Sunday, March 20, 2011

Creative obstacles

And finally... a post about art!  (Or at least me talking about wanting to make art!)

I have been feeling a little creatively challenged of late.  You see I have another solo exhibition coming up in November, and as I haven't yet started making work for the aforementioned exhibition, I am beginning to feel frustrated.

We recently moved house in December 2010, and the plan was for me to set up my studio in the bungalow my sister-in-law had previously lived in.  Well with everything that goes into moving house, setting it up, etc, it was taking a while to get everything in order, which is normal apparently. 

Then the unthinkable happened; that horrid rain and flood event hit our area in February of this year.

Our lovely newish house (it was my husband's parents' house originally, then the home of his sister and her family for a few years) was surrounded by water from the front, back and sides.  My beloved new studio, which was also storing furniture, some artwork from my last solo exhibition, art materials, etc. flooded and caused considerable damage to the items I just described.

But we were lucky compared to some, while the house and vineyard were surrounded by water, (the poor vines haven't fared very well at all this year and we have lost our entire crop of Merlot), the main area of structural damage was the studio/bungalow.  We didn't have to move out of the house - although in hindsight we probably should have, as we were without sewerage and drainage for nearly two weeks!

It took over a week for the insurance assessor to get to us, as the company had to prioritise those in urgent need (some people had no choice but to abandon their homes due to the rain event causing drains to overflow and raw sewerage to flow into many poor people's houses in town).  But he was a reasonable man and put me at ease with our situation.  He organised a builder to come and have a look at the room (although the builder took nearly two weeks to get to us, due to the sheer number of people needing urgent help).

I'm still waiting for the builder to come and commence work on the room, but hopefully it won't take too long to complete and I'll be able to move some of the undamaged stuff that has been sitting outside under the carport all this time back in - on shelves and in cupboards this time, just in case!  I'll then be able to start on a new body of work that I hope to feel comfortable showing.

The exhibition tentatively titled In Memoria (In Memory) will open Wednesday 2 November 2011 at The Art Vault in Mildura, so keep the date free.  It will also cap off a pretty big week for me, I will have  celebrated a milestone birthday a few days before!



4 comments:

  1. It's amazing how far reaching the flood damage is and so hard to be creative when you don't have a proper space. I look forward to your exhibition though, I think I saw one at Gallery 25 a while ago, beautiful.

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  2. thanks Moana, I hope to get cracking real soon... fingers crossed!

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  3. An artwork on the memory of your pieces pre flooding perhaps?

    How long will your work be exhibited there? I come home mid December...will I miss it?

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  4. I'll be up for three weeks Camille, so you may miss it "in the flesh" but I'll be sure to post pics of it for those that can't make it in person.

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