Robinson presents her fanciful and boldly coloured

The Northmen come!

collages and assemblages from re-cycled and found materials.

We are introducing two new poets to this month’s Arts Zine -

Award winning artist and film producer George Gittoes writes about his latest

remarkable painting Medieval. Don’t miss reading art and music performer Hellen Rose’s feature, a thought provoking story - Heading Back While Everyone Else is Leaving. From the Illawarra, NSW, accomplished artist, sculptor and poet Brett Masters writes about his world of art. Sydney artist Lyn Burns presents her stunning pastel landscapes - “Being in

the landscape, drawing from nature, is what I most like to do”.

Skylar J Wynter and Black Crow Walking.

Don’t miss out reading new works by resident poets Brad Evans, Reese North, Peter J Brown and Eric Werkhoven. ART NEWS and information on forthcoming art exhibitions. Submissions welcomed, we would love to have your words and art works in future editions in 2021. Deadline for articles 15th OCTOBER for NOVEMBER issue 44, 2021.

Artist and poet Maggie Hall, presents Claude Watson School for the Arts. This month Sydney artist and photographer Bernadette Meyers returns with an exquisite photographic feature Tidal Flow.

Email: werkhovenr@bigpond.com Regards - your editor Robyn Werkhoven

The publisher will not accept responsibility or any liability for the correctness of information or opinions expressed in the publication. Copyright © 2021 Studio La Primitive. All rights reserved. No part of this magazine may be reproduced , in whole or in part, without the prior permission of the publisher.

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S T U D I O

P R I

M I T

I V E Chasing the Ghost of Religion, panel 4 of mural Life’s Parade, Acrylic on canvas, H90 x W 120cm. E&R Werkhoven, Maitland Regional Art Gallery 2011.

www.studiolaprimitive.net Issue 43 - September 2021

MANDY ROBINSON

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MANDY ROBINSON Artist Mandy Robinson lives and works in Newcastle NSW. Collaging and assembling her fanciful and boldly coloured artworks from re-cycled and found materials. “Drawing, cutting, stapling and stitching all involve small repetitive movements, and build with small elements toward a unified structure. I find these processes meditative and soothing. I like to build up from a grid or a framework of some kind - I look for stability, balance, symmetry, a structural soundness, in whatever I am working on.”

Page 10 : Signs of Life, mixed media ( collaged drawing), H20 x W 30cm., Mandy Robinson 2019.

Right: A Lot to be Said, mixed media, (collage) on found cardboard, H40 x W30 cm., Mandy Robinson 2021.

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My Satellites Stitched collage H30 x W30 cm. Gosford Regional Gallery Mandy Robinson 2015. Photo: Solomon Wilkes.

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MANDY ROBINSON - INTERVIEW I was born in Sydney in June 1961. I don’t like to call myself an artist, because I have not ever been absolutely sure of the definition, but I have loved to draw and make things, ever since I was very little. Drawing has always been a soothing, meditative practice for me, and it remains my favourite way to figure things out. I think that almost everyone has happy memories of drawing and building things when they were young - with play dough, Lego, sand, mud, cardboard boxes, whatever else was around. I’m not sure why so many people seem to stop wanting these activities to be part of their lives beyond childhood, but I think it may be because at some point in their education the focus moves from the enjoyment and experimentation of the process to the resulting product, upon which all kinds of

judgement are made. Many of the people whose work I enjoy most today are untrained, or ‘raw artists’, who are (or were) completely focussed on the activity, or process, of their work, and its place or function in their own lives, rather than seeking an audience in the broader world. There was a wonderful travelling exhibition of work like this at MoNA a few years ago, presented by the Museum of Everything. Many of the makers represented in the show produced the work to address their own very personal needs, rather than in any attempt to communicate an external message, and these were the works that I felt the strongest connection to. The work that has always appealed to me most is any in which the joy and the gesture of making it are apparent.

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I went to the TAFE art school in Hunter Street, in the late 1970s, and later to the Newcastle University art school. I spent about seven years altogether at one art school or another. There were no huge fees then. It was a wonderful time, working in big studios with lots of other people around. I had some great teachers, and made some great friends. I learned to use different materials and processes. I started as a painter, and I still love to paint, but over the years I have moved more toward assemblage – in sculpture, collaged drawings, and mosaic. In some ways this was out of necessity, because (oil) paints are expensive, and some are toxic. When my children were born I didn’t want any harmful chemicals around, and the budget for art supplies during this time was also very limited. I started collaging and assembling things with the sort of materials that come for free – junk mail, old envelopes, cardboard and plastic from packaging, empty bottles, small appliances that had stopped working, clothing the kids had grown out of. It was a sort of extension of our home economy – I have always re-used old clothes to make new ones, made blankets out of old jumpers, meals out of leftovers, gardens from cuttings – so I also see the cooking and sewing I have done for myself and my family, and the making of our home and garden, as forms of assemblage, and I have found a lot of satisfaction in these pursuits. Drawing, cutting, stapling and stitching all involve small repetitive movements, and build with small elements toward a unified structure. I find these processes meditative and soothing, as I mentioned above. I like to build up from a grid or a framework of some kind - I look for stability, balance, symmetry, a structural soundness, in whatever I am working on. I read a lot, I look at other people’s work, I listen to music and podcasts, I spend a lot of time in my little garden - and I think all of what I absorb in these pastimes manifests in what I make.

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Installation view (detail), collage, stapled cardboard and found objects, various dimensions, maximum height approx. 180cm., All That Glitters, Maitland Regional Gallery, 2018. Photo: Solomon Wilks.

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There has been some sadness in my life, as there has for almost everybody. I feel the need to hide away from time to time. There are things that I worry about, ideas that haunt me. These things leak, sometimes more obviously, sometimes more obscurely, into my work, but I am not trying to teach any lessons. I am just trying to work things out for myself. Although I worked consistently, I exhibited only very sporadically throughout the years of paying a mortgage and

looking after my children. I returned to the idea of exhibiting more intentionally around ten years ago, at the encouragement of friends, and worked at this for a few years. I had one solo show, and participated in many group shows. I made several larger bodies of work for several duo and trio shows that I was very happy with.

Right : Glory Bound, mixed media (collage drawing), H40 x W30cm. Mandy Robinson 2020.

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In 2015 I produced two series of work for Well Worn at Gosford Regional Gallery, a trio show with Leonie Andrews and Jane Robinson (no relation). The show looked at aspects of our relationships with clothing. All the Days was a series of stitched collages, and the Vanities was an accompanying

series

three-dimensional

stitched

assemblages. All the works were produced from articles of clothing that my family had worn. I had sewn and repaired the clothes, and washed and ironed them for my family to wear, so the work was about those little acts of love, and it was a homage of sorts, to the fabric works of Louise

Bourgeios. In 2016 I had a duo show, Everything that Rises, with Jen Denzin, at Back to Back Galleries in Cooks Hill. I produced a series of stapled cardboard assemblages, mainly using discarded beer cartons and wine boxes from skips outside

bottle shops. The largest of these pieces, an awkward girl in an ugly dress, was around two metres tall. The show, for me, was about the volume of things that people accumulate and discard over their lifetimes.

Right :Solo Tango, mixed media (collaged drawing), H30 x W20cm. Mandy Robinson 2021.

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Throughout 2017 I worked for another duo show with Jen, All that Glitters, held at Maitland Regional Art Gallery in 2018. This exhibition, presented in the Art Factory at the gallery, and aimed at a younger audience, continued the theme of warning of the perils of mass consumption, and again, I tried to use the discards, packaging and disposable messaging associated with modern marketing. I used bright and shiny surface treatments over what was essentially refuse, to try to

illustrate how we are sold these things as consumers. Making work and exhibiting it are two very different occupations, and I have come to realise that for me, contemplating the exhibition of work during the making of it negates a lot of the joy, and with it, the benefit to my wellbeing, of that process. Exhibiting can be very stressful, and it is often expensive. It is generally exhausting. Work made in the intimate atmosphere of a crowded home studio can look insignificant and lost in the context of gallery, and larger work, designed to

occupy gallery spaces more confidently, though exhilarating to make, can be difficult to store, or otherwise dispose of, post exhibition. During the past few years, for all of the reasons above, and, as well, the uncertainties presented by the pandemic, I have not focussed on making work specifically for exhibition, though I have happily made small contributions to a few larger group shows.

I spend a few hours, on most days, at a table in our back room at home, drawing, and cutting paper shapes that I move around to make images with. There are usually little stacks of unfinished things sitting around, and piles of paper, old envelopes, and small, flattened cardboard boxes.

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Although I hope, in the future, to find enjoyable and sustainable ways to exhibit larger series of work in physical spaces again, for the moment I am content to participate, when I am invited to, in group shows, and

to share images of my work on Instagram from time to time. I enjoy the opportunity that Instagram provides to communicate and exchange ideas with other

people

all over the world, and see what they are doing in their studios. I have also bought, sold, and exchanged work via this access. - Mandy Robinson © August 2021.

Left : L-R A Friend Indeed, An Awkward Girl in an Ugly Dress, a Relative Stranger, A Painful longing, stapled cardboard, maximum height 210cm. Everything That Rises, Back to Back Galleries, Mandy Robinson 2016. Photo: Solomon Wilks.

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G A L L E R Y

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D Y R O B I

N S O

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Page 20 : Outmoded, stitched acrylic felt, and pom poms over discarded modem. Approx. Height 30cm. All That Glitters, Maitland Regional Gallery Mandy Robinson 2018. Photo : Solomon Wilks.

Right : Colour Load (L), Odd Socks ® Stitched assemblages, various dimensionsmaximum height approx. 35cm. Well Worn, Gosford Regional Art Gallery Many Robinson 2015. Photo : Solomon Wilks.

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Page 22 : Left - Enjoy Responsibly (L), First Wash Separately (R),

One Size Fits Most (centre), cardboard assemblages, Various dimensions, maximum height 120cm. All That Glitters, Maitland Regional Art Gallery, Mandy Robinson 2018. Photo : Solomon Wilks.

Page 22 : Right - A Pearly King and A Pearly Queen

Stitched assemblages, various dimensions, maximum height approx. 45cm. Well Worn, Gosford Regional Art Gallery Mandy Robinson 2015. Photo : Solomon Wilks.

