Busy Busy

Ohhhhh sooooo many projects on this month! I'll update pics and news over the Easter Break... Two more Tarot Assemblage Dolls are done!

I'm working on an amazingly special piece with a lot of firsts... first time I've used raw crystals in a sculpture and first time I've created a piece based on a book.  This one is doubly amazing as I've met the author and the inspiration is flowing.

Went to a Blue Moon circle last night... amazing amazing time... best part was the epiphany I had on the way home... a whole new direction for my artwork... less concept more heart. My work doesn't speak what my heart has to say. Oh it's beginning to but I need to keep on that path.

Tarot Guild Talk - June

I have been invited to give a talk and guide a meditation at the June Tarot Guild Meeting! Very excited about this as the subject has been the base of my artwork for the past two years, given me direction and inspiration.

The Link is here: Tarot Guild of Australia
AND if you are in Sydney and have an interest in Tarot you are welcome to any of the meetings, check details on the site. The next two meetings feature Molly, who is one of the most interesting and masterful Tarot teachers I've met. Then Tea Leaf Reading with Anne Tomlinson! Can not wait for that.

Here's my little blurb and I've been asked to bring along a couple of my favorite Goddess Sculptures. Nooooo not for sale sorry... these are extremely precious to me.
YES Aphrodite is one who is coming along to join us.... 

Thursday 10th June Goddess Energy and the Tarot - Cheralyn Darcey 

As an artist and tradesperson in a male dominated field, I found my creative work and life enriched once I embraced the the energy, teachings and gifts of the Goddesses. A flow on effect has been that Tarot reading began to feel more intuitive and enriched for me. I will be giving a short talk about how to bring Goddess Energy into your life. We share a Journey Meditation to the home of a Goddess where we will be enlightened. Then I will share a Goddess Energy Tarot Spread.

It's Friday?

I defy ANYONE to not to feel uplifted after the opening bars!.... my ALL TIME favourite song... and yeah IT'S FRIDAY!!!!!! :)  The Cure - Friday I'm In LoveUploaded by hushhush112. - Explore more music videos.

Where did THIS come from?!

OK I'm going crazy I think now I'm feeling better. Maybe all my energy is returning to me all fired up with new outlooks and possibilities? In the middle of my latest Sculpture (which I'm keeping under wraps as she is a bit of a mystery even to me at this stage!)... I had the urge to make a mask of all things... just starting picking up things around the studio and putting them together... will paint in the next day or so... at this stage it's just an undercoat. It's full size (as in human head). PS noooo I don't smoke I just light a lot of candles and smudge sticks :)
and I ask everyone to save things including matchboxes as I'm the Recycling Police. :)

Queen of Wands complete!

As promised here she is with her VERY important addition.

The Queen of Wands
assemblage of found objects
45 x 24 x 24 cms
Cheralyn Darcey

wooden plank - neighbors old veranda c1950s, nails, pottery vase c1960s, twig, silk flowers and leaves, silver bell c 1970s, napkin rings c1980s, hand dyed silk, doll arms c1990s, aluminum offcuts, upholstery fabric swatch sample, crown pendant, Swarovski crystals, tartan ribbon, ruby red crystal, paint, modeling clay, adhesives, wire.
Next up in this series? The Empress! stay tuned. First piece... the Queen of Cups can be seen HERE

I couldn't believe my luck to find the pottery vase which is her base. I instantly thought is was perfect for my Queen of Wands with it's pattern.
I am a collector of sticks that I just like... I'm always making wands and staffs and well just like sticks in bundles around the house have no idea why... so the Queens' wand was actually a twig off one of my current bunch of sticks in the corner of my studio. I connect most strongly with this card so she was a real joy to create. Did freak out a few visitors with my dripping silk in the front garden while it was drying... sorry.

 

 

Sculpture by the Sea anyone?

Sculpture by the Sea 2010 Bondi submissions are OPEN... Who's with me!?????
........http://sculpturebythesea.com/
I've been working on my ideas for a few months now and I'm in process of creating my model...
it's a very exciting time... I have now decided that if I don't get through I will still create my full sized sculpture (10 - 12 feet tall).
So have been saving for materials and tools (though you know over 90% will be  recycled materials).

