WISDOM AT THE CROSSROADS PODCAST.
Episode 20 marks a milestone for me. My podcast has so far been about the backstories of various paintings. The end of season 1 is less about endings and more about absolute beginnings.
The backstory of “INTROSPECTION” is essentially my backstory. The painting is 30” x 40” of 17 year old me at the tail end of the Photo Realist era, blending yet not trying to conform.
This first major painting became a deep and thoughtful, painstakingly rendered, reflection on the developing self and the value of mentorship. The episode follows up with reflections on the supportive structures and people we seek and discover who help to guide us through the business of life and art.
This week is about gratitude for my “village”, for you for spending your valuable time listening in or catching up through the blog. It’s about courage and commitment, growth in the present and being seen in a very first exhibit in the past.
Season 1 was the response I created to answer my own questions, “If not now, when?” And “Why not me?”, which we all can ask ourselves. Together like any good diptych or triptych, we are greater than the sum of our parts.
Check out the expanded show notes below and do enjoy the meditation which begins at 11:38 in the recording.
It begins with a reference to a beautiful dream and an invitation to be open and accepting of opportunities for transformation and growth that exist around us all.
Go ahead, dive in to a world of imagination and possibility. I’ll meet you there with a breath of fresh and loving air.
INTROSPECTION detail at home 40 years later. Acrylic on Canvas c.36” x 48” 1983.
This episode marks the end of Season 1 and I can hardly believe it. It doesn’t feel like an ending as it seems I am just getting going on this podcasting journey.
On any journey we meet others along the way. I am especially grateful for your accompaniment listening in. I hope you are connecting to your own stories through my examples.
Nothing happens in isolation and though i might be recording these episodes in the glamorous surroundings on the floor of my closet, made cosier loaded with sound absorbing pillows., it is definitely not the curated capsule Barbara Eden inhabited in “I dream of Jeanie” in the late seventies.
Here in my make shift beginner recording studio I have often ended up laughing at myself getting tangled up in my own words. Sometimes I may have uttered the odd swear word or curse? but you’ll never know thanks to Andrea.
I have not undertaken this adventure entirely alone.
I met Andrea Mccallum, Host of “Spirit Crumbs” Podcast online and she is doing the heavy tech for me, editing and uploading. Thank you Andrea. Anne Barnes host of “Raising Inner Warriors” podcast is keeping me accountable. We met in an online course with Cathy Heller. I didn’t even know I wanted to do a podcast when I came across her serendipitously but I did know I wanted to do things a bit differently
INTROSPECTION detail. There was a lot of painstaking blending and attention to details for my then 17 year old self. My painting focus may have changed drastically but snippets of that version remain. Not necessarily the agitated screaming version presented here. lol
Last fall Cathy Heller asked a question that really resonated with me. It inspired this new journey. The question she asked was, “Where will you be a year from now?”
In response too that question I chose to take a risk to share my accented voice as i answered my own questions ...
“If not now, When?” and “Why not me?”.
If we have learned anything in the past few years it is that life is precious and like Forest Gump we never know what we are going to get when we open up our box of chocolates
Finding mentors and mentoring. learning and teaching, growing and moving forward are some of what I have come to believe this journey called life is all about.
The painting I want to share with you today to end of Season 1 goes back to the very beginning of my creative journey, to my seventeen year old self creating my Grade 12 major work for the Higher School Certificate in Australia.
Diane Epoff ran the art department at that time and she was young and enthusiastic. She became a mentor and was an amazing inspiration to many. I was on a science trajectory at the time but art history was also a passion that spilled out into the art room where my cohort Sher, and I spent days in the storeroom at play with materials putting together our portfolio’s for art school admission. I loved the experimentation with materials and the freedom to play but the unofficial skip day was a little problematic for my unblemished attendance record. The fact that I was school captain also made the (mis)adventure a little more risqué. Diane was supportive and encouraging through all of it and even drove us the two hours to Sydney to tour the grounds of the Art school and to deliver our portfolios by hand. Two of her 6 senior students went on to exhibit with Art Express and were later accepted into Austalia’s most prestigious art school. This was a major coup for our regional high school on the south coast and for Diane, our mentor, in particular.
I found this on a friends facebook. Thanks Tony S. Grade 12 Oak Flats High School 1983. Even then it seems i had an affinity for screaming reds
“Introspection” began with a photographic study. I ranged the quadrangle during art class as I learned to use an SLR camera. Here I found students on the way to the bathroom or the principles office and asked them to pause for a minute to take their picture. They were always happy to indulge my request and delay their return back to class or wherever they were headed.
Alex Stajonovic was in the grade below mine but he was a big personality who was naturally happy to participate on his way back from the canteen one morning. Alex is in the foreground bottom right. Tim Dodds from my grade has the dark roguish curls, my sisters friend Leonie the long blonde straight locks. I wanted variety in my subjects in terms of gender, grade and hairstyle. Diversity was not a thing in the region at the time. From the many portraits i collected i ended up with this arrangement. My bff Vicki had been enlisted to take photos of me. I disliked having my picture taken then as I do now but in those days we had film and not the luxury of an immediate digital review. That’s me going against the grain in Small town Coastal Australia where uniformity was both encouraged and expected. Creativity was a bit of a blip on the radar but no matter how hard I tried to colour in the lines it just wasn’t how things worked out. lol
Not everything was a variation on the brown theme where I grew up. This is local Shellharbour North Beach
My dad built me a fine stretcher frame for this project and later became known for the lightest tightest and most solid stretchers on our art school campus. I was excited to stretch my own canvas in grade 12 to begin the painting which was an exercise in patience and observation. 1982 was at the tail end of the photorealist era championed by Chuck Close in the US and Jeffrey Smart in Australia. In the paintings of the latter the freeway that wrapped around the printmaking campus on Cumberland street , The Cahill Expressway, was not far from circular quay on Sydney Harbour’s “The Rocks”. This coridor featured in several of his paintings.