Right : Hit and Missed, mixed media, (collaged drawing)

H30 x W20cm. Beneath, Gallery 139, Newcastle. Mandy Robinson 2017.

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M A N

D Y Page 24 : Chart of Days

Stitched collage, approx. H25 x W 25 cm.

Many Robinson 2015.

B I

Well Worn, Gosford Regional Art Gallery

Photo : Solomon Wilks.

Left : For Only Metal Ink on paper, approx. H30 x W20 cm. Mandy Robinson 2020.

N S O

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Page 26 : Left - The Same Old Sorrow, ink on paper (drawing) Approx. H30 x W 20cm. Mandy Robinson 2020.

Page 26 : Right - Waiting Room, ink on paper (drawing) Approx. H30 x W 20cm. Mandy Robinson 2020.

Right : Wound Too Tight, ink on paper (drawing)

Approx. H30 x W 20cm. Mandy Robinson 2020.

Instagram : mandyr2306

E R

SAFE PASSAGE

Enter please, feel free, it is not an obligation. Where it turns into, having to sign our name.

Traces, of thoughtful speculation, run through the bulk of all our life expectations.

From one end, to the next negation, of the things we are absolutely frightened of,

the consequences.

And so we manage remarkably well as if we have earned our stripes for another year,

O V

booked for next semester. It is this ongoing belief that illuminates our discipline, a kind of habitual understanding, that never ceases to amaze us, even when we question it relentlessly, or let it just run its course into unlimited space.

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To redefine where the memory takes us. Where there is a song worth practising, the scales and clearness of tone. Or how our breathing becomes breathless, struggling under the influx of all sorts of compounds shimmering in the air.

The smoke and dust of unquenched fires, of living mutants with sharp fangs and near death experiences. Feel free not to sample the pile, of do not touch. It is what makes life so uncustomary difficult.

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E O

I T

T O

S Issue 43 - September 2021

MEDIEVAL GEORGE GITTOES

Durer’s engraving ‘Knight, Death and the Devil’ jumped out of the page to me, as a kid, in Rockdale. I loved it and studied it

for hours and hours. It was like the dark drawings I was doing. My mother was worried they showed signs that I could be mad and sent me to get brain scans. In 1494, the 23 year old, Albrecht Durer, rode his horse across Europe, from Nuremberg to Venice over the Brenner Pass. Albrecht left his young wife to fend on her own as he headed out on his quest to experience the light of the Renaissance. Imagine how incredible that journey was. Passing through villages in the grip of the plague and still under the cloud of the dark ages. My journey has been through a world where we travel by air and have electricity to light up the dark. With modern education, technology, medicine and culture it should have been a peaceful ride but I have travelled through Nicaragua, Somalia, Cambodia, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Gaza and Hebron, Apartheid South Africa, Syria, Yemen, Lebanon, segregated Southside Chicago, Iraq and Afghanistan and seen more death and destruction than I want to remember. Nightmare memories that wake me at 3 am. and make it impossible to return to sleep. They are all there in ‘MEDIEVAL’ – the Killing Field skulls, the raised hand gun of Chicago, Sniper Ally of Sarajevo, the Devil of Religious fanaticism, Death as a Joker and the main theme of all my work, the impact of war on innocent children. A little girl rides behind the Knight on his robotic horse while a small boy runs towards CRIME SCENE TAPE, waving his hands in the hope of help. Page 30 : MEDIEVAL, Oil on Canvas, H6 x W7ft. George Gittoes 2021. Issue 43 - September 2021

In 1494, Durer was heading for the Renaissance but as Hellen and I prepare to leave for Afghanistan our friends at the Jalalabad Yellow House are fearful we are entering a very dark time. The Australian Embassy has exited Kabul but we have to be there to keep the Yellow House and its dreams alive.

This is the moment where America is withdrawing from the world. When we fly out, in a few weeks, Hellen and I will be riding a plane into a post American world – and times darker than Durer could imagine. I think of Voltaire’s Candid ‘All is for the best in this best of all possible Worlds’. Regardless of the threat, Hellen and I remain optimists believing in ‘Beauty in the Face of Everything’ and ‘Art in Place of War’. Back in 1996, when I was in a bus, returning to Sarajevo with refugees, after witnessing a terrible massacre, we stopped to

refuel. I went for a walk and sat in a field. It was spring and everywhere beautiful mauve-violet irises were blooming like wildflowers. It seemed wrong for nature to persist with such beauty while Humanity went on creating atrocities. In my painting ‘Medieval’ the robot horse is stepping forward over these irises to a track scattered with unexploded bombs and shrapnel. Vincent liked to paint his boots – old and worn from the road. My shoes have had to step on dead bodies at Kibeho in Rwanda and run from bomb blasts and gunfire. My travel agent will get Hellen and I ‘there’ very quickly but once on the ground it is all walking.

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GEORGE GITTOES George Gittoes is a celebrated Australian artist, an internationally acclaimed film producer, director and writer. Gittoes’ work has consistently expressed his social, political and humanitarian concern and the effects of injustice and conflict

"I believe there is a role for contemporary art to challenge, rather than entertain. My work is confronting humanity with the darker side of itself." As an artist Gittoes has received critical acclaim including the Blake Prize for Religious Art (Twice) and Wynn Prize. He was awarded an honorary Doctor of Letters by the University of NSW. His films have won many International Awards and in 2015 he was bestowed the Sydney Peace Prize, in

recognition of his life’s work in

contributing to the peace-making process.

George Gittoes, 2020 Newcastle Regional Art Gallery. Photo by Christine Pike.

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H E

L L E

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O S E Hellen Rose in Kunar. Photo courtesy of Hellen Rose.

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Heading Back While Everyone Else is Leaving Hellen Rose As I was running through my mind the clothes and things I will need to take back to Jalalabad this morning, I woke up to an email from a long-lost cousin who I had not seen in 30+ years since we were around 14/15. She came to our home to live with us, as she had been put into juvenile justice – she had been raped by a gang of young Muslim steel workers who had picked her up initially to smoke a joint and when they turned the corner, a bunch of their mates jumped in. She was not related by blood but through the second marriage of the handsomest most regal and snobbish uncle on my mother’s side. This little daughter had actually initially been adopted by her mother, so wasn’t even her mothers’ blood. My Uncle was a very Victorian, highly educated, kilt wearing, rolls Royce driving, self-indulgent middle aged and cruel man. She was beautiful with white soft blond hair, a heart shaped face with pretty white teeth and a strong young perfect body, why no one seemed to want her or really care about her I will never understand. I remember meeting her and playing as very young children in her palatial lake side home, she seemed perpetually in ‘trouble’, we jumped out her bedroom window to escape the scary, drunken and loud parents and run down to the lake to breathe. Years later now a teen, my mother took us to see her in ‘Keelong’ a child remand centre and prison at the back of Figtree, I couldn’t understand why she as a rape victim was in gaol, yet the rapists were at large. We brought her home to stay with us. We went to court with her, my mother, sister and I saw the accused ‘gang’ who sneered at us from the dock. The judge found that he could not

gaol the offenders as my cousin had not divulged in her first statement to the police that she initially got into the car with them for the purposes of smoking a joint. This gang drove her at 14 into the bush, stripped her, raped her, bashed her over the head with a wrench and left her for dead. She told me she came too, completely naked and ran through the bush for miles in pitch darkness with the sound of the kangaroo’s leaping around her which terrified her until somehow, someway she came to a farm house and woke the shocked people who put her in blankets and called the police.

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After the case was heard, we were sitting in my mother’s car outside the Court House, smarting and disgusted at the verdict when the ‘gang’ came up to our car and jeered and scowled at us through the window. The very next week I was in at the big shopping mall in town when I suddenly saw them as I neared the escalators that rose to a large mezzanine, a huge type of circular interior like an old opera house shape. I jumped on the elevator and in my biggest voice called out to the whole space “These boys rapped my cousin and dumped her in the bush for dead! Hear me, look everyone, these men!” I pointed to them, “ Everyone see these men”!! The whole supermarket of people turned, and the men scowled and hissed at me but then ran. I still feel the brilliant catharsis of that moment while writing this now. The power of ‘the voice’ to be heard.

I am going through my burqa’s and niqabs to pack for leaving. I have decided to take a Saudi style Chadoori as well just in case ISIS are on my path… I was thinking this morning about how it’s so prevalent to focus on the downtrodden and dreadfully abject plight of the Afghan women, but I have met many who have fought back and demand to be heard and who have even sacrificed their lives to do so. Just as my cousin has somehow

found her way out of the labyrinth of chronic child hood post traumatic self-destruction so too do women everywhere, fight back including in Afghanistan. On an early visit I met a woman who I was introduced to as the deposed Queen of Afghanistan, a descendant of the Afghan Royal Family and cousin of Mohammed Zahir Shah the last King of Afghanistan, Shahla Ata. She was hiding from her opponents, with her daughters. She was staying in the largest suite at the Spinghar Hotel, where we were also residing, I recorded several interviews with her. She was dripping in gold jewellery and loved having me into her private area in the back rooms of her suite. The lounge area was full of people in waiting, strange swarthy men with worry beads whirling through their hairy knuckles, some in western style suits others in traditional turbans of material wrapped around their heads like fairy tale characters and always the men with AK47’s, the guards. Sometimes I saw small groups of women huddled together on one side of the room, with stony faces in tight scarves, wearing an Afghan Women’s executive style heavy suites, skirts revealing only the tips of black pointed boots. Shahla spoke English with a heavy accent and when she removed her diaphanous head scarves revealed her long hair pulled back in a loose ponytail entwined with more golden chains and pinned with jewelled trinkets.

