All in Artist Residencies
You need to have a creative practice in order to tackle a project no matter how large or small. It’s like being in training for a marathon, getting your body fit and ‘in the zone’ of activity. Sometimes projects have to be shelved until you have time to devote to them. That’s where a foundational practice helps you keep your vision alive, even when it is ‘resting’.
When I don’t think I’ve done too much art or travel yet find out that every month was filled with a trip somewhere in Australia and my artmaking continued to take me to places north and south of home. Cyanotype image making became my focus as well as a return to creating artist books. It has certainly been a year art & travel which encapsulates this Year in Review 2025.
Looking back to where I was three years ago has shown my how much travel I crammed into 2022. Its like reliving my childhood slide nights as I compile a year of blogposts into my Year of Sundays 2022 blogpost book. I get to relive all those memories and keep them to reread at my leisure, analogue book style.
It can be challenging to occupy a space temporarily and create a sense of home. Even more challenging to return home and realise that your old space no longer ‘fits’. Harnessing the energy of homecoming can facilitate growth, experimentation and expansion.
Adapt, experiment and survive. That’s my motto, especially when it comes to artist residencies where the unforeseen can completely derail your best laid plans. Getting sick when away from home can be very debilitating. Yet it can also give you the impetus to adapt and experiment, abandoning all measure of control, sometimes with surprising results.
Experimentation is about taking risks. Pursuing a train of thought and organising the steps to get there gives you a better chance of success, even allowing for some ‘failures’ along the way. My blueprint for success is to plan, execute then let go of any expectations. It ‘s how I can adapt and improvise when at an artist residency.
Reconnaissance is a way to ‘hit the ground running’ when you are about to embark on an artist residency. I’ve been taking preliminary photos of the Moonah trees at Point Nepean National Park to see what the pictures suggest. This has led me to consider gridding up an image of the trees dancing together which I can then draw and print over as cyanotypes.
When trees whisper their secrets, who listens? As an artist making work about the environment, I feel called to bear witness to the trees and forests threatened by logging, environmental destruction and pollution. Trees may help save our planet from destruction. Helping them survive is a reciprocal action.
Pest or Passion? I’ve had both reactions to the humble blackberry. But never would I have thought it could lead me down an interesting path of discovery about alternative photographic practices. Yet I now find myself regarding this plant with new eyes.
There’s anticipation and excitement in getting ready to ‘eat the road’ as Australians head off for the summer holidays between Christmas and New Year. I love consulting maps to plot all the road stops where we will break open the thermos and left over Christmas cake, stretch our legs and change drivers for the next leg of the journey.
