“I’ve pretty much been here on this property in Clunes all my life. As a kid we owned the block next door. I used to play in the workshop here. I learnt to weld as a kid, making slingshots and monsters. I have an 8 year old now and I tell you what, he makes slingshots and monsters. History repeats.
I often joke that growing up in a Panel beaters workshop does do strange things to a person and I guess there is something in that. I’ve always turned to making art as opposed to cars if I can. I’ve done bugger all at Southern Cross probably like half of us these days. My work is always based on getting people to question their contemporary ideological constructs by looking at old ones. What I do is I drag up muses from the past, whatever they are. I love sarcasm, irony and bad humour which is much to my detriment as it turns out with the red spots. Basically I just like taking the piss out of what is new and looks really silly. You don’t have to go far these days to find stuff. I’m always of the opinion that good art is loved and hated. It’s that stuff in the middle that I shy away from but that’s where your red spots lie.
I’ve had four overseas residencies in Buckingham Shire in the UK over the years.
I nearly died doing a sculpture in Buckinghamshire in 2008. I had a hammer explode on me! Have you ever seen Mythbusters where they try and prove hammers don’t explode? The hammer was an old English iron hammer. Basically it compacts back to point where it gets a fissure which can let go with an explosive force at any particular time and this one did. So a quarter face blew out of the hammer and 2 decent shards missed me but one of them went through here (points to just below navel). It’s like getting shot with an air rifle. It bounced off my hip and severed my lower bowel on the way through. Obviously there was pain and blood everywhere and we went to the hospital. The doctor gave me pain killers, antibiotics and x-rayed from the front, not from the side. He decided not to do any exploratory surgery to find it and sent me home. I went back to the sculpture trust studio and got out the stud finder. I blipped myself and it measured in at 1 3/4 inches deep. At that time I’m thinking I better head back to hospital. Four hours later I’m dying from Septicaemia which is a really painful way to go. So next thing I’m having an emergency Laparotomy and Bowel resection which I won’t go into but hence the big scar. I’ve got the cliched story to say, I nearly died for my art.
I didn’t get to finish that sculpture and the trusts founder Brian Montgomery’s dying wish was that I get back over and finish it which I did the following year. The sculpture was of an Ammonite. I had a massive one that won the SWELL Sculpture show in 2007.
Each year I try to enjoy each sculpture as much as possible. This year I loved doing the giant rooster. Each year there’s no particular preferences. I do enjoy upsetting people, you know those kids that just pick at people, I was one of those kids and so I live that through my art being that I don’t mind dragging up news like the AK47. Like I said good art is loved and hated.
I won the Swell Sculpture Show in 2014 with the AK47 which brought good and bad publicity. You get a bit excited when you win shows so you do stuff along the same lines. Not only do you have trouble with the red spot but you also have trouble getting through the wall of politically correct neutral rhetoric and the occupational health and safety. All that boring stuff that rules the world we live in.
I recently did a junk sculpture at my eldest sons school. We got all the ratbag kids and they just love it. They knuckle down and the teachers were coming out to see these kids intense concentration on this sculpture. Whenever I do welding with kids they just love it. Slingshots and monsters.
Basically I collect bonnets from wreckers. I see some that I can’t pass up. A sculptor could work for years on a piece of steel that one car accident can create in a second.
A lot of the time in the world of art it isn’t worth it but it is good therapy and it’s a great deduction. Out of 20 years my accountant has given me two thumbs up 2 years out of that 20. Every other year he calls me a blithering idiot. It’s good therapy.
I have 3 boys, 8, 3 and 9 months. We live out at Dorroughby. I’ve left the area heaps of times and always come back. It’s a great area. You grow up here and you go, Oh Lismore……. Leave and I tell you what, Lismore’s pretty bloody good.”
I often joke that growing up in a Panel beaters workshop does do strange things to a person and I guess there is something in that. I’ve always turned to making art as opposed to cars if I can. I’ve done bugger all at Southern Cross probably like half of us these days. My work is always based on getting people to question their contemporary ideological constructs by looking at old ones. What I do is I drag up muses from the past, whatever they are. I love sarcasm, irony and bad humour which is much to my detriment as it turns out with the red spots. Basically I just like taking the piss out of what is new and looks really silly. You don’t have to go far these days to find stuff. I’m always of the opinion that good art is loved and hated. It’s that stuff in the middle that I shy away from but that’s where your red spots lie.
I’ve had four overseas residencies in Buckingham Shire in the UK over the years.
I nearly died doing a sculpture in Buckinghamshire in 2008. I had a hammer explode on me! Have you ever seen Mythbusters where they try and prove hammers don’t explode? The hammer was an old English iron hammer. Basically it compacts back to point where it gets a fissure which can let go with an explosive force at any particular time and this one did. So a quarter face blew out of the hammer and 2 decent shards missed me but one of them went through here (points to just below navel). It’s like getting shot with an air rifle. It bounced off my hip and severed my lower bowel on the way through. Obviously there was pain and blood everywhere and we went to the hospital. The doctor gave me pain killers, antibiotics and x-rayed from the front, not from the side. He decided not to do any exploratory surgery to find it and sent me home. I went back to the sculpture trust studio and got out the stud finder. I blipped myself and it measured in at 1 3/4 inches deep. At that time I’m thinking I better head back to hospital. Four hours later I’m dying from Septicaemia which is a really painful way to go. So next thing I’m having an emergency Laparotomy and Bowel resection which I won’t go into but hence the big scar. I’ve got the cliched story to say, I nearly died for my art.
I didn’t get to finish that sculpture and the trusts founder Brian Montgomery’s dying wish was that I get back over and finish it which I did the following year. The sculpture was of an Ammonite. I had a massive one that won the SWELL Sculpture show in 2007.
Each year I try to enjoy each sculpture as much as possible. This year I loved doing the giant rooster. Each year there’s no particular preferences. I do enjoy upsetting people, you know those kids that just pick at people, I was one of those kids and so I live that through my art being that I don’t mind dragging up news like the AK47. Like I said good art is loved and hated.
I won the Swell Sculpture Show in 2014 with the AK47 which brought good and bad publicity. You get a bit excited when you win shows so you do stuff along the same lines. Not only do you have trouble with the red spot but you also have trouble getting through the wall of politically correct neutral rhetoric and the occupational health and safety. All that boring stuff that rules the world we live in.
I recently did a junk sculpture at my eldest sons school. We got all the ratbag kids and they just love it. They knuckle down and the teachers were coming out to see these kids intense concentration on this sculpture. Whenever I do welding with kids they just love it. Slingshots and monsters.
Basically I collect bonnets from wreckers. I see some that I can’t pass up. A sculptor could work for years on a piece of steel that one car accident can create in a second.
A lot of the time in the world of art it isn’t worth it but it is good therapy and it’s a great deduction. Out of 20 years my accountant has given me two thumbs up 2 years out of that 20. Every other year he calls me a blithering idiot. It’s good therapy.
I have 3 boys, 8, 3 and 9 months. We live out at Dorroughby. I’ve left the area heaps of times and always come back. It’s a great area. You grow up here and you go, Oh Lismore……. Leave and I tell you what, Lismore’s pretty bloody good.”