Happenstance

Here is a little bit of what I’ve been doing lately. After my upgrade to iPhone 6, one of my favourite apps, The Amazing Type-Writer, no longer worked. Fortunately I stumbled upon a secondhand typewriter in a charity store and had it serviced by the last typewriter repairman in Melbourne.

I rediscovered the joys of a mechanical typewriter, and have been having a lot of fun typing up poems on all the vintage paper I have collected. The papers date from approximately 1860–1970, and take the form of receipts, letters, envelopes, ledgers, notebooks and the like. I have also experimented with incorporating pen and ink illustrations on some of them, such as this one above.

The paper dated from around 1915 if I remember correctly, but the pencil scribble was barely legible. Written about a couple of years ago, the poem was a dream I had – I actually still retain some of the visuals, it made such a strong and eerie impression on me. Because the paper had already been written on in pencil, I couldn’t make even a rough sketch (with a view to possibly rubbing out errors) of the chandelier I intended to paint, so I boldly went straight in with the pen and ink.

I have always enjoyed fearlessly painting like that – loose gestures impart such a carefree mood. When paper is precious or very expensive, I have sometimes found it difficult to be insouciant with ink, but over the years I have slowly let that fear go. Accidental spills and drips and wonky lines are very rewarding in their own way: they’re real, in the moment, and there’s no artifice. I value that.  

On Training the Eye

The view from my drawing boardIn general I am not one for representational art, especially hyper-realism – I just don’t see the point when a camera can capture a subject so much more quickly and accurately. There are far more interesting things to explore in art-making than merely drawing something that looks ‘real’.

However, recently it occurred to me that it would be interesting to draw from life once more as a form of discipline. It is too easy sometimes, when drawing from the imagination, to become generic, and therefore uninteresting and repetitive. To draw from life one must train the eye to observe what is there and guide the hand, rather than what one thinks is there.

… one must train the eye to observe what is there and guide the hand, rather than what one thinks is there

One of my favourite mediums to draw in – especially for life drawing – is charcoal, and I like to go quite dark and heavy. Not only to create mood, but to build layer upon layer and subtly shape form out of darkness – like a two dimensional sculpture. I particularly love Georges Seurat’s black and white charcoal drawings for this aspect.

Egg and silver spoonI decided to do some small studies, and in the end completed six over two or three days this past week. They were all small objects, quite different from one another, but all organic matter: an egg on a silver spoon, three cherry tomatoes, a stone sculpture of a horse, a carved wooden Balinese hand, a Chinese calligraphy brush, and a spider seashell.

My drawing board faces a window, so all the items were backlit and quite shadowed, which certainly encourages a heavy hand with the compressed charcoal. I also used a smudgestick for blending (I do use my fingers too) and a kneadable eraser (I love those things!) for rubbing back to create highlights. I really dislike going back and using white conté to create highlights – it creates an ugly whiteish-grey colour. It’s much better to let the paper shine through. 

Drawing flat versus at an easel presents its own challenges, but I am pretty pleased with the results, though some are more successful than others. I wasn’t too hung up on capturing every exact detail – the drawings are small and the charcoal is fat! – rather, capturing the essence of the object was more important to me. I enjoyed myself enormously too. Scroll down to see the finished pieces. 

Moroccan stone horseMoroccan stone horseBalinese wooden handBalinese wooden handBalinese wooden hand
Spider seashellSpider seashellChinese calligraphy brushChinese calligraphy brushChinese calligraphy brush

An Australian in Paris

Girl With Cigarette, by Agnes Noyes Goodsir; a portrait of Rachael Dunn, or Cherry, as Goodsir called her long-term partnerAgnes Noyes Goodsir (1864-1939)There is an Australian painter of the early twentieth century who is often referred to as the ‘Australian in Paris’: Rupert Bunny; but there is another expatriate – a woman named Agnes Noyes Goodsir – who can equally be so referred to.

I recently stumbled across Goodsir while researching another story and marvelled that I had never heard of her, not at art school or subsequently, and I can find very little written about her. She must be one of the most unsung artists in our history. There is such a lovely quietness and serenity in the few paintings I can find of hers, I was immediately struck by their melancholy beauty.

Chinese Skirt, by Agnes Noyes Goodsir, 1933Goodsir was born in Portland, Victoria in 1864, and was one of eleven children. She studied at the Bendigo School of Mines until 1899 and was encouraged by her teacher to study in Paris. She took his advice. After a ten-year hiatus in England, Goodsir returned to Paris in 1921.

