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When I Name Myself as a Curator, What Do I Mean?

carolyncordon

I have no official professional quailfication as a Curator, no Tertiary education in any Art subjects. But while I would not be able to get the job of Curator in any other institution, I am certainly the expert in the “Redbanks Rust & Found Art Installation”!

No-one knows more about this Art Installation than I do! And not only that, they never will! For I am the Creater, and Curator of this Art Installation, and much of the information concerning this Installation is still swishing around inside the creative space inside of my mind!

If I was a trained up professional Art Installation Curator, I would easily be able to show this piece which has now been put on display at this Art Installation. But that’s now the way things go in this Freelance “Pick It Up Then Put It Up” Installation. There is no list of the over 750 items now on display, and that number of ‘over 750 items’ is a guess, but as the person who collected almost all of the items, then put them on display and is now doing the Curating work, I am the Official and Only, Curator!

If someone thinks people can’t simply start creating such a thing, and then promoting it as an Art Installation and Tourism Site, well have I got news for them! That is exactly what I’ve done, well the first part, and the promotion of this installation/site is officially starting by the end of this month!

The Creation of this site has been fun, and I thank those who have assisted me in this, from Graham (my husband) our dog Lenny, Teresa who listened to me talking about his, and helped in the early collection times when it all started. And to Steve Oatway (an incredible creator of Found Object Art) and the lovely friends I’ve talked to about this project and some of whom have also given items for it to me. I thank you all so much! The interest from others has been a big part of how and why this is still going!

The curational process is much more brain work, rather than walking, although there is a bit of walking, and carrying involved as well, when moving various items found from the car to the midway space and then to the Installation, to be put on display.

CBut the process of moving from Creater to Curator also involved the consideration of why I was doing this, and what did it all mean, to me personally, and larger than that, to the community living in Redbanks, and broader than that. Me thoughts touch heavily on the Recycling aspects, and the related Reuse and Reimagining thoughts.

Further than that, as I’ve thought about the items I’ve found in the middle of country roads around where I live, well taking the various objects from the road to my boot or back seat and then putting them on display, I consider I possibly have prevented more than a few road accidents. I may have even saved some lives, who knows?!

I am glad about all of this, and while my brain and body remain so much engaged with this project, I’m sure the Redbanks Rust and Found Art Installation will go on becoming bigger and better! And this morning I pulled over when driving to an event to check my phone when I missed a call, then looked behind my car and found a new/old piece!

Then for the meeting I dropped into after that one, I showed this new piece, and told the new group member there, and found another person who loves collecting things too. Hooray! When there are things in your life that are important to you, and you’re passionate about, talking about them to others can have fabulous results.

This new person is interested in coming along for a look at what I’ve done, and she says she’ll bring a group of her friends with her! It really feels like this idea is a goer, for sure, and who knows, it may lead to even bigger and better things!

Life really is good, when others are on the same page, and understand why you love doing the unusual things you love to do!

It isn’t Crazy, it’s Creative!

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What Is The Art Installation I’m Curating?

carolyncordon

I am Curating the Redbanks Rust & Found Art Installation, and while it it is not yet drawing in hundreds of visitors, I have high hopes it will be bringing in visitors soon. An Art Installation without visitors is a sad thing, except of course, the Installation has hundreds of cars driving past it every single day!

Every now and then I put out the sign, and get on with various curational tasks, making it all bigger and better!

So that is the sign, and while it is a little awkward to carry, it is a fine exercise to carry it from where it is put away, and back again, once my stint as the Curator is over, with perhaps more items put out on display!

This Art Installation has over 750 individual items, most of them ‘rusty’ bits and pieces, ‘found’ mostly by me, but sometimes by my husband. This idea is reaching out to people I’ve told about it and I’m thrilled to have been offered, and then accepted items to consider for inclusion.

This has led to some intriguing things, and I’m thrilled to have such a great range of different items of different kinds! There’s a chicken, that has attracted the interested of many, including me, I love Chickie Chook, and I have ideas about this one, with a children’s book in the future!

