Looking Back at the Market

It was very interesting to chat with market-goers last Sunday about the consorts, and to watch people's reaction. I talked shop all day, it never got repetitive.

It was good to be out there.

It was good.

It was good to explain what I was doing, particularly how and where I had started with it.

I suppose at a stall like this I was less likely to chat with the indifferent or those who might hate it, but some actually gushed until I was thoroughly embarrassed.

I encouraged people to pick them up, saying, "they are not finished until they're held in your hands."

Consorts in Bronze and Pewter at The Market

The Consorts to the Mountain Goddess have been poured in bronze and pewter in Tasmania, beside a rivulet running straight down from the mountain.

Their making, ancient and new, is blogged here but their final shape however will be molded in you hands, by your touch.

So come and see them at the Market this April 11th 2010, opposite St David's Park in the old Masonic Hall near the corner of Sandy Bay Rd and Davey St, Hobart, Tasmania.

Spike's Baptism

Spike, Consort to the Mountain Goddess, was first made as a wax positive, candle wax, about two years ago.

There was an attempt at a bronze pour of a copy, but that effort failed.

Spike was first invested in a thin layer of plaster and then surrounded by an earth and wallaby dung outer. This was some months ago, which means the investment was very, very dry before it was burnt out and the wax lost to the flames.




So it only took a couple of hours tending an open camp fire with fallen branches, before I up-ended the mold and poured molten pewter into it. It worked well. Unlike the one I did the week before when I didn't let the mold cool down a little and it leaked into my packed sand.




Art is basically a form of consumption and I try to limit the environmental impact of what I do as much as possible. And while I am making devotional dolls for the Mountain Goddess, I don't think she actually likes art as fetishistically shiny-shiny. I re-use pewter, use and source as much material as I can get (like the chicken wire in the investment) from tip and second-hand shops. Using an open fire is very crude but it means I can use a more sustainable energy source, the trees in my backyard.

Other Authentic Cretan Fictions

It's a great blog post: Authenticities and Cretan Musics. I'm going to play that music while I sculpt more Cretan Consorts to the Mountain Goddess.

The post wanders and riffs on personally experiencing an authentically politicised romantic confabulation, and speaks to the heart of a multi-culti modernity, which, I find informs a lot of anti-nationalistic Australian nationalism. It's a very Australian post.

Must remember to make more tussled-hair consorts and maybe I give one an instrument.

The First Bronzes?

Cobbled from here and here:

These figurines of men and women from Tell Judaidah, Turkey, are the oldest examples of true bronze (combination of copper and tin) human figures known. They date to about 3000 B.C. The statuettes were intended to be mounted in some fashion, for a tang projects below the feet of each one. The skill with which these unique pieces were modelled and the technical knowledge that was needed for their casting reveal surprisingly high standards of artistic and technical achievement in Syria at the beginning of the third millennium B.C.

Both sources suggest that the male figures are warriors brandishing weapons. And they may have good contextuals reasons for doing so. Looks like they are might be presenting sacrificial lambs or kids on their shoulders to me.

demi-consort spotted in Arizona: #Swineflu is Born!

Sheree Rensel (aka @wizzlewolf) has put up images of the grand opening of a Twitter.com organized Artshow "Twitter 140" on the projects blog.

Thank you Sheree for making it happen.

I am on twitter too @meika of course.

Small Works Exhibition 09

I've sent three bronze consorts of to the Brunswick St Gallery for their Small Works 09 Exhibition, including the Lame Consort to the Mountain Goddess above. If you're in Melbourne, it is opening tomorrow 19 June and closing 2 July, while the Exhibition Opening is on 26 June 2009. There are prizes and everything.