Anonymity reigned in his work and in the big city.
We had a lot of fun there and soon realized Art school was a lot different to the painting weekends Sher and I had indulged in in our backroom in Grade 12. At that time others would be sneaking off to the bar but we were painstakingly blending ochres and oxides into neutral tans and earthy skin colours late into the night. Red oxide yellow ochre and burnt umber combined with black and white in tints and shades. This kept the subjects uniform. Their personalities came through in small ways described by shape, texture and individual poses. For such a still painting there was a lot of movement in the composition. There are many lessons i gathered in those long weeks that I continue to use in my current practice. The blending, the earthy colours and the figurative photorealism have not been a thing in my work for years. Instead the remnants of a double major in Printmaking seem to have held on.
This fun little art room monoprint was made on the unofficial “skip day” and became part of my art school portfolio submission.
Our Art school was spread across two campuses which meant for a long walk or a 380 bus ride across the downtown of Sydney, from Oxford Street in Paddington on the border of the red light district to the printmaking and photography studios on the Cumberland street campus . The journey took us through the reality of Jeffrey Smart’s cityscapes with the human content unedited.
Printmaking can be toxic I soon learned. In those days we used oil based inks and sprayed the screens clean using copious amounts of paint thinner without respirators. The process gave me headaches but I learned to tame the discomfort with a coffee and cigarette at the break. I also learned to think in layers, to hold one colour at a time in my hand, to use the same colour in multiple areas of a composition and to create darks by mixing compliments together. These are all aspects I continue to use in my painting practice. combined with clean brushes to give my work its signature colour that resonates as energy within a composition
Introspection off its stretcher. This painting has been in classrooms on three continents and now finds itself off its stretcher in my sewing room. Can’t live with it can’t live without it lol
My Major work in Grade 12 was the first piece of mine to be publicly exhibited. It was exciting and terrifying at the same time. I learned after the fact that my painting had been set up high in the Hordon Pavillion, Sydneys iconic concert venue where it was used as a grading signature against which other entrants major works were evaluated. This was the only venue large enough to accommodate the creative contributions of an entire states budding artists. It was also in this same venue that years later I stood with my boyfriend, mere feet away from Bono during an epic U2 concert and also the place where I danced on a chair while in a cast to my hip when Bruce Springsteen came to town.
All that observational skill and uniformity I used in “introspection” must have been appreciated then. Spontaneous it definitely was not. When it came back from exhibiting around the state it had a 2 inch tear in the canvas where careless handling had pierced the surface. That taught me to be a careful packer and an even more careful handler or artwork, mine and anybody else’s.
Local context, Shellharbour North
Favourite morning walk
In art school I had also learned not to stand on the median between four lanes of rush hour traffic with a large canvas when it was windy and that the bus driver will let you on with your project but good luck in rush hour.
Schlepping was a thing even then. These days I restrict myself to panels that can fit in the back of my car with the seats down. I will no longer rent a truck to transport a commission.
The ability to spend hours engrossed and in my work is another habit I have held onto. Sometimes it might be better if I could also take a look in the mirror before heading out and about after my studio time. That way i might not be told by the cashier at the third stop on my way home, “Oh there’s something green on your face” , umm there. oh and there and on your chin too”. OMG
l am still guilty of losing track of time and having to rush off without taking time to check all my surfaces paint but that’s just that way it is and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
You know I love to view life in the details. This is Tim Dodds and I.
This first podcasting season has been a lot of things. First and foremost its been a healing journey for me. i learned to do hard things, to share my voice, to wrestle technology to try to be a mentor myself in some small way for you along your journey, creative or otherwise.
Creativity is my companion on the roads less travelled that i have always been drawn to. I hope in listening you have gained some insight into my process as well as my methods of processing and that these examples might give you food for thought on your own journey.
I especially hope you have been able to pause to participate in the meditations. Honestly I find even typing them out that I feel my body relax and settle and start to tune out... you know those head bobs we do when we are watching a movie and its late. I rarely get to the end of the movie but i have been able to get myself back on track to finish the meditations. They generally find their way to the page sometimes without much input from me. I am sometimes amazed to find such Wisdom, at the crossroads, where action and presence meet.
Season 2 is still evolving. I know it will begin with a painting called “Crossroads” and it might take a stroll towards textiles. If you have any questions or requests please feel free to reach out. I am open to connecting and collaborating and hope to see you back in September. In the meantime please revisit any of the stories or meditation that have resonated for you and if you feel inspired, please do welcome a friend of two to listen in too.
Local colour may have left more of a lasting impression than I had imagined? This is an example of a current work, WONDERLAND, a diptych, each panel 4 feet x 4 feet. Large paintings have bloomed on my painting wall this past winter. Apologies for the snap shot quality. I am missing my photographers technical skill. This painting may have had a couple of tweaks in the foreground since this pic was taken, …it happens, just sayin’.
Well, we have come to the end of todays backstory. Thank you for spending your valuable time tuning in to this episode. I hope the images are helpful and that you are finding something of your story within mine by listening in to the podcast, or catching up through this blog. If my work or words inspire you please consider sharing the podcast with a friend or writing a review on apple podcasts . You can listen to the full episode anywhere you get your podcasts.
All best, Amanda