2024 has kicked off with a bang, with 2 big weeks in the rural town of Goombungee about 45minutes of Toowoomba. I know the town well, I've down community activations and held an exhibtion. It's all a frequent stop of our family drives around the region. The town just has such beauitful personality and energy. The Goombungee Public Hall has been lucky enough to secure funding through Flying Arts Alliance and with local Scott Aldadice dutifully overseeing the logistics it has been a dream for me as an artist.
Working with communities is so high up on my list, I always sink back into my own childhood living in Outback QLD understanding the duality of lack of arts opportunities and how much of an impact it had on individuals and communities as a whole when they were available. Having a community of all ages coming together in a stress-free environment to learn, create and connect is electrifying, seriously there is a real buzz you get from the atmosphere. It is also a truly beautiful thing to witness people just jumping in and having a go. Creativity can be such an uncomfortable activity for so many. We all seem to carry an amount of self imposed pressure to be perfect, or a hidden shame of failure, or even a memory where someone made you feel like your art isn't good enough. And then for whatever reason so many of us stop, and we tell ourselves 'I'm not very artistic', or we hold ourselves to someone else 'my sister is the creative one'. As an artist I know that's not true, what we really should be saying is 'I'd love to practice more' because like learning to read or understanding math we all know that we didn't just wake up knowing that information, we learnt it through persistance, dedication, help and error. Also known as the process of learning. Now I am not saying that everyone wants to be an artist, just like I understand the basics of something that I am about to turn it into my career but I know enough. I also know that if I really wanted to I could learn more and advance my skills. The arts is the same! Attending community arts events like this is watching people feel 'not artistic' start to have a go, because it's not as scary and then the joy of accomplishment that they did that. Boy, that really is something beautiful to be a part of. I am such an advocate for community arts, I honestly believe every single community should have one free to the public event for me to gather, create and connect. It is an essential step in building stronger communities and connections. I still have two more sessions to go at Goombungee and I am honestly lookign forward to them. Art for everyone I say.
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2023
If you had asked me what this year has been like, I probably would have said slow, easy, a rest period. But it's funny when you look back on it, so much was actually achieved. The biggest thing in my books was setting out structure and strategies for balance. It would be in implementing these strategies that I would have to say is why I look back on the year and think what a year of low-key rest. The truth is the studio grew, with more employees and collaborators coming on board. The studio in itself is a whole other thing. With a growing cohort of regular kids, our adult classes, holiday workshops, private parties, and more. We attended 4 major festivals, hosted an exhibition, and collaborated with numerous councils and shopping malls. And next year is looking even bigger! As an artist, I managed to have a solo exhibition, one that I felt was over due. It was beautiful to be able to share a piece of my soul with so many. A big shout out to Flying Arts Alliance that enabled me to share my business knowledge with hundreds of people this year. I seriously love all things start up and if you'd love to chat about workshops and guest speaker opportunities for next year send me a message. Public art came in the way of community projects and temporal murals this year. I love painting on things and I think 2024 I'm ready to get back into this a little more. As a family we travelled over 8000km this year with a mix of for fun and for work. This country is beautiful and I must say I'm a huge fan of the road trip method. Watching the landscape morph and adapt is captivating and truly an essential part of my practice and my cup filling capacity. Through these adventures, I have witnessed many of Australia's beautiful native species up and close and personal with my family all too patience as I sit and soak up the presence of wildlife in their environment. I've take so many photos this year I've create a space just for them @stallingphotography on instagram so I don't clog up this page. Thank you 2023 When the wonderful team at Empire Theatre said, 'hey, would you like to be a part of Thrive this year?' I said yes before even hearing the terms of aggreement. A children's festival celebrating the arts and connection I was already sold before the pitch. A total stop digging you've struck oil situation, and I think they knew they were speaking my love language.