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She carried the weight of the world upon her fragile shoulders but cheered up on my visits as we drank tea and I told her of the lifestyle of Australian women, often making jokes just to hear her laughter like that of a crystal bell suddenly shattering the all too dour and sombre air. She discussed her time sitting in Parliament and fighting for women’s rights. She had served as an independent legislator since 2005 in the Afghan Parliament. She also ran the Atta Foundation - an organization dedicated to providing support for women whose husbands are physically disabled or dead. I met her in 2010 after she was one of only two women who ran in the 2009 Presidential Election, she came 14 th in a field of 32. There is much confusion about her life and she told me the horror of being accused of her husbands and one of her daughter’s murders in a horrendous smear campaign. She was frightened but she told me she would keep going and she said this with a deep glimmer in her eyes, knowing what her fate would be, she would not go down without a fight. She told me she hoped to send all her daughters back to live in the US, she had two with her, they would come in on our chats at times and ask me about my clothes and get me to sing western jazz songs for them. The last time I saw Shahla was in Kabul at a big Amnesty Media conference where we had been rushed in with a young intelligent male reporter, I thought he was intelligent until on a question about arranged marriages he yelled to the speaker in anguish “ but if girls can choose who they want to marry wont that be anarchy? What will happen to our country?”. I suddenly saw Shahla with her entourage and she me, she called me towards her and squeezed my hands and hugged me, it was just after the Sep. 2014 elections. I asked her how she was, and she looked deeply in my eyes and said, “The wolves are scratching at my gates, getting closer every day, every hour”. I hugged her again and told her I was sure she would out smart them all. A few months after in early 2015 she was found alone, murdered on the floor of her house in Kabul.

Many people in Afghanistan who see western movies think that the freedoms women have displayed in these films are a fiction, made up to sell movies. I brought the actress and first female Pashtun Director who features in Love City Jalalabad and Snow Monkey, as well as several Pashtun Films we made and is a Yellow House Jalalabad core member, Neha Ali Khan, back to Australia. I remember telling her that men were not allowed to force their wives to have sex with them in Australia or they would be charged with rape. “Ohhh” she exclaimed with wide eyes and nodding, “that is greeeat!”. I told her that women travelled anywhere they wanted, without scarves and that they could eat drink and smoke in public and anywhere they liked alone and unaccompanied by men or other women. She was amazed by this and I think didn’t quite believe me. Issue 43 - September 2021

She had a long-standing dream she told me about to ride a bicycle where she pleased with the wind in her hair, she often got on a bike at the Yellow House and rode up and down the drive way inside the gate. She was so excited when I picked her up at the airport in Sydney, she could hardly believe her eyes. She was amazed to see that I arrived at the airport alone and that I drove her back to our home, her eyes wide and glued to the streets with the people wearing shorts and T- shirts women meandering where they will, driving, everything was true in the western movies. “It’s true!” she whispered as she turned to me with tears in her eyes. I brought her back to the place we were staying, we unpacked and milled about a bit, suddenly from the second-floor window George could see Neha on the street below, he turned to me and said, “why is Neha standing in the middle of the road smoking?”.” because she can I replied” and we both laughed. I had my very handsome young nephew Neo at the time staying with us, his tall blond Nordic looks reminded her of the foreign soldiers Neha had seen on the streets of Jalalabad, she marvelled at his kindness and politeness towards her. We put two bicycles in the back of the station wagon and told both of them to jump in the car we were heading to Cronulla at sunset. “We’re taking you bike riding!” George exclaimed. Neha still couldn’t quite believe it and didn’t know what to expect. When we pulled up by the sea on a spectacular summer afternoon with babe’s in bikini’s, boys and girls with surfboards, women jogging in Lycra with earbuds blasting music as they ran, restaurants filled with beautifully dressed men and women sipping wine and gazing out at the glorious sunset.

“Ok Neha, Neo is going to ride with you along the beach path, get on the bike and go for it” George and I both directed them. Neha was standing almost frozen, “Go on get on and ride!’ I pushed her. “Really? Really? “YES!” George and I insisted. She jumped on and seemed to levitate along the path, a smile so wide, tears rolling down and drying on her cheeks as she rode, the summer breeze whisking them away. Her and Neo flew along the path back and forth until long after sunset. When they arrived back I don’t believe I have ever seen such a happy face as Neha’s at that time, a face that expressed the exhilaration of the first enjoyment of true freedom from a simple bike ride.

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HELLEN ROSE Singer and performer. Awarded BVA Hons, M Teach, Grad Cert Arts and NSW Premier's Award 2014. Manager/Co founder The Yellow House Jalalabad, Afghanistan. Rose is Co Producer and Music Director at Gittoes Films Pty Ltd. George Gittoes and Hellen Rose make documentary films, often in and about war zones. Their latest film White Light deals with the gun violence that's rampant in the Englewood neighbourhood of South Side Chicago, USA.

www.soulcrimeband.com www.hellenrose.com Hellen Rose, Newcastle Regional Art Gallery 2020. Photo (detail) by Christine Pike.

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HUMAN IDENTITY There seems to be an increasing desirability

I am not interested in your sexuality, gender, or colour of your skin

to subdivide and label every idiosyncrasy

because media is making it the trendy thing.

that makes up the synchronicity of humanity.

I am interested because you are a fellow human being,

I have noticed this has seeded a concept

ergo connected to me by all we have in common.

there is a right and wrong of, and between, us.

Fascinating, because of all the things we don’t.

To combat that, I want to identify as human only.

Valuable to each other, because our history and heritage

I know our individual needs,

has imbibed us with important, intuitive, sacred knowledge.

secreted in the gaps in our own story, means

Stories, customs, generational and cultural wisdoms

not everyone will want the same thing,

to be shared to unite instead of divide, us.

but please, when you look at me, see only a human being

because the me I want you to know

Classification singles out characteristics

is hidden beneath layers of skin and bone,

that segregate and diminish

accent and clothes

the perfect fusion of all that is human.

and it’s not always a comfortable fit or indicative,

Is that world

that what you see is what you’ll get

we want future generations to come into?

I am not, my age, weight or genital set.

Neither do my eyes, height, nor colour of my skin tell you anything, except generalisations about how I fit into a society using classifications to make us identifiable. Sub-classes of Human to separate us into groups of people instead of, Species: Human; united, as a group of individuals. Issue 43 - September 2021

UNSAID

U N S A I D

There is something to be said

Tell me. Do you know of it?

for a love conceived from words unsaid.

Have you ever felt the tireless wings of it

A love where there are no words,

fly you through the depths of it,

only raw senses sensing instead.

allowing the decompression and expansion of it

A love where there is no choice

making you question if it exists inside of you,

but to feel, yet give no voice,

or you inside of it?

to feelings felt in quantum realms

If you have, you are one of the lucky ones.

of endless dimensions that overwhelm

For there is something to be said

the senses. Leaving you senseless,

of a love that keeps your soul tethered

with no sense left to create a weft

without a word being said.

of words that can somehow express the enormity of it.

A love with no words to articulate the landscape of feelings not man made but ancient. Full of magic so elaborate and powerful, no grimoire exists to make the speaking of it allowable. A love that allows a single look or fleeting touch to shape time, so it lasts beyond times touch. Never fading or aging just upstaging any other emotion masquerading, in the shadow of it. Issue 43 - September 2021

RUFFLED WATERS The breeze, triggering the rippling, Out beyond the water’s edge,

is not decimating but cleansing.

the glassy surface, yesterday impervious

The colours of reeds and mosses muted,

to even a ripple, begins to ruffle.

are daily transmuted

A reflection of all that’s

with changing skies.

unsettled beneath my skin.

This is where truth lies, I realise.

Things I contain. Keep in.

Here. There. Somewhere in between the glare

Anchoring them offshore

of full sun on a summer’s day,

to prevent onshore pandemonium.

and a landscape filtered grey

Exhaling, the zephyr of my breath

when dark clouds ballet

joins with wind, until I breathe in.

over mountain tops.

Stealing back what I gave.

A landscape never lies. It may change.

Just as the waves draw back into nature’s container,

May appear unfamiliar. Different.

the grit that will form another layer

But its truth on any given day

of a foundation impervious

is reflective only of the light that shines on it.

to the activity on the surface. The waves, lapping at the waters-edge,

are nothing that the shoreline cannot manage.

Issue 43 - September 2021

SKYLAR J WYNTER

Skylar plans to finish the manuscript for her third book of poetry and beat her nemesis - her first novel - into submission by year’s end.

After winning the 2020 KSP Unpublished Author award, Skylar J Wynter’s first book, Pieces of Humanity, was released on October 10th, 2020. A mixed collection of poetry, flash fiction and short story, its launch aligned with National Mental Health month and became a best-seller on Amazon a month later. In 2021 it was included in the Hollywood Swag Bags, gifted to the Oscar Nominees.

Skylar resides in the Perth Hills of Western Australia, where she pens her creations overlooking national parkland and when she is not writing, likes to create jewellery and garden sculptures. She loves a great book, a sunny day and witnessing humans behaving decently. She hates cooking, and injustice, hopes Covid-19 disappears, that online poetry

Described by best-selling author and poet, Kelly Van Nelson, as ‘Cutting straight to

events don’t and that she finds time to sleep somewhere between

the chase with raw words that pack a punch… and goes straight to the heart of the

projects.

taboo.’ Pieces of Humanity is touching all who read it. As Covid-19 spread across the globe, forcing live events to shut down, Skylar joined the world of online zoom poetry, and launched Pieces of Humanity to a zoom room full of international poets. Over the next twelve months, as the world remained in lockdown, she was invited to be the headline poet at numerous online events across the USA and UK, had a piece entitled Behind Closed Doors – Poetry For Therapy, included in the 2020 Melbourne Fringe Festival, was interviewed by Karen Sanders for her Northern Beaches radio podcast, had her poem, The Phone Call included in Echoes and Edges Collab, and included in an Australian anthology of poetry, Globalisation, had her poem, How To Avoid A Train Wreck, included in a UK anthology, Geography is Irrelevant and a third poem included in a US anthology, Sinew – 10 Years Of Poetry In The Brew. Skylar has also been interviewed by Lauri Schoenfield on her Inner Enlightenment show and developed many new friendships with poets across the globe.

2021 has seen Skylar win her first poetry slam, be involved as a performer and headliner at several events, take part in the poetry film created by Scottish poet Fin Hall, entitled Poets In Therapy, collaborate, create and perform in her first spoken word film, Love In All Places, with American poet, Special K, which was offered a publishing contract and will be available for purchase online soon, appeared as guest poet on The Poetry Of Painting, a live show hosted by Artist, Fiona Hooper, and will see the release of her second book – a collection of poetry and art launched in later part of the year.

Photo: Skylar J Wynter, courtesy of poet.

https://www.skylarjwynter.com/ Issue 43 - September 2021

BRETT MASTERS

Issue 43 - September 2021

BRETT MASTERS

Brett Masters lives and works in the Illawarra NSW. He has taught drawing and painting for many years. Exhibiting his work in Regional Galleries and in commercial galleries in Sydney and locally on the south coast NSW.

