#30 - Amanda Watts' 'Kyoto Dance 1' - inviting Penny Wilson into the garden

 

Short bio for Amanda Watts 

I grew up in regional towns around NSW and moved to Sydney to study Social Work, working in Sydney for a few years before returning to Newcastle in 1990. I have always enjoyed art making and discovered printmaking at Hunter Tafe, completing summer schools and workshops there for a number of years from 2008 onwards. As a member of Newcastle Printmakers Workshop I have been involved in many of their group exhibitions over the years. ‘Kyoto Dance 1’ monoprint, 284mm x 240mm, mounted on washi paper and framed 400mm x 320mm 2024 Inspiration for ‘Kyoto Dance 1’ was a trip to Japan during autumn 2023. Playing with colour, shape and layering I wanted to reflect the landscape and gardens. I often bring plant material and natural objects into my printing. In this work I have included a feather and some dried plant materials directly in the printing process, materials gathered from bush areas near my home. Thanks to Gina McDonald for the invitation. I would like to invite another printmaker, Penny Wilson. 

29. Kit Kelen's 'misted in the lower reaches' - inviting Jane Frank into the garden

 

misted in the lower reaches

 

all up with

shaky from the branch, the air

 

first bird

invents itself

 

it’s from same old singing

 

makes light of it

 

tips wing towards

 

little dinosaur

so eloquent wordless

 

fleet, dizzy with to watch

generic

 

in birdiness

all tangent, vector

 

it’s knowing without thinking

we mainly get about

 

same day lovely

where everything is first imagined

has to be, how else?

 

this now the bird

out of the box

 

then like a cat

mouth full of feathers

garden all mine

 

I bring you

the bird

Picture above - Bruno Liljefors’ 1885 ‘A Cat with a Young Bird in its Mouth’

Bruno Liljefors

28. Reese North's 'your green fingers' - inviting Dael Allison into the conversation

 

your green fingers were a part of you that stroked my hair /& brought our garden to life./ Your childhood was spent in poverty in Pommy Town, Stockton, /that other country before the bridge to the mainland joined two worlds/ But even as a child you grew your favourite flowers 💐/ until your children opened from out of you/ each from a special seed in your fertile years./ And then you planted the Magnolia Tree/ if only you could see it now mother/ its winter & spring blossoms burst open outside my window/ & the night you visited me in a dream you told me love is bottomless/ it has always been/ & is the greatest proof of the God you never doubted. / Whenever I smell the perfume of the Port Wine Magnolia/ and ponder its rich pink blossoms/ I know you are here watching over me/ in the garden of our creation.

27. Gina McDonald's 'For my mother' - inviting Amanda Watts into the conversation

 

Gina McDonald, ‘For My Mother’, artist book, solar plate intaglio on washi mounted on Arches 600gsm, 20cmh x 50cml x 20cmd, 2024

Short bio for Gina McDonald

I was born in Canberra, lived and worked in Sydney for 10 years and finally moved to Newcastle in 1995.  Along the way I have been involved in the arts, undertaking drawing classes as well as developing black and white photographs in my homemade darkroom.  I first became aware of printmaking through studying at the Hunter Art School/TAFE and in 2011 completed an Advanced Diploma majoring in Printmaking.  Since graduating I have exhibited in primarily group shows and been successful in being selected for and awarded a number of printmaking prizes. 

The artist book I have included for this blog was made in response to the death of my mother, Gail Hennessy in 2023, who wrote the poem For My Mother in response to her own mother’s departure.  In the circular windows are images of dried flowers and a basket of flowers printed on washi paper which reference another poem she wrote titled The Orange Basket and the line… a basket I never used but woke to sight its warp and weft, shadows that promised unsown flowers.   

My thanks go to Carol Archer and Kit Kelen for inviting me into the common or garden poets.  I would like to invite Amanda Watts, a fellow printmaker.

26. Mark Mahemoff's 'Chokos' - inviting Greg McLaren into the conversation

 

Chokos

 

Chayote, pimpinela, pipinola, christophine are just a few names given to this cousin of the melon.

            A bunch of them appeared at our local farmers’ market, like schoolmates you haven’t caught up with for decades.

In my formative years they sprawled by the hundreds, tangled amongst passionfruit hanging from our paling fence.

