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Past Workshop program : 2012
Workshop
Program 2013
currently on hold due to the upcoming exhibition in February, followed by time-out to manage a change of residence within the city of Brisbane.
Be sure to register your interest if you wish to know more. Visit the contact page on this website to send you message!
Ask about visiting the studio soon!
The program (above) was conducted in 2012 in between May and Sept/Oct residencies and tutoring commitments at QUT (first Semester).
Involvement in Visual Arts and Education over the past 33 years has afforded Sophie extensive experienced working with children and young people in school and informal settings, as well as having worked in Adult and Tertiary Education, with Community Groups, unique Studio Programs and in leading Creative Retreats.
In 1993 the artist established a solo enterprise, an ARS - Artist-run Space, known as "Themata Studio" in Johnston St, Collingwood in inner-city Melbourne. This lively shop-front creative working space, in a renown creative hub, was home to a series of courses offered each term, attracting a diversity of people into a program focused heavily on the journal process and developing an authentic and individual response to thinking, conversing and making. In gaining a reputation for high-lighting or strengthening pathways for many a hankering creative's individual journey courses avoided rules, techniques and ideas suggestive of only one way of seeing and doing!
A steadily evolving art practice over decades has celebrated uniqueness and particulars within the context of multiplicity, learning to navigate richer and deeper layers and the frisson of cultural complexity. It is fitting that 20 years on from the vibrant Melbourne experience of engaging in complex and artful encounters with cultural diversity the current project, exploring bio-cultural-diversity around seeds, so readily reflects many of the earlier pre-occcupations of an artist in search of her own voice and true sense of direction... that sense of there being buried within the seed of something waiting coming into fullness in the world... resisting externals fads and forces all the while.
There was always a vision of living and creating in a way where things could have the chance to become their fullest expression rather than a truncated or distorted version of being... where what mattered was a certain fullness of expression of all beings and all things...
Program 2013
currently on hold due to the upcoming exhibition in February, followed by time-out to manage a change of residence within the city of Brisbane.
Be sure to register your interest if you wish to know more. Visit the contact page on this website to send you message!
Ask about visiting the studio soon!
The program (above) was conducted in 2012 in between May and Sept/Oct residencies and tutoring commitments at QUT (first Semester).
Involvement in Visual Arts and Education over the past 33 years has afforded Sophie extensive experienced working with children and young people in school and informal settings, as well as having worked in Adult and Tertiary Education, with Community Groups, unique Studio Programs and in leading Creative Retreats.
In 1993 the artist established a solo enterprise, an ARS - Artist-run Space, known as "Themata Studio" in Johnston St, Collingwood in inner-city Melbourne. This lively shop-front creative working space, in a renown creative hub, was home to a series of courses offered each term, attracting a diversity of people into a program focused heavily on the journal process and developing an authentic and individual response to thinking, conversing and making. In gaining a reputation for high-lighting or strengthening pathways for many a hankering creative's individual journey courses avoided rules, techniques and ideas suggestive of only one way of seeing and doing!
A steadily evolving art practice over decades has celebrated uniqueness and particulars within the context of multiplicity, learning to navigate richer and deeper layers and the frisson of cultural complexity. It is fitting that 20 years on from the vibrant Melbourne experience of engaging in complex and artful encounters with cultural diversity the current project, exploring bio-cultural-diversity around seeds, so readily reflects many of the earlier pre-occcupations of an artist in search of her own voice and true sense of direction... that sense of there being buried within the seed of something waiting coming into fullness in the world... resisting externals fads and forces all the while.
There was always a vision of living and creating in a way where things could have the chance to become their fullest expression rather than a truncated or distorted version of being... where what mattered was a certain fullness of expression of all beings and all things...
RECENT NOTES ON THE JOURNALS
An example of the artist's reliance on the journal process is evident in her residency work and online documentation and engagements. Not every artist is compelled to keep journals or rely on them. There are endless approaches and ideas about generating and documenting ideas over time... an individual works that out to suit themselves as they see fit.
In recent years, however, the value of the documentation process has seemed to increase in a world of over-consumption and speedily hashed together ideas. The capacity to both assemble and discern what is of value, to sift and reveal the more pertinent of one's own and other's ideas is not just useful but critical. It has long been a foundation in Sophie's art practice and teaching ...that certain need to pay attention to what is coming at one from many directions and the subsequent work of sorting through and finding the essential things... or at least that which resonates, has meaning or relevance.
On this website you will find a page on the 2010 journal and a page on the earlier journals. Slow and deliberate working through of ideas might have held the artist back from a demanding and constant schedule of showing artwork despite her productivity and long hours painting. It's nevertheless been shaped at times by circumstances e.g. other work or day-jobs taking priority, illness or relocations. And yet, just as often, it's been driven by the need to dig deeper into the thinking around both the process of working and ideas central to the work. It essentially took the artist till 2010 to synthesise ideas into a potent enough single direction...the 'homage to the seed' project... with all of the very particular series of concerns and passions present that had for so long seemed little more than a disparate set of ideas. It all just seemed to gel in 2009 - 2010. Homage to the seed has a strong drive compelling it forwards ... there is nothing about it that is light-weight or narrow in focus. It manages to be simultaneously profoundly complex whilst being held together as a whole vision or investigation.