“My work is figurative. My work is not so much realist but more reconstructed ‘reality’ though most people would simply see it as ‘realist’. I select, ignore, recompose etc. to suit my sensibility and am not concerned with how close it is to the actual ‘subject”.

Page 44 : Self Portrait, oil on canvas. Brett Masters. Right : Standing Nude, ceramic relief. Brett Masters.

Issue 43 - September 2021

BRETT MASTERS - INTERVIEW When did your interest in Art begin? Like all children I loved drawing and making things from an early age. That love simply continued as I grew older. My earliest memory of ‘Art’ was the cover image of ‘The Great Masters’, a large monthly folio series of art books that my parents bought for my sister. It was Tiepolo’s ‘Woman with Parrot’ and I thought it the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. I would have been around 5 or 6 years old.

Have you always wanted to be an artist? When young I never thought about an artist as something separate from anyone who liked making things. So becoming an artist as such, is just something that happened as my interests deepened. I think everyone has some aspect of artistic expression. And not simply contained by what we traditionally think of as Art.

Describe your work? I make paintings, drawings, sculpture, prints, and write poetry (I have recently had a poem published in a national magazine and another accepted for publication). All the visual disciplines in my work have a foundation in drawing. My work is figurative (though when younger, I made abstract work). My work is not so much realist but more reconstructed ‘reality’ though most people would simply see it as ‘realist’. I select, ignore, recompose etc. to suit my sensibility and am not concerned with how close it is to the actual ‘subject’. Page 46 : Amy, pencil on paper. Brett Masters.

Issue 43 - September 2021

What is the philosophy behind your work? I have no set philosophy but principles of order, harmony, simplicity, and composition are important to me.

Do you have a set method / routine of working? I tend to work in bursts, though draw constantly. I work from life, from photographs I take and from drawings. I have always done copy studies of other artists work as a way of looking intently to

understand the work and have a resonance

with the artist. If working from life or from photography, I always do many drawings and then paint from those. I like the ‘distance’ from the immediate

subject that working from drawings provides. I never project or trace. With clay modelling,

I often work directly from life or from memory.

How important is drawing to your work? Drawing is a foundational activity for me and informs everything I do. Whether painting, sculpture or printmaking, probably ninety percent of the artists I admire have drawing as a foundation to their work. More generally apart from producing drawings, the ‘process’ of drawing no matter the result helps us to see and understand the world. The only time we look ‘intently’ for any length of time, whether for ten minutes or an hour or three hours etc. is when we sit down and draw. The translation of sight into marks on a page, organising, building form, selecting or ignoring etc. becomes an expression of sensibility and deeper understanding. This is true whether they are brief like the marvellous Rembrandt reed pen drawings or more studied like the Ingres portrait drawings. Most of the time we just glance at the world just enough so we don’t bump into the doorway but drawing as a process is concentrated ‘seeing’.

Issue 43 - September 2021

Bucephalus Ceramic relief. Brett Masters.

Issue 43 - September 2021

Why do you choose this material / medium? I work across a number of media. Oil painting, watercolour and clay etc. I think oil painting has the greatest power and possibilities at expression. I painted in acrylics for years trying to make it look like oil paint until I had the obvious light bulb moment. In sculpture I make the odd carving and have cast bronze but generally work with clay modelling for its speed and simplicity. I think clay modelling and drawing are such complimentary activities and are nearly two sides of the same coin.

What inspires your work? I think nature is the universal inspiration for most things but in terms of art I think art itself, both historical and contemporary is for me at least, the most powerful inspiration. I get the strong urge to work from looking at artists I admire. I get motivation and ideas from looking at great art.

What are some of your favourite artworks / artists? I have fairly wide ranging interests across all periods of Art. I think Egyptian art some of the greatest ever made and has great unity and coherence across the painting, sculpture architecture and writing etc. Many artists I admire and some that have influenced me not just in terms of style but in terms of attitude and sensibility. A random selection of painters would be

Rembrandt, Velasquez, Ingres, Degas, Bonnard, Giacometti, Picasso, Matisse, Gwen John, Walter Sickert, Balthus, Paula Rego, Rothko, Diebenkorn, Lucien Freud, Euan Uglow and many others. I have a special affection for Degas, Sickert, Bonnard, Freud, & Uglow. In sculpture I especially admire, Maillol, Manzu, Marini, Zuniga, Augustus Saint Gaudens, and Jacob Epstein. The list could go on and on but in my head I have a constant conversation with about half a dozen artists I admire both living and dead.

Issue 43 - September 2021

Standing Nude (detail) Oil on Canvas Brett Masters.

Issue 43 - September 2021

What are the challenges of becoming an exhibition artist? In the old days finding a gallery that believed in your work, supported it and could find a market for it. Now with the digital online world there are a whole range of different opportunities for artists to get their work seen and reach far more people than the old gallery system. The practicalities of affording to buy art materials, rent, models, etc. are still the same though and renting studio space is much harder now.

What is your greatest achievement? I think for an artist the only meaningful achievement lays within the work itself, so my greatest achievement will only be achieved after my death. Other things such as prizes are somewhat a lottery and up to the vagaries of judges and

sometimes fashion or politics. I always liked the story of Degas mocking Manet for accepting the ‘Legion of Honour’, he thought it such a bourgeois thing for an artist to accept. So for me the greatest achievement is the last painting I made that I actually think successful (few and far between) and that remains an ongoing project until one dies.

How has COVID affected your art practice? Being somewhat solitary, COVID hasn’t affected me much at all, apart from not being able to go out and get materials and not being able to work from some of my favourite models. I think that is pretty much the case for most artists and writers etc. Much harder for performers and musicians. Painting by nature is a solitary pursuit. It has adversely affected the students in the small art groups I run, it has made me realise just how important their art groups are to them.

Issue 43 - September 2021

Ian Gentle Oil on board Brett Masters.

Issue 43 - September 2021

What are you working on at present? A small portrait of Degas based on a historical photograph and a small nude based on a life drawing.

What are your future aspirations with your art? My aspirations are as they always have been, to improve, for my work to become richer, more profound and resonant in some way. To embed more meaning within the subject matter and the technique. As I have never been a careerist as such, all my aspirations lie within the work itself.

Left : Jac, oil on board. Brett Masters.

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Peter Oil on board Brett Masters.

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G A L L E R Y

B R E T T

M A S

T E R

S Issue 43 - September 2021

Page 56 : Ashlee, oil on canvas.

Above : Dana, conte on paper. Brett Masters.

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Dana, oil on canvas. Brett Masters.

Dana, coloured pencil on paper. Brett Masters.

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Kim, oil on canvas. Brett Masters.

Kim, pencil on paper. Brett Masters.

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New Holland Honeyeater, pencil on paper. Brett Masters.

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New Holland Honeyeater, etching. Brett Masters.

Kookaburra, pen on paper. Brett Masters.

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B R E T T

M A S

T E R

S Issue 43 - September 2021

Page 62 : Reclining Figure, ceramic. Brett Masters.

Above : Reclining Nude, ceramic. Brett Masters.

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Ian, linocut. Brett Masters.

Ivor, Dry point. Brett Masters.

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Instagram @brettmastersart

Left : Self Portrait, oil on board. Brett Masters.

Issue 43 - September 2021

for Alberto

what was left

was held within the filigree

it was an account

a history

of those restless lines

erased and redrawn but with the doubt left raw and open

what was left

at this time in this space

it was the evidence of oneself

of another existence

E R

was the proof of an existence

Recluse (for Emily) in life

translucent as alabaster

immortality was found

a reluctant moon set at a tangent

within her mind alone

to the ordinary world

bequeathed in a thousand lines

death was an escort

tempered by joy

to hold her hand

and her grief a budding flower

and nature was her joy

each tear a white lily

flowers of contentment

a small flowered candle

were grown in her garden

to illuminate the mystery

and her words

of each beloved taken

like petals from a mysterious flower

one by one

fell fresh upon the page

L Y N B U R N S Issue 43 - September 2021

LYN BURNS Sydney artist Lyn Burns is a Fellow of the Royal Art Society of NSW, a member of Lane Cove Art Society and weekend gallery manager at Lavender Bay Gallery.

“Being in the landscape, drawing from nature, is what I most like to do.

I particularly like drawing with

pastel, however using a variety of media has meant changes in style, experimentation and finding new ways of looking at things.”

Page 68 : Morning's Brilliance, Oil on canvas, H100 x 1W50cm. Lyn Burns. Right : A Whirl of Finches Passed By, Pastel, H75 x W55cm. Lyn Burns.

Issue 43 - September 2021

Foreshore, Ink and Acrylic, H80 x W100cm. Lyn Burns.

Issue 43 - September 2021

LYN BURNS Painting and drawing have always been a part of my life, something passed down from previous generations in my family.

The majority of my works are landscapes and many are somewhat sketchy – I like the drawing, the gesture and movement in the landscape. The natural world provides my subject matter. I tend to turn away from every part of the built environment to concentrate on the wild, the beautiful or the quirky in the landscape. The sea has always had a strong pull for me and I draw the waves, the water’s edge and the expanse of the ocean. Trees also provide wonderful shapes and lines. There are very few straight lines in my work, I like

the twists and turns, the ins and outs. Being in the landscape, drawing from nature, is what I most enjoy. I particularly like drawing with pastel, however using a variety of media has meant changes in style, experimentation and finding new ways of looking at things.

From an early age painting and drawing were part of my family life. When my father had to paint walls at home he would sometimes draw cartoon figures and landscapes with a big brush on a wall before he painted it. My mother worried that these would still be visible on the finished wall. (They never were.) I studied art at school but at university I chose to specialise in Early English. I grew to love medieval illuminated manuscripts with their strong colours, their use of pattern and their spiritual focus. I found the

bestiaries fascinating. Issue 43 - September 2021

For several years in my twenties I attended classes with John Ogburn. He was as much a philosopher as a painter and he gave me a sure grounding as a landscape painter, with his ideas about seeing into a landscape staying with me. He also introduced me to pastels as a medium. I loved using them then and still do. Most of my work is in pastel, done out in the landscape. The way I gradually build up the drawing with pastels echoes the way I become part of the landscape as I sit and draw. I also use other media. Watercolour and ink, and to a lesser extent acrylic and ink, have helped me to explore and to abstract. I enjoy the freedom of these media and for years now have also made cards using ink and watercolour. Doing these I play, concentrating first on making as many types of strokes and patterns

and free forms as I can with the ink. Often I use Indian wooden fabric stamps on the cards, and sometimes in my paintings too. Oils add another dimension to my work. I use them for larger scale works when I want to revisit a landscape or treat new aspects of it. Occasionally I return over and over to a particular subject. For years I painted a certain snow gum down near Jindabyne as it slowly aged and others grew up around it. Then there were a few years of thistle

paintings motivated by a profusion of thistles I saw and painted down near Jugiong. This year I was excited to see the hillsides of pink flannel flowers at Narrow Neck – almost a natural wonder as they had not flowered there since the late 1950s.

