Sydney Harbour has always been magical for me – mostly probably because it IS beautiful, but also from as a child taking the Manly Ferry with my mum and my mum’s family to go to the city, or the museum or the movies or anywhere. it was a common thing to do whenever we visited Sydney, and when I lived in Sydney before I went to school.
I recently saw a Stuart Davis book in one of my lunch time excursions to an air-conditioned Kinokuniya on a hot day in January. I resolved to do a Stuart Davis inspired collage, and even spent a little time getting inspo online. I realised of course once I began that this isn’t new for me. While i didn’t do a Stuart Davis in my Inspired Theme series, the collages that I did afterwards from offcuts were pretty close in feel.
So my subject is Sydney Harbour, partly taken from a couple of 1940s image of Circular Quay, and then by way of a Brett Whiteley image of the Harbour with another ferry terminal in the foreground. Basically everything is conspiring to create this series. You’ll see all of them below.
Initially it was backgrounds I missed, and i started on white paper, but i had some brilliant bright post cards (retrieved from my box of postcards, initally gifted by Cathie from paper samples she had in her collection). Recently I’d acquired a sunny yellow ana cerulean blue tube of acrylic paint – most of my acrylics having dried up finally, 20 years after I bought them. I’ve graduated now to using old bunnings magazines on coloured card also from my collection (probably from Meaghan’s mum). My entire art story seems to be telling about the origins of the papers!!!
The nice thing is that they are quick. And the experience of cutting things out and leaving them half done on my desk means I can be walking past to do something else and be struck by how good they look, and self-doubt evaporates…. i am currently having a run of bad days (nothing terrible, just disappointments, but disappointments making me notice disappointments). So forcing myself to sit for a while and cut out shapes and stick them down is lovely. Especially when I stop because I feel like I’m not happy with it… but walk past and am very happy with it, and all is right with the world for a moment again!!
