© 2012, Jenny Davis. All rights reserved.

I miss Paris today. I miss the homeliness of Paris …I woke up feeling a longing for the white snow on the rooftops outside my little studio window in the cubicle.

I miss my dark dungeon, with its odour of oldness and mold and even miss the creepy feeling that lashes me when I go there to work on my never- ending arts project.

I miss the fresh no- nonsense food, the culture, the artists and especially, the realness of Paris.

I miss not knowing the language and guessing what people are saying.

I miss seeing something new and the ordinary down the streets of Asnieres with my daughter.

I miss the walk to the park with its topiary trees, gardens and boulie men.

I miss the newness of the place plus the old familiar places I like to go to.

I miss not being able to play and sit in the gardens around the corner where Vincent sat and created.

I miss the little art/design ateliers down in Bastille with their windows full of  high design handmade, one- off  pieces of jewellery, glassware, sculpture, furniture and funky home-wares.

I miss knowing that every time I stroll through the Louvre I still, haven’t seen it all and will need to come back.

I miss not being able to visit Camille , Manet Doré, Degas, Cézanne, Rodin, Monet , Picasso, Renoir, Rousseau ,Gauguin, Lautrec,Valadon, Bernard,Matisse, Rouault,Brâncuş’, Dufy,  Picabia, Braque, Metzinger , Delaunay, Arp , Chagall, Duchamp, Ernst ,Soutin,e and Masson for the day.

I especially miss the closeness to Modernism, Impressionism, Post-Impressionism, Fauvism, Symbolism , Art Nouveau, Primitivism (art) Modernism, Cubism, Puteaux Group, and my favourite ,Dada, and Surrealism The art squats, street art and local artists with avant guard ideas. I miss my most loved Pompedou gallery.

I miss the trips to Dave’s parents. I even miss,the rattly old one person lift we squeeze into,going up to the apartment. I miss their welcome and sitting at the table eating delectable foods with the now, familiar Eiffel, out the window .

I miss Champs. Montmartre, cemeteries , beautiful old buildings and new places I haven’t seen before.

I also miss the things I haven’t done, or seen yet, in Paris.

I miss the smells ,textures and sounds when living,in Paris. Even, the nightmare trains I don’t mind anymore.

I miss the nostalgia of Paris. There are triggers in Paris, that send me back to my childhood in Australia. It’s usually only something small that will set this feeling off, like the simplicity of design in the everyday domestic object, or the rawness and feel of a well made cotton dishcloth or tea-towel.The aroma and taste of fresh foods straight from the farms and markets.

I especially get this nostalgia when Dave and Amy come home from the patisserie across the road with the morning baguette or my favorite Frasier cake. All this will send me back to my childhood  in Australia when everything was more authentic, honest and more, homely than it is today.

Paris is just like a comfortable old jumper to me now. I do miss Paris today…

My French- inspired handmade shop Atelierinparis

© 2012, Jenny Davis. All rights reserved.

Congratulations Mary Noonan on your exhibition and video! A wonderful artist and friend I shared an arts residency with in Barcelona, Spain.

Art Profiles – Mary Noonan
The first in a series of profiles on artists working in and around the thriving Dublin art Community. This first profile is of watercolour and installation artist Mary Noonan based in the Red Stables Studios in Clontarf.

© 2012, Jenny Davis. All rights reserved.

POCKET ART SERIES
Small one of a kind transportable patches of Abstraction ready to go…Compact pieces of art for people on the move. My pocket art pieces came about when I needed to transport artwork from country to country. They are small mixed media textile pieces connected to my love of abstraction textiles, text and street art.

Walking my way across the surface I use coloured wools and wires as I would my paintbrush or charcoal, adding, whatever interests me at the time including, advertising papers, cards and packaging from Paris

RUE PIERRE

OOH LA LA

HEARTS IN PARIS

TOURISTS

Each one is a tiny 3.5″x2.5″ – 9x7cm and they come snuggly displayed in a clear acrylic card holder

MATERIALS
Indigo blue denim
canvas cloth
wire
press stud
button
paris clothing label
originalParis stamp
Colored wools
found fonts
Acrylic sealer and more….

SIGNED and DATED by the artist

I really had fun creating these pieces and were created with a lot of care

© 2012, Jenny Davis. All rights reserved.

All Photo’s by Charles Farrugia

Here are some pictures of the opening and links

http://www.gippsland.monash.edu.au/media/news/

http://www.gippsland.monash.edu.au/media/news2012/2012021.html

Links for artists

Charles Farrugia

cfarrr@gmail.com

http://onlinegalleries.com.au/users/venus38/

John Martin

puppies2@iinet.net.au

Mark Story

chromedoff@hotmail.com

Jenny Davis

info@outlook8studio.com

http://www.outlook8studio.com/

© 2012, Jenny Davis. All rights reserved.