Page 73 : A Close Look , Oil on canvas, H100 x W150cm. Lyn Burns.

Issue 43 - September 2021

I have been privileged to know and sometimes to work with artists who have influenced my work. Among them are: John Ogburn, all those years ago; Greg Hansell, whose pastels I admire; David Beschi, a master of watercolour; George Gittoes, who can draw anything and whose imagination is an inspiration; Yvonne Langshaw, whose abstract landscapes are beautiful; Joe Bezzina, who sees uniquely into the landscape; Paul McCarthy, with his amazing use of colour; Cyril Giles, whose landscapes have a spiritual strength; and Guy Warren, whose spirit figures walk in his landscapes. This depiction of something more than the everyday world has always attracted me. For many years I have loved Indian and Persian miniature paintings, as well as larger ones, like the Bundi wall paintings in

Rajasthan. They can elevate the natural to something ethereal. Australian art has also been important to me, with artists Arthur Boyd, James Gleeson and Emily Kame Kngwarreye being just a few whose paintings I love to look at. From further afield, Soutine, Turner, Van Gogh, Monet and O’Keefe. And Odilon Redon, whose use of pastel I am absolutely in awe of.

I hope that viewers of my art works will find in them vibrant colour, a sense of place and a stirring of the imagination.

Issue 43 - September 2021

For many years I have been a member of Lane Cove Art Society and the Royal Art Society of NSW, where I have met and worked with many local artists. For a long time I have also been a weekend gallery manager at Lavender Bay Gallery, which has given me the opportunity to look at a great variety of terrific paintings in detail over time. At present I am working towards exhibiting my work

at the Greenwich Village Arts Trail, which usually takes place on the first weekend of November. This local arts trail began nearly twenty years ago as an exhibition by local artists at Greenwich Sailing Club. After some years it changed in form to become an

arts trail. It has continued to grow in size and popularity, last year counting over nine hundred visitors over the two days. - Lyn Burns © 2021. Window Sill, Ink and Watercolour, H85 x W60cm. Lyn Burns.

Issue 43 - September 2021

G A L L E R Y

L Y N B U R N S Colour in the Cold (Grondcover, Faukland Islands), Lyn Burns.

Issue 43 - September 2021

Blue Shadows, Pastel, H55 x W75cm . Lyn Burns.

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Grose Wold, Pastel, H55 x W75cm. Lyn Burns.

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Greenwich to the City, Pastel, H55 x W75cm. Lyn Burns.

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Where the Satin Bowerbird has his Secret Bower, Watercolour and Ink, H55 x W75cm. Lyn Burns.

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L Y N B U R N S Flying Free, Ink and Acrylic, H80 x W100cm. Lyn Burns.

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Burralow Creek, Ink and Acrylic, H80 x W100cm. Lyn Burns.

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Inside the Landscape (Colo), Pastel, H55 x W75cm. Lyn Burns.

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Pink Flannel Flowers, Mixed Media, H80 x W100cm. Lyn Burns.

Issue 43 - September 2021

Left : On Top of the Hill (Bilpin), Pastel, H75 x W55cm. Lyn Burns.

Issue 43 - September 2021

B R A D E V A N S

beyond the garden Each time I answer her My dry shoe

as if I haven’t answered her before:

steps onto the rain-soaked path,

‘Yes, we’ll all have a cup of tea soon’.

a path of stones.

But before the cup of tea

I turn and offer my arm to an old lady

there was sunlight to enjoy

but she doesn’t accept it on this day -

fresh air to appreciate

she reaches out confidently.

and what a dense bunch of roses!

Her dry shoe

Our wet shoes

steps onto the rain-soaked path,

continued along the rain-soaked path,

We move to our starting block - an upturned pot! We turn and start walking

our steps nudging us ever nearer

take the first corner, reach the gate,

to those cups of tea.

turnaround and go back. We do this thirty times to simulate our usual walk beyond the garden and in this thirty times she asks me on 4 occasions if I can make her a cup of tea.

breakfast for 3 through the open bedroom window he'd been watching the withdrawal of armour a steel snake winding out of the platz heading east - an early signal for peace. Walking into the galley kitchen to make breakfast for his wife, himself and unborn, the radio emitting quavers of communist closure.

B R A D

the lucky drunks The weather was hot and the clementines were growing mould so we didn’t waste time we ate them. Some of them tasted like a good wine, others like shit the luck of the draw.

E V A N S

But the mould wasn’t the only problem there were also gnats and they were trying to get to the clementines before us, some of them chose wisely they looked pissed when they became airborne and flew in some strange, loopy zig-zag pattern but they still couldn’t be swatted they seemed to have a protective spell cast over them. - Brad Evans © 2021. Issue 43 - September 2021

the eyewitness

in habit she looked to the half-shut eye of the moon it's dark lid quivered asudden with a dirty blast of dust-filled fury light she watched in attentive habit - pointing towards those glowing fragments as they tore whimsical away from the weak pull of the moon like coals, fresh & hotly-rejected from the glowing brazier it rose as silently as they fell before the catching and settled-in night where sliding into their deep pockets of dark distances the stars.

Issue 43 - September 2021

Claude Watson School for the Arts M

A G G I E H A L L Issue 43 - September 2021

Claude Watson School for the Arts Maggie Hall

Canada's first public elementary school for the arts, Claude Watson School for the Arts. I was living in Toronto Canada. The year, 1982 and I was 12. With dedication to Claude Watsons known original teaching and office staff who have now passed on. Mr Hyde, Mr McGuigan, Ms Bailey, Miss Bisset. It is now 2021 the age of COVID. One of my old classmates started up a zoom page for the dance majors to reconnect. Perhaps by mistake I was asked to join. My major was drama, my

minor was dance. I am so glad they took me in. I attended one of the meetings without any background, the nerves kicked in and I was that young awkward 12-year-old just wanting to be accepted. I asked the attending for any memories that might help take me back. Thank you to all the respondent imagers. You each gave me back a time lost.

Issue 43 - September 2021

In no specific order: With thanks to Kim, Erika, Sara, Ximena, Billy, and to Jamie for the music. The last paragraph is of my own writing and recollections. 

changing in the kitchen behind the gym and the boys trying to open the door between our space and theirs



eating lunch in the gym



people moving, people dancing with Mrs Wellman for reflections



singing in choir with the whole school



practicing getting on and off stage



making puppets with Miss woods and making plays with Mrs Wellman



national dance skirts and Cuban heel character shoes



weaving



painting house portraits from across the street balance the stage in mine, with Mr East

‘Oh my gosh, Erika, your memory is amazing! I remember drawing houses on Yonge St, and the hideous puppet I made still haunts my nightmares.”

Issue 43 - September 2021

Songs we learned; Kids are Music; Cherry Blossoms; Shrimp Boats. Kids are music, everybody know that kids are music. They are full of music from their heads to their toes.” Hard to believe I still remember the lyrics. The upper floor of the building was used as rented out offices. The basement was under construction until mid of the first year. No art or dance studios either. Music was on the second

floor. In the first year we ate lunch in the basement where our lockers were placed. Piano lab eventually took over these rooms. If you forgot your lunch in the first year, they would give you a milk and sandwich.

Our music teacher Mr McGuigan was so passionate while conducting, his little wand, and hair flying in the breeze. I remember when he fell off his chair in the middle of conducting and climbed right back on while still waving his baton.

Issue 43 - September 2021

Lisa Ference was our *Orff teacher. She was blind and taught us in Braille. I loved her classes. Fascinated by the beautiful Braille books and the way her eyes would silently read the raised plastic while listening to her radio feed. On occasion while waiting in the morning for my first

bus to school, I would pretend to be blind. Partly for the dramatic effect, mostly to study each reacting persons type and behaviour. I wanted to undeserved how she must have felt. Allowing persons to help me onto the vehicle and making room for me to move forward. Accepting the front seat on a full bus while taking pleasure with my affective acting skills. This was only one of

the sins I had committed back in the day. To this day I still have a great fascination for the study of human behaviour. It has also become an important element within my many artistic expressions. *Orff: a specific approach to music education developed by Carl Orff during the 1920s. A system of teaching which combines music, speech, movement, and drama into music lessons very similar to the way a child naturally plays .

Direct Link to Maggie Hall’s videos:

https://www.youtube.com/channel/

UCHbuvwP0_KxFLFDsg1vT7zQ

Link and password sent the day of the event. https://fb.me/e/2kKbiaKyb Issue 43 - September 2021

MAGGIE HALL Artist and writer Maggie Hall has authored and contributed images to several publications. Her choice of medium covers; multimedia; photography; automatic writing; painting and printmaking. She has a Degree in Fine Arts and Masters in

Creative Industries. Maggie Hall was born in Paddington, London England Migrated to Australia, grew up in Canada and then sent back to Australia. She now lives in a coastal suburb of Newcastle NSW , Australia. All Rights Reserved on article and photographs Maggie Hall © 2021. Self Portrait, Maggie Hall.

Issue 43 - September 2021

Tidal Flow

Issue 43 - September 2021 100

BERNADETTE MEYERS

Issue 43 - September 2021 101

Anne Bronte, in her first novel, Agnes Grey, described the experience of a morning walk along the tideline; “My footsteps were the first to press the firm, unbroken sands;--nothing before had trampled them since last night’s flowing tide had obliterated the deepest marks of yesterday, and left them fair and even, except where the subsiding water had left behind it the traces of dimpled pools and little running streams.