Flowers and Green Beads, by Agnes Noyes GoodsirIn Paris, she established herself chiefly as a portrait painter, still lifes and interiors, capturing the stories and ambience of the Parisian lifestyle during the Roaring Twenties. Goodsir’s paintings were acclaimed in Europe, but even after visiting Australia in 1927 for two exhibitions in Melbourne and Sydney, she received little recognition and sold only a small number of works. She returned to Paris and lived there until her death in 1939.

A cup of tea (title unknown), by Agnes Noyes GoodsirA Letter, by Agnes Noyes Goodsir, 1915The Parisienne, by Agnes Noyes Goodsir, 1924Hydrangeas, by Agnes Noyes Goodsir, 1938

The Romance Quilt

A Gift for a Lion, by Sara Craven

Years ago I went hunting in all the Melbourne op shops for old 60s and 70s Mills & Boon romance novels, taken by the lurid titles and painterly style of the cover art that was in vogue at the time. 

Over time I was able to buy dozens of books for very little – 10–50c each. Often I would exit the store and immediately rip the covers off, tossing the text pages into the nearest bin. It was hard the first time, but we are talking pulp fiction, so I become blasé before very long. I now I have about 150 covers, and am slowly stitching them into a Romance Quilt – I am up to row 7. 

So in honour of Mills & Boon, may I wish you a happy Valentine's Day! 

The Whispering Gate, by Mary WibberleyThe Widow and the Wastrel, by Janet Dailey
Bladon’s Rock, by Pamela Kent

Father of Fashion Photography – Edward Steichen

Model Marion Morehouse in a bouffant dress and actress Helen Lyons in a long sleeve dress by Kargère, 1926Art Deco fashion and photography – two loves of mine – meet gloriously in the National Gallery of Victoria’s exhibition Edward Steichen & Art Deco Fashion, which comprises over two hundred photographs and over thirty garments.

Edward Steichen (1879–1973), an American photographer born in Luxembourg, bought his first camera in 1895 at 16 out of curiosity: a secondhand Kodak box ‘detective’ camera. By 1903, until 1917, he was the most frequently featured photographer in the groundbreaking magazine Camera Work. Steichen’s photographs of landscapes and portraits hover between ethereal beauty and sculptural studies rendered in light and shade, though this exhibition focuses on his work in fashion, which had its inception in 1911.

On George Bahers yacht: June Cox wearing unidentified fashion; E. Vogt wearing fashion by Chanel and a hat by Reboux; Lee Miller wearing a dress by Mae and Hattie Green and a scarf by Chanel; Hannah Lee Sherman wearing unidentified fashion, 1928Actress Carlotta Monterey wearing a diamond head bandeau by Cartier, and a white ermine wrap with a white fox collar, 1924Steichen was encouraged by Lucien Vogel, the publisher of Jardin des Modes and La Gazette du Bon Ton, to promote fashion as a fine art through the use of photography. His subsequent photos of Paul Poiret’s gowns for the magazine Art et Décoration are regarded as the first modern fashion photographs ever published – he went on to become the chief photographer for Vogue and Vanity Fair. His work turned fashion photography on its head, and influenced generations of photographers after him.

Model Marion Morehouse (left) and unidentified model wearing dresses by Vionnet, 1930The graceful, flowing lines of the fashion of that era between the wars encapsulate sartorial elegance for me, and many of the garments of that time (especially those on the more minimalist side) still look effortless and modern today, nearly a hundred years later. The garments chosen to accompany Steichen’s visionary pictures are suberb; perfectly curated; and can only make one gasp and marvel at the imaginative designs and construction; at the incredible detail of decorative beading. They bring Steichen’s photographs into brilliant life.

Model wearing a shawl of crepe de chine painted by Russian artists, 1924Princess Nathalie Paley wearing sandals by Shoecraft, 1934There is also a short documentary film in the exhibition showing Steichen working in his studio (complete with a gaggle of editorial onlookers), giving a fascinating insight into the working methods of one of the first fashion photographers of the twentieth century. One cannot be but struck how very different it was from today, how much effort was expended to achieve certain effects, and how we take for granted what is possible today. And yet in spite of the limitations, Steichen’s entire oeuvre of photography is sublimely beautiful and must still remain amongst the greatest works in the history of photography.

The exhibition runs until March 2. I might even go again.

Actress Gloria Swanson, 1924Actress Alice Brady dressed for the play Sour Grapes, 1926Actress Marlene Dietrich, 1934Actor Gary Cooper, 1930