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Curious Collect Create Curate

carolyncordon

The Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Installation began as something far more simple than an extensive Art piece with over 700 individual pieces on display, as it is now.

But as they say, from little things big things grow, and yes, they sure have! It all started a couple of years ago, when I began picking up small bits and pieces of metal, usually beer bottle caps, and putting them on the front fence of ‘our place’, which is the home of my husband and I, in Redbanks South Australia.

Redbanks is a small township, in rural SA, in the Adelaide Plains Council area. There is a commnity Hall fallen into disrepair, and there are houses on small blocks, and there are farming land all around. We’ve lived here since 1988, and love our move from suburbia!

And while we love it out in the country, there is not a lot of community feeling in Redbanks, for that you need to go to Mallala, the closest town to our place, or Gawler, which is a good bit bigger than Mallala.

We moved out to the Adelaide Plains to breed pure bred show dogs, but now have moved away from that world, and simply have a pet dog, a Greyhound, Lenny. Lenny is an important part of this story, because many of the found objects found/collected when taking Lenny for a walk, are now on display in this Art Installation!

The creation aspect has come more recently, when someone I’ve been talking with someone about what I was doing, and it became clear to me this was much more than just a fence, with bits and pieces stuck on it, or leant against it! And as the Creation aspect moved along, the ideas regarding what I was doing grew conceptually, and before I knew it, I was an Art Installation Curator, presenting a literature-based viewing and then writing workshop.

And now, to take that aspect further, there is an anthology planned to be published and launched in the new year! The more I think about this project, the more I can see could happen with it, and at the moment, I’m in the process of readying various items from this Art Installation for a viewing at another site during SALA (SA Living Artist) Festival in August this year!

How Exciting is this? Very exciting, is what I say, and I’m loving being the Curator of an Art Installation!

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Stand Up Comedy, Who Can Do That?

carolyncordon

Some people are terrified of Public Speaking, and would rather to almost anything, rather than actually speak in public. Not me, I love it!

So when the chance came up to do a short Stand Up Comedy piece at an event with several other Stand Up Comedians, I said, yeah, count me in! And now, as one of the other performers at that gig, Todd Gray, wrote in a message to me, ‘that monkey is now off the back, and a weight off the chest’.

The other performers, and especially the person who organised it all, Marc Ryan, were lovely to me, and it seems like the kind of thing where they all look out for each other. They all thought I’d done a good job doing my act as Nanna Carreau, an old dear who’s funny!

I had a couple of poems I’d written, and performed them, people laughed (with me or at me? who cares, at least hey were laughing!) And wow, I enjoyed doing that so much, I really want to do another gig!

Anyway, yes that monkey is now off Nanna Carreau’s back now too, and she’s has been whispering lines to me, for the next show! The performers there on that night at the Prince Albert Hotel in Gawler, it was, a venue I know very well. And no, not for hte reasons you’re thinking!

My writing group meets at that hotel every Thursday afternoon and that helped a lot on my big night as a Stand Up Comedian! I did a little impromptu act, sort of, yesterday too. I was driving home from a visit to my Mum, and had to stop to fill up my car with petrol. And as I was going insode there to pay for the fuel, I saw to young women collecting money for something or other, and decided I’d stop to see what it was all about, on the way back to the car.

So that’s what I did. They told me what they were doing, and I told them about doing the Nanna Carreau, and did a mini act, with just my voice and words, not dressed up in character, like in the photo below!

Then one of the young women google Nanna Carreau, and found a photo of her/me, and we all laughed again! The photo was a smaller one, and only showed Nanna’s Carreau’s head in that same beanie (which she’ll proudly tell anyone and everyone, she knitted it herself), but that link and photo were definitely enough to back up the truth of what I was saying!

Anyway, they told me I should record myself doing my act, and put it up on TikTok, and I’d get thousands of followers! A fine idea, and one I may see if I can get my son to help me with that one day. In the meantime, I’m definitely going to discuss the possibility of that writing group I mentioned putting on a workshop in doing comedy/Stand Up, and then later on in the year, have a Stand Up Comedy event as a part of the Festival of Words we run every year in July.

We have a theme for the Festival, and this year the theme is ‘Time’, and Nanna Carreau and I are already thinking about what we will/or rather could do with that theme! I have to remind myself, I may be the President, but I have a subcommittee to convince!

Ah life is so much fun, and it looks like it’s going to get much more fun, and funny too! Cheers, have a laugh, you deserve it!

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Making Further Connections, Finding Possible Options

carolyncordon

At the moment, I’m in the middle of working on a variety of different projects, some of them relevant to this website, others not. But of course, as a writer and creative person, everything that happens in my life is connected with evetything else!

Today was a matter of writing a new form, working my way through it, and ending up with a suitable result. That feels like a good result, and I hope the actions that follow on from that will also be good ones.

Necessary plans – coming up with the needed words and ‘financials’, humph! The Words part of it, that comes more naturally to me, but those numbers, they’re definitely not so natural though.

But when you’re going into business, or upping the actual business you’ve been doing in an informal way, to turn it into something more formal, (and one hopes bringing more monetary rewards), well if you want the money for your business, you’ve got to get the business plan happening!