Refreshed, delighted, invigorated, I walked along, forgetting all my cares, feeling as if I had wings to my feet, and could go at least forty miles without fatigue, and experiencing a sense of exhilaration to which I had been an entire stranger since the days of early youth.”

If I were a writer or a poet, I could articulate my experiences in words. However, I’ve yet to find a way of expressing verbally what perceive with my senses. Instead, I gather visual imagery and attempt to reveal it that way. The ocean speaks day and night. I cannot translate his language word for word. However, these photographs are an interpretation of what I hear when I listen with my entire being. For these pictures, I was thinking about the flow of time and water, trying to convey the idea of timelessness. To achieve this with the camera, I used a slow shutter speed. Sometimes I held the camera firmly on a tripod, like a rock fixed fast to the earth, unmoved by the waves. At other times I moved the camera with or against the motion of water like a bird searching the shoreline. Since the dawn of creation, tides have been flowing in and out, in keeping with the rhythm of the moon cycle. When I sit by the ocean and watch the waves rolling in, one by one, relentlessly and reliably, they remind me of God’s faithful love. No matter what is happening in our crazy world, we have a Father who watches over us and cares for us. He’s bigger than anything happening in our life. Nature instructs us if we quietly pay attention to her

stories. Issue 43 - September 2021 102

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Each day we are gifted another opportunity to start afresh. All the cares, messes and mistakes of the day before being washed away by the evening tide. The morning is a blank canvas ready for our imagination to paint on. Varied but never hurried, full of energy yet always gentle, the tide’s ebb and flow is a delicate pattern that we can depend on. It is a mystery how the ceaseless motion grounds us.

Issue 43 - September 2021 104

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The endless rhythm of the tidal flow tells of the circle of life. The exuberant inward flow represents new opportunities, life, energy, health and prosperity, while the melancholy outward ebb whispers weakness, loss, sorrow and death. I’d prefer to avoid the difficult and unhappy seasons of life. However, I’m comforted by seeing these echoed in nature’s way. It’s simply not possible to have summer all year round, so I’m learning to accept and be grateful for the winters of life. Every moment is a gift. Thresholds are compelling and thought-provoking spaces in time and place. As the tide turns, it symbolises

moments or seasons of change, opportunity and balance. We need never feel trapped by circumstances. Every difficult moment or situation can be turned around by our mind. There is always scope for a new adventure, experience or way of perceiving. As I stand on the tideline, the waves washing over my feet causing them to sink into the wet sand, the salty water sucks back into the vast ocean. I sense the secret harmony of the mysteries of nature. Now rejuvenated and freed by stepping outside of the human experience of time and into Eternity. I feel God’s embrace.

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B E R N A

D E T T E M E Y

E R S

A LOVE SONG

R E

Along the shoreline

a cold breeze ripples

S E

the still glass surface of the bay. Two white swans circle each other bound by their ring of love;

N O

R T H

while I watch on, my heart in a cage, I pine for love

not mine

i.m. EMMA and SKYE A child’s dream cast within a world of storms; this life. A sudden influx of light that crafts a myriad of forms. A thousand dramas create a mosaic to hold a generation entranced by fate’s mirror in the air.

Thunder’s drum rolls in hills. Woodwind trees blow a dirge to passing life

and memories. A glimmer of renewal remains after earth

cremates

MORTAL FORMS

R E

‘turning a mirror round and round you would soon enough make the sun and the heavens, and the earth . . . .’

The conversation is a murmur

on an artist’s canvas

eyelashes flutter

where blue smoke drifts

on the breeze of silence

then open through sunbeams

and stained-glass colours of jugglers

shut

the dance

and clowns.

Wind chimes

and laughter

echo

around the house;

moods shift

and tired lines

in the faces

figures stand frozen

draped in cobwebs

Plato

smiles pass into smoke,

to catch of revelry

yawn

the artist pauses

EPIPHANY (for the dearly departed) Somewhere movement

between the open

and shut

behind my eyes

I know Eternity, that endless expanse all around me

and light

that no longer exist And we

without shape

Yawns!

from other worlds

seeps into my mind.

who are composed of stuff

born in the core of Ancient suns. We

who are rent from the fabric of Time,

love such simple things

of a newborn child

as the song on the lips

the sweet smell of dawn

and the wonder sown into our mortal hearts. In silence Everything

Sydney’s Extraordinary 21 century

Landmark Buildings

Issue 43 - September 2021 116

Sydney’s Extraordinary 21st century Landmark Buildings Lorraine Fildes Sydney is home to some striking contemporary buildings. In this article I will show you some of the most

impressive structures that have been built in Sydney in the 21st century. Sydney’s earliest architectural landmark was the Sydney Opera House. It is still one of the most extraordinary buildings in Sydney, in fact in the world. So even though the Opera House was completed in the 20th century I have included it in with our 21st century edifices. 1.The Darling Exchange Library & Market . 2. The Dr Chau Chak Wing Building, University of Technology. 3. Sub Station No. 164 at 183-185 Clarence Street.

4. One Central Park Sydney - A Truly Green Building. 5. Crown Casino Sydney. 6. The Sibyl Centre - The Women’s College within the University of Sydney. 7. Sydney Opera House. Issue 43 - September 2021 117

The Darling Exchange Library & Market

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The Darling Exchange Library & Market Address: 1 Little Pier Street, Haymarket. Architects: Kengo Kuma & Associates Building opened in 2019

Kengo Kuma was the architect for this spiralling six-story hive-shaped building at the heart of Sydney’s Darling Square district. Kengo Kuma is a Japanese architect and professor in the Department of Architecture at the University of Tokyo. The civic centre is known as ‘The Darling Exchange’ and contains a library with spaces to support creative and technology

start-ups; a ground floor market hall; a childcare centre; and a rooftop bar with views over the neighbouring park. The wooden screen is comprised of wooden “threads” that are wrapped around the building in an irregular pattern giving it a very different appearance from the surrounding high-rise buildings. The bent Accoya softwood “planks” are randomly placed so that the panels overlap with each other onsite in a manner that the joints cannot be seen. The wooden spiral-shaped façade was extended into the square to transform it into a pergola that provides shade in the square. This Darling Exchange resembles a bird’s nest, creating an oasis in the middle of an urban jungle. When sitting in the library and looking out you feel protected by the wooden “threads”, you feel you are wrapped in a cocoon.

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Wooden “threads” are extended to form a pergola over the square. Issue 43 - September 2021 120

The Darling Exchange Library & Market

Stairs are wrapped around the building enclosed within the wooden “threads”..

Students working in the library safely wrapped in the timber cocoon Issue 43 - September 2021 121

The Dr Chau Chak Wing Building – University of Technology, Sydney.

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The Dr Chau Chak Wing Building – University of Technology, Sydney. Address: 14-28, Ultimo Road, Ultimo Architect: Frank Gehry Building opened in 2014 The Dr Chau Chak Wing Building is an iconic piece of architecture located at the University of Technology Sydney. This is the first building in Australia to be designed by world-renowned architect, Frank Gehry. This 12-storey building is named in honour of Dr Chau Chak Wing, an Australian man of Chinese descent who donated millions of dollars for its construction. The buildings unique design resembles a “beautiful squashed brown paper bag” – only this time having been made up of bricks and glass. The building houses a 240-seat tiered auditorium, a 120-seat lecture theatre and collaborative classrooms. This building is a reminder of Gehry’s vision to create a trunk and core of activity, whose branches will allow people to link up and do their work in a cohesive environment. A closer look at the building’s design reveals its two peculiar external facades. One constitutes undulating brick, and the other is made up of huge angled glass sheets that create fractured mirror images of the university’s surrounding buildings. On entering the main lobby there is a stainless steel stairway. This stairway is an outstanding sculptural form that carries you up to the second floor of the building.

One fun fact about this building is that it has only one straight column and its sharpest angle is cast at 72

degrees. Issue 43 - September 2021 123

The stainless steel stairway in the main lobby is an outstanding sculptural form. Issue 43 - September 2021 124

The Dr Chau Chak Wing Building – University of Technology, Sydney.

The western side of the building has huge angled glass sheets that create

fractured mirror images of the university’s surrounding buildings

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Substation No. 164

Address: 183-185 Clarence Street, Sydney

Architects: Richard Francis-Jones & others from the

T A

fjmt concern. Building Opened in 2021 This building celebrates Sydney’s past, present and future, Substation No. 164 includes the careful

restoration of two historic buildings - a former 1909

wine and spirit warehouse and the adjoining 1920’s electrical substation which underpins a seven-storey

sculptural glass extension designed by Richard

Francis-Jones from fjmt. So now we have 7 levels of refurbished heritage space + 7 levels of new high-rise contemporary office.

The facades of the heritage buildings and much of the internal building fabric, including elements of high heritage significance, have been maintained. The

substation’s original 12-metre-high Machine Hall,

which included the basement, ground floor and first

floor, will be used to create a world-class events area. Issue 43 - September 2021 126

In the early 20th century, the City of Sydney opted to use DC power for safety reasons. No.164 was one of five substations built to convert the AC power generated at Pyrmont into DC power for the city’s lights. After it was found that AC power was safe and did not need to be converted to DC power the substation was closed in 1988. The wine and spirit warehouse was purchased by Sydney County Council, the electricity authority in 1969, as a

possible extension to the Substation, but the plan was never implemented as it became obvious that there was no need to convert the power. The building continued being occupied by commercial tenants until becoming vacant c.1988. Both buildings were left vacant, waiting to be refurbished and thus we now have an outstanding architectural building highlighting heritage features and the latest in technological advances.

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S U B S

T A T I

O N N

O 1 Photo taken from Kent Street.

This photo shows the substation “Machine Hall” with the 12-metre-high ceiling and a

seen on the right hand side of the photo.

view through from Kent Street to Clarence Street. Glass viewing platforms can be

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These two photos show the machinery that operated the lifts (left) and two of the early hydraulic lifts that were used in the wine and spirit warehouse (above).

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A Truly Green Building Address: One Central Park, Chippendale. Architects: Ateliers Jean Nouvel and PTW Architects Building Opened in 2013 This building consists of two iconic towers; one 34storey residential apartment tower and a 12-storey serviced apartment tower both set on a common retail podium. A vertical landscape designed in collaboration with French botanist and artist Patrick Blanc covers approximately 50% of the building’s façade area. Hydroponic walls and low profile horizontal planters and support cables integrated into the tower’s facades support a variety of climbing and spreading plants. The plants act as a natural sun control device that changes with the seasons, shielding the apartments from direct sun during summer while admitting a maximum of sunlight in winter.

