Jenny's Sculpture

Annual Exhibition

2009-07-20T22:39:00.003+10:00

Now it's uploaded to youtube it should save some space and be shareable. :-)

Merimbula in May

2009-05-27T21:49:00.003+10:00

It's nearly winter and everything is lit in silver. Merimbula is still warmer than Melbourne - milder than most places in Australia it seems. It was good having a few days there and unwinding after the stressful business of still not having the studio built.

And Merimbula held many treasures - the Lake board walk with pelicans and other fisher folk enjoying the evening; the mangroves dancing lightly over the mud; the kayak on Wallagoot Lake where the sheltered side of the lake lured us out into the chop on the other side to battle it back against a bit of a wind.

A great break - thank you Shirley - now back to work!

Shirley's Exhibition

2009-05-04T14:33:00.003+10:00

The exhibition is at Bulleen Art and Garden. It's a great place for the ceramics with the garden just outside.

Lots of friends and family turned up for the opening and deservedly - the bowls are beautiful - and there may not be too many more in the future - they are getting harder to make, even though the forms keep getting better.

And it's great to share the joy of making things.

Easter Holidays 2009

2009-04-13T20:52:00.007+10:00

Easter was good - I went with friends to Balranald - on Saturday we visited Lake Mungo National Park and on Sunday we kayaked on the Murrumbidgee River.

I can't find a better one....

2009-03-15T20:37:00.002+11:00

I was looking for a clip of waster moulding in plaster - I found this... but is there something better?

The bottom fell out?

2009-03-10T11:45:00.003+11:00

So we live in a contracting economy? Not the first bubble to burst but this could be one of those crashes that they warn us about in the Limits to Growth... followed by oscillations until we reach some sort of stability. If it were not so obvious that humans only respond to crises then we could plan for an orderly contraction to a reasonable level of consumption and production so that we had a pleasant life without over stretching the environment.

You could start by saying that for mortgages the ratio of equity to the total price will remain fixed - except for repayments - so that as the value of the house drops the size of the mortgage drops - the bank absorbing the pain just as the home owner does.... not so silly really - just a spreading of the risk and it would mean that people on a mortgage won't be so pressed to use their stimulus package money for debt reduction. They'll know that their house will always be worth more than they owe on it.

And of course when (if) the economy picks up again the ratio will be preserved up to the point it was at in 2007. So for someone who just sits tight and spends their money they will be in the same position (and so will the bank) at the end as at the start. So you can spend the stimulus package money on a solar hot water service, or buying green power, or a bike....

If you know that things are going to contract why not do it sensibly and work out what we want to achieve - it is like moving to a smaller house - it is a blessed relief to throw out/sell/recycle/give away all those things that you don't really want and that are not contributing to your happiness. Much of our wealth is a burden - why are we so obliged to run the rat race? There has to be a better way.

The Neighbour's Water Tank

2008-10-29T18:23:00.002+11:00

September was dry - October is dry - the neighbours put in a water tank to save their garden. Well that should multiply their water supply times 4 - the garden is a small part of the site when you are in units. And they had a problem with access - the tank is too heavy to lift over the garage - so the best thing was to bring it in my back gate - before the studio is built - in the window of opportunity as it were. It all worked like a charm - in fact you couldn't tell that anyone had been through the place... and there's the water tank sitting under the eaves waiting for the heavens to open.
The sweet thing was they brought me some flowers to say thank you.... bless them - ephemeral beauty of the soul. I hope their garden prospers.

The New Home

2008-10-16T21:08:00.004+11:00

The new home is wonderful - Mary, the previous owner, is a great gardener and this spring every day brings new flowers. What with the water shortage there is a heavy investment in plastic pipes to take the water from the washing machine to the garden.
The next step is building a studio to work in. Not so easy if you need a planning permit.. but such is life - I have a home and the ideas keep flowing. It will all go on.

Not So Smart Meters?

2008-03-20T11:42:00.002+11:00

I'm not so sure about the “smart” meters being installed to tell consumers what their power is costing at any given time of the day. This sounds like a perpetuation of night rates electricity; the aim of which was to increase power consumption at night. A time at which people wouldn't otherwise use it but so that the coal fired power stations had a more even load. This was needed because coal fired power stations aren't very responsive to fluctuations in demand - they need hours if not days of notice in order to vary their output.

If our aim is to increase the use of sustainable sources of electricity then we want to encourage hydro, wind, biomass and solar. Hydro electricity can be very responsive to fluctuations in demand and solar is mainly generated during the day - solar thermal of course being the most effective on hot days.

So instead of asking consumers to time their demands why not charge the consumers a flat rate for electricity - $ per kilowatt the same no matter what time of day - so people will use the power when it's convenient and they won't use any more than they have to because it all costs money.

But we should pay producers of electricity a variable rate depending on the level of demand they are serving - so they would get paid very little to produce electricity in the middle of the night when activity is minimal. And they would get paid heaps on a hot day when the air conditioners are running flat out.

A household with photovoltaic cells on the roof is both a consumer and a producer of electricity. This system automatically sets the feed in tariff at a better level than the rate customers pay when they are home and the wheels of industry have slowed for the night. It would be up to the government to set the differential rates of payment to encourage more flexible electricity supply.

Similarly any new building could have a cap set for its demand on peak power supplies – encouraging new buildings to approach energy neutrality and sustainability. So “smart” meters are smart if they operate “backwards” with a variable rate and “forwards” at a fixed rate.... are they that smart?