So that’s what I now have, a business plan for the business that is me – “Carolyn Cordon” Writer, Public Speaker, Art Installationist, and Stand Up Comedian! and the exciting thing that happened last night is that someone spoke to me last night about doing a talk at a Service Group, so my Public Speaking career is definitely happening.

I expect there isn’t likely to be several hundred dollars or so in recompense for my time, nothing like that. I suspect the more likely reward will be perhaps some chocolates, and not a lot else. At this stage, that’s not relevant to me, it’s all about getting the word, my words, out there, spoken!

Some of my published books at an event I’d attended, below:

With the new Business Plan I created, I’ve planned to do many more events such as was the one above, when I have my books on display, ready to be signed and sold!

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Exciting Times Are Coming Soon

carolyncordon

As a poet writer of many, many years with nine books published, I consider myself to have been a hobbyist for most of those years, and while I’d more recently thrown off the hobbyist tag, I haven’t really thought of my writing as being a business.

But as a creative person, with ideas frequently popping into my mind, and with some of these ideas while still Creative things, they’re a large step on and up, far beyond being a poet and writer. And with these new ideas I have, I can see much more opportunities in terms of actually making money, more than occasionally selling one of my books.

I am looking to bring together all of my Creative things I do, and doing all of them as aspects of the business ‘Carolyn Cordon Creative’. I am poet and writer, yes, but I will also be and Art Installation Curator, and a Stand Up Comedian/Performer too. And while I will still be doing the various creative writing group and workshops I currently do for free, I will also be putting my name out as a Performer and Presenter, and also the person running a Tourism business.

I’ll have lanyards for this and that, so many of them I’ll have to be careful not to choke myself! Haha. One tag will do – Carolyn Cordon Creative!

The turnaround in my thoughts about all of this came, I feel, when I realised what I did at my own home had possibilities for Tourists to visit, and also my most recent creative writing workshops are proving to be worthwhile to others, and fun to me as well.

And while I won’t be starting to charge for those particular workshops, I feel the world is my oyster regarding any more such opportunities that come along.

And having this new website, where I have brought all of these aspects of myself together, and having paid money for it, rather that doing the basic websites by myself, well, it feels much more business-like to me. I’ve been talking with people, getting assistance, and I know who to talk to in the future to get all of this business thing up and running, soon, soon, soon!

I’ve put a note on my calendar (which I’m now using in a more business-like manner these days), to get a haircut if and when needed, and for me that is definitely a sign of new things on the way. Usually my next hair cut is months overdue before I get around to doing anything about it!

I have meetings that will be relevant to me in my new business happening soon, I’ve got a milion ideas in my head, and I am so excited to be doing this. I know there are many things I don’t know yet that I don’t know, but the idea of the new learning required makes me even more excited, not worried!

I have two books on the way, with both of them to be launched later this calendar year, and I am going to have a fine time wehn both of htese new books are launched into the world – book launches are so much fun, I love them, and when the book being launched is one of mine, Woah, even better!

There is a poetry collection, about the pond at our place, and the turtle who lives in that pond. This should be easy to get ready, most of it is already written, and it’s mostly poetry that is already more or less collected together, and ready to be made into a book.

The other book to be published is another poetry related book, with some prose as well though, and photographs as there too. Hmm thinking about it, perhaps that book may need to wait a longer time. Unless … Ahh, the decisions that need to be made, I can do this!

I’ve had the thought that perhaps the idea that I move up from self-publisheing my work and actually become a publisher, may be useful, and profitable … Who knows how that might go. It’s certainly relevant to everything else I do!

At the moment having this business is feeling like a big bundle of fun things, wrapped up together with the possibility of getting money for doing what I love to do. How awesome would that be? Extremely Awesome!

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Regarding My Art Installation

carolyncordon

Yesterday I did a little bit of work on the Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Installation, in m role as the Curator of this Installation. And I was so happy when I went and checked out how one of the adjustments I made to a part of the Installation survived overnight!

I’m learning more about the good and bad things about having an Art Installation that is out in the open, exposed to weather, as well as the various creatures outside! The best thing is that anyone who wishes to view this Art Installation can do so anytime they wish to! They’ll miss out on learning more about it, in my absence of course, but they can make up their own ideas and opinions on what they see.

But the pariticular part I’m referring to is the Exercise bike, an old and well rusted one that has pride of place close to the wire fence which is also a part of the Installation, along with the great many other objects on display.

Any way, I had what I hoped may be a great idea regarding the placement of one particular item that is on display, a quite popular item, as it has turned out, and I moved that item to be displayed in an amusing way, and I love it! Being an Art Installation Curator isn’t all collecting, cleaning, and other boring aspects, there can be joy there too, particularly if you can have a bit of fun with what you’re doing!

So the image below shows what I’ve done, I hope it gives you a bit of a smile at the very least!

I call this piece ‘Chickie Chook Goes For A Ride’, and I love the amusing incongruity of it! I hope other viewers will love that too! Chickie Chook has been placed out in a variety of different sections of this Art Installation, and wherever she is, she looks like she loves being there (except for when the nasty wind has blown here over and too far away to be seen as a part of the Installation).

I’ve been thinking of producing a children’s book featuring Chickie Chook one day, and this little exercise bike adventure may well feature in that book, or perhaps series of books …

If you have any thoughts about this, please, leave a comment, we can discuss it all further, if you want to!

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