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The gardens use a remote controlled, dripper irrigation system and a special process in which the roots of a plant are attached to a mesh-covered felt, soaked with mineralized water. This allows the plants to grow without soil along the face of a wall, a form of hydroponic gardening. The residential tower is marked by a monumental cantilever near its summit. The cantilever houses a common room and panoramic terrace for the residential apartments. A motorized heliostat fixed to the cantilever captures sunlight and reflects it down into the area of the park overshadowed by the tower. The tower and the adjacent park are linked by a series of cascading planted terraces. A lower level plaza lined with cafés and shops provides direct access to the shopping centre from the park.

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A T R U L Y G R E E N B U

I L D I Heliostat reflecting sunlight down on to the terraces.

N G Issue 43 - September 2021 132

View of icon tower.

Close up of the heliostat.

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Crown Casino

Address: One Barangaroo Avenue, Barangaroo

Building opened in 2020

Architects: Chris Wilkinson of WilkinsonEyre

In 2013, WilkinsonEyre won an international

design competition for the new Crown Casino in

landmark design on the spectacular harbour site.

Sydney. The brief was to create a high-quality, As you can see from the photo it is a superbly, elegantly, sculptured building easily meeting the

requirements of the competition.

The building is composed of an elegant, curved

tower’s form is said to emanate from three petals

geometry which is inspired from nature. The

that twist and rise together, and its sculptural shape is derived using parametric 3D modelling. It

accommodates a 60-degree twist in the outer skin

maintaining a vertical core structure.

with helical columns on the perimeter while

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The challenges that this creates for the internal layout are addressed by the setting out of residential villas and apartments in the tower as a spiral, whilst the majority of the hotel rooms are stacked vertically in their own wing. Chris Wilkinson, leading architect on the project said: "Our ambition is to create a sculptural form that will rise up on the skyline like an inhabited artwork, with differing levels of transparency, striking a clear new image against the sky.” I feel the project attained the goal.

Right : Crown Casino and Barangaroo Park - view taken from a ferry on Sydney Harbour.

Issue 43 - September 2021 135

T H E S I B Y L C E N T R E Issue 43 - September 2021 136

The Sibyl Centre Address: The Women’s College within the University of Sydney Architects: m3architecture Building opened in 2018. The latest addition to the Women’s College is the spectacular Sibyl Centre. This award winning design boasts stunning architecture and an extravagant event space. The Sibyl Centre houses a new library, auditorium, tutorial rooms and social spaces, as well as soundproofed music practice rooms and an underground car park. For the 21st birthday of the College, a play was written entitled A Mask, and performed on the lawns in 1913. The play’s protagonist is Sibyl – an oracle who introduces great women from history, to foretell the future of women. A sepia photo of the event, from the College archives, of residents performing this play in 1913 becomes a frieze for the body of the Sibyl Centre. The sepia photo is digitally replicated in perforated copper. The Sibyl Centre is a technologically, architecturally advanced building. The grass mound it is built on actually conceals the carpark. Issue 43 - September 2021 137

Sydney Opera House

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Sydney Opera House Address: Bennelong Point Sydney Architect: Jørn Utzon Building opened in 1973 Sydney Opera House is an Architectural Landmark. “It stands by itself as one of the indisputable masterpieces of human creativity, not only in the 20th century but in the history of humankind.” Expert evaluation report to the UNESCO World Heritage Committee, 2007. As Pritzker Prize judge Frank Gehry said when awarding architecture’s highest award to the Sydney Opera House’s architect in 2003: “Utzon made a building well ahead of its time, far ahead of available technology... a building that changed

the image of an entire country.” Utzon created a sculpture on Sydney Harbour and changed the course of twentieth-century architecture. But while the tale of the Opera House is one of breathtaking triumph, it is also one of personal cost. The building’s design was inspired but engineering problems and escalating costs put such pressures on the architect, Jørn Utzon, that he was forced to resign in February 1966 and he left Australia midway through construction, never to return to see the building completed. In 1999 Utzon re-engaged with the Opera House and agreed to develop a set of Design Principles, to act as a permanent reference to guide all future changes to the building. His Design Principles were published in 2002. The modern multi-venue Sydney Opera House is among Australia’s most famous landmarks, it is also an important example of Modern Expressionist architecture. Issue 43 - September 2021 139

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P E T E R

J B R O W N

Monitor Lizard He slithers in over dry leaves,

the dappled lizard-flesh from the earth

a rope of hunting muscle.

to quell his fear and fill his gut;

His bones curve along the soft sheaves,

those hackles rising, fixed on us from birth,

rustling like lace in a bustle,

not bony plates, not spines, not fur, but

toward our fire, us, our child,

still the nerves light, the fear flits

innocent creature hunting birds and eggs;

across the synapses. Around my finger a ring

the soft shiver of hackles rising wild

curls, Dreamsnake, sapphire set in head of dragon, fits

in me, absurd; his spindly legs,

like a glove, jewel of a Viking king.

pentadactyl limbs, five fingers spreading

The thing is that we evolved from this,

in greeting, the dinosaur meeting

mighty archaeopteryx-hunters, wonders

the old Adam, oldest Adam, and heading

of creation; the dinosaurs kiss from a distance

away from the fine-fleshed mammal, fleeting

and the crack in the fossil record sunders.

flash on the fossil record. Looking down

I find a spade to hand. You can always find blunt instruments in the bush. I met someone who killed a monitor, ate it and skinned it, mined Issue 43 - September 2021 142

After the Burn After the burn, lizards ran in pairs,

After the burn a huntsman came

playing chasings like children,

and I threw it outside, slightly lame.

but there were no snakes. After the burn I drove forever After the burn, birds sang in the morn

in the summer lightning weather,

and came to the window for crumbs,

driving madly hell for leather,

rapping at the glass in double-takes.

after the burn.

After the burn the bush was black,

quite bare and naked,

and bust growing bright green back.

and busy growing bright green back.

'Rimlands' 1m x 2m, acrylic on canvas. Mark Elliot-Ranken.

MARK ELLIOT-RANKEN Issue 43 - September 2021 144

The Northmen come! In the channels, talking to strangers of indeterminate sex a pearl is found in the rim-lands of a dry country. Voss, created by poet’s words echoing another who travelled the already discovered land which tries’ to heal after fire, flood and drought. The Balanda, myself included recipients of the golden fleece

unjustly torn from the land of the marsupial and dingo. while the hunters proclaimed from first day ways of survival in the quiet land. ‘We’ll all be runned’ said the cocky on haunches taxing his lexicon. Troy, burnt to the ground a pestilence of sacker of cities. Is it percipient of future? dreams and overweening collective hubris. We are all on the rim in the Antipodes. - Mark Elliot-Ranken © 2021. Issue 43 - September 2021 145

B T C H

S E I G A R

I N

T H E B E A C H Issue 43 - September 2021 146

Btch in the Beach Featuring Candy Porcelain

by Seigar. This work shows the drag Candy Porcelain doing her act on the beach. Her performance around people involves a message of freedom, diversity, acceptance, visibility, and inclusivity. Drag is a form of art that lets

me create conceptual art pieces and Candy is my muse and inspiration. In Btch in the Beach we find the essence of the character, full of sugar as she was made in a Candy Shop, she brings joy and irreverence everywhere she goes. A normal day at the beach becomes a different experience with Candy, an unexpected twist, and a pop-art statement. I’m interested in opening barriers and fighting for equality through empathy as the only way I have found to keep the revolution of love. Thanks, Candy for your

sparkling and colourful channel.

Team credits: Creative director and photographer: @jseigar

Muse, model, and inspiration: Candy Porcelain @iamcandyporcelain Issue 43 - September 2021 147

C A N D Y P

O R C E L A I N Issue 43 - September 2021 148

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Seigar Seigar is a passionate travel, street, social-documentary, conceptual, and pop visual artist based in Tenerife, Spain. He feels obsessed with the pop culture that he shows in his works. He is a fetishist for reflections, saturated colors, curious finds, and religious icons. He has

explored photography, video art, and collage. He also writes for some media. His main inspirations are traveling and people. His aim as an artist is to tell tales with his camera, creating a continuous storyline from his trips, encounters, and experiences. His most ambitious projects so far are his Plastic People, a study on anthropology and sociology that focuses on the humanization of the mannequins he finds in the shop windows all over the world, and his Tales of a City, an ongoing urban photo-narrative project taken in London. He is a philologist and also works as a secondary school teacher. He is a selftaught visual artist, though he has done a two years course in advanced

photography and one in cinema and television. He has

participated in several exhibitions and his works have been featured in many publications. He has collaborated with different media such as

VICE and WAG1. He writes for Dodho, The Cultural, Red Hot Monde, Intra Mag, and Memoir Mixtapesabout pop culture. Lately, he has experimented deeply with video forms. His last interest is documenting identity. Recently, he received the Rafael Ramos García International Photography Award. All Rights Reserved on article and photographs SEIGAR © 2021.

seigar.wordpress.com Issue 43 - September 2021 153

The Heart of a Child

L A

Her Sunday pink tulle dress covered in flecks of mud.

Devastation appeared,

when you took away her mud pie made her wash her hands

and let go of creation.

What were you afraid of that

would make you stamp on a child's heart?

playing with her child?

Did you not see mother earth

She is dressed

to meet her Goddess.

See's the flecks of mud as claims upon nature’s child.

L K I N

She looks deep into your eyes as you admonished her, gone mad to visit your fear instead of seeing her innocence.

You’re afraid of what the neighbours think, I am afraid of how people think as well! Was the tulle bothered by your expectation of Sunday best? Squatting, reaching into the rain filled pothole. Pulling out tiny handfuls of squishy mud that oozed out between fingers, soft and creamy. It was tempting

to rub it up her arms and watch it dry and crack. Like the earth at Grandmas. Filling the makeshift pie dish, watching the mud spread to level as handful after handful, clumped mud in the middle. What if you sat watching her as I am? Heard her singing her quiet song. Issue 43 - September 2021 154

Saw the butterfly

She would wrap her muddy arms

dancing over her head

around your neck,

and the light bouncing

I know she would.

of the tulle.

