MAN - A brand new mother artist (PG rating)

BEFORE: 

"I feel very much like I am calmly walking towards an abyss of sorts, into the dark indeed.

I have so loved the MAN festival these people's work/life and the day-to-day accumulations. 

Oh it starts to make sense, I start to see a way". Alexandra Harrison.

8 months pregnant

Last week

Kicking, belly down

(me in the pool,

the it in me)

Waiting for the introduction

For a sign, for a ray

Meanwhile,

A choreography of meltdowns

And small revivals

Yesterday I was ready

Today I am begging for time

This build-up is not curated

Oh there is a date

But give or take

Or give and take

Yet? They ask me

Yet?

Anticipation is pressure

And the artist is worried

The artist is lost

Or,

The artist is gardener

The artist is cook

The artist creates order

The artist cleans and cleans and cleans

The artist is still, sometimes,

Backyard dancer

And the artist falls apart

The artist does not know

How to keep every moment holy

Nor leap fences like she used to

The artist is barely a lover

The artist is not a mother

Yet

(Before the 23^rd of December)

Alex working on her artist's response for the Child Artist Response Project that will feature alongside the provocations of Ruby, age 12 in the pages of Issue 4, Into The dark. 

AFTER: 
Rainer Mallee  - born 23rd December 2012, named on Christmas day.

"A manchild, long and lovely, 55cm, and 4.1kg. These numbers seem important and make the eyebrows of the midwives shoot up. All's well, we're out of hiding, but going slow". 

Newborn 

Rainer in his BIG designed romper for Mini And Maximus taking in the fans at the National Dance Forum!

Out of the Dark

After an incredible climb, we have just finalised design on Issue 4  - INTO THE DARK. 

We are now slowly adjusting to the light again after long nights and days and weeks (and months!) of decision-making, limit-pushing and last minute landings. PHEW! 

'Draw your dreaming' INTO THE DARK contribution by four sibling-artists age 13-21,  Mr Spoqui, Portugal

INTO THE DARK has arrived as a clear marker of development and consolidation for BIG. After over two years of working together we both feel this fourth issue is the culmination of so many of the initial ideas and hopes we had for the BIG pages. We are so excited by the contributions, the artists and the growing work between us, that the anticipation of holding it in our hands feels like the first time. It takes a very long time for projects of these proportions to grow into themselves and we feel as though we are again standing at the beginning of everywhere we want to go. 

PRE-PURCHASE your copy now or share the news and support this BIG passion project :) 

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After journeying so deeply INTO THE DARK,  we are excited to announce a new theme centred on emergence, seeding new ideas, and exploring environments - both real and imagined: 

Issue 5 - SEED to SKY

 Click here to see our call for contributions! 

Artist and Child: Collage

Collage is the art of glueing cut shapes and images onto a page. There is something wonderful about the far reaching mess of pages spread across the floor and the physical act of sifting and sorting to find the paper treasures that attract your eye. The collage process can be an intuitive experience of addition and layering, or a conscious way of creating landscapes and figures. 

BIG Ideas: 

1. Cut images, shapes and textures out of old art, food and gardening magazines. Sometimes local newsagents will give you magazines with the covers ripped off once they are out of date. 

2. Place the shapes onto the page and play with the arrangements before sticking them down, or begin with glue and follow the trails of your own sticking. 

3. Create a self-portrait collage choosing unusual objects and textures for your head, body, arms and legs. 

"Collage makes a direct connection to the brain's readiness to associate, to form bridges between objects and spaces, times and places. But it also shatters patterns, disrupts control and breaks laws." Taken from Grit To Gold: Collaging the Abstract, Press Release, Standpoint Gallery (Thanks to Amelia Critchlow for the link x) 

Collage is a highly apt medium for portraying the human condition: multilayered, complex, vernacular, unstable.' Maurice O’Riordan, Editor, Art Monthly Australia, 2011

To Return, paper collage elements, 76 x 56cm, 2010
From Papercuts and Bloodlines. By Jacqui Stockdale

Our cover artist for Issue 2 - Treasure Maps Jacqui Stockdale works with collage to create conglomerate figures of her imagining. 

Treasure Maps is almost SOLD OUT. Purchase it now to find your way to the gold inside.