So it was a to part connection one for Tinker to be able to offer low cost art and craft activities with a STEAM theme for parents and kids to do togther. AND the perfect launch pad for a community arts project. With STEAM in mind my brain went instantly to petri dishes, I love the idea of looking at things under a microscope and planning with ideas of micro v macro. There is something unintimidating about working within the confines of the little clear dishes with materials that are designed more for play than drawing. At the beginning the lonely few examples I had made looked pretty sad on our makeshift wall but one by one the piece grew. Sprawling out from an empty space into a larger piece made up of many. It was fun to watch families sit and cut and colour, some intricately making one piece and others smashing together bundles. Everyone connects differently with creativity and it is important for me to offer an opportunity for that connection to happen naturally. By the end children were proudly dragging their parents back to the wall to point out their miniature masterpiece which would become a fun game of 'have you seen this one' If I am being honest this activity was a fun one, I'd definitely do it again. The unassuming petri dish was a great dip your toes in for everyone no matter how comfortable they felt in their own creative shoes. Thanks for having me Thrive, same time next year! Work/life balance. This years goal was to build my home studio, and although it hasn't happened yet it is so very exciting because it is the next thing on the to do list. I've marked out the plot, found the company we are going to purchase from and already started a mood board of all the things that are possible.
A home studio is something I have always dreamed of. We tend to gravitate towards tiny homes, not the super tiny trailer ones (I would though if it were an option) but more then little Queenslanders that's exactly perfect for us and full of character...but lacking in a studio. At home my working space is often a bench, tray table or my lap. AND yes I do 100% have access to the Tinker studio's, that is what I have been using for years so I am not going to pretend my practice doesn't have things available. But a dream of mine has always been a tiny building in my yard just for me. There is something magical about that setting and so I've moved it from a one day dream to a priority dream. We need to do those things for ourselves, when the timing and availability is right we should be doing that. So hopefully soon I will be able to update ya'll on the building progress and give you a tour of the digs. It's public now, it's in writing, it's going to happen! It is always an honour to be asked by our Regional Art Gallery, lovingly known as TRAG to pop in and host a workshop. The prompt for this session was 'fragments', based on the current exhibition on display. I immediately knew why they picked me for this, my whole practice explores fragmentation. For me fragmentation goes hand in hand with the habit of collecting. In a nutshell the process of building a collection is a desire to build a complete and indepth picture through the gathering of smaller pieces: fragments.
Exploring this methology and with children is an interesting and philosophical one. It often feels backwards at the beginning, somewhat odd. When we are starting a new work we often feel the pressure to 'know' the outcome. 'What's the plan?' is something that I often hear in a classroom setting. In truth, for some that makes sense that is the natural order, to plan out the whole process in your mind before marks even hit the page. For others knowing the ending before the beginning feels like trying to squeeze orange juice from an apple. Sometimes the story comes together as the journey unfolds. Using this methology we start collecting the pieces either physically or visually, waiting for the pieces to allign in a way that feels organic, it is the process informing the product. Working with the kids in the workshop I wanted to break the workshop in half, two separate pieces that would come together. This felt the most organic way to trigger the process of fragmentation and collection. Through this there were lots of discussion and questions always moving back and fourth bewteen what has been, what is happening and where they are going. Some students playing with representational pieces and others emotional abstraction. It was such a priviledge to watch students play with these really complex concepts and seeing how through the same initial prompt, available resources and set tasks how quickly each of their individual narratives evolved. It was a fun experience and the kids really created some interesting marks along the way. It was a day of creative play and honestly they could have sat there for another hour or two in that deep space of creative discovery. It's been a hectic as well as a well oiled machine these past two weeks. School holidays, Tinker having the usual 3 months of work in 2 weeks, my own practice and life. I knew going into the April school holidays that it was going to be a lot of gripping my phone tightly waiting for me phone to ring with and SOS in one hand while I sculled tea with the other in an effort to calm my nerves.
