My non-Instagram life. Pretty good. Now I just experience things not present them for others to experience. My life is private and nice. My life is slower and I don’t want to go anywhere or talk much. Or want anyone to look at me. Three months past surgery and recovery and cancer and all that jazz

Just want to go into my studio and never come out again

In there I’ve been hammering this canvas

Another material study in upscaling this chain idea

Doing thinking.

Have to use aluminium chain because of the weight of stainless steel chain. It will be quite a lot of chain and steel is too heavy

But the arc cannot be aluminium wire because its too soft; cant hold the weight nor the perfect sweep.

But aluminium wire is so easy, so easy to bendy, I have loads of it and 2mm is the look I want.

Have to think.

Look around for something. I have so much stuff. So much stuff. Find some 3mm brass rod in a drawer! Bend it in the Big Vise

Big Vise action at a later stage that belongs to October so look forward to that.

Thinking it looks a little shower curtain

which is obvs not the look.

This particular chain is not the right visual weight for this particular scale. But I do like it

Make another chain thing while I think

Thinking.

Mark the location where the chain will go on this big canvas. Cant wait to start cutting into this thing. Nervously putting it off. The white strip of paper looks like the right curve. I’ve been busting to work at this scale so its exciting. But I cant let it be too easy.

Thinking about other stuff

I’ve always thought, that if I stood to lose physical elements due to sickness or accident, my preference would be “please dont take my eyes and my hands, my eyes and my hands”, but one never knows…so I guess now I know? I have an eye disease, both eyes. My hands are fine. Honestly the whole thing is tedious.

Have to trial fixing objects seamlessly into the surface so there’s no drag or look of attachment. So they just alight upon it. Need to support the chain from behind, fix it to the stretcher bars. Should have used the wider profile stretcher.

Want this bracing removable so I can change my mind if I want.

If I pierce through the canvas & then decide it needs to go 4mm to the left, it’d be a matter of covering over a hole. Doable I guess but I don’t like it.

I’m thinking I don’t like being told what to do.

Really important to plan but there’s only so much.

Go to Bunnings & have a browse, some thinking.

Perhaps there’s some thinking that the ‘distressed gold’ look is passé, dated, so ‘90’s, but its still good and it seems to come from my heart and I like it; or that the energetic scribbles might be boringly “abstract-expressionist-on-a-bad-yet-passionate-day” but…I don’t know. They want to be there. Not policing myself with an eye on an art college assessment

I have been thinking I’ll embroider but the surface is delicate, it would have to come off the stretcher and I don’t think it can handle it. Bend the canvas and the leaf & shellac surface shatters. But I don’t want to limit my working area, bound only to the canvas thats accessible while its on the stretcher, I want to go all the way to the edge. I can only embroider to the edge if I can get a needle up there and I cant do that while its stapled to the stretcher. Need to think it. Gonna hold off. There might be a way around it. Gonna give it some thought.

Like, a whole year can go by while I measure it up in my mind. I started this canvas nearly one year ago. 11 months ago. Excruciating.

This arc of chain is unbudgeable in my mind. Action time is nigh. Then I get tired.

We had to get rid of the stroller, he wouldn’t walk anywhere

I bought two of these dresses in London in 2009 so they’re in storage now lol. A little snug as a bug now lol. This photo is from depop; there are still some around, find it online as a “DVF Aggie dress” or ‘Diane von Furstenberg Aggie dress silk jersey’ to be precise. The other one is blue & white and I wore it all the time but I love these colours and its good for me to use more colour and I’ve been thinking about London a lot

I loved those years, I knew I was lucky to be there

Taking a pic with one hand while holding something up to see what its like. I heavily reference my photo library, I have 104,895 photos on my phone and I consult them constantly. Its a way to distance the work, remove it apart from me so I may see objectively. Differently. Sometimes I turn photos upside down, amazing what that can tell you. With sculpture, its tricky to sketch in the air so I draw on photos or do my ‘working drawings’, ideas on scraps of paper or on the notes app on my phone. Drawings that wouldn't make sense to anyone else.

Thinking this is batshit crazy.

The lace background is pretty much mashed now, under all this shit I pile on. I like the white lines over everything though, like bandages, taping things down. Tying everything together, even if only compositionally. Tension. Maybe.

Cant deal.

I’ve been staring at it for a long while and I like the way it looks now. I wish I didn’t have to spend the next year over-working it like I do. So tired of it all.

Bake more pear walnut nutmeg puddings I cant be stopped; apple pie with a lid not lattice, different; Persian Love Cake for a friend’s wedding anniversary. Its all very golden-browny.

Lol. But really?

On its way to Pack & Send to Melbourne. Its been on my workbench for many months, countless layers and patient recipients.

Someone else’s handbag which I dont mind, I just mind that she bought it in Milano so I’m sad I’m not in Italy

We’re stalking a corgi now. We’ve found out where it lives and drive by most mornings for a sighting, which is exciting when it happens. We dont know for sure, but imagine his name is Mr Lucky.

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October 19, 2020

Current work October 2020

I made a sketch, had an idea, and everything that then follows, documents my search to find it materially, to make it so I could see what it looked like. Took ages