Trees

2008-01-02T14:39:00.000+11:00

What if we paid a tree tax in our petrol price and planted trees to make up for the fossil carbon put into the air when we drive? According to this article there isn't enough space..... http://www.ptua.org.au/myths/trees.shtml
If each car needs 600 m2 planted out as trees per year and there are 2 million cars in Victoria that's 1,200,000,000 square meters = 120,000 hectares or 12,000 square kilometres every year - if Victoria is a total of 237,629 square kilometres then in 19 years the whole of Victoria will be covered in trees and there will be no place to drive a car... pretty cool eh? I'm looking forward to my excursion to the bio fuel place.... turning green slime into diesel looks good.... short circuit the million year fossil process..... so trees as carbon offsets work if there are only a few people doing it. But if you actually want to solve the problem we need something that will work when we all do it.

The same with the green power that I would like to buy but I'm not - for one reason or another - at the moment. When I look at my fuel bill right now it says 100% of my energy consumption comes from fossil sources and causes greenhouse gas emissions. But all in all Victoria's power comes from coal, gas, hydro and wind and some people have grid interactive photovoltaics on their roofs - bless them. So all the people who pay the extra to do their bit for the environment are actually having all the existing sustainable sources of energy counted in their contribution - seems like their money isn't making as much of a difference as it should. Or as they intended - if I pay the extra I want to see sustainable energy over and above the government's MRET produced in this state. And reflected in the way my bill is presented.

Well this article on green power accreditation says it all works - the green is because it's all new sustainable generation - post 1997... well I'll breathe deep and buy up when I'm in the new home..... just hope they've got it right eh?

I wonder

2007-10-11T15:25:00.000+10:00

what would it cost per household for council to harvest rainwater and to sewer mine and to provide a reticulated system of rescued water for toilet flushing and garden watering? Currently grey water diverting and treatment (if you want to store it for more than 24 hours) would cost around $10,000 per household - not a very attractive proposition. Individual pumps would be less economical in initial purchase and in running costs (on green power of course) than neighbourhood or municipality wide methods of providing sufficient pressure.

Private gardens represent a valuable resource for the community: they sequester carbon, they provide a creative outlet for gardeners, they provide visual delight for all who see them, a harbour for birds, and a cultural resource.. can we afford not to have a community based water source to maintain them?

Well here it is: CSIRO is working on the integrated management of urban water http://www.csiro.au/science/ps3k3.html bring it on!

Carving - the coolest experience

2007-10-03T16:40:00.004+10:00

I inherited my tools from my great aunt. She was pretty cool - an astrologer, novelist and sculptor. It is a privilege to hold her chisels and think that I am continuing in a family tradition. I didn't start sculpture with carving - first I learned to model in clay and cast the work, then I learned copper fabrication... then a branch fell off the Manchurian pear tree in my mother's garden and I was on..... well it wasn't that simple - Margaret Gunnersen Thomas's assistant Peter Quinn turned a red gum mallet for me, Kevin Free gave me a few tips and got me started and Hank bought the Superjaws to hold the work... it takes a lot of support to build a sculpture. :-)
It's pretty amazing watching the work emerge from the wood. I roughed it out with a carving disc on the angle grinder and took it to Herring Island for the demonstration event on Australia Day.
So then came the business of refining, then sanding and polishing - will it ever be finished? Well here are the stages so far: so that's in May - takes a while doesn't it? And then comes October and I'm still sanding. Well life goes on, and on, and the miracle is I'm still learning. Just wait for the fantastic time when I start putting the oil onto the wood. Her name came up pretty early - the Keys to Canterbury - Oh Madam! I will give to you the Keys to Canterbury, and all the bells in England shall ring to make us merry, if you will be my joy, my one and only dear and walk along with me anywhere.

The Fall from Grace

2007-09-06T10:40:00.000+10:00

Thinking about things in the Limits to Growth.. they were talking about the two revolutions: the agrarian where we stopped being hunter gatherers and became farmers and the industrial where most people work in or for factories and now we need a sustainability revolution... the trouble is that the Fall from the Garden of Eden was the agrarian revolution - we never wanted to stop living in the Garden of Eden as hunter gatherers - the only reason we did so was because of population pressures.. is it jealousy? Are we really tough on the aboriginals because they had what we have lost long ago. Is this why we destroy them with all the forbidden fruit that modern man can throw?

But maybe we need to find a better way - to recover that which was lost and to enhance our relationship with the earth.

Leaving the Day Job

2007-09-05T12:16:00.000+10:00

Every artist faces the decision at some time as to whether or not to leave the day job and pursue their art full time. We can end up fairly poor if we do, but it does give us the time to improve our skills and fashion our philosophies. And again some make a quiet living with commission work, or well subscribed exhibitions.

When I first announced my intentions in that direction my then husband said -well what's your business plan? - Business plan? You make stuff and you sell it! The main difference between selling art and selling anything else is that market research isn't a preliminary part of the game – we are out to express something that we believe is important – we don't go researching what people want to buy unless we are then going to comment on that, we don't just supply willy nilly what people already think they want.

The being poor bit is hard to handle - makes relationships and family life tough – but we eventually sort out a modest income stream and life goes on - So should we really take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in order to contemplate a life devoted to the arts? It doesn't sound very real – and in fact when you think of it, this is a call to moderation not to extremes – the words could have been destitution, celibacy and subservience – but they are not - they moderate our obsession with money, sex and power – to focus our attention on what is really important – on sufficient food, love and imagination.

The artist does have a place in the world – not in the ivory tower. But the very diversity of art defies definition – some get their message across by shocking people, others by making one think, some make us laugh, some find beauty in the commonplace, others rage against the thoughtless – all of us have turned the unique vision of an individual into a philosophic statement - the belief that without dreams our bread is tasteless.

11th August 2007

2007-08-27T14:15:00.000+10:00

Sunset at Mungo National Park
Mungo National Park speaks in silence - thousands of years experience of life and death make this place mysterious in its peace. Thank you to our guide, Tanya - a member of the Mutthi Mutthi people.