Here we are in a ‘7 Day’ lockdown which has given me time to stop and reflect on the month of May that went so quickly I almost missed it.
It was such a shame that Walter and I could not attend the much-awaited RISING festival activities as our tickets for all performances were cancelled. On the eve of Reconciliation Week, we were to enjoy Bungul in Hamer Hall and experience the magnificent projection on the Art Centre. I hope that the projection is extended, as it looks great in the video clips.
We did, however, have an at-home dinner celebration and extensive clear view of that giant red-blood moon. Joy for Walter that his oncologist does not want to see him for a year.
May came in a flurry as the Flora exhibition closed, the Nillumbik Prize opened at Montsalvat, and Walter featured on the front page of the Warrandyte Diary that reported on the Anzac Day March.
In between Walter’s medical appointments we managed a few days, with the dog, in Lakes Entrance. What a vibrant arts community, full of energy, collaboration, and some broad thinkers. We spent time with Jan Martin, Cynthia Boyle, Ngaere Donald, enjoying their creative studios, afternoon tea in the converted dairy and great conversations with spouses.
Another lovely dinner at Jan’s place with Josephine Jakobi, Andrea Lane, more spouses, and an introduction to the Lake Tyers Float residency.
At Red Gallery in Fitzroy, with Janet Boddy and many others I listened to Anne Hastie’s presentation, set amongst her artworks in the Peridot exhibition, in gallery one. In gallery three Beatrice Magalotti exhibited her Migration Series of drawings, installation, bronze, and photography.
I was wowed when I walked into an exhibition by Sue Jarvis. Art That Makes You Think was held at the Cardinia Cultural Centre, a superb gallery space where Sue’s paintings were literally awesome. The exhibition was a survey of some 15 years of studio production. An absolute credit to her.
It was a privilege to attend the wake and exhibition of works for Valda Cuming OAM. Valda, at 91, passed away in April 2020. Valda’s legacy continues with the profit from exhibition sales being divided between her three favourite arts organisations. I am pleased to say I now own two small Valda Cuming artworks.
Not knowing whether June will be spent at home in our 5klm zone, Walter and I are in preparation for future activities but keep low key immediately. This time is good for, well, writing, studio work, touching base with friends and family and updating social media.
With a major installation planned for November, I am required by end of June to submit images and text for promotion of the artwork and workshops, whilst continually folding paper for the installation.
As the webmaster for the Melbourne Society of Women Painters and Sculptors (MSWPS) June will see me setting up an online Covid Creations exhibition due to be launched 1 July.
Also, as editor for The Bulletin, a bi-monthly MSWPS Newsletter, my job is to have the publication out before 1 July.
For more than a year I have been planning for a crate of my artworks to be sent from China.
11 June sees the crate landing in Melbourne and delivery to my studio 18 June. I look forward to having a few of my babies in Melbourne.
In February I participated in the Year of Wonder presentation in Warrandyte. The exhibition concludes on 30 June and a celebration with a book launch will take place on Saturday 3 July. I was fortunate to be able to by a copy and full of excitement to see my images included in the publication. Our Year of Wonders Warrandyte 2020 is available for purchase at $40.
To view the full image: Select and click on first image – click on the i in a circle RHB of opened page then select View Full Size.
I am very pleased to have my photographs included in the publication “Our Year of Wonders”.
The publication in conjunction with ‘A Year of Wonders’ event that concludes on 30 June, is available for purchase at locations around Warrandyte and a special event on Saturday 3 July.
Read below a message from Jane Annois and Bill McAuley regarding the event.
Hi everyone,
Catching up on News of activities around Stony Creek Studio
Denise was a Recipient of a Manningham Artist-in-Residence Feb/March 2021 – Feb 22 until March 21 (blog coming up)
re$pect – Bendigo Bank, 282 Lygon St. Carlton 6 – 30 April https://www.mavacollective.com/
Rock, Paper, Scissors – Red Gallery, 19 March – 1 April,
19 March 2021 – 1 April 2021 Group Show: ROCK, PAPER, SCISSORS
Flora: Celebrating the Plant World – Until May 1, https://www.greaterdandenong.vic.gov.au/flora
Flesh After Fifty – Until April 11
Preserving Your Future – Legacy Planning for Older Women Artists, Thursday 18 March
Check out the Warrandyte Diary, page 18.