There’s Chickie Chook having a rest and thinking about adventures to come!

I have so many thoughts about where this children’s book may go, and putting on my business woman hat, I’m excited about using both that books, and Chickie Chook herself to help ‘sell’ this Art Installation where she lives, and reclines!

That chair may not be made of metal, but there are certainly metal bits and pieces that go to keeping it all together and while they may not be rusty yet, I suspect there will be rust happening soon enough …

There are items much smaller than Chickie Chook, such as beer bottle caps (lots and lots of them!) and there are bigger items, such as an exercise bike. And in the top photograph, there is that yellow and black sign, that I found one day going for a walk.

It was lying on the side of the road, lying flat on the ground, with weeds growing all around it! I was surprised, but knew what I had to do. I collected the item, and after contacting the relevant auttorities, who didn’t want it back, I then happily put it on display!

This Installation is taking up my interest, and my time, in great ways, and I am so looking forward to showing it all off and telling visitors all about it. There are many contexts involved, recycling, repurposing, reimagine, as well as road safety, when I consider the accidents that may be avoided because of the items taken off the road where motorists may swerve around them!

That won’t happen now because I’ve taken them from the road and put them on display as part of the Redbanks Rust and Fund Art Installation!

If you’re interested in seeing this in, contact me, and a visit can be arranged. email: kittycordo@gmail.com

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Art Is A Many Labelled Thing

carolyncordon

When I used to say I was a writer, I didn’t also consider myself to be an artist, wrongly so, as it turns out. Because of course, writing is indeed an Art, the Art of Literature.

The book pictured above is one made up of writing, both poetry and prose, from people connected to my writing group, and I am proud of each one of them!

It is filled with responses to writing prompts given at our various events held, and the book is certainly correctly labelled as literature, such is the quality of the chosen pieces.

I am as proud to be connected with this book as I am of my own personal published books I have. But a couple of years ago, I took my first steps to another form of Art, that of Visual Art. I took up the idea of perhaps writing and actually illustrating children’s picture books.

And to do that, I would naturally need to actually draw the pictures to go in the picture book, right? Right! Well that idea, while a fun change for a while, didn’t really take off in my mind, and while I’m still open to the idea one day happening, it is off my list of things to to NOW!

But the idea of being a Visual Artist as well as being involved in Literature stuck in my head, and I decided it was somethng I had to do, and how I was going to do it was to take something I’d already been doing for a bit of fun, and treat it in a much more serious way.

I am a dog owner, and as my husband and I have been walking our dog (Lenny, a Greyhound, retired from racing), well I’d been picking up bits and pieces of rusty “rubbish” and putting them on our fence.

Over time, there were more and more things there, and as the fence itself is made of iron, and much of it has rusted. I thought about it all, and decided I would put it all together, thinking of the many important contexts touched on by what I was doing.

In the image above are some of the items that make up this Art Installation, a tiny section, some given to me, some found, but all of them either rusty, found or both rusty and found. That chicken now has a name, Chicky Chook, and she may well be the ‘star’ of a picture book, using photos rather than drawings … My mind comes up with so many different ideas!

Anyway, back to the Art Installation:
Obviously, recycling and reimagining items otherwise looked on as trash, and now considered as items put on display, and so assist in the creation of the “Redbanks Rust and Found Art Installation”, all went toward my thinking on what I was doing as Art.

Initially I was Creating an Art Installation, and now, having more than 750 individual items on display, with more awaiting placement, and of course more found every week, I am thinking more closely about what I am doing, and where the best place may be for each item to be put on display.

Previously I would just put things anywhere, now I consider the most effective way to place each item, filling gaps in the display, to make it more visually appealing to onlookers …

So yes I am indeed a Visual Artist, as well as being involved in literature. I in fact have been bringing the two Art forms together, and intend publishing a collection of written responses to this Art Installation, and launch it at a Festival put on by my writing group.

Writing will always be a much loved aspect of my Art, but Visual Art is becoming more and more important to me as well!

