21st October – 13th November  2016

Today Bev and I installed our sculpture Growing Ground in Bowen Park, Canberra, beside Lake Burley Griffin. It looks beautiful.  We hadn’t realised that the wind would make the grass sway and ripple and so to our delight the piece has a quite ‘alive’ feel to it!  Now let’s see how long it survives – but today at least the weather was with us – warmer than it has been, sunny, and with no more than a strong breeze blowing in across the lake.

For help with this installation our very special thanks to Robert Crombie.  Robert made what could have been a complicated exercise flow smoothly – with his help it was indeed ‘a picnic in the park’!  Thanks also to Bruce and Brigitte Edwards who let us pick Kangaroo Grass on their property and ensured that the paddock was stock free until we’d finished; and to good neighbours Anne Sanders and John Walker who shared their garage all winter with over 70 bunches of drying grass that wouldn’t fit in Marianne’s Braidwood studio.   And finally congratulations to Neil Hobbs, the organiser of Contour 556.  Neil’s energy and drive are well known but this time he has really pulled out all stops.  The Festival now has an amazing list of supporters and sponsors as well as a wonderful lineup of artists and performers. We hope it will become an annual event and a dynamic contributor to the Canberra Arts Scene.

For more information on the Festival, artists and works check out Contour556 on Facebook

Above: Bev Hogg and Marianne Courtenay with Growing Ground at Bowen Park, Canberra
Below: Marianne Courtenay & Bev Hogg Growing Ground – approx. 370cm x 370cm x 64cm, wood, grass and wire.
 

21st October – 13th November  2016

Bev Hogg and I have just finished making the components for our sculpture installation Growing Ground to be installed as part of Contour 556, the new Public Art Festival opening next weekend in Canberra.   The Festival will feature sculptures and installations by over 40 local and international artists as well as performances, sound installations, music and digital works. Sculptures and installations will be ranged along the Lake Burley Griffin foreshore from the National Library to the Kingston Arts Precinct.  Our work will be in Bowen Park – where the swans are – about half way along the walk.

Artists and performers have been asked to respond to one or more aspects of human interaction with the landscape of the site over the past 50,000 years.  For us there were also administrative considerations associated with security for the work.  So we decided to make an ephemeral piece – putting back the native grass that was once such a feature of the land before the lake was made. And also referencing the grids and plantings of early european farming practices. In late summer we gathered armfuls of Kangaroo Grass (Themeda Ternata) and hung it up in bunches to dry.  The Kangaroo Grass forms the basis of our completed work together with weathered strips of timber.

It will be an interesting 3 weeks.  It’s been a wet spring to date and predicted to continue that way … and our site has an automatic watering system that comes on at night.  So our grassy patch will need to survive both artificial watering and the vagaries of nature – rain, wind, heat and cold together with the possible depredations of the local bird life – cockatoos and swans included (the grass could make excellent nesting material). And then there’s the public. It will certainly not survive children with footballs or people picking the grass!  Part of the work may well be watching it slowly disintegrate over the three weeks.  Understandably it is not for sale!

So watch this space – or better still, take a walk along the lake’s edge and see it for yourself plus all the other work.

For more information on the Festival, artists and works check out Contour556 on Facebook

Above: Marianne Courtenay & Bev Hogg ‘Growing Ground’ (detail) 370cm square x 65cm high
Below: Kangaroo Grass drying in the studio.