little boat tree

Illustration Friday - Silence

2011-11-12T14:32:00.000+11:00

An artist a dancer makes

2011-11-02T14:02:00.007+11:00

It is a while since I have been here, splitting myself between BIG things and creating a new body of work for a show with Lisa Rodden I have opening next week at Art2muse. Splitting is not quite the right word though, it's more of a swinging back and forth, never quite leaving one for the other, always informed by where I have been and where I am attempting to get to. Since beginning a collaboration with dancer Jo Pollitt over a year ago I have come to see lines on a page as more of a silent visual choreography. A floor pattern tracking longings and failures; map like; incomplete; absolute. My hand responding to a personal lineage of marks and shapes; histories and broken bones. Working this time to a dissonant soundtrack, Prokofievesque, storytelling the heartbreaks, hopes and missed opportunities of love and partnership. Investigating the losses that come from holding each other too tight, or not enough.

In this new body of work I explore the nature of relationships and the landscapes that sprawl distances between people. Graphite landing on unspoken conversations, making them visible (like rubbings on autumn leaves), even in their emptiness. The little red stitches holding it all together. Corrections like red crosses on a primary school page. A path; a fence; the fabric of our discontent like spiders webs or fishing nets. The unsaid stories that connect us and betray our need for distance, otherness and solitude.

Interestingly, despite the obvious disappointment in some of my images (no doubt a delayed response to my own heart break) I am now involved in the most intense, supportive, challenging and creative relationship I have encountered. The collaborative work I do with Jo feeds, frames and fuels much else in my life. There is something significant about connecting across a great distance with another human being that defies life's hopelessness and disappointments. In my work I search for marks that are relevant, and scribble stories that might change the way we relate to the world in small ways. I worry about the state of the planet, and especially the plight of children living without fresh water, sunlight and laughter. I am not sure how much of a difference my pages of ink can make, but I am convinced that truly connecting with another human being, and then making something together, is a defiant act with unmetered potential to catalyze change. This new body of work is called Infinite Proximity and with enormous gratitude I dedicate it to my creative partner Jo Pollitt for restoring my hope, distilling my fears, and making me far more brave. Thank you x

You are welcome to join Lisa Rodden and I for launch drinks at 6.30pm Thursday November 10th at Art2muse Gallery 475A New South Head Rd cnr Bellevue rd Double Bay.

perpetuity

held

listen

Illustration Friday - Swell

2011-08-13T22:53:00.002+10:00

he held a puddle full of ocean
and the swell
in his arms.

Absence

2011-08-07T09:43:00.004+10:00

I have been absent. Far away from Little Boat Tree inhabiting fully the world of BIG where a rigorous collaboration between Jo Pollitt and I continues daily. It feels strange to return here without her, having worked in such close partnership for 10 months now. I arrive carrying small suitcases filled with the treasures of a responsive, warm and challenging conversation. To see more of what I am talking about pop over to BIG Kids Magazine and jump on the ship as we get ready to sail. It is an exciting time to begin following our journey as we are set to launch the first Issue in Spring. You can subscribe to the BIG Newsletter or like us on Facebook.

So much is happening at once that it feels impossible to hold it all separately. Arms length lessened to fit hundreds of ideas into the same small pockets. Hybrids and amalgamations bearing mysterious fruit. New ways of seeing old loves.

My work in the late night crosses deserts and spans imaginary continents as the boats and birds of BIG land in my personal sketch book. Flocks and flotilla's amidst new cartography's. I have an editorial feature in the latest issue of Paper Runway. If you like beautiful papery things and stories about the people that make them you can read the magazine here, subscribe to it here or find it on facebook.

The galleries that represent me wonder where I have disappeared to. I am brewing and will be ready with a new body and work set to fly for my solo show at Art2muse in November.

Something BIG is being born,
and I have homes on more than one island.
I am here x

Illustration Friday - Asleep

2011-06-01T21:01:00.001+10:00

Morning Poem

Every morning

the world

is created.

Under the orange

sticks of the sun

the heaped

ashes of the night

turn into leaves again

and fasten themselves to the high branches ---

and the ponds appear

like black cloth

on which are painted islands

of summer lilies.