The thing is we have a REALLY great team at Tinker. AJ, Emma, Paddy, Kel and Ash just get it. They are adaptable and extremely capable and wickedly talented, they make this part easy. I never actually worry about them. Instead I find I am on high alert with so many things on that I worry if something goes wrong how can I support them through it if I myself am also busy. And yeah things popped up out of the ordinary but we all just did the move, dance and jig (seemlessly I may add) so it always just felt normal. But these last two weeks we collaborated on a 4 day pop-up with Toowoomba Regional Council, 4 days of creative activiations at Kingaroy Shoppingworld, 5 days at Grand Central Shopping Centre, 4 days at Tinker South, 1 day at Tinker City, 2 Days at Zebedees, 1 kids birthday party, 1 night at Toowoomba City Library and that's just the studio...physically. As I said I knew going into these two weeks that my brain would be full and as we are coming to the last few days I feel a great sense of accomplishment. But aside from the administrative nightmare the work itself was delicious, glorious, soul enriching. When you are in that shared creative space I cannot describe it better than filling ones cup. You walk away feeling rejuvinated and all round happy. The numbers reflect the community excitement too with over 2000 people through our collective workshops and activations. People love to experience the arts, we all need it. Whether its for professional purposes or just to stop being so serious and just play art truly is for everyone. An added experience was my face....and how much it appeared through the media and socials and for that I am sorry. I guess it was somewhat inevitatble if you are going to be here, there and everywhere your face is bound to show up from time to time. Or in this case every day on a new platform. it's kinda (very) weird to wake up every day do a check in and then HELLO it's me, but you'll be glad to know it will slow down a bit as I do over the next few weeks. We will all get a break from seeing my face spamming your newsfeed. So what's next, I've got a creative workshop coming up as part of the creative arts summit, back to the regular Tinker programming and you'll catch me in Brissy over the next few months with some professional development sessions. But over all my big to do list is to get into my garden. The weather is turning and I want to prep it for Winter and nature isn't going to wait for anyone I need to get in there ASAP. Recently I was asked to share some personal knowledge with year 12 students at the school of creative arts UniSQ. The brief was teach them something from your practice. Love that.
With 1.5 hour up my sleeve, acrylic paint, brushes and paper I knew exactly what I wanted to share. When we started the session, I offered this. Today we will play with paint, I will show you my personal technique for creating layers or a double exposure technique but ultimately we want to have fun. There is no assessment, no theme, no outcome at the end other than playing with our medium. I am a firm believer that in order to develop we need to be able to play, explore, challenge concepts, let go and not always be outcome focused. Sometimes we need to sit down and create and not make a design. Just let the art happen. This idea can be really challenging, for most people. It often depends on how much you have stretched your art muscles. Nothing can be scarier than a blank piece of paper. But after about 10mins there was a visible and audiable difference in the space. The shoulders relaxed, the sounds moved from nervous groans to delightful and sometimes surprising hmmms. Students stopped the rush through, waiting for the next instruction and started having conceptual conversations amongst themselves. Offering ideas of brush movements, colour theory and compositions. I then moved through the space with them, painting alongside them and offering conversations and individual creative input throughout the space. The students asked some fascinating questions about my practice as an artist, as well as their potential within the industry. Most wanted to know what actually is the creative industry and what careers options were actually available. The shift is slowly happening, there is still the constant humm in the background of 'well I need a job that pays and if I am an artist I will be broke'. But the conversation is happening, the arts is moving towards a space of career options not career doom. Everyone say it with me - you can have a career as an artist! Once the pages filled with colour we then switched it up a gear, and this is where the technical side came into place. I demonstrated how I created the layers and suggested other ways to interpret the technique. Students then adapted the technique to their own work and off they went on their own journey. It was a great day. Earlier this year the team at Darling Downs Health asked me to create a series of works for their annual staff awards.
