ORACLE BOX GIVEAWAY

I've just finished my gift edition of ten Oracle Boxes (read my last post for details) and I am delighted to offer one as a gift  to a Mosehouse Studio visitor.  Just leave a comment on this post between now and Monday 26 September. Make sure you include your name so that I can notify the lucky winner. Readers from outside New Zealand are welcome to enter the draw. GOOD LUCK.

ISABEL (anonymous 2) WON THE ORACLE BOX. CONGRATULATIONS

ASK THE ORACLE

Bronwynne Cornish's trio of Oracles are proving to be very popular in the Lugosi's Children exhibition at Objectspace. The nature of the questions that visitors are posing to the Bird, the Dog, and the Mirror Oracle, reveal that in difficult times people will often look to some power beyond themselves for answers to their big questions.



In the tradition of the Delphic Oracle, the Oracle enlisted to provide responses to people's questions throughout the exhibition, dictates answers in the form of verse couplets that people will need to ponder when they return to the gallery to find out the answer to the question they posed.

Laura and Philip at Objectspace tell me that people are spending a lot of time in the Oracle tent reading the answers and taking notes. Apparently, a woman rushed in the other day to see if her answer was there. She emerged from the tent elated, saying that the answer was exactly what she needed.

It occurred to me that it might be nice to collect the Oracle's beautiful answers and turn them into a gift for the people who worked so hard to put the exhibition together. The format I decided upon was modelled on a Word Tin that my sister Therese made for each member of our family a few years ago.

The Word Tin sits on the bedside table with the wishing stone on top.

Every morning we shake the tin and extract a word of the day.

Yesterday, Jack was 'Loving', I was 'Electric', and Zero was 'Cuddly'.

Therese wrote this lovely poem about the Word Tin in 2006, which was published in the chapbook Many Things Happened (Pania Press: 2006):

The Word Tin

Every morning after breakfast, I pluck a word from the Word Tin. The tin is a black cube – its opacity means I can never peek at a word before choosing.

There are roughly one hundred words in the Word Tin, written in gold lettering on strips of black card. Some words are better than others, but there are no bad words in the Word Tin.

If I’m extra lucky, I might find myself illuminative, creative or jubilant.

The Word Tin has become an indispensable decision-making aid. For example, on the day I quit my job, I was powerful.

Entrepreneurial had to be cut in half because it was the longest word and easy to pull out. Even though I know this, it is still vaguely disappointing to pull out entrep.

Once the word has been selected, pondered upon and allowed to influence my day, it is then placed under the Lucky Stone. The Lucky Stone? That’s a whole other story…

To make the Oracle Box, I bought ten round boxes from Spotlight, which I decorated with vintage wallpaper and a label printed in orange ink using the cute alphabet rubber stamp-set I bought from Iko Iko last week.

 

65 Oracle answers were selected, printed onto thick paper, cut and folded.

The box is pretty full, but there is still enough room for them to move around when you shake it while posing your question to the Oracle. Here are a few of my favourite answers:

I hope the people who receive the Oracle Boxes will find what they need in these words of wisdom.

Enjoy your Sunday everybody.

review

I was chuffed to read the generous half-page review of Lugosi's Children in the Weekend Herald. Most of the 11 artists in the exhibition were mentioned by Graham Reid and he responded very favourably to both the atmosphere of the exhibition as well as the major theme of the show, which concerns the ways that people respond to darkness.

Here are a few documentary snaps of the exhibition and the artist talk on Saturday 27 August taken by various people including myself, Laura Howard and Katharina Jaeger.

Bronwynne Cornish's Oracle Howl with the other Bronwyn (me) behind it.

A view inside the Oracle tent where the three Oracles, Howl, Sigh and Screech await written questions from visitors, which will be answered by the Oracle within seven days.

The responses from the Oracle are transcribed onto pieces of paper along with the person's initials and these are pinned to the wall of the calico tent, so that people can return to the exhibition and read the answer to their question.

Julia deVille's Golden Gosling looks out onto Ponsonby Road.

Rosemary McLeod's bride, Aunt 2, casts a ghostly shadow on the gallery wall. She becomes the stand-in Miss Havisham in the exhibition.

A view of the space with the long table in the foreground with works by Katharina Jaeger, Jane Dodd, Tanya Wilkinson and Paul Rayner. The viny-cut image on the back wall is a translated curse called Loss (Study 2) by Ben Pearce.

One of Katharina's Goblet and textile sculptures is being passed around visitors to the artist talk at the Gallery.

Katharina and me at Objectspace before she flew home to Christchurch. A selection of her amazing pieces look on in the background.