If it is your nature

to be happy

you will swim away along the soft trails

for hours, your imagination

alighting everywhere.

And if your spirit

carries within it

the thorn

that is heavier than lead ---

if it's all you can do

to keep on trudging ---

there is still

somewhere deep within you

a beast shouting that the earth

is exactly what it wanted ---

each pond with its blazing lilies

is a prayer heard and answered

lavishly,

every morning,

whether or not

you have ever dared to be happy,

whether or not

you have ever dared to pray.

from Dream Work (1986) by Mary Oliver

© Mary Oliver

Illustration Friday - Soaked

2011-05-21T21:45:00.002+10:00

Fury of Rain

Thunder beings dance the flooding streets

of this city, stripped naked to their electric skeletons.

I stand inside their wild and sacred ritual

on these streets of greasy rainbows

and see my own furious longing

erupt from the broken mask of change

to stone, to bear, to lightening.

Gut memory shakes the earth like a rattle,

knocking my teeth with heroic thunder.

I could have lied

and not seen my own death

dancing in the streets, the main shady

character forcing me to live.

What can I do but celebrate after

guarding the wreck for thirty-five years, in

this ceremony larger than a damp, suspicious city?

We are all in the belly of a laughing god

swimming the heavens, in this whirling circle.

What we haven't imagined will one day

spit us out

magnificent and simple
by Joy Harjo

illustration Friday - Journey

2011-04-20T09:11:00.000+10:00

The ocean was her map,
undulating and mysterious.

Illustration Friday - Bottled

2011-04-12T11:13:00.000+10:00

keep it on the inside

safe

preserved

pickled

protected

unseen

or let it be free

released

revealed

exposed

wild

shared

Illustration Friday - Duet

2011-04-06T21:25:00.001+10:00

They sang together.

He walked barefoot and gently.

Only slightly broken.

Mostly free,

they made their way home.

Drawing faces

2011-04-01T13:49:00.000+11:00

All of the sudden,

without any warning what so ever,

and hardly a blink from her big brown eyes,

she is drawing faces!!!

Illustration Friday - Toy

2011-03-26T19:44:00.001+11:00

Let them play with dirt and stones

so that they always know how to find their way home.

Give them seeds as treasure and teach them to plant gardens

of flowers, herbs and vegetables.

Take them to sit quietly on early morning dew drenched grasses,

sun kissed and alert,

long shadows and wind songs for their laughter.

Show them how to build with sticks and mud and hay,

so that their walls are soft, and strong.

Give them hands full of river rocks

to count, balance and cherish.

Walk gently by their side,

arms swinging.

Sing them to sleep in your arms.

They are our children.

Let them play.

--------------------------------------------------

I would love to invite you to visit BIG Kids magazine with your favourite children's book or mag in mind and comment for a chance to win two very beautiful paper dolls.

The BIG Kids Magazine paper doll giveaway

2011-03-25T20:19:00.000+11:00

Head over to BIG kids magazine with your favourite kids book or magazine in mind. All you have to do is comment on the BIG blog or facebook page by Sunday to go into the draw for two of Sarah Grenard's beautiful paper dolls.

Paper duck-pigeon doll
Sarah Grenard

Paper doll
Sarah Grenard

Twyla's favourite book at the moment is called The Robot and the Bluebird by David Lucas. It is about a robot who is sent to live on a scrap heap because he has a broken heart. Until one day he invites a little blue bird to live in the space where his heart used to be and finds the strength to make a courageous final journey. It would not be an exaggeration to say Twyla and I have read this book over a hundred times!

For the children in Japan

2011-03-22T22:32:00.000+11:00

I am drawing lots of blue tears mummy. If the kids can't go home they could go to the bus stop and the bus could take them to a different home and maybe their mummy's would be there. I will draw her a house.

I feel things so deeply that watching the news is out of the question, I am rendered useless and broken, unable to hold the images without replaying them in the night and completely falling apart. I read papers and listen to radio broadcasts. That is more than enough. Still, I am left with a sense of helplessness and fear. I think about the children who are cold and hungry. Frightened, grieving and alone. The Libyan children. The Japanese children. The children in detention, and the ones far out to sea. My arms are not big enough. I donate what I can and feel ashamed that that is all I have to offer. I sit with my daughter for a long time, drawing and talking, wishing that the act of caring was enough to change the world.

