Artist Residency at Canaipa

I was recently invited to participate in a group artist residency for the Canaipa Mudlines Art + Environment program, facilitated by artist Sharon Jewell.  14 artists from the Moreton Bay islands and South-East Queensland came together for a week to respond to a special wetlands area on Russell Island (Canaipa) called Turtle Swamp.  Russell Island is located a ferry ride away from bayside Brisbane, sheltered within Moreton Bay by North Stradbroke Island.  Like a lot of the islands in the area, it has a lot of human residents as well as a healthy population of Bush Stone-curlews.

There were two major components to the residency - a 24 hour studio exhibition of small works and a public walk-through of ephemeral responses created onsite at the Turtle Swamp wetlands and forest.  Its a coastal wetland, with plenty of casuarinas, grass trees and forest gums.  There were also quite a few ticks and sandflies, which luckily I managed to mostly avoid.

On her blog, Sharon has written some beautiful words about the residency with photographs of most of the forest artworks as well - click  HERE to view her blog post.

Below are photos and narratives of my residency experiences:

Before the artwork...

After...."Funeral Bouquet",
acknowledging the violence that tore
the tree in two.
Found plant material wedged between
bark and trunk.

"Funeral Bouquet"

Installation of my work "Letting go"
Text on kozo paper,
installed on Casuarina branches.
I wrote this poem a couple of months ago
as a self-reflection on the busy-ness of my life.
Bringing it into the forest seemed to be
the right response to complete the work
in a physical sense.

letting go

of waiting 

of future me - broken, bent

body

mind

of defects with no warranty.

letting go

of dependency

of independency -

I am not my mother.

Or am I?

letting go exhale

of impenetrable processes 

thoughts

excuses

of a body growing in all directions.

letting go

of opening 

openness

of caveats.

letting go

of empty-bellied mind shafts

dank

dark

of knowing

touching not knowing.

letting go

of myself, then.

letting go

of you, tomorrow. exhale

inhale finding 

finding the lightness

counting the spools of golden thread 

of living in a collage

without the sharpness of straight lines.

Here I am reading the poem next to my installation
at the public walk-through of the forest.
It was my first poetry performance.

This work is titled "SOS from the forest".
Gouache on wood and Casuarina seedpods.

Banksia Artist Book.
Handmade paper, banksia leaves and thread.
Sometimes the leaves are more beautiful than any
replication via print or drawing.

Here I am playing with rubbing paper on trees,
and doing a bit of tree-hugging at the same time!

The residency allowed me the time and space to play within

art practice within a forest setting. So good!