Saturday 9 March 2013

Sally Brown Draws

To draw:

1. to cause to move in a particular direction by or as if by a pulling force; pull; drag (often fol. by along, away, in, out, or off)

2. to bring, take, or pull out, as from a receptacle or source: to draw water from a well. 

3. to bring toward oneself or itself, as by inherent force or influence; attract: The concert drew a large audience.

4. to sketch (someone or something) in lines or words; delineate; depict: to draw a vase with charcoal; to draw the comedy's characters with skill. 

5. to compose or create (a picture) in lines.

6. to mark or lay out; trace: to draw perpendicular lines. 

7. to frame or formulate: to draw a distinction.

8. to write out in legal form (sometimes fol. by up)Draw up the contract.

9. to inhale or suck in: to draw liquid through a straw. 

10. to derive or use, as from a source: to draw inspiration from Shakespeare. 

11. to deduce; infer: to draw a conclusion. 

12. to get, take, or receive, as from a source: to draw interest on a savings account; to draw a salary of $600 a week. 

13. to withdraw funds from a drawing account, esp. against future commissions on sales. 

14. to produce; bring in: The deposits draw interest. 

15. to disembowel: to draw a turkey.

16. to drain: to draw a pond. 

17. to pull out to full or greater length; make by attenuating; stretch: to draw filaments of molten glass. 

18. to bend (a bow) by pulling back its string in preparation for shooting an arrow. 

19. to choose or to have assigned to one at random, by or as by picking an unseen number, item, etc.: Let's draw straws to see who has to wash the car. 

20. Metalworking.to form or reduce the sectional area of (a wire, tube, etc.) by pulling through a die.

21. to wrinkle or shrink by contraction. 

22. Med.to cause to discharge: to draw an abscess by a poultice.

23. to obtain (rations, clothing, equipment, weapons, or ammunition) from an issuing agency, as an army quartermaster.
 

24. Nautical.(of a vessel) to need (a specific depth of water) to float: She draws six feet. 


25. to leave (a contest) undecided; finish with neither side winning, as in a tie.

26. Cards. 




  • to take or be dealt (a card or cards) from the pack. 
  • Bridge.to remove the outstanding cards in (a given suit) by leading that suit: He had to draw spades first in order to make the contract. 
27. Billiards.to cause (a cue ball) to recoil after impact by giving it a backward spin on the stroke. 

28. Northeastern U.S. (chiefly New Eng.). to haul; cart. 

29. Hunting.to search (a covert) for game. 

30. Cricket.to play (a ball) with a bat held at an angle in order to deflect the ball between the wicket and the legs. 


31. Curling.to slide (the stone) gently. 


32. to steep (tea) in boiling water. 


33. to form or shape (glass) as it comes from the furnace by stretching.  

34. to exert a pulling, moving, or attracting force: A sail draws by being properly trimmed and filled with wind. 


35. to move or pass, esp. slowly or continuously, as under a pulling force (often fol. by on, off, out, etc.)The day draws near... click here for more still

The word 'draw' is amongst the most loaded of all words in the English language. Sally Brown, as a maker, is a 'drawer' and subliminally she draws on place in the ways pacemakers and placemarkers do in order to celebrate her placedness. There is not much space for words in Sally's practice.



Click here to go to her folio – DRAWING:Found & Made

Sunday 24 February 2013

International Art English Exposed

click here to go to source
A user's guide to artspeak: Andy Beckett The Guardian, Sunday 27 January 2013 19.00 GMT 


"Why do so many galleries use such pompous, overblown prose to describe their exhibits? Well, there's now a name for it: International Art English [IAE]. And you have to speak it to get on. Andy Beckett enters the world of waffle ... The Simon Lee Gallery in Mayfair is currently showing work by the veteran American artist Sherrie Levine. A dozen small pink skulls in glass cases face the door. A dozen small bronze mirrors, blandly framed but precisely arranged, wink from the walls. In the deep, quiet space of the London gallery, shut away from Mayfair's millionaire traffic jams, all is minimal, tasteful and oddly calming.

Until you read the exhibition hand-out. "The artist brings the viewer face to face with their own preconceived hierarchy of cultural values and assumptions of artistic worth," it says. "Each mirror imaginatively propels its viewer forward into the seemingly infinite progression of possible reproductions that the artist's practice engenders, whilst simultaneously pulling them backwards in a quest for the 'original' source or referent that underlines Levine's oeuvre."
If you've been to see contemporary art in the last three decades, you will probably be familiar with the feelings of bafflement, exhaustion or irritation that such gallery prose provokes" ... Click here to read this article
All this is not a phenomena confined to the High Art venues of  London, New York, Paris, Berlin etc. .... Its just as prevalent in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, Adelaide, Hobart and even Darwin. Sometimes IAE is applied to Aboriginal art and when you read it you might wonder where has all the 'placedness' gone? 
International English by itself tends to be disempowering when it blends-in and blands-down the vernacular wherever it is used. The project, seemingly somewhat imperial by nature, is predisposed to the 'Englishness' implying some kind of hegemonic authority in operation from elsewhere. When it is applied to cultural production it seems we enter even deeper water.