For Japan with love was set up to raise awareness and funds for Shelterbox who provide emergency shelter and supplies to families living all over the world who are affected by disasters. I just donated to Shelterbox, I know it isn't much in the grand scheme of things but maybe one child in the world will sleep a little better. Click on the Shelterbox link and make a donation, every little bit makes a difference.

"Never doubt that a small group of concerned citizens can change the world. Indeed it's the only thing that ever has."

Margaret Mead

BIG and the little boat

2011-03-20T23:24:00.009+11:00

Okay, the deluge outside seems a perfect drum roll! I am very excited to share some details of the BIG project I have been working on with the extraordinary creative - Jo Pollitt, a dancer and visionary from Perth. We are now in the process of collating the first ever issue of BIG: For creative kids and artists. If you are interested in sharing our journey, supporting a venture to make in a difference in young peoples lives, or contributing ideas, images and responses - then please head over to BIG Kids Magazine and take a peek!

You can follow our blog and keep up to date on the real time creation of a magazine, or 'like' us on Facebook and stay connected to our day to day inspirations and discoveries.

The BIG Manifesto

BIG Kids Magazine is an ethically produced, aesthetically beautiful, green magazine that inspires bravery, imagination and generosity through collaborations between children, parents, diverse communities, and contemporary artists working across creative disciplines.

BIG is dedicated to offering a world view that is expansive, embracing, unusual, provocative, and driven by discovery, response, experimentation and contribution.

BIG provides a platform for artists across disciplines to collaborate with children and young people from all over the world nurturing co-authorship, correspondence, relationship and the well-being that can grow out of authentic connection and conversation.

BIG invites, provokes and publishes real responses from kids and artists, parents and caretakers, educators, visionaries and practitioners so that ideas, issues and stories are seen from different perspectives and told in new ways.

BIG Recognizes that creative practice inspires inquiry, reflection, awareness and action on a personal and global scale, and is committed to participating in social, cultural and environmental change.

BIG prioritizes inclusion so that all children and young people regardless of race, religion, or social demographic are welcome, encouraging the growth of compassionate and tolerant communities.

BIG challenges hierarchies of who is listening and who is speaking, amplifies small voices in BIG ways, values the participation of a junior editorial staff and makes visible unseen, overlooked and unusual perspectives.

BIG is committed to partnering with organizations that protect, support and enrich the lives of children, and in this regard will be working towards donating one magazine for every issue sold, so that BIG is truly accessible to all children everywhere.

BIG is a poetic and tangible place of ongoing discovery.

WELCOME!

Illustration Friday - Cultivate

2011-03-19T14:26:00.006+11:00

She carried seeds in her pockets

like small rattles for rites.

Thankful for the boat in her heart

and the soil in her hands,

she made gardens

in place of all that was lost.

Illustration Friday - Stir

2011-03-16T22:19:00.001+11:00

She does not stir from her dream
of journeys across new landscapes,

with hardly more in her arms than she can bare.

Teapots and ladders tucked into a suitcase found once,

long ago,

by the side of the road.

Her heart an anchor and a pirate ship

filled with longing and regret.

A child walks in her footsteps

growing wings and attitude,

bedazzled by the light playing in her mothers hair.

It is simple,

this coming and going of moments,

just a conversation between things that matter.

Stirred by beauty and loss, she continued.

Illustration Friday - Warning: You will fall in love

2011-03-09T15:04:00.000+11:00

Warning: You will fall in love

Illustration Friday - Swarm

2011-02-26T21:27:00.000+11:00

The sound of it was like a waterfall with wings
By Lilly Blue

I have not illustrated the Friday for a while now, and I have missed the shared experience of it. There is something wonderful about coming to the same idea with a different view. I love it x

The world was our carnival

2011-02-19T22:37:00.003+11:00

At first she thought they were butterflies.

