Sculpture by the Sea

You may have noticed I've been very quiet on here. The next 4 or 5 posts should definitely explain why!

I was very proud to get a 2 day/week internship at Sculpture by the Sea about 4 months ago, which quickly progressed into a full time paid load unexpectedly. So for the past 2 months or so, I've been Exhibition Assistant to the Exhibition Coordination team for the Bondi 2013 show. Along with my French HSC tutoring, and various other freelance commitments, it's been a very stressful couple of months.

My responsibilities in the office included data entry, organising the office move out to Bondi, liaising with artists, social media scheduling, phone and reception assistance, putting together volunteer and artist information packs, stock ordering, helping to write our e-news, redirecting our mail and helping to finalise details like sponsor logos, dimensions and images for our exhibition catalogue. I also used my Indesign skills to create lanyards and badges for all staff, artists and volunteers.

Sculpture by the Sea, Bondi exhibition catalogue cover

Once we moved out to Bondi, in addition to the above, I was organising and directing volunteers, distributing catering, assisting with general enquiries, directing traffic and parking, driving various visitors in our sponsored car, communicating with all staff and site crew via 2 way radios, conducting visitor surveys, counting crowds, liaising with our publicity team, and occasionally assisting in small urgent situations like injuries. Sydney had a tough day a couple of weeks ago with some very windy weather, and being on the coastline was a tricky situation.

One thing I was particularly responsible for was artist talks on the weekends. I contacted and scheduled the artists and ran the artist talks event, which included distributing posters and information, bringing all the necessary material and moving around feather banners, beanbags, A frames and signs.

Here are some images of artist Simon McGrath explaining his work Virtually Melted, which is a site specific work consisting of a smart phone application that makes the image of an iceberg appear above the water to recognise the effects of global warming. These photos are mine.

I kept meaning to get up super early and take some great sunrise photos, but the role was very tiring and I didn't manage to actually walk through and see all the sculptures until just before the end! Unfortunately with the sun setting in the west as it usually does, sunset photos weren't as spectacular as the ones I've seen of Sculpture by the Sea, Cottesloe, in Perth.

We've just finished the Bondi show, I fell in love with quite a few of the works (my taste generally leans towards the more contemporary ideas or to works which have a political or social concept behind them). 

Carole Purnelle and Nuno Maya, Plastic World

Mikaela Castledine, East of the Mulberry Tree - the Legend of the Ten Red Crows

Carl Billingsley, Red Center

Lucy Humphrey, Horizon

Qian Sihua, Bubble No.5

Phil Price, Snake

Chen Wenling, Rainbow

Mia Hamilton, French Knitting

Robert Hague, detail of Monument

Magarita Sampson, The Great Bondi Sharehouse

Coral Collective, Coral

Alison McDonald, Flow (2011)

Elyssa Sykes-Smith, A Shared Weight

Unfortunately I don't have photos of all my favourites. Here are some from our great photogs at the event:

Simone & Justin Drape, Room Without a View Photo: Clyde Yee

Jack Davis, A Force of Nature Photo: Jarrad Seng

Robert Barnstone, Once Removed Photo: Jarrad Seng

Tunni Kraus, Washed Up Photo: Clyde Yee

You can see some more day to day photos if you follow me on instagram.

John Demos' Accessible Arts Residency at the Big Fag

John Demos. Photo Louise Anderson

John Demos working at the Big Fag Press, Photo Louise Anderson

John Demos with his original work "Antitoxicus" Photo Louise Anderson

For about 3 months we've had John Demos down at Firstdraft Depot working on some prints on the Big Fag as part of his residency mentorship program thanks to his Amplify Your Art grant. John has been coming in one day a week to create his beautiful works and experience the process of making those works into prints on our offset proofing press.

I've been mostly managing this project solo, and it's been an amazing experience for me. Art is the way John experiences his life, and his works are an exploration of belonging and home, and the words and images that mean those things to him. When he's not practising, John is browsing countless Sydney galleries where the attendants all know him by name. This is a kind of passion I feel is rare in just about any field.

Whilst down at the Press, I introduced John and his liaison Kristina Tito to Jo Holder from The Cross Art Projects gallery. He's been offered the opportunity to exhibit his work at the end of our mentorship there in October/ November. This is such a great opportunity for him to make contacts, show his work and most importantly give a voice to artists like himself who benefit so much from Supported Studio Networks.

We're just in the printing phase now, and the entire project is taking shape. I organised some paper sponsorship from K.W. Doggett, which has been great for John to experiment on. He loves discovering new kinds of paper and mediums to work with, and asks endless questions about ink mixing, how the press works and what kind of things we've printed on before.

We've made up ten metal plates of John's work separated into different colours, and he'll end up with a series of about 4 works, plus a few others where he will experiment with layering different works on top of each other, and then using them as a basis for more hand- rendered work.

Josh Charles has been making a short documentary of the entire project.

Spending any time at all with John has shown me that he has a little story about everything. It's really important to give John a platform from which to tell those stories - through his art, but also his practice, which can potentially, as he says, "influence other people towards art".

Online Thesis and Ivory Tower

By the way, I've just uploaded all my work from last year onto google drive, and added it to the links to the right of this blog.

You can read my honours thesis here - Deconstructing Fashion's Ideal Body.

*Cartoon by Neil Kerber

I'd also be incredibly happy for anyone to take a look at Ivory Tower Magazine, and not forgetting Ivory Tower Street Art Posters, Blue and Red (linked to the legible versions).

Some publications

So remember my Green Bans Art Walks photography published in City News?

*Green Bans cover photograph, mine.