You have until April 30th to get your entries in... Good Luck everyone :)
See you on the sand in October!!!!!

The Queen of Wands

And here she is!
no not really complete... I KNOW she's missing a very important addition... I'm still working on him... I'll update pics then :)

Queen of Wands
assemblage of found objects
45 x 24 x 24 cms
Cheralyn Darcey

wooden plank - neighbors old veranda c1950s, nails, pottery vase c1960s, twig, silk flowers and leaves, silver bell c 1970s, napkin rings c1980s, hand dyed silk, doll arms c1990s, aluminum offcuts, upholstery fabric swatch sample, crown pendant, Swarovski crystals, tartan ribbon, ruby red crystal, paint, modeling clay, adhesives, wire.
Next up in this series? The Empress! stay tuned. First piece... the Queen of Cups can be seen HERE

So You Don't Like Art Classes... part one

 This is part of a series now as I've touched on something people seem to want to hear about so here goes......
Where did you learn to do what you do and where can I take a class  series.
I'm taking you back..... way back.
You see being an Assemblage Artist, as I explained in my previous post, starts with the Assemblage that is YOU. You know that cake decorating course you took once? Oh yeah you CAN use those skills now, not to mention the tools!! Scrapbooking? tick Interior Design? tick Dog Grooming? tick :) Wool Classing? tick ok ok you get the idea.
Question: "Hey you did Art at School, right?"............
I'm 39 and some months... and when I went to school back in the Pre "Everyone's a Winner and Get's a Prize" days I took Art at High School. The teachers back in those days not only failed you in art, they told you straight out that it was 'no good' and 'hey drawing horses is better' and..."check out this idiot Ken Done, he calls that art and thinks people will buy it."
Oh yes my arty friends, I was the weird Gothic chick who lived in the dark room developing macro shots of barbed wire and drawing vampires and wolves (mmmm if only I'd been better at creative writing).

Anyway... in my art class was a blond willowy classic beauty who drew horses. They where MAGNIFICENT. Muscles rippling under glossy coats, cantering through scenes from classical Australian poetry. Her best friends in Art Class all drew horses to different degrees of fantasticness and when they weren't don't that, they would make beautiful clay vases for the teacher and Monet inspired collages out of tissue paper. Meanwhile up the back... I was hand coloring my black and white images of barbed wire with blood on fence posts and drawing vampire cats. 

Unfortunately our art teacher was not the kind of art teacher that appreciated my brand of contemporary art. If I had a time machine (first of all I would of written down all those 'I wish a Vampire would come to school here' fantasies) and then I could of shown her that, in fact, she was wrong about my art and that a vase full of barbed wire with a vampire cat in it would probably sell for millions some day. I'd live in a loft in New York and people would beg me to let them make barbed wire entangled butterfly prints on clocks with my name on them in my amazing studio.

So I left High School (early)... with a nice foundation in "I'm never going to Art College 'cause Art Classes suck" attitude. BUT I had learnt photography including processing and because no one liked photography, including the teacher,  I was left on my own to play Mad Photography Alchemist! Out of that came my ability to  improvise, to research and to experiment in art. I even found supplies to hand tint photographs at a junk shop and a book on the subject.
AND to this day I still love photography and I did work in photography once.. but that's another blog post.

So don't tell me you learnt nothing at school cause your teacher hated you... you can't draw a straight line blah blah blah.... think back... you got SOMETHING right? Yes you did... what was it?
If you loved Art at school, well it goes without saying... you where in an awesome fertile ground and got off to a great start. What did you learn back then that you can bring into your art today?

This is kinda like the Jedi... lol... "The Power is Within You".... Jedi Assemblage Artist Master Class.......oh ok time to go.... :)

Link to more skull type dolls.

8 Ways I Learnt to Be an Assemblage Artist

What I do is, I guess a bit different, and it brings many questions regarding my 'training'.
A lot of people ask me at exhibitions... "Where did you learn to do this?"

So here today are the answers... the learning process is an Assemblage in itself.

1. BEING A COLLECTOR. I have always liked to collect what other people call 'Junk'. I'm a real life Junk Gypsy... beautiful ticket stubs, rusty bits of metal on roadways... in the bag it goes.