Saturday 16 February 2013

The Colonial Gaze via QR Codes


click here to make the link if you
 do not have a SMARTphone to hand 

Dr David Hansen [1] wrote to us saying “I found a desk note when I had an idle 10 mins., and offer the following as a possible start for a review of images of the place Tasmania”.

We did ask David to think about it and we followed his advice. First up we GOOGLED the 30 images he suggested. 

The thing is that all the images are by-and-large available in the public domain and on the Internet – and in a variety of contexts

Yet seven IMAGEsearches led to a DEADend. However, some of the DEADends are in the process of being ‘unblocked’.

Interestingly, the GOOGLEsurf – arguably almost any  such search – alerts the ‘surfer’ to all kinds of subtexts and interpretations – sometimes contentious imaginings. In turn the surfing often provides a new – or at the very least other – layering’s of cultural insights and other information. 

But does one follow that idea to somewhere interesting? If one were to take the conventionally 'ethical' course we'd still be looking for permission to publish.

However, enter stage left the now somewhat ubiquitous QRcode (Quick Response Code) which offered us, it seems, an opportunity to share the surfing. Which in turn, also allows our co-surfers to draw their own conclusions, make their own observation and imagine their own stories.  Enjoy the CYBERjourney back and forth through time!

Wednesday 30 January 2013

maireeners .... an unbroken thread through time

click on an image to enlarge

This set of images, texts and hyperlinks linked to from here aims to set up rhizomic linkages from this entry that may take readers on a journey. Quite simply its an attempt to briefly put Tasmanian shell necklaces in a 21st C context. In the context of Tasmania's history and heritage plus the layers and the layering of understandings at work in Tasmanian communities 'shell necklace making' has a special place in the Tasmanian imagination. There are Aboriginal stories and settler stories that interweave and they are always in the background somewhere in Tasmanian imaginings and story telling.

maireener – white cockle and grey gull shells
Lola Greeno
IMAGE: DEFINITEstyle 

Ray Norman Feb 2013

Saturday 26 January 2013

Australia Day: Australia's contentious national day



celebrate what's great - click here

ABC: your australia day pics 2013 – click here

how to eat on australia day – click here

protocols for flying the flag  click here
About the flags: Click Here

The Australian Aboriginal Flag was first raised on 12 July 1971 at Victoria Square in Adelaide. It was also used at the Aboriginal Tent Embassy in Canberra in 1972. Mr Harold Thomas from Northern Australia designed the flag. The Australian Aboriginal Flag was proclaimed an official flag of Australia on 14 July 1995. The Australian Aboriginal Flag is protected by copyright and may only be reproduced in accordance with the provisions of the Copyright Act 1968 or with the permission of Mr Harold Thomas. 




Did you also know that while it is protocol that when the Australian National Flag is flown with flags of other nations, all flags should be the same size and flown on flagpoles of the same height, this same protocol does not apply to the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander flags? 

That means that in practice, the Aboriginal and/or Torres Strait Islander flags fly lower than the Australian flag, in spite it being designated as an official flag of Australia. The Flag Act 1953 makes provision for the Governor General to make rules about the flying of offical flags. The Torres Strait Islander Flag was adopted in May 1992 during the Torres Strait Islands Cultural Festival. The Torres Strait Islander Flag was proclaimed an official flag of Australia on 14 July 1995. The Island Coordinating Council holds copyright in the Torres Strait Islander Flag. Requests for permission to reproduce the Torres Strait Islander Flag should be addressed to the Secretary of the Island Coordinating Council.


If you think the Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander flags should be the same size and flown on flagpoles of the same height: email the Governor General

WATCH THIS SPACE

placescape placemakig placemarking placedness .... geography and cultural production

This special issue of the journal Coolabah comprises contributed papers and presentations that examine the relationships between place, placescape and landscape – Australian places and imaging’s. Australian perspectives of place and cultural production unavoidably confront issues of identity simultaneously from antipodean and elsewhere vantage points.
WATCH THIS SPACE FOR NOTIFICATION OF PUBLICATION DATES
EDITORS

W.E. Boyd1 & R. Norman2
1.     School of Environment, Science & Engineering, Southern Cross University, Lismore, NSW 2477, Australia. william.boyd@scu.edu.au
2.     zingHOUSEunlimited Trevallyn Tasmania 7250, Australia,  THEzingHOUSE@7250.net