Those two frogs were giving to me by a friend who’d had some rearrangement in her garden and no longer needed them, and she automatically thought of me! I’m becoming famous about this Art Installation, in my immediate community anyway, and am thinking about ways to extend my breadth of connections regarding this, and turn both it, and my other Creative things I do into a paying business!

Exciting times, and I am gathering as many supporters together to assist in making this installation into a fun and interesting place for tourists, whether they’re intrastare, interstate, or overseas visitors. This idea is taking up much of my thinking at the moment, and I truly feel it may actually work!

I don’t need thousands of visitors, I just need enough visitors committed to what I have to present, and happy to pay for it. I’ll be working at making my site one for not fust looking and walking on, but getting involved in what is on presentation, as a form of Experiential Tourism.

This is really appealing to me, and I hope it will be of interest to many others as well. If anyone is interested in knowing more, feel free to contact me, I’d love to tell you about it! And tell your friends too!

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Does Anyone Know What This Is/Was?

carolyncordon

My husband spotted this at our son’s place recently, and after asking Jake if we wanted it, and getting permission, I took it home.


I’d hoped washing off the dried mud may have made it more obvious what this lovely piece actually was, but beyond realizing it was made up of five different pieces, I have no idea what it is.

The larger piece has three small screw-like things or should that be bolt-like? No, more like bolts I think. I’m not a mechanically minded person, or one who does home handy person things, obviously!

The other round item is actually made of rubber, the other thing is made of iron, and it’s quite rusty, which I obviously love! My getting a really appreciation of what iron is all about, but obvioisly still have much more to learn about it all!

So if you know, or have any idea at all about that it may be, I’d love to hear about it, leave a comment, please!


I have now put those two items out on display on the Redbanks Rust & Found Art Installation, which feels good. I suspect I’m getting closer to 800 individual items on display now. If anyone out there lives near where I am, who likes counting things, feel free to come along for a look, and we may be able to organize a time to do a big count!

Or if anyone knows any people who love numbers and maths, send them my way! I might buy them lunch if they do this counting for me!

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Why I Am Who & What I Am, & Now Focused on Becoming

carolyncordon

How do significant life events or the passage of time influence your perspective on life?

I’ve had a few life-changing events in my life that have shifted me from what I was doing, and headed me to something quite different.

The first major one of these was the birth of my son, and the post natal depression that hit me when I was stuck at home with him 24/7, when I’d previously been an office worker.

Once I was able to, I took advantage of a chance offered my creative possibilities and began exploring Poetry, something I’d liked at school, then left it behind.

That took me to now being a published writer and poet, which may never have happened if either I’d never had a child, or if things had gone well, and I’d gone back to office work as soon as possible.

This led to a totally different way of life, first as a stay at home mother, then as a community connected volunteer, and sometimes casual worker doing a variety of different things.

The writing is still important to me and has become my major ‘thing’, but the death of my mother last year has given me a new major change in my life. Losing a parent is a tragic thing for sure, no matter what, but given her age at the time, and the way her body was breaking down, it wasn’t that much of a surprise.

What was more surprising was when, once her estate had been looked at and the funds there distributed in accordance to her will, I had found myself to be quite well off … I’d never had that much money before.

I thought about things, and realised here was a chance  to actually really do something with my life, something bigger even than the nine books I’ve published. I was going to go into business.

And not just a boring shop on the internet, or similar, 8 decided to put my best creative ideas together, and go into business as a Creative!

So all of the fun hobby things I’d been doing, I was going to get serious, and expanding all of it, doing my best to make it all profitable!

I’m at the very early Start Up stage, with no money coming yet, but I’m taking advantage of all the many opportunities available, to learn as much as I can about   actually being a business!

This website began because of that, and with some adjustments, and widgets added, I hope and expect to  get things happening. My mum had some idea of some of what I was planning, and I’m sure she would be proud of me for what I’ll be doing!

My younger brother is a businessman, a very successful one, and if I can follow his lead, there’s no telling how far I may fly with my own business!