Last year I attended the 2011 Sculpture Camp and unfortunately became very sick and made hardly any work that I relay wanted to make, so when I heard there would be another camp this year i jumped at the opportunity to attend another camp (and hopefully not get sick on this one). I decided to take journal entries and sketches this time at camp, It has been helping me throughout the year so i decided to use it on camp. We stayed about a week at Camp Kirkalocka which use to be a sheep ranch but now is used for mining,campers like our group, and growing back natural wildlife as part of the governments funding scheme to help restore Australian landscapes back to their natural beauty. It took a whole day to get down to the Camp ground which was an amazing experience with all of us art students and jewellery students all hyped up on sugar after our last stop being in Bindoon at the bakery were we all bought extra large coffee's (2 each for some of us) and heaps of delicious hot pies and cakes for the road.
And yes you read right above. we have two Jewellery students attend camp this year- FIRST TIME EVER! and they made amazing works- who ever said jewellery was not an art form is stupid and obviously did not attend this camp.
We left about 7:30-8:00 in the morning and reached camp around 6:00 on the night time, we were all tired and could of slept were we dropped but we unloaded the bus and trucks and set up our rooms in our workers shack were the sheep shearers use to live whilst during the sheering seasons, before we all sat down and had a delicious soup dinner. We all woke up the next day anxious to get into work but thought it would be best to look around the whole property first. We had the owners Ann and Geoff show us around the property to both the "resource centre" (yes another resource centre which we were all were fascinated with) along with the property itself with its many different landscapes such as the natural clay fields, the water hole/creek, the quartz area, rock pyramid area made by the settlers, and the cliffs area. We all fell in love with certain places and learnt that if something had a red ribbon on it that we were to go no were near it and "DONT TOUCH OR US" it. I fell in love with a huge collection of ceramic power line temperature monitors which we were encouraged to use. I spoke to Ann and Geoff about the old power line that use to run through the property that was upgraded a few decades ago and how it was called "The Grid" by the locals. I decided to do some sketches of ways i could use the ceramic temperature monitors and came up with a simple but effective, free standing grid formation. The ceramic temperature monitors came in three basic styles: just with the ceramic insulator, ceramic insulator and wooden attachment stick, ceramic insulator and metal attachment pipe. I worked it out that with them being free standing in the open field between the house and the creek that if the wind blew them down that that would be part of the work with the old phone line demolished and re-built anew which the artwork would constantly have to be done if it got to windy. Later on after setting up my grid i stumbled (more like tripped and fell face first) over a sign that said "GRID" on it. I could not believe my luck and how ironic the sign was when eventually placed with the work. We had to make a major and minor work so I decided to do some minor works with glass bottle and then some with ash and the red dirt that was every were and in ever ones stuff. I used broken bottle tops which i shoved with natural clay to then plant seedlings into which i then scattered a majority of them around the property before i left due to how Ann and Geoff said how the flowers can only grow in shady areas which in between the glass is a perfect place for them. I then tired some glass fragments to an old washing board so that the reflections of the changing sunlight made the glass shine all different colours and shapes onto the floor and surrounding areas. I then made ash and dirt drawings using ash from the nights fire the night before which we used natural branches from the property to burn. I mixed the ash and dirt together and made tribal patterns into the sand in the area were the ginneyfowl (weird looking chickens, cross turkeys, cross really noisy animals) always hung about and walked through so the ash and sand would mix together and be absorbed into the natural environment again- people walking through the sight as well helped in this process a lot. I made a small ash drawing at first to see if it would work before making the large scale one. The end result of the camp was heaps of people make heaps of works with a lot of them being large scale, heaps of amazing photographs taken, new friendships made, new ideas and ways of working learnt, and most of all we all had a great time and were able to just concentrate on our work for once without the distractions of phones,internet or people constantly trying to contact you, we could just let the site speak to us so we can speak back which a lot of us achieved with A+ grades. The ride home was pretty good as well, quiet seeing as all most of us did was sleep, drink coffee, sleep, drink more coffee when we got back to Bindoon, and then sleep before arriving back at TAFE in perth. I know for sure a lot of us would love to go on another camp but wont be able to seeing as its our last year.....but that does not mean we cant go away ourself :)
Below is a link to the website were we stayed at:
http://www.kirkalocka.com/
"Grid" Sketches- Photograph of sketch book/journal.
"Grid" Photograph
"Grid" Photograph
Photograph of the highway we traveled on taken from up at the "Rock Pyramid" area
Found object Photograph at the resource tip. not touched or positioned in any way
photograph of "Glass bottle's"
"Ash Drawings" photograph
"Ash Drawings" photograph- close up
Sunset photograph
Sunset Photograph
Open shutter exposure sunrise Photograph
Creek bed, Wind mill, Water tank Photograph