Twyla and I return from the little Island with dirt beneath our fingernails and a heart full of ocean. We slept in a tent with the sand from our castles, and a family of colorful paper-mache cats. At night the waves were our lullaby and Twyla made stars with her torch on our canvas sky. Anyone who was interested learned from her that our ‘house’ had two doors and that she could zip and unzip its edges ‘completely by her very own’. I fell in love with the sea all over again, like before, when I was smaller. We drew with sticks in the dirt and made small worlds with shells and seaweed that were stolen with glee by the waves and the wind. There was tea and chocolate and late night conversation around fires and quiet.

The circus festival was a flurry of hoops and scarves. There were winged creatures on stilts and children leaping and soaring through the air, summersaulting onto spiders webs, and eating donut’s filled with chocolate. We learned to balance and fly like whales with our feet and hands holding each other up. The world was our carnival and I was reminded that there are so many ways to live this life, and so much to be grateful for.

I'm BACK

2011-02-16T15:49:00.000+11:00

Painting by Twyla, 2 yrs
Lunch for me!

I have been away working on a BIG project!

I am back x

Illustration friday - Afterwards

2010-11-07T15:19:00.002+11:00

Once everything had come down,

she found a kind of serenity,

in the knowing

that nothing more could fall.

Letting go

2010-11-06T22:05:00.002+11:00

I look back at her sitting in the car seat, breathtakingly beautiful, having asked for puff the magic dragon a 7th time. I see a sadness, a stillness, a faraway-ness in her eyes. The car in front of me long gone and someone blowing a horn, hard and loud. I reach back, reach in, tickle her toes - probing, asking, checking that she is okay. And then I find tears rolling down my cheeks, and I stop. I let go, and then I let go again. I watch her reverie in the rear vision mirror. Stricken with the powerful, painful knowing that her inner world is her own, and her travels private, sacred, complex and undisclosed.

There is a woman blossoming underneath her skin, a child, a girl, a whole distinct person. I trace her facial expressions onto my own lips; delight, curiosity, wonder, sadness, fear - knowing that though she grew inside my body, underneath my skin and my fingertips, she is unique, striking, rare and unrivaled. I taste her humanness, celebrate all that she is with standing ovation, and awe.

Of all the things I imagined about motherhood, I was not prepared for the daily surrender. I fall in love, and then she is gone, and I am left with the sweet work of falling in love again and again and again, until I am breathless and intoxicated.

Chillies

2010-11-04T14:20:00.005+11:00

There are so many different kinds of light in a life, and so many languages to choose from. I hold a hundred selves in my arms like green chillies, beautiful in their disarray, biting when held too long. I stand in the rain with my arms in the air, literally, imagining being swept away by the ocean of it all. Renewed. Refreshed. Unnamed. Naked. Revealed.......Symbols are a relief, so that less sense can be made. A small wooden boat adrift. Cliche. And yet I wonder if it will ever lose potency for me. Chillies work too, crooked and beautiful, sharp, red and ripe, or green and long, abundant and cruel. How can we be so many things, and still expect others to know us?

The Pond

2010-10-28T15:18:00.000+11:00

Uplifted

2010-10-26T23:21:00.001+11:00

It is late and I am still awake. My heart is beating fast with the idea that so much is possible, and worried that it is possible to waste so much time. I spent today unplugged, separated from my phone and the texts that come throughout the day. Avoiding the computer and its myriad of inspirations and distractions. Spending time rather with the funny little girl who makes jokes and loves bubbles and sultanas and jumping. Drawing through my mistakes while she slept until I found something new. Dragging. Pulling. Aching for the moment of lift off when it all becomes effortless.

Illustration Friday - Beneath

2010-10-02T14:12:00.001+10:00

it takes a leap of faith,

unbridled,

and

wild,

eyes open,

to see what is there...

beneath.

Illustration friday - Immovable

2010-08-31T20:50:00.003+10:00

Illustration Friday - Atmosphere

2010-08-23T21:35:00.002+10:00

She bathed in the way things floated when she let them be,

and remembered Hafiz talking about throwing things at god.

She liked the idea of thinking about wilderness,

very quietly,

hardly moving at all.