Well since then, a few images also made it into the 250th edition of Art Monthly, along with an article by Ian Milliss, who is an amazing artist and writer I've had the pleasure of working with down at the Big Fag Press in projects after Green Bans finished.

*Scan of Art Monthly 2012, from milliss.com

I've also just been contacted about a few photos being used in a book titled Imagining Sydney, by Jill Bennett and Saskia Beudel from the National Institute of Experimental Arts, UNSW as part of the Curating Cities project - http://curatingcities.org/.

It's great to be getting my name in print as having been part of these projects, and adding to my CV.

I've also just signed up to Linked In.

FINITO!

Ivory Tower project is complete!

Here are a few images of the magazine, street art, and some sneak peaks into some photoshoots and other content.

*Artwork by Justin White

*Artwork by Giopet

*Artwork by Linda Wilken

*Artwork by Daniel Caballero 

*Photograph by Tristan Fitzherbert-Smith 

 *Photograph by Tristan Fitzherbert-Smith 

*Artwork by Max Temkin

*Photograph by Louise Kate Anderson

 *Photograph by Tristan Fitzherbert-Smith 

 *Artwork by Louise Kate Anderson

Tomorrow, I give the final presentation of my university degree!
Anyone interested in coming to see the UTS fashion exhibition Future of Fashion Showcase, please contact me.

HOMERUN

So I'm in the last week of my honours major project! Not getting much sleep, but every day gets me a step closer. I've set my print deadline for next Monday or if I have to, Tuesday. Then I have two weeks while proofs and prints are happening to put up the rest of my Street Art, work on my website, load things onto The Loop and update various social media platforms like my facebook page, twitter @LouiseKAnderson, and Instagram (LouiseKateAnderson).

I've joined in to work on promoting our year group through our social media pages as well. @utsfashion, #utsfashion, #futureoffashion, and UTS: Fashion, not to mention our continued fundraising from raffle tickets, & cupcakes every Monday in the DAB building, and our Pozible page.

Our catwalk is the evening of the 4th December in the UTS great hall. The exhibition there at #fashionspace runs for a week.

*Instagram photo mine. Cupcakes by Amanda Algeo

In business, baby!

I got my business cards printed!

Pinterest

I finally created a profile on Pinterest. It's a lot of fun, I've discovered, and great for inspiration and mood boards.

Media & Promotion

We had a lecture & tute today by Kate Vandermeer about different fashion career options and some psychometric testing. It's refreshing to know there's many options in the fashion/ creative industry and that often people don't end up where they thought they would, and that that's okay. Actually I'm surprised more people in my class didn't say they wanted to be buyers - I have a friend from Raffles who is absolutely desperate to be a fashion buyer. Then again, buying must be a hard job to find - who would give up getting paid for travelling and "shopping"?

 The question of what I'm going to do next year is an interesting one. I am trying to self promote a little. Kate was talking about a foot in the door, and I think in a few little ways I have done that with the Big Fag Press and some photography. I have some photos of the Green Bans Art Walks coming out in June Art Monthly soon. I'm just not sure that photography's the way I want to go. To be honest I don't have a good ability to be objective about any of my work. I know that's actually a skill that you pick up somewhere along the way, but I think I can be heavily critical, and sometimes very afraid of EVERYTHING there is to learn in any particular field. I have this idea that a professional knows everything there is to know about something - but that's not always the case, especially not with creative people. If you know everything, you can't create anything new & original, right?

I think my psychometric test was more or less accurate. I am flexible, creative, autonomous and I do have a natural tendancy to try and manage other people (in part-time work, interning, etc). I thought about it a bit, and I think I now agree also that in a business sense I can be quite extroverted. The answer about me being a rationalist rather than a humanist was incorrect though, and my boyfriend agrees (and he knows me better than anyone). And I am definitely a planner - just not an effective one! (which I can probably work on). My two downfalls I suppose are a lack of initiative and determination towards business, and I think that comes from that sense of insecurity where if risks are being taken, I prefer them not to be on my shoulders.

I have an ABN, so I suppose I have a "business", but it kind of developed by itself, it is in no way my main source of income and I'm not sure how far I want to take it, or if I can manipulate it into being something extraordinary or original. My business was just a means of being paid for some work for tax purposes.

I do think some of the things Kate talked about apply to me though. I think what she said about keeping in touch with creative people and contacts, is really valuable. I know so many artists and photographers that I really should keep in regular contact. You never know when someone is going to have a skill or an idea that could help you. I just contacted a friend I haven't seen in ages, Berry Mak, (he's a wedding photographer). I need to ask him some basic questions about charging for photography jobs, file types and backing up work, etc. But I might also talk to him about my photoshoot ideas because bouncing my ideas off others is incredibly valuable to me. I'm not sure I'd have any ideas at all if I didn't voice them to other people.

As far as self promotion goes, I set up a profile on The Loop a while ago, and I've been adding projects slowly. Today I signed up for Pinterest because from what I've seen it's such an awesome tool to collate visual ideas, and especially mood boards for projects. I've also resurrected my twitter account, but to be honest I don't have an intuitive understanding of twitter like I do facebook. Maybe I should get someone to explain it. I also need to look into LinkedIn and Instagram, not to mention trying to link all these together and at the same time keep my private facebook page, well, private! The whole social media thing can feel a little overwhelming at times, I mean, trying to keep up with so many people and update so many things could be a full time unpaid job in itself! I do mean to keep up this blog throughout this year and beyond, though I like the idea also of having a separate blog just for photography.

Speaking of insecurities, I have a photoshoot with a friend of mine planned for Monday. For some reason I'm terrified I'll have forgotten how to use a camera overnight...