Click to access March-2021_correctionsV-2.pdf
https://www.fleshafterfifty.com/events/preserving-your-future.html
A Year of Wonders – Photographic exhibition and Projection event –
@ Taffy’s Hut, Lions Park Warrandyte – Continues until 30 June
To view the full image: Select and click on first image – click on the i in a circle RHB of opened page then select View Full Size.
Exciting to be featured in the latest Arts Manningham eNews.
Art e-facts
We asked our Arts Manningham Fellowship recipient Denise Keele-Bedford to let us in on some of her “art e-facts”…
What is your most memorable art experience?
With just on 30 years of art practice and many exciting art experiences along the way, like my first solo show and international artist-in residencies, the one significant and influential experience was my time at Arthur Boyd’s, Bundanon.
The residency was the first time that I had a studio to myself, where I only had to consider one entity, myself.
It was an opportunity that taught me how to operate in future residency situations.
Sixteen years later I still follow the principles of discipline and process that I learnt at Bundanon.
Where do you see yourself in five years’ time?
The future, we know is an unknown.
However, to follow an arts practice pathway, five years is not too far ahead.
Within the next five years I intend to finalise shipment of my artwork from China to Melbourne, complete and exhibit current unfinished artworks. By 2025 I will have had at least two solo exhibitions and undertaken at least two Artist-in Residence programs.
I am interested in mentorship and believe by 2025 I will have enough experience to mentor younger emerging artists.
I will also continue with public and community projects, where relevant and continue my studio art practice.
Why do the arts matter?
Arts matter, because life matters.
Since time immemorial humans have wanted to express themselves and record the ebb and flow of life in a visual form.
Art is a language for communication. Like learning a foreign language art gives an opportunity to study and engage with ‘the other’.
Due to diversity in the arts, there is always an art form that one can connect with at all levels of interest.
Between February 22 – March 23, I will be Artist-in-Residence at Manningham Arts.
What a fabulous, refreshing feeling to be engaging in 2021 Art based activities.
Current and upcoming activities for Stony Creek Studio:
Waste Not Want Not – Geelong ArSpace 89 Ryrie Street Geelong
A Year of Wonders – Photographic exhibition and Projection event – Opens Saturday 6 February at 6pm
@ Taffy’s Hut, Lions Park Warrandyte – Featuring Denise Keele-bedford
AT SEA – Melbourne and Victorian Artists Group Exhibition – Until February 2 Featuring Denise Keele-bedford
@ Southern Buoy Studios 1/19 Carbine Way, Mornington – https://www.southernbuoystudios.com.au/atsea-mava
9 by 5 Exhibition – Until January 23 Featuring Denise Keele-bedford
@ Walker Street Gallery and Arts Centre Cnr. Walker and Robinson Streets, Dandenong https://www.greaterdandenong.vic.gov.au/greater-dandenong-council/events/9-5-exhibition
Of Colour and Light – Women abstract Artists Biennial – Until February 28
@ Westend Art Space 112 Adderley Street, West Melbourne -Featuring Denise Keele-bedford
https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1uBA4loQYF8peyHxzO9bYZenLj0Vu4xkM
Denise is a Recipient of a Manningham Creative Industries Small Fellowship Phase 1, 2020 – ongoing
Denise is a Recipient of a Manningham Artist-in-Residence Feb/March 2021 – Feb 22 until March 21
To view the full image: Select and click on first image – click on the i in a circle RHB of opened page then select View Full Size.
BLUETHUMB
A variety of my artworks are currently available for viewing on this platform.
Founded in 2012, Bluethumb are Australian based and offer an immense of information to artists on promotion and selling their artworks.
It is free to set up a profile and add images to their online Gallery of artists and images.
In addition to the artworks seen on the Stony Creek Studio website my artwork can be viewed at: https://bluethumb.com.au/denise-keele-bedford
Bluethumb state: We represent over 11,000 emerging and established artists from Australia and work with 20 of Australia’s most remote Aboriginal Art Centres to give you access to more Australian artists and their art than anywhere else in the world.
We have sold over 30,000 original Australian artworks to everyone; from first time art buyers to established collectors and Australia’s finest architecture firms.
But this is just the first chapter in our story.