Ambiance,

aura,

spirit,

mood.

She swam and swam,

immersed and alive.

2010-07-16T15:29:00.007+10:00

I search for time to lose myself in charcoal and ink, and yet the days fly and I am filled with the joys of a wild little girl and her wanderings. I am so alive in those shared moments with puddles and petals and lines of ants drawing across pavements, perhaps drawing the images waiting in my palms. I watch her journey through night, and light, with such grace, and courage, and trust. When the stars are ready for her dreams I find myself taking a moment to sit in front of the computer, searching for who I am when she is not against my skin. I love too those precious morsels of solitude so rare, looking into my own eyes and seeing the mysteries of my intent. I know I use too many words to talk about it, but I love the rhythms they make when they sit side by side, irregular and poetic, like a feast, or a wild garden.

2010-06-27T14:36:00.002+10:00

I am a mother, and an artist. In the day there are only a few moments when my edges are alone and my eyes can wander and wonder in solitude. Today as I brought my lunch down to my desk I looked at the beautiful detritus that has accumulated around me and felt moved. The small objects that say a little something about who I am, and what I love, and how I see the world. My thanks and my delight in a kind of scattered visual poetry. The characters that emerge on the page when i am lost and tired, they stare back up at me with such hope and acceptance. I sit quietly and nibble on beet-root corn chips and sour dough sandwiches with jarlsberg and avocado, Lindt chocolate, dandelion tea with soy milk and raw honey. My little girl snuggled in bed sleeping and dreaming in the warm dark. A few moments to sit quietly and watch the clouds drift across the sky. Oh how very lucky I am, and how very grateful.

Disheveled by the Greatest of LOves

2010-04-25T14:31:00.002+10:00

she loved her like a thunderstorm,
and like a sunflower,
and like the space between a story and the truth

she remembered all her secrets,
even the ones from before she could speak,
even the ones she had forgotten herself.

They would lose each other in moments,
and find that deep inside sadness,
is the treasure of great wisdom.

They would always find each other again.

They both knew that their love was an ocean.
Gentle,
and wild,
and enduring.

Even when they forgot,
they both knew.

Illustration Friday - Ahead

2010-04-24T20:57:00.002+10:00

Her ancient self looked forward with great hope to a time when the seeds would have a home in fertile soil, and the sun would shine, and the rain would pitter patter pitter patter. Ahead of her is a soft simplicity and the ocean sits quietly at times, and sometimes rages, waiting for her toes and her courage.

Breast Feeding

2010-04-22T21:06:00.004+10:00

The curious looks and the averted eyes and the sighs of disapproval and the "how old is she?" exclamations. Yes! I am still breast-feeding.

I am open hearted, wide eyed, full bodied, life filled with the delight of your warmth against my skin. I am available to the ramblings of your words and wanderings of your fingers and the needs that arise in you from moment to moment in the days, and in the velvet dark of the nights. I offer myself, my attention, my trust, my belief, my respect and my faith in your ancient instinctual wisdom. My choices as a mother say everything about who I am as an artist, and as a teacher, and as a woman, and as a child. I meet you and become more courageous and more clear and more able to listen and respond to the creative urges in my own soul. Thank you little one, thank you..

Gemini

2010-04-19T20:48:00.000+10:00

It is less about being conflicted and more about a paradoxical duality where in each moment both things can be true. Grief and delight sit side by side sipping licorice tea and chatting about their hopes and fears. There is a fabulous sense of spaciousness where many ways of being can co-exist. Reflective and reflected. Mirror mirror on the wall tell me a secret, tell me a tale, a fairy tale true and bright. In 55 days I will be turning 40.

Another papery person

2010-04-18T20:42:00.000+10:00

It is almost 9pm on Sunday and the sounds of the night are lapping against my tired edges. I like that a sad papery man has a garden growing up his legs and a little house inside his heart that sings of running away and a tummy full of love and a hand full of a colorful village. I love using brown paper.