Served boiled, we often had a half each for dinner, a nob of butter melting where the seed had once been.

Whole and hanging from the vine, with a softly prickled lime green skin,

they looked poisonous,

like those large pods that hang from trees whose broken branches ooze with Selley’s wood glue sap.

I remember their bland and innocuous flavour, something we grew accustomed too, familiar and ubiquitous as squabbles between parents.

There were rumours back then that Cherry Ripes were made from chokos. That food dye and flavouring were added, then the whole sickly bar-shaped mixture coated with chocolate.

Strange to think that now I’d pay dearly for a choko when for so long they were plentiful and free for the picking.

25. Kit Kelen's 'here is the garden I am' - inviting Natalie Cook into the conversation

 

here is the garden I am

 

adorned with years

and lean back

webs catch dust

 

behind a curtain of the creek

further than you can count

 

let the chorus come

 

each easily foretold

come to live in such time

 

you curly tree

and flit

 

you who are coming into names

you whose names are falling away

 

know that I am the garden

of picnic tradition

where bears park their bottoms

 

and listen up

each to a calling

 

sky, tin drip

wrack thy evening

bolt from blue

 

scribble it down as fast

 

infested with old ideas

I, flaunting the new

 

humbled with

wild in applause

 

still you're that once-upon kid

wink of not knowing

 

just a wandsworth of

long long ago

 

wired to the wild, just say

paths fork

 

here's the flea unharmed

treatises to nail down the door

 

swear off the exegesis

 

no time for

moon shines through

 

after the golden ages

 

in all my lacks and lusting

leaf deep mulched with

 

puddled home

for whimsy

 

I tie my tongue

trot off

 

in this place

shadow lit

 

rainbows other end us

and once upon a time

 

climb out from under the pile of self

a song yet

few facts left

 

so touching

it is to decide

 

fish half plastic

the ocean too

 

grist for the mills I run

to cultivate abandon

 

let rattle every little heart

borne upon time's palanquin

 

it was always too much information

 

better to push the barrow

make hills

 

better to stand on the soap

than to slip

 

preserve me in hard liquor

smoke to me when gone

 

who but me lives this?

24. Philip Radmall's 'Silo - Remembering my Father's Garden' - Inviting Mark Mahemoff into the Conversation

 

Silo

Remembering my father’s garden

 

I am there because he is there

held in the unreachable light

that has long since moved away from us,

his shimmering, greying figure at the end of the garden,

there at sun-up beside

the patch of shining vegetables,

to re-tend leaves and stems,

the dazzling growth bordered in

like a small body of work.

The gleaming, clustered globes

of unearthed radish,

the pea-pods’ smooth-nubbed sheaths,

the tight, emerald swathes of lettuce;

what is still to be toiled at, or reaped,

gathered up into the barrow

and brought carefully back

and housed like his own store of knowledge.

Nothing seeming more primitive

or complete. Nothing more assuring

if what is sure is the hard but steady input

of life into other life.

Still caught in early light,

he stands too long ago

where he doesn’t see me,

where he looks out beyond the fence

across the vaster harvested fields,

a sheen off the stubble,

the other houses and gardens stretching round.

Far off in the distance,

a tall, silver, burnished silo.

 

23. Debbie Robson's 'What we remember of you' - inviting Reese North into the garden

 

Debbie Robson

What we remember of you

 

In answer to Jan Dean’s poem

'Spindrift and Scotch Mist'

 

 

 

Is different for all of us, Gail. I didn’t

even know you were originally from Sydney

until a gathering in tribute of you mentioned

your early years. I missed too the photos

on Facebook of Nobbys/Whibayganba.

What I remember first is sitting down

opposite you at a writing workshop.

The last time I saw you was at a nursery.

How fitting. At the writing workshop

I was lost and you reassured me I

was in the right place. Am I in the right

place now? Who knows, but I hardly saw any

of your garden photos and only remember

the butcher bird and his coming and goings

hopping about and calling me back to your

page, wishing I had met you much sooner.

22. Carol Archer, 'Shadow play #3' - inviting Gina McDonald into the garden

Carol Archer, 'Shadow play #3', 2023. Mixed media (etching, ink), 30 x 30 cm.

