Wow!! what a first week at the gallery! After all the excitement of the opening day of our new exhibition of works from Aust picture books, the excitement kept on coming!
Working in public programs in such a small regional gallery has made me realise how much goes on!! As there are only 5 full time staff (director, corator/ exhibition co-ord, marketing, public programs co-ord, workshops co-ord) everyone does so much. Given that we have multiple holiday programs linked to our current exhibition, my jobs last week were vast. Ranging from writing the Stage 1- Stage 3 education worksheets for the primary school group visits when school resumes, to photocopying colouring worksheets and making sure all the pencils were sharp and 'Lucy Goosey' drawings were blu-tacked on the wall. I also had to act as crowd control between 10-12 every day for 'story time' in the gallery and usher for the daily film screenings at 1pm. Even though it was very busy (especially when we had 90 pre-schoolers turn up for story time on friday!!) arvos have been quite and I have been able to focus on researching and writing the education kits and worksheets for the exhibitions.
Some other highlights for the week were also meeting with Ace Bourke to discuss his up-coming exhibition, meeting Binh Danh (he is the artist in residence at the gallery while his work is on display at AGNSW for the 18th Biennale) and taking the volunteers from the gallery on an excurion to view the 18th Biennale of Sydney: All our relations!
Binh Danh is an very generous artist who produces amazing works which he calls chlorophyll photos. Essentially printing images onto leaves using the plant's photosynthesis process. His works are beautiful and very powerfull. While residing at the gallery he is running holiday classess for high school students, teaching them to create prints like his. He is very generaous in sharing his methods and practice (which is something that I have discovered is rare in the artworld) and I am excited as I was able to enroll one of my yr 11 students in the class (I am a high school art teacher in my other life). I cant wait to see what she can teach us!
On a very wet and windy Thursday, the public programs co-ord, curator, an assisstant and I took 45 of the gallery's (elderly) volunteers on a whirl-wind tour of the Biennale, as organised by the director. We saw some of the AGNSW (being treated to a talk by Binh Danh), all of the works at the MCA (also given a guided tour) and most of the works on the lower part of Cockatoo Island (with tour by Biennale Head of Public Programs and Education, Virginia Mitchell). It was frantic, but also very inspiring... and the volunteers seemed to have a great day. It was a great treat for them. I have only just realised how very hard they work and how nuch they know about the inner workings of the gallery. It would not exisit without their help.
I was amazed by a few works on Cockatoo Island and a little dissapointed by some at the MCA. My favs were Alick Tipoti's lino print
'Girelal' (MCA), Peter Robinson's foam chain-link installation
'Snow Ball Blind Time', Philip Beesley's living forrest
'Hylozoic Series', Ed Pein's paper
'Source: Corridor of Rain', Monica Grzymala's paper
'The River', Adam Cvijanovic mural painting also
'The River' and Jonathan Jones'
'Untitled (oysters and tea cups) (all at Cockatoo Island). It was a shame we didn't see the whole island, but as the rain came down very heavy in the arvo, we had to leave. But I will definately make the return trip!
I can't imagine how week 2 can beat the excitement of my first week, but I am looking forward to it! So far I know it invloves me dressing up a Alice for our Mad Hatter's Tea Party on Tuesday and a meeting with Ruark Lewis on Friday. Bring on week 2!!!
Peter Robinson
'Snow Ball Blind Time'
Philip Beesley
'Hylozoic Series'
Monica Grzymala
'The River'
Ed Pein
'Source: Corridor of Rain'
Jonathan Jones
'Untitled (oysters and tea cups