2. MY CHILDREN: An oldie but so true. I loved playing 'art' with my kids as soon as they could stick fingers in a glue or paint pot. I learnt to ALWAYS have fun and laugh, be a kid. I guess that's where the humor in my work comes from. So LIGHTEN up... there are no art police... oh yeah there are... ok be a fugitive learn to play!

3. A MENTOR...MY MUM:  Everything is created by my Mum from within and with intention. Her work is so Spirited and uplifting. No matter if it's a cheeky watercolour of a Kookaburra or a mixed media sunset, you are moved by her work. BECAUSE, it's always from the heart. Her love and spirit is always evident. So I learnt to work with intention from Mum, to create what means something to me. Her work is nothing like mine but I learnt how to really be an artist from her example. It;s not about what you do... it's how you do it. Find a mentor who inspires you... they don;t have do EXACTLY what you do either.

4. WITH A FABULOUS TEACHER...MICHAEL DEMENG: One day years ago a book fell on me, no really it did. I was looking at a book on collage techniques in the corner of an art book store and a book fell out from the shelf above and hit my arm. I picked up the book and was blown away. "The Secrets of Rusty Things" changed EVERYTHING for me. I'd lived in the USA and been to Mexico many times. Here was an artist who's work was very much based on the things I loved, old things, Mexican things, spooky things, weird things. He came to Australia to visit his Aussie girlfriend and taught a class... I went and learnt a hell of a lot about paint and texture with assemblages...I've taken a few other classes in things that may not even be considered art based and read loads of different books... you learn from everything and don't stop being open to learning even if it takes a book to hit you on the head!

5. BY LOVING THIS PLANET.... sounds hippy chicky? But yeah I'm a Pagan Goddesses loving  gal and try and do my 'bit' to help our Mother Earth. AND... When you start looking at things to create Assemblage Art with... you begin recycling, what is in many cases, even the unrecyclable. Now it's fine art! How cool is THAT? I find my very best pieces out of things that I would otherwise throw out. Start looking at what you can recycle into art.

6. I JUST DID IT... I know it's catchy but I didn't make that one up, sorry. Grab a whole bunch of stuff and PLAY. Stick it together, paint it, hammer it, twist it, cover it with paint and gems, have fun. The more you do the more you will learn and the more you will progress. Never be unhappy with anything you create. BIG SECRET... my best pieces are often created on the bases of my past failures.

 7.I  CREATE WHAT I KNOW. Love surfing? GREAT! Create surfboards. A Cat person? Make cats! Wings and things? Do it. The old saying for writers "Write what you know" applies with all art I feel... create things you are passionate about. I hesitate on commissions as I prefer to create what is in my heart, if you connect with me... awesome! If I was making Sand shoe Assemblage Sculptures, they may be popular but they would not have the energy of my Goddesses. I don't suffer artist block because I'm creating the things I have the most energy for.

8.I FELL IN LOVE... Ahhh no not THAT kinda lovin'. Alas. I did fall in love with my medium. I have created in many many different mediums, painting (oil, acrylics, mixed media, watercolors), drwaing (every which way), print making, collage, book binding, glass blowing, sculpture in stone & wood, photography, model making (everything from WWII bombers and tanks to Star Trek spaceships and aliens) and the list goes on.... some things I really missed the mark on and never mastered at all... but the day I made my first assemblage... was love at first sight. The smell of construction adhesives quickens my heart and the whine of a high spped dremel makes my head spin in unison.
When people say to me, they can't do art... I reply, "You just haven't fallen in love with the right medium".

Exhibition Girl from Body Mod... If My Hair Was Made of Flowers

Today I'm working on The Queen of Wands and on the workbench is my first NON-Absinthe Fairy... :)

For now...This is one of my girls from the current Polymorph Gallery exhibition...

“If My Hair Was Made of Flowers, Would Every Day Be Perfect?”

assemblage of found objects
51 x 32 x 28cm
Cheralyn Darcey
plank - neighbors old veranda c1950s, door lock c1930s, cordial bottle, liquor glass c1980s, silk flowers and leaves, swarovski crystal, cut glass pendant, aluminum flashing, hand dyed silk, doll hands, modeling clays, wire, adhesives, paints, nails

More Girls? look in the catergory section on the left under assemblage dolls