art4place

Tuesday, June 30, 2015

Creating placemaking art for Maleny IGA

As can be seen from the periodic postings on this blog, over the last 5-6 years Art4place has been involved in a number of community and placemaking art projects. However, the IGA Project (including Flow - Obi Obi Creek over the fresh produce area; the industrial framework over the bakery; the layered Mountains over the checkout area; and the story boards near Flow and under the covered Waterfall Walkway) was one of our biggest projects and took up quite a bit of time in 2014-15.

Art4place was approached by Michael Lake of the F3 Design and Architecture to put forward a proposal for art features in the Maleny IGA as part of the redevelopment of the store. Over several months four Art4place artists (Fiona Dempster, Edith-Ann Murray, Noela Mills and Barry Smith) workshopped ideas, designs, colours, sizes, drawings and materials for the works with Michael and Sam and Rob Outridge (store owners). The four elements that made up the IGA Project came from this artistic, architecture and engineering process.

The artworks needed to be light so the frames were aluminium box and the surface panels were composite aluminium sheeting. Colours in the main were to be shades of silver and grey to tone with the store paint and tile palet.

Four huge 5mX3m panels for the Flow installation were fabricated by Freeform Sheet Metal to Michael Edith-Ann and Barry's drawings; and delivered to a farm shed outside Maleny for Noela and Edith-Ann to add some finer design elements to the panels.

The panels were transported to the IGA on a boat trailer for installation once the detailed Lomandra Longafolia seed images were completed.

Installing the 4 huge Flow panels were done at night after the store closed - often working around other workers and stacks of foodstuff. It was a challenge to get the panels through the front door (with only 100mm to spare); but an even greater challenge to lever the pieces into place; to have them evenly spaced; and ensure they were all on the same plane. We were lucky to have a team of young installers who were committed to accuracy; and for the work to be coordinated by Edith-Ann.

©2014 Art4place - Panels - going up - important to get the anchor points right. Panels suspended on 10mm threaded rod - all double and triple bolted and through trusses and bridging boards in the ceiling.

The layered Mountains were cut to shape by Miles Plastics according to Noela's scale drawings; and installed by the same dedicated team.

In consultation with Rob and Sam, Fiona developed the story for Flow and for the Waterfall Walkway. Her original calligraphic work was vectorised and handed over to Miles Plastics to be etched into exterior engraving laminate.

The artworks have been in place since before Christmas 2014. They are still creating much interest and much feedback to Rob and Sam.

Art4place would like to thank Rob and Sam Outridge for trusting Art4place with this project (and the earlier Waterfall Walkway project); and congratulate them for having the vision to include placemaking artworks into their business setting.

We also thank architect Michael Lake for seeing artworks as both an aesthetic and functional.

Saturday, May 23, 2015

Maleny Rotary Club Shopping Bag design competition

The Rotary Club of Maleny

Shopping Bag Design Competition

The Rotary Club of Maleny is supporting the drive to rid our community of plastic bags.

In conjunction with Art4place, Rotary is inviting expressions of interest from local artists and designers to create an image to be printed onto the front of shopping bags.

The bags will be sold through several major local outlets, and profits will be used for local community Rotary projects.

The best design, chosen by The Rotary Club of Maleny, will receive a prize valued at approximately $700, consisting of:

• A midweek night for two at the "The Falls", Montville, http://thefallscottages.com.au/

• Dinner for two at “Wild Rocket”, Montville, http://www.wildrocketfood.com.au/

• 'Brunch' for two at “Elements”, Montville, http://elementsmontville.com.au/

Design elements:

• The base bag colour will be black,

•

Bag size is 36cm wide and 40cm deep,

• Image size needs to be 21cm wide and 24cm deep,

• Image must reflect the character or icons of Maleny,

• The official Rotary logo must be included in the bottom right corner as shown above.

• For a high resolution image of the Rotary Maleny Logo at: https://drive.google.com/folderview?id=0B2QTKzfVeOK5fk5rY1hmVkdHMEFrbEttekxVVlA4NG9Hbkxrc2RsSFo5cmZJY2pOWUtwV3M&usp=sharing

• Those submitting must agree to transfer the rights of ownership of their designs to Rotary,

• Entries will be on display in Maleny later in the year.

• To enter, please fill in and send the APPLICATION form, along with your design in electronic format, to donnacervantes@acc.edu.au with a copy to rictownsend@gmail.com

• Dates for entries, finalists and launch are on the Application Form,

• Finalists will be required to send a hard copy [a print out or original art work] to The Rotary Club of Maleny.

*...........you can copy and paste this form into a new document, or email Rotary at one of the addresses below for a new form...............