Steph Lusted holding her intricately carved necklace for the visitors to look at, while I nervously hold the fragile bell jar that encloses the piece on display.

Shelley Norton is talking here about her fantastic installation in the vault, which is a plastic outline of the three figures from Manet's famous painting Olympia - the nude courtesan, her maid, and a black cat. You can just glimpse Olympia's head in the background of the image. Unseen on the other side of the vault is an installation of 69 pieces called Freud's Forest that converses with Olympia.

By the way, in the image above I am holding the A4 exhibition catalogue for Lugosi's Children, which includes a wonderful introduction by Jack Ross, a substantial 7000 word essay that I wrote about each of the works in the exhibition, and a fantastic selection of images. The catalogue, beautifully designed by Alan Deare of Area Design, retails for $5.00 per copy. Contact Objectspace to order a printed copy (only a limited number remain), or you can download a free copy for yourself right here.

The two indispensable members of the exhibition team: Laura Howard, Objectspace Programme Coordinator and Karl Chitham, the visionary exhibition designer.

A view of the table. It is so hard to capture the detail of the works so you really must come and visit the exhibition and see the works in the flesh. Inside the bell jars are five of Jane Dodd's exquisitely crafted predator / prey brooches. Paul Rayner's Grayson Perry Spirit Bottle is the centre-piece on the table. Five of Tanya Wilkinson's decorative ceramic cakes are placed around the table, along with eight of Katharina Jaeger's goblet mounds, collectively titled new skin thickens on my skull. Tim Main's beautiful wood and ceramic Rosette Southern Forest 1 looks splendid hung high on the side wall of the gallery.

The exhibition runs until 1 October at Objectspace, 8 Ponsonby Road, Auckland.

I hope you'll drop by for a visit.

At 11am on Saturday 24 September Dr Jenny Lawn and Dr Jack Ross from Massey University's School of English and Media Studies (Albany) will be giving an informal public talk at Objectspace about Gothic themes in New Zealand Art, Film and Literature.

Free admission

All Welcome

Do the maths (a photo-narrative)

So what was that all about?

What it was, in point of fact, was an answer in the form of a photo-narrative to a question I ask myself from time to time - should I make crafts to sell? 

The question was motivated by a purchase I made last week of four cushions from a lovely shop called Bounty in Thames (mentioned a couple of posts ago).

The cushions were made by a Coromandel crafter and they retailed for $39.00 each.  I was admiring them when I got home, but then I started to think about the work that had gone into making each cushion, not to mention the cost of materials. I was suddenly beset by a feeling of guilt about how little I had paid for the cushions. One thing led to another and I found myself mulling over the dilemma of the viability of selling beautifully handcrafted goods like these. I reasoned that a good way to work it out, once and for all, was simply by 'doing the maths.' So I set myself the task of sewing a replica cushion, which I worked through methodically this morning until it was completed. This is how the cushion costs out:

Fabric:

vintage polkadot 0.5 metre = $2.00

floral upholstery fabric 0.5 metre @ $15.00 per metre = $7.50

Polyester stuffing 400 gms = $8.00

Vintage buttons x 2 = 50c 

Materials total: $18.00

Labour: 2 hours  at NZ  minimum wage of $13.00 per hour = $26.00

Total: $44.00

and that figure is before the retailer mark-up has been added, which is usually between 25% - 40%.

So, I don't know about you, but I don't think the $39.00 cushions are a viable economic option for the Coromandel crafter in question. I think she should assign greater 'value' to her handcrafts, as well as the skill required to produce them, and she should calculate a realistic price accordingly. That being said, however, would I have bought four of her cushions if they had been $90.00 each? Probably not, and I guess that's why crafting tends to be done for love rather than money.

For now then, I am very content to craft for love, and to make and give lovely things to the people I care about.

wrap EXTRAVAGANZA

My sister's birthday 'season' kicks off this week. She'll be joining us here in Auckland for a fun-filled weekend, so taking full advantage of this rare semester break without any Academic Writing assignments to mark, I thought I'd have a relaxing time wrapping her prezzies and baking lots of scrumptious goodies.

The materials I used for this wrapping extravaganza were A3 sheets of black and cream paper, strips of calico bookcloth, loose rice-paper pages from a worn Japanese book, coloured corrugated card, a selection of handmade rubber stamps I made after reading Lena Corwin's book Printing by Hand, and a sheet of florist hessian that I saved from a pretty bouquet of flowers I was given.

With no particular plan in mind, other than a vaguely Japanese theme, I got busy scoring, cutting, folding, tearing, stamping, bending and gluing, and before I knew it Tazey's five gifts were looking suitably resplendent.

That was fun.

The only problem is that they look too pretty to open!