21. Jan Dean's 'Spindrift and Scotch Mist' - inviting Debbie Robson

Spindrift and Scotch Mist

inviting Debbie Robson

for my late friend, Gail Hennessy

 

You would love the venue with a view

of the splendid sweep of sand leading to Nobby’s/

Whibayganba with its cluster of houses and lighthouse

since you posted it on Facebook, so many times.

Your photos were often taken through arches of booths

with an Art Deco or Spanish mission flavour

in keeping with the surf club. There are differences:

You left suddenly, over a year ago

and your photos showed surf and sky of the brightest blue.

Today it’s bleak, a grey day: Sea and sky dissolve the horizon.

A woman shuffles up from the surf, with a large beach towel

wrapped around her head and body, while a few couples

move toward the car park. A lone fisherman wields

a fishing rod, and children skip, oblivious to the weather.

Was this your happy space, because it revived

the Cronulla surfie girl? You were passionate

about your garden with wildlife. Fanciful, I sometimes

imagined you would accept the power to transform

this stretch of beach with azaleas and camellias.

Better still, picture the magic of melaleucas, callistemon

grevillea, and banksia. From 2 to 4 pm today

it’s the first Hunter Writers’ social club and tomorrow

night, the tribute to you and your poetry. For now,

while some see spindrift, I feel scotch mist, descending.

 

‘Scotch Mist’ is a dense mist mixed with drizzle commonly found in the Scottish Highlands.

20. the firstness was a garden - inviting Philip Radmall into the conversation

the firstness was a garden

for Philip Radmall

 

sprinkled dust of star, a spell

 

you'll recognize

it's lit, still kissed

 

some trumpet for a date, a time

 

as for the firstness

I think it has a stale shoes smell

as of another age

or planetisimal

 

rain so far as it fell

 

lasts till we dissolve in it

 

then the leaves come all alight

so see how far we are

19. Therese Gabriel Wilkins' 'Summer' - inviting Robyn Werkhoven into the garden

Therese Gabriel Wilkins – ‘Trees’ Printmaker/Sculptor/Painter

http://www.theresegabrielwilkinsart.weebly.com

Central Coast NSW      

Therese grew up in Annandale and Panania Sydney and identifies with her English and Irish ancestry. She has worked and lived in New Zealand, Canberra, Queensland, Tamworth, Outback NSW, Sydney and the Central Coast.  She completed her Diploma in Visual Art and Advanced Printmaking at Newcastle TAFE graduating in 2013. Therese has lived and worked on the Central Coast for 33years.

Therese is a multi-disciplinary artist working in the areas of printmaking, sculpture, painting and mixed media.  Therese has had solo, collaborative and group exhibitions.  She participated in a Council collaborative art project and sculptural exhibitions. Her work is held in Public Collections in Wyong TAFE, Gosford Council, National Gallery archives, Brooklyn Art library archives and Holtermann Museum in Gulgong.  She has works in several private collections in America, Asia, Canada, Europe and Australia.   She has been involved in a Cultural Community Development project for Wyong Neighbourhood Centre, Gosford Council Urban Gallery Project. Therese has worked with local school children on arts project and has run workshops as an artisan of the Forest of Tranquility with community as part of the Central Coast Councils initiative ‘Wellness and the arts including art, creative movement and sound, sounds and music.   She is a member of the Artisans of the Forest and has performed singing and percussion accompaniment at High Teas and special events in the Forest of Tranquility.  Therese has toured Nights Watch Parliament on threatened and endangered owls since 2017 showing in Wyong Art House, Cessnock, Gulgong, Newcastle, Maleny, Pilliga, Warrumbungles and Warren in 2022.  She had a solo Endangered Endemic Extinct on King Island in 2021 featuring their Endangered birds.

Therese has completed an artist residency at Cradle Mountain Wilderness reserve in 2018 and King Island Cultural Centre in 2019.  She attended an artist residency in Stuart Town in March in 2023 and Dungog in September 2024.

Her practice is influenced by a sense of place and its narrative.  An art traveler who collects images, objects, stories, of the landscape, people, fauna and flora combining these creating art works which connect the people and their country.  She uses all the printmaking techniques often combining these into hybrids.