Rotary Shopping Bag Design Competition

Application Form

Please fill out this form and email to The Rotary Club of Maleny along with a JPG or PDF of your design which is titled with your name.

Due date for applications July 15 2015

Finalists will be chosen and notified by July 31 2015

Finalist’s hard copies to be sent to Rotary by July 15 2015 PO Box 70 Maleny Qld 4552

Winner notified and announced by August 15 2015

Name:

Address:

Email:

Phone no:

I agree to conditions as set out by The Rotary Club of Maleny.......... [please highlight]

yes no

I have attached an image of my design which has my name in the title.......... [please highlight]

yes no

Now please email this form and your named image to Maleny Rotary Club at:

donnacervantes@acc.edu.au with a copy to rictownsend@gmail.com

malenyrotary.blogspot.com/

Tuesday, November 26, 2013

Threatened Species Day - art4place artists get into action

Threatened Species Day is celebrated annually on 7 September as part of International Biodiversity Month in September. The event was held in the Maroochy Regional Bushland Botanic Gardens on 1 September 2013.

Art4place was invited to join with the Maroochy Regional Bushland Botanic Gardens to hold a number of activities that would raise awareness of species that are endangered; ways we can help to support endangered species; and deal with animals and activities that are a threat. Art4Place worked with Gecko Wildlife and the Art and Ecology Centre at the Maroochy Bushland Botanical Gardens to make 2013 Fun Fathers day a great success with families having a great time learning about the environment and picking up new skills in clay, drawing, painting, woodwork, and just plain getting crafty together. The focus of the day was the tiny Feathertailed Glider.

Activities included: making flying Feather Tailed and Powerful Owl Gliders (Noela Mills); making pouch pals for Feather Tailed Gliders (Heather Gall); creating awareness of the danger of feral cats by making and tracking down a mass of bad bad feral cats (Jim Cox); making clay Feathertail Gliders (Cathy Lawley); creating Feathertailed Glider houses from recycled wood (Edith-Ann Murray and James Crowther); painting Powerful Owls on boxes (Christine Elcoate).

Parental approval has been given for the use of photos of children used in this blog post. In the main photos were taken by Noela Mills.

A steady stream of children with parents following made FLYING feather tailed gliders and powerful owls. They were made from A4 heavy weight paper which Noela had photocopied with images of gliders and powerful owls. Instructions were provided, so that several designs could be created. Parents and kids then had fun seeing which creature would fly the furthest and straightest. A few budding engineers even modified the designs to create more efficient aerodynamics

Another great workshop on the endangered species circuit was with visual artist Heather Gall making pouch pals for the Feathertailed Glider. The participants learnt about size and eating habits of the glider to fit into their pouch. Drawing with charcoal and pastel pencils we had making a recycled pouch to wear was a lot of fun. The finished pouch pals sporting their small Feathertailed Gliders looked great at the exhibition which was held in the Art and Ecology Centre at Tanawha during the school holidays.

Lots of feral cats were turning up everywhere chasing down the Feather Tailed Glider. Well known artist Jim Cox told all the children making this BAD BAD predator of the Feather Tailed Glider all about how bad they have become in wiping out this tiny helpless creature. A lot of fun was had making an installation of a circle of feral cats on mass, with a poor little Feather Tailed Glider on a stick in the centre. The cute little Feathertailed Glider on the post in the photo below was made by James Crowther.

The kids had a great time on the feral cat hunt , tracking down the paw prints in the Sculpture garden looking for hidden bad bad cats to bring back to the enclosure and get them out of the bush.

Learning about the Powerful Owl as a predator of the Feathertail Glider was fun. Learning through creativity is the best way to do it. The children painted lots of Powerful Owls on recycled tomato cartons. They got to make a huge wall of owls to make a statement about how powerful they are when on the attack to catch their favourite tid bit “The Feathertail Glider”.

Edith-Ann Murray and James Crowther worked with the children to make safe houses for the Feathertailed Gliders. Some of the houses made their way into the September Ecology Centre Exhibition; and others made their way home to children's houses to be placed in the tress.

And of course what learning would be complete if you didn't make a Feathertailed Glider? So Cathy Lawley invited the children to get their hands in the mud and make ceramic gliders.

Many of the things children made on the day contributed to the creation of an exhibition in the Art and Ecology Centre at Tanawha during the school holidays so that the environmental message could continue to be shared with other children, their parents and the general public throughout International Bio-diversity Month - September.

Art4place was proud to be a partner with the SCC, the Maroochy Regional Bushland Botanic Gardens and the Art and Ecology Centre at Tanawha in raising awareness of environmental issues through temporary community placemaking art.

Pages