street fossils

 

 

I came across a whole bunch of concrete fossils recently, on a wet day in Noosaville.  You know, concrete fossils, those special places in the suburban landscape where traces of leaves and other life has been recorded in the man made lithosphere.  It cheers me just a little that urban man’s efforts at dead, uniform, cheerless surfaces can sometimes be subverted by something as simple as leaves falling on wet concrete.  In this case they were the leaves of Paperbark (Melalueca quinquenervia) which had left their imprint on a meandering footpath in this holiday apartment filled former wetland.

engraved forest tunnel

A while back I shared some photos that I described as forest tunnels.  These images became a bit of a fixation for a while.  I was attuned and looking for them whenever I was out walking.  I did translate one into a wood engraving, carved on another piece of Birch wood cut from the same branch as the block for View of Black Mountain.  A number of people told me they really liked the forest tunnels, so I thought I should post an image of the engraving as well.

Forest Tunnel, Peter McLean, Wood Engraving, 2011

wanderer

I couldn’t resist getting a snapshot of this rather overdressed (for the beach) man as he clambered on the rocks.    There was something dramatic about the silhouetted figure against the bright seascape, dark overcoat flapping in the wind.  Then I realised why the scene, as unusual as it was, seemed familiar.  Nearly three years ago now I posted an image of an old favourite, The Wanderer Above the Sea of Fog by Casper David Friedrich.  As well as the original, it’s an image that is often referenced or parodied as well.  A google image search for the title brings up plenty of contemporary examples.

These aren’t your average rocks of course.  They are the Moeraki Boulders, on Koekohe Beach near Moeraki on New Zealand’s Otago coast.  One of the famous boulders seemed particularly happy that day.

Travels

I’ve been enjoying a rather different enviroment to California, travelling the green (and often wet, cold, and/or windy) hills and valleys of New Zealand.  Brief and intermitant access to a computer makes keeping up with log posts difficult though.  So today I’m going to cheat, and suggest you go and have a look at a new travel blog from Rob Bertels, with whom I shared some of my last travels in California.  He writes about our shared journey here.  But that was weeks ago now – I’ll have lots of posting to catch up on when I get ‘home’ in mid December.  Inverted commas being necessary since the physical location of home is somewhat undetermined at the moment.  In the meantime Rob has moved on to Mexico, so do check out all his writings (and pictures) at walkinghomefromschool.wordpress.com

site

Posts have become sparse lately, a symptom of having too much fun travelling and exploring.  Recent weeks have allowed the resumption of an ongoing project that has been latent for too long.  Whenever I camp, I take a photo of  my tent to represent each nights camp.  Just now I am wondering if this project has a title?  I haven’t considered it before, since so far it hasn’t had any physical outcome, just a growing file of photo’s to be used for something one day.  They are closely tied to some past drawings titled ‘sites of occupation’ which also documented camping sites, so perhaps it is part of a larger project under that banner.  Like much of what I do, these photo’s, taken as a set, contain interesting binaries.  In this case, the consistency of my familiar* set of camp equipment contrasts with the changing locations and my old theme of Nature/Culture is there too of course.  So, as I sit in the Auckland Library, having just arrived in New Zealand, here is the USA subset of tent photo’s.

 

(*those few readers who are very familiar with my two old tents may have noticed I have splurged on a new one! A two man ultralight from Big Agnus with a sagebush coloured fly.  The orange tent belongs to my fellow traveller for part of the way)

pic of the day

I’ve just come out of the backcountry of Yosemite National Park. This is Beuna Vista Lake, where I had a quick swim – very quick!

street art

I’ve been walking for days now, on a wandering path zig zagging the grid of San Francisco streets.  Couldn’t resist snapping this Herb Rits Poster found discarded on the street, even though it’s a little bit treading on turnstile’s territory.

 

11 x 11

One project that I undertook during the JB Blunk Residency, was to make a print for a print exchange run by the Printmaking Centre of New Jersey.  The theme for the exchange was 11 x 11, and so I let that rattle around my sub-conscious for a few weeks before I came up with something.  With the influence of JB’s wall made of ‘scrap’ pieces, and the bedhead of similar aesthetic, I decided to fit eleven wood scraps into an 11 inch square as tightly as I could, and construct a printing block from that.  Of course, being found scraps they were all different thickness and far from flat, so making a flat printable surface was a bit of a challenge (which was not 100% achieved and so printing was a challenge too – but it got there).  With the inspiration of this work being so closely linked to the house itself, I chose it as the piece to leave in the house when I left for the last time yesterday.

open studio

Lucid Art Foundation hosted the open house and studio day this past weekend here at the JB Blunk residency.  It feels like the climax of artistic activity, since it was my chance to show what I’ve been doing.  Of course there are still a few things I want to finish in the little time left. I didn’t really manage any pictures of the crowd, since I was too busy talking and doing print demos then, but here are some from my installation.

 

Thanks to everyone who came along!

 

the mountains keep secrets

"The Mountains Keep Secrets", relief print, Peter McLean, 2011

That’s the title of this little print.  It’s quite delightfully simple, a relief print from a little block of knotty pine found amongst the dirt, and yet there are plenty of depths and subtleties to keep me interested.  If you want to find out what secrets the mountains keep, than have a look here.