As a Member of the Melbourne Society of Women painters and Sculptors, I am happy to say that I am participating in the 111th Exhibition. Changing Perspectives is our Inaugural Online Virtual Exhibition.
All are invited to view the exhibition when it goes ‘LIVE’ at 8pm on Friday 6th November.
Copy and past into your search engine to Open the Exhibition:
https://mswps.com.au/changing-perspectives-2020
2020 has been a remarkably different year for our society. The Annual General Meeting in March was the only opportunity for members to meet before the pandemic lockdown. This meeting took place at The Ola Cohn Centre, the former home and studio of the sculptor Ola Cohn, now MSWPS regular meeting place. Ola Cohn was President of the Society for fifteen years until her death in 1964. On Thursdays, Life Drawing and other activities are usually held at the Centre, but all has been quiet this year with no art gallery or studio visits, paint outs, artist’s talks, workshops, bus or train trips. Yet despite COVID 19 restrictions, the society has provided camaraderie and support to members as in the past. Although not being able to meet in person, General Meetings and Committee Meetings via Zoom have become the norm. They have kept us in touch and informed, as have the comprehensive e-Bulletins. Many members have used this time of fewer interruptions in creative productivity. Works created before our world changed last year will be shown online as well as the diverse isolation works.
In 2016 my Artist residency was in Poughkeepsie on the Hudson River, two hours North of Manhattan in New York State. Poughkeepsie is a multi-cultural community and there I saw correlation with my community and topical aspects of immigration, trade and asylum seekers.
I created my first origami boat installation that represented the 315-mile length of the river, the assortment of vessels of trade and diverse cultures who have engaged with the river. An installation was again created in Warrandyte in January 2017 and featured in the Warrandyte Diary.
The Boat Project has continued since that time, in a diverse range of interpretations including Yellow Boats of Hope. Yellow stands for happiness, positivity, energy, remembrance, optimism and joy.
Dangerous boat travels, sinking vessels, deaths and authoritarian refusal to enter Australian waters are signs of desperation and the risks taken by asylum seekers for a better life. One can only imagine the plight, hardship and difficulty in being forced to seek asylum from your home in a strange other country, and the consequential risk to you and your loved ones lives on an unknown arrival.
The Hope Boats were first shown in the ‘CONNECTION 8000’ Exhibition at C + Space, Shunyi, Beijing PR China (2017). Curator Jingjing Jia. I also conducted a Children’s Workshop within the exhibition space for Tasun Creative Art.
Also in 2017 I was invited to participate in the 27 Degree Angle East Lake International Ecological Sculpture Biennale at Jiufeng Urban Forestry Reserve in Wuhan, Hubei, China. I created an installation titled ‘Golden boat: Golden Waterway’ in acknowledgement of the trading route along the Yangtze River that flows through Wuhan.
I was fortunate to create three installations of Yellow Boats in 2018. An invitation to participate in the Redgate residency open studio programme enabled me to show my work in the very studio where I had my first China residency in 2003. In September 2018 Curator Jingjing Jia extended an invitation to create a Yellow Boat installation at K-YARC Gallery Gwangju South Korea, as a fringe exhibition in conjunction with the Gwangju Art Biennale.
A series of silkscreen prints and collage titled SIEV: Titles of Positivity were exhibited with the installation A Gold Boat for a Gold Coin in the Adrift exhibition at Red Gallery in 2018; to assist in raising funds for Asylum Seekers.
In 2019 after traveling in Norway with a group of MG car enthusiasts Walter and I spent several weeks in the Lofoten/Vesteralen archipelago. I had taken a series of the Poughkeepsie boats and was thrilled with the installation opportunities by magnificent waterways.
To view the full image: Select and click on first image – click on the i in a circle RHB of opened page then select View Full Size.
Early in our isolation I had read statements that ‘we are all in this together’ and ‘we are all in the same boat’. Perhaps we are in the same boat, OR not. In that respect I created an artwork particularly relevant to COVID-19. This restrictive time has had many ups for some and many downs for others. As we ride the waves of our life journey it is encouraging to know that whatever type of vessel or deck that we are placed, our friends and family are supportive along the way. Thanks to the Beatles for the artwork title. And all our friends are aboard. The artwork will participate in the AT SEA exhibition 5 – 18 August at Southern Buoy Studios, Mornington. Denise Keele-bedford
POSTPONED TO JANUARY 2021
