found art on a grand scale

 

I was poking about looking at things in a patch of pine trees beside the bike path that goes around Lake Burley Griffin.  A popular route with cyclists and walkers, and with only a narrow strip of accessible land between the lake and a fenced off golf course.  So I was surprised to find these massive earth sculptures amongst the pines.  Well, of course they aren’t really sculptures – they are a series of ramps for use by daring mountain bike riders.  No less impressive though.  You can’t really tell in the photo, but trust me, these are some very well made, and quite substantial pieces of work.  They are entirely hand made as far as I can tell – there really isn’t room to get any machinery in there – someone has spent many clandestine hours making these things – and they have built them to last.  And all just 20 meters or so from the busy path.  Goes to show that lack of ownership or sanctioned access to land is no barrier to some peoples desire to build things.  I was so glad I strayed a little and found these lovely objects – doesn’t the red earth look just fine against the green pines.

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cork oak camping

Camping in the cork oak plantation recently – I do always find this place rather special, and it was great to be there in the evening and early morning.  I did some drawings, and also a scroll of ink rubbings from the many cut stumps where trees have been cut out for some reason.  Rubbings are a major part of my work at the moment – particularly of tree stumps and stems.  I like the directness of a rubbing – gives a direct recording of the actual shape, size and texture of the object, but also turns it into an ‘image’.

rendezvous creek

This is the track up the valley at Rendezvous Creek in Namadgi National Park.  Readers of this blog will be hearing a fair bit about this place over the next year as it will be the focus of this years projects.  I plan to set up camp deep in the valley, taking a range of art materials with me – exactly what work I’ll be aiming to do  I’m not sure yet – I’ll need to spend a bit of time up there first.  This photo was taken recently on a brief day trip – didn’t do any art work, just wanted to check things out.  What I saw certainly seemed positive.  The track is basic and sometimes a bit hard to follow, but quite ridable (I rode my bike through this open cleared area that makes up the first part of the track – but it could be cycled all the way).  Creek still had plenty of water – a lot of the creeks in this area are very unreliable in the summer but it seems like this one will be fine.  The creeks up there are too small for propper swimming holes – but I did manage to find some rocky cascades with a knee deep, bathtub sized pool ideal for a cooling dip – an essential amenity for camping in the summer.  Potential campsites a plenty and I think there will be plenty to inspire the creativity.

art in the willows

I’ve been visiting the old pine forest areas along the Melonglo River (I say old because they all got burnt out in the 2003 bushfires so there isn’t really any forest any more, though plantations are being re-established. It’s a nice area to go cycling on the dirt tracks, and poke about and explore the river. Just the sort of socially marginal landscape I enjoy! Along the river is almost exclusively exotic weed trees – mostly willow – many of which survived the fires and in any case are recovering very quickly. If you ignore the ramifications of all this weediness though, they are still lovely trees – especially now with all the spring growth – and will be nice and shady in the summer. The willows were dropping flowers last week.

On the way back I bumped into someone from school of art – she was just heading into the forestry land with her young sister on their bikes. They said they were off for a play in the creek. I said I’d been doing much the same – but since I’m not a kid anymore I photograph what I do and call it art !

snow about

It’s cold, and there has been snow in the mountains with more expected the next few days.  So I’m off camping!  Heading down into Namadgi NP on my bike tomorrow for a week.  Very exciting – over a year since the last bike trip – though this one I am going to really just stick mostly to the road using the bike to get there and back but stay put once I get somewhere down near Gudgenby and do some walking (and arting out and about).