Your invited to the opening of “LAND TO LIGHT” exhibition at 5pm on Tuesday 17th April at Switchback Gallery - Curated by Charles Farrugia and Rodney Forbes

Artists
Jenny Davis
Charles Farrugia
John Martin
Mark Story

Exhibition dates: 17th April to 24th May, 2012 – Mon-Fri 9.00 to 5.00 or by appt.
Address: Gippsland Centre for Art and Design
Building 6S Monash University Gippsland Campus
Churchill 3842

Contact:  gippsland@artdes.monash.edu.au

Website: http://www.artdes.monash.edu.au/gippsland/switchback/

Phone (03) 9902 6261

How to get there: http://www.gippsland.monash.edu.au/campus/getthereandpark.html

© 2012, Jenny Davis. All rights reserved.

A new series of paintings from the studio…

“Silent Momento – Paris Venice & Spain”  Links to found surfaces from the streets of Paris, Venice and Spain. Weathered, worn surfaces, old peeling papers with glimpses of the past, slashed with scrapings of whitewash.

Passages in time, forgotten marks and scribble usually left, unseen & silent.

All paintings in this series and my other work are available at my  Outlook8studio Etsy Store

© 2012, Jenny Davis. All rights reserved.

How to Make – Large Studio Easel in 6 Easy- Peasy Steps

When I built my studio years ago, I needed to have a versatile easel. I couldnt find anything suitable in the shops and my budget wouldnt allow for much.  So, I went about creating one from my left over pieces of timber. I needed one that would take small to very large canvas’s at once. I needed lots of space too, as being an abstract painter, I slosh paint and work very quickly, sometimes on many canvas’s at once. I wanted a permanent space where I could work on small canvas’s 30x30cm up to very large ones 4 x2 Meters . My easel ended up being 9 meters long x 4 meters high and after 12 years of daily use my rough and ready easel is still going strong.

My simple plan…

Materials & Equipment

Cut yourself or buy 2 equal lengths of  hardwood or pine however long you want the easel to be. This is for the floor and wall runner that will hold all the upright struts.

Cut yourself or buy equal lengths of hardwood or pine for the uprights. Decide how many uprights you want to hold your canvas .To get the length of each piece , measure from floor to top wall at the angle you want the easel to be.

Bolts nails or screws

Wooden dowel lengths of wood for pegs

Drill with a “spade” drill bit the with the same circumference as the dowel pieces you have

(Spade bits are used for rough boring holes in wood.)

Tape measure

Hammer

Drill

Method

1.Everything will need to be measured and cut for the area your are working on.

2.Grab the floor runner piece,lay it perpendicular to the wall on the floor, judging the best space between the floor runner and the wall . Screw, bolt or nail to the floor at intervals to secure. (Note) Remember to allow enough space from floor runner to wall for a slight angle for the upright pieces of wood so your painting canvas can to sit without falling

.

3.Grab the wall runner piece and screw, bolt or nail to the upper wall at intervals and make secure.

4. Lay all your upright pieces of wood together on a flat surface together (floor )and take your drill with the spade bit and make holes from bottom to the top on all the lengths of wood. The spacing has to be equal across the whole lot.

5.Take your pre cut lengths of wood with the holes and sit each one so the bottom is sitting in front of the attached floor runner and at the top against the wall runner with the holes facing you. Screw bolt or nail the upright struts to floor runner and to the wall runner at top. (Note)Go along the floor runner at whatever spacing you want with the upright struts to be.

Almost done. Cut lengths ( 6inches) of dowel for the pegs that will hold all your canavas’s

Note: If the pegs dont fit in holes… Round off one end with sandpaper by hand or with an electric sander.

All done!!!  Now grab your canvas and paint to your hearts content

© 2012, Jenny Davis. All rights reserved.

“Merci beaucoup” to my lovely daughter and partner who sent me some gorgeous art materials from Paris for my recent Birthday. A huge lot of art materials all packed in a very smart wooden case. The case will be extremally usefull when all art materials are gone as well….xxx

© 2012, Jenny Davis. All rights reserved.

“Everything Gains In Grandeur Every Day.”
Giacometti

“The more I work, the more I see things differently, that is, everything gains in grandeur every day, becomes more and more unknown, more and more beautiful. The closer I come, the grander it is, the more remote it is.”
– Alberto Giacometti, Giacometti: A Biography

© 2012, Jenny Davis. All rights reserved.