Honestly I love the idea of giving out artworks instead of tropheys. There is something intimate about sharing art with others, and I felt deeply honoured to even be considered. The brief was simple, create a series of works that embody the pillars of the organisation, in your own voice. It is a beautiful thing when someone offers you the space as an artist to simply create authentically in your own voice in response to a concept. It's wildly exciting and soul enriching. I truly hope those who were awarded these pieces find love and joy from them. Artist Statement This body of work explores the principles of compassion, courage, dignity, innovation, integrity, vision & volunteer through the lens of our region. Connecting with the landscapes of the Darling Downs; Meewah, inner CBD, the tall gums of Highfields, our Sunflower fields and institutions. Alex captured reference images of each space that she believed embodied the principles of compassion, courage, dignity, innovation, integrity, vision & volunteer. Colour palettes were pulled from these reference images and each painting was developed using her signature painting style of automatic mark making. Through the use of colour, pattern, painting and screenprinting each artwork tells its own story. Exhibition Statement
For Alex, art is an extension of her selfness. A way to explore the influence of environment, health, lifestyle, memories and community through the act of automatic mark-making practices. The process of automation provides a pathway for Alex to dive into her subconscious and play with the impacts of these everyday factors to unlock an intuitive environment while holding space selfishly and unashamedly. Collecting Dust refers simply to that, works that have sat piled high, or in pieces with no intention other than the process of creation. The works have been collecting dust. To honor the series Alex believed it was only right to give the pieces the space of an exhibition, to share walls with each other and to share with the community. Alex’s fascination with automatic mark-making parallels her diagnosis of Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome, a form of Dysautonomia. Dysautonomia is a disorder of autonomic nervous system function. The autonomic nervous system is in charge of involuntary functions—things that happen without thinking—like breathing. Dysautonomia usually involves failure of the sympathetic and parasympathetic parts of the autonomic nervous system. Through automatic mark-making Alex seeks to find the peace and therapeutic opportunities of truly finding a space of restful contentment. Her paintings are often without a plan, purely regulated by happenstance and convenience. With unconscious repetition of elements including pattern, representational imagery, colour and movement. Couple with a safety in process and colour palettes often chosen at convenience or by place as she lets her hands tell the story. Through this process of play and disconnection the outcome of the work will often become apparent in its own time, which may be hours, days or years. A resolved piece is never planned and often determined by a sense of restful completion. Each piece of Collecting Dust marks a moment, and a sense of connection to the artist. An exhibition, for me at least, is a confusing time. There is a sense of great calm, possibilities and excitement. Mixed thoroughly with regret, dread, fear and nausiatingly crushing imposter syndrome. Ill feel like it's kind of good to know that no matter how many times you've have done one, or how much further you go up the ladder with you career the thought's of...but is it shit...still comes and goes as naturally as the day and night.
Now that I have primed you with some pretty worrying feelings I think it is always important to establish that these feelings do not come from a space of hate or ill meaning esteem crushers. But more a light hearted and honest look at the process for some (dare I say most) in our want to learn, discover and improve. These moments of self doubt are no longer crippling, they do not stop me from moving forward. And I kind of enjoy the fact that I know in my heart that I will always be a student of myself. But there is something about a solo exhibition, for me, that really gets me into all kinds of knots. I love it, I love the making, the play, the resolution, and the deadline of it all. It grounds my constant need for discovery to stop reflect and mark a chapter in the book that is my practice. There is something titilating about piecing together an exhibition that tells its own unique tale of events. A gathering of pieces that individually are their own but together form a whole story. The pieces for this show are 100% on the eclectic side, a word I often cringe at it's over use. But there really isn't a lot of other words to describe it. A series of works all made with the same mediums, methodology and reference materials but yet form a series of unique moments, colour palettes and interpretations. So the count down is on for the show, and my biggest thing now is I wonder who will make it to the opening, followed by I wonder what questions they will ask me? At this point in the process I have one more piece I would like to complete before the exhibition opens and that is a secondary interactive piece. I already have some planned, but this is one that I have been mulling over for a while and now it's just a matter of sourcing the materials and making it happen. I love an exhibition to evoke a sense of participating of community, the allow opportunities to people to play with the idea of the works and the space that is a gallery actively and not just passively. It's are core part to my interest as an artist and it only feels essential to be included within my practice as part of the show. |
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December 2023
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