Musing on years of rigorous and unwavering documentation and experimentation, never knowing if there would be a time when all would make sense was an uncomfortable reality to take in. With ideas held together mostly in journals.... this 'harvest' of what was 'planted and cultivated' purposely over the longest time leads one to be amazed at having lived enough years to see some blossoming take place. Torment at times to wonder where the journey is taking one its the journals, again, which offer solace more often than not. The words maybe from elsewhere... but crucial. A poet's wisdom forged through fire.
THE OUTWARD FLOWING OF IDEAS:
In 2010 there was a natural outflowing of ideas that carried the work effortlessly into 2011 with the need for new destinations and deepening veins of research. Travelling outside of Australia to learn more was contemplated through 2011... and in October 2011 Sophie Munns undertook a residency at the Kew Millennium Seedbank Project as part of a 2 month UK Research Trip, documented here.
The Homage to the Seed blog, started in February 2010. continues in 2013 to link to a global panorama of seed related stories - past, present and future. This constant blogging has shaped questions and explorations, revealed contradictions and tough agendas, pushed the artist into confounding matters that were both topical and timely to discuss, especially around the politics of seeds. WIthout all the research, public dialogue participation and private conversations the project would have perhaps landed in a safe spot and perhaps have remained purely a visual exploration.
Quite the opposite has occurred and there are a series of factors ... compelling each one of them... for keeping on for the time being. In fact there is absolutely nothing at this point to indicate a need or desire to change this focus away from seeds as it has the potency to keep opening windows, if not doors, across time and place, unceasingly!
To read more go to Homage to the Seed Facebook page and click LIKE for news feeds and links. Studio updates feature at the artist's Studio Archives blog and the new Pinterest site provides an engaging visual overview.
E-news bulletins from 2011 and 2012 are available at the contact page - see tab above right. You're most welcome to become a subscriber if you wish to stay in contact. See more images held at Flickr of work from early this year on Journals and Concertina books.
In recent years, however, the value of the documentation process has seemed to increase in a world of over-consumption and speedily hashed together ideas. The capacity to both assemble and discern what is of value, to sift and reveal the more pertinent of one's own and other's ideas is not just useful but critical. It has long been a foundation in Sophie's art practice and teaching ...that certain need to pay attention to what is coming at one from many directions and the subsequent work of sorting through and finding the essential things... or at least that which resonates, has meaning or relevance.
On this website you will find a page on the 2010 journal and a page on the earlier journals. Slow and deliberate working through of ideas might have held the artist back from a demanding and constant schedule of showing artwork despite her productivity and long hours painting. It's nevertheless been shaped at times by circumstances e.g. other work or day-jobs taking priority, illness or relocations. And yet, just as often, it's been driven by the need to dig deeper into the thinking around both the process of working and ideas central to the work. It essentially took the artist till 2010 to synthesise ideas into a potent enough single direction...the 'homage to the seed' project... with all of the very particular series of concerns and passions present that had for so long seemed little more than a disparate set of ideas. It all just seemed to gel in 2009 - 2010. Homage to the seed has a strong drive compelling it forwards ... there is nothing about it that is light-weight or narrow in focus. It manages to be simultaneously profoundly complex whilst being held together as a whole vision or investigation.
Musing on years of rigorous and unwavering documentation and experimentation, never knowing if there would be a time when all would make sense was an uncomfortable reality to take in. With ideas held together mostly in journals.... this 'harvest' of what was 'planted and cultivated' purposely over the longest time leads one to be amazed at having lived enough years to see some blossoming take place. Torment at times to wonder where the journey is taking one its the journals, again, which offer solace more often than not. The words maybe from elsewhere... but crucial. A poet's wisdom forged through fire.
THE OUTWARD FLOWING OF IDEAS:
In 2010 there was a natural outflowing of ideas that carried the work effortlessly into 2011 with the need for new destinations and deepening veins of research. Travelling outside of Australia to learn more was contemplated through 2011... and in October 2011 Sophie Munns undertook a residency at the Kew Millennium Seedbank Project as part of a 2 month UK Research Trip, documented here.
The Homage to the Seed blog, started in February 2010. continues in 2013 to link to a global panorama of seed related stories - past, present and future. This constant blogging has shaped questions and explorations, revealed contradictions and tough agendas, pushed the artist into confounding matters that were both topical and timely to discuss, especially around the politics of seeds. WIthout all the research, public dialogue participation and private conversations the project would have perhaps landed in a safe spot and perhaps have remained purely a visual exploration.
Quite the opposite has occurred and there are a series of factors ... compelling each one of them... for keeping on for the time being. In fact there is absolutely nothing at this point to indicate a need or desire to change this focus away from seeds as it has the potency to keep opening windows, if not doors, across time and place, unceasingly!
To read more go to Homage to the Seed Facebook page and click LIKE for news feeds and links. Studio updates feature at the artist's Studio Archives blog and the new Pinterest site provides an engaging visual overview.
E-news bulletins from 2011 and 2012 are available at the contact page - see tab above right. You're most welcome to become a subscriber if you wish to stay in contact. See more images held at Flickr of work from early this year on Journals and Concertina books.