Illustration friday - Detective

2010-04-17T21:34:00.000+10:00

He reached inside in search of something he had lost. Something that kept him from exhaling and from letting go. There was no evidence that the objects he found could help him enough, so he disappeared in a most startling way leaving the treasures he had found behind him. I wonder if he has uncovered something or someone somewhere that can help him breathe out and feel the soft spring air on his face.

Paper Dolls

2010-04-17T20:25:00.000+10:00

I have been lying awake at night dreaming of families of paper dolls. I love that they are fragile and light and unstable and honest and poetic and versatile and friendly and funny and soft and wise.

The moments of contemplation

2010-03-31T21:25:00.000+11:00

Illustration Friday - Perspective

2010-02-28T20:25:00.000+11:00

Illustration Friday - Adrift

2010-02-14T14:31:00.000+11:00

Unhinged. Separate. Floating. Windswept. Set free.

Illustration Friday - Muddy

2010-02-06T14:21:00.000+11:00

Crying mud and rain and mulch and worms. The birds are eating the worms with joy and appreciation. At least something good can come of my muddy tears.

2010-02-04T22:18:00.000+11:00

I want to be somewhere where all I can see is ocean and sky. Instead I listen to the precious sounds of my little girl rocking against the edges of the night, searching for puppy dogs and blueberries in her sleep.

Melancholy

2010-02-02T16:22:00.000+11:00

There are some things that no one else knows about. Or if they know, it doesn't mean much to them. I know that he feels responsible for his dogs death, and for a hundred other things that he can't take back now. I know that his anger lives on top of a great and frightening sadness and I know that he wishes he could feel it without drowning.

Illustration Friday - Focused

2010-02-01T21:42:00.000+11:00

He looked outwards, ashamed of the beauty hidden behind his fears. His gaze both deceiving and beckoning. Focused, yet fleeting. A shared intensity. Almost love.

Traveling Home

2010-01-22T14:19:00.000+11:00

2010-01-22T14:10:00.001+11:00

L o v e

2010-01-19T13:05:00.000+11:00

2010-01-18T22:21:00.000+11:00

Longing

2010-01-17T21:07:00.000+11:00

and then he was gone . . . . .

Illustration Friday - wilderness

2010-01-16T12:01:00.000+11:00

He was lost in his own wilderness

Creatures

2010-01-16T11:31:00.000+11:00

One day a small pig was resting on a little patch of grass and a man with horns flew across the sky

Feeling so very sad

2010-01-11T13:31:00.000+11:00

I wonder what he is thinking? My fingers held the pen that wobbled across the page to bring him to life and yet I don't know him. I sit for a long time and stare at the page that has just given him life, and I find myself worried for all that he will encounter. Perhaps we all carry little boats on top of our heads, stepping carefully about so as not to upturn all the things that are precious to us. And yet I think our little boats can float! Perhaps if we leap and fly and waltz wildly about our little boats of preciousness will float around our heads rocking and drifting in delight.

A little doll

2010-01-11T12:44:00.000+11:00

I made this doll many years ago when I was staying in a little bedouin village in Sinai, Egypt. I made it out of scraps of fabric that had fallen off the woven rug I was sleeping on. I thought she had disappeared and was delighted to find her this morning when I was rummaging through a drawer.

Pottering in the back yard

2010-01-09T11:50:00.000+11:00

Pottering in the back yard with my little girl and I found that my fingers began doodling with some old chalk I had bought one New Years Eve.

These are the dreaming drawings from New Years Eve some years ago

The great tenderness

2010-01-06T21:07:00.000+11:00

My secret is that she falls asleep in my arms every night. She suckles and wriggles until her little eyes close and then I sit quietly for a very long time and breathe in her heart beat and the songs of her bones.

Frank and his fish

2010-01-06T20:36:00.000+11:00

This is a drawing of Frank who just opened a fish shop around the corner at our local shops. He makes sensational crumbed fish and chips.

The brightest teapot of them all

2010-01-06T14:21:00.005+11:00

Once upon a time a little boy was living gently amidst the racket of my ponderings. He looked on quietly amused at the intensity of my concerns over the fleetingest of mishaps and upheavals. He cradled a bright red tea pot in his arms and invited me to stop for a moment, sip softly, and savour the soulfulness of a simple cup of saffron tea.