Green Vale Gallery News - March 2011

Dear Friends

An update for you, about the Gallery and my recent artistic endeavours.

As someone very wise once said, “you make plans, but life happens” and certainly this seems to be the case over the last few years, Global Financial Crisis, illness, bereavement, and all manner of natural disasters have certainly added extra challenges to most people’s lives.  So, for me personally, this meant no 2010 Vernissage.  Thank you to all who contacted me to check that all was well when they didn’t get their usual invitation. There will be another in the not too distant future, but I’ll give you plenty of notice of this.

As is my practice, I ’ve spent a lot of time working on and improving my art, the techniques and final products.  I have had the privilege of working with Adele Outteridge (www.studiowestend.com ) and examining the book as art, and making many “artist books” in the process.

I have continued work in my other modalities and this year’s focus is on Gold and Silver Smithing.  I’ve been fortunate enough to join Sue and Elmar Rothbrust (of the Goldsmith’s School in Bardon www.goldsmithschool.com.au ) in their vocational course and am honing my skills in this area.

I also participated and exhibited in a self portrait exhibition, organised by Wim de Vos (Studio West End) and enjoyed the variety of “portraits” that were present in this exhibition.  If you missed it, you can go to the above Studio West End website and click on the links to the Self Portrait Exhibition or try this link: http://studiowestend.com/?p=207  .  See if you can work out which one is me!

The other big news for 2011, is that I have started a Practice Based PhD with Central Queensland University.   This is very exciting as I feel it will take my art to another level, as it will undoubtably benefit from a very rigorous and sustained research process. My collaborating organisation is the Outback Gondwana Foundation (http://www.ogf.org.au).  I will be preparing an exhibition and thesis which aims to find new knowledge relating to evolution and extinction in the Eromanga Cretaceous plant fossil horizons.  If you go to the OGF site and click on their latest newsletter (Issue 3), you will find some more information about this on page 11.  The whole process has been rather serendipitous and resulted from participating in last year’s Dig at Eromanga as a Qld Museum volunteer.
I will give plenty of notice of the exhibition as it will certainly be very unique in terms of the objects being studied, the resultant art forms and the new knowledge it generates.

Anita  (AK Milroy, Green Vale Gallery)