Singing her quiet, busy song.

What if you saw her whisper

Wanting you

to the delicate, tiny grass flowers

to not be so all grown up

that she picked so gently,

and full of rights and wrongs.

to decorate her pie?

She sees you, lost in grief.

A garland

Afraid of mud.

made around the edge,

Afraid.

like she'd seen her mother do with pastry. Her mother’s gone now

back to the earth. The Goddess took her. Mother made good pies.

What if she had offered you her pie, as mother did? Would not your heart break with sadness, at the memory and the loss?

Issue 43 - September 2021 155

DROUGHT

L A C

Earth opens her pores to the rain like a woman ready for love. Tiny seeds swell beneath her skin ready to burst forth with any encouragement.

My skin thirsty and dry,

Lusting thirstily for green life,

like the land itself, longing for the first drops of rain

Swelling with pride,

as the storm circles building its thunder.

the cracks of the earth close into mud puddles. Birds dart for cover under the eaves of the veranda

The mountain rolls over and bares her belly to the sky.

C R O W W

A cool gentle breeze wafts over my arms.

My flailing arms fall to my sodden skirts,

I open like a flower,

lifting them to swirl through the puddles,

ready to receive its thirsting quench.

that lay like sheets

spread out to dry. My arms reach up conducting the storm as it circles this dry field.

Then when the last drop

Lightening bounces off the horizon,

has rung itself from the sky,

brilliant, frightening.

and evening has shown itself

A L K I

Warriors of the sky.

as present. I shall dance in the rain, twirling the storm into a frenzy of unleashed passion,

I shall return as the birds do

too long left bereft of touch,

and resume the task of living

barren of creation.

touched by my own wild moments. Creating that inner smile.

BLACK CROW WALKING

Black Crow Walking, artist, writer, healer, teacher and adventurer. This last year has established Crow as an author with three self-published books and another book being prepared for publishing. Crow was nominated poet of the year in 2005 in Washington Dc. USA. She writes as she paints. Putting colourful images that are evocative before the

reader to digest. Crow uses vivid imagery, feelings and a to bring her collected mental images from all over the world into play through her poetry and art. Crow belongs to the Hunter writers centre and several editing groups. As well as running online tutorials.

https://crossings.mystrikingly.com/blog/black-crow-walking https://crossings.mystrikingly.com/blog/black-crow-walkinghttps://crossings.mystrikingly.com/blog/black-crow-walking

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NEWS Issue 43 - September 2021 158

NEWS Issue 43 - September 2021 159

SCULPTURE ON THE FARM 2021

Hornbill by Greg Salter.

Rock’n’Roll by Michael Vaynman.

https://www.sculptureonthefarm.com/ Issue 43 - September 2021 160

Sculpture on the Farm 2021 Sculpture on the Farm 2021 EXCLUSIVELY ONLINE in October. The Catalogue of 150 sensational sculptures will be ONLINE in mid September. Sculpture on the Farm 2021 will showcase 150 sculptures by 73 wonderful Australian sculptors: 75 intimate indoor works and 75 garden and outdoor works. All these works will be visible in the online Sculpture Catalogue by mid-September for you to enjoy. The sales portal will be launched in time for the Sculpture on the Farm Preview on Friday 1 October. Program details soon! The Announcement of Prizes will occur progressively throughout the first 10 days of October. We hope you will embrace the optimism we feel as we transform the exhibition to an exclusively ONLINE

exhibition.

SALES open 1 October ONLINE:. Further information:

https://www.sculptureonthefarm.com/ Issue 43 - September 2021 161

STUDIO LA PRIMITIVE ARTS ZINE Arts Zine was established in 2013 by artists Eric and Robyn Werkhoven. Now with a fast growing audience, nationally and internationally. Their mailing list includes many galleries, art collectors and art lovers. The Zine is free, with no advertising from sponsors. It is just something they wanted to do for the Arts, which has been their lifelong passion. Featuring artist’s interviews, exhibitions, art news, poetry and essays. In 2017 it was selected by the NSW State Library to be preserved as a digital publication of lasting cultural value for long-term access by the Australian

community.

Click on cover image to view previous issue.

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Click on cover to view the issue.

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Click on cover to view the issue.

Issue 43 - September 2021 164

Click on cover to view the issue.

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Click on cover to view the issue.

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PERFORMERS, Acrylic on canvas, H120 x W90cm. E&R Werkhoven.

P R I M I T I V E

www.studiolaprimitive.net

S T U D I O

L A

Maitland Regional Art Gallery 2011.

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POETRY & SCULPTURE The publication includes a collection of poems written over recent years, penetrating and profound observations on life. And a selection of Eric’s dynamic and prolific sculptures.

Enquiries contact: E: werkhovenr@bigpond.com

Page 212 : Left - Front cover, The Fall, Autoclaved aerated

cement / cement / lacquer, H32 x W46 x B38cm. Eric Werkhoven 2013. Page 212 : African Woman, H x W x B cm.. Autoclaved aerated cement / cement.

Right : Eric Werkhoven at Studio La Primitive

Photograph by Robyn Werkhoven. Issue 43 - September 2021 169

GALLERY ON DOWLING Helene Leane Jeanne Harrison Forbidden Landscape,H76 x W50cm. Collagraph, 1990's. Jeanne Harrison.

120 Dowling St. Dungog NSW.

www.heleneleane.com Issue 43 - September 2021 170

Issue 43 - September 2021 171

Gallery Gift Shop at Home An online store featuring a variety of wearable artworks - bracelets, scarves and earrings as well as homewares.

https://timelesstextiles.com.au/product-category/gallery-gift-shop/

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E X H I B I

2021 2 August - 12 September This Ain’t the Archies Group Exhibition 20 September - 24 October Journeys the Silk Road and beyond:

Judy Hooworth

26 October - 28 November

O N

United Tribes… gathering: Susan Doherty

C A L E N D A R

Portrait of Mrs P (Constance Howard) by

By Sue Stone

Recycled cotton, linen & silk fabrics, cotton embroidery threads & wool yarn. Stretched on wooden stretcher bars. W30.5 x H38.5 cm.

GALLERY - EXHIBITION OPEN - 90 Hunter St. Newcastle, NSW.

https://timelesstextiles.com.au/ Issue 43 - September 2021 173

ART SYSTEMS WICKHAM S

U S A N R Y M A N 40 ANNIE ST. WICKHAM, NEWCASTLE NSW.

www.art-systems-wickham.com/

Whispering Pillar- Urban Goddess , coloured pencil & ink on varnished paper, Susan Ryman.

Phone: 0431 853 600

Director: Colin Lawson Issue 43 - September 2021 178

ART SYSTEMS WICKHAM CALENDAR 2021

S U

SEPTEMBER 3 – 19 …. META MORPH

PETER RONNE & ANDREW SUTHERLA

A N

OCTOBER 15 – 24 …… WHISPERING PILLARS

SUSAN RYMAN

OCTOBER 29 – NOVEMBER 7

R ...

PRINTASTIC

NEWCASTLE PRINT WORKSHOP

Y M A N

40 ANNIE ST. WICKHAM, NEWCASTLE NSW.

www.art-systems-wickham.com/

Black Nor’ Easter, coloured pencil & ink on varnished paper,

Susan Ryman.

Issue 43 - September 2021 179

Barbara Nanshe Studio

https://nanshejewellerystudio.com/ Shop 1-3 The City Arcade, 120 Hunter Street, Newcastle, NSW 2300 Issue 43 - September 2021 174

Barbara Nanshe Studio Online Shop Handmade. Ethical. Bespoke. Unusual. Original. Individual

https://nanshejewellerystudio.com/ Shop 1-3 The City Arcade, 120 Hunter Street, Newcastle, NSW 2300 Issue 43 - September 2021 175

Art Quill Studio Marie-Therese Wisniowski

http://artquill.blogspot.com/

LEFT : Rainforest Beauty. Technique and Media: The artists signature MultiSperse Dye Sublimation (MSDS) technique, hand painted and screen-printed employing disperse dyes, native flora, low relief items, opaque and metallic pigment on synthetic substrate. Size: 13 cm wide x 23 cm high. Marie-Therese Wisniowski .

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DUNGOG BY DESIGN GALLERY 224 Dowling St Dungog, NSW. https://www.facebook.com/ DungogbyDesign

Art works details: top by Gaye Shield, bottom by Jo Herbert.

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I B

T B A

2021 CALENDAR

C K

N Aug 20 – Sept 5

October 1 - 16

Environs

Flight of Fancy

Anne Gazzard Judy Hill

Janet Graham

Gwendolin Lewis Debra Ansell

L E R I E

E Contact gallery for update on exhibition calendar changes due to COVID .

N D

57 Bull Street Cooks Hill NSW

Hours: Fri Sat Sun 11am - 5pm

www.newcastlepotters.org.au

R Issue 43 - September 2021 180

Anne Gazzard

Janet Graham

57 Bull Street Cooks Hill NSW

Hours: Fri Sat Sun 11am - 5pm

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Issue 43 - September 2021 182

Rhino Images - Art and the Rhinoceros Lorraine Fildes and Robert Fildes. Art and the Rhinoceros - There are over three hundred Rhino images in this book.

Whether in the ancient past or in the present the rhinos are always represented as huge, powerful and solitary animals. The book includes paintings, drawings, woodcuts, etchings, rock carvings and sculptures of the rhino all depicting the power of the animal. These images of the rhino range from early civilisations such as in China, Roman Empire, Indus civilisation in Pakistan/ India area and from Southern Africa down to current day images of paintings and sculptures produced by modern day

artists. The text indicates where you may find these wonderful images as well as the websites of the artists concerned, the caves where the rhino images have been found and the places where posters use the rhino image. There are very few of these magnificent wild animals left in the world, so unless they are protected and managed, artistic images will soon be the only viewing option.

Rhino Images – Art and the Rhinoceros, First Edition, 2017, is available for download at The Rhino Resource Centre web site. Direct Link :

http://www.rhinoresourcecenter.com/index.php?s=1&act=refs&CODE=ref_detail&id=1518479271

L Y N

B U R N S

B U R N S Bush Meditation, Ink and Watercolour, H65 x W100 cm. Lyn Burns.

ARTS ZINE SEPTEMBER 2021

Articles inside

Editorial ………… Robyn Werkhoven