Tag: Art Installation

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Sometimes Plans Hover For A While, Waiting …

carolyncordon

Waiting for what? That’s what I need to find out, then once I work it out, it will happen. the world the whole wide world is out there, waiting for me to get moving, and bring my ‘Thing’ out, where they can see it, do it, experience it, enjoy it, then tell everyone they know about it!

Well that’s a brief look at what my most recent plan is, or the biggest one of them anyway. I have lots of plans, if you include brief thoughts that seem to me to be good things to have a go at doing, plans.

Oh, I know that’s not a plan, it’s something much smaller than a plan, and less worthy. Plans are big, and they have bold letters, and paragraphs. Sometimes they might have numbers and graphs in them, and quotes from worthy people,

Plans set things out in ways that may seem logical, and come to possible conclusions even before the plan is even enacted, Wow!

Hovering plans like I’m on about here may have some of those things, but mine rarely have numbers or graphs, I’m more of an ideas person, working with words, not numbers. Numbers and I have never been Besties.

I can do simple math, but if I’d need a calculator to get the math done, I’m just not interested. I can write far better than I can calculate, I’ve always been that way, and probably always will be. At my age, more than half way through my likely lifetime, I’ll keep on with my plans that don’t need numbers done.

I took this photo this morning, because it looked like an owl, and I like owls. And I have a fascination in seeing living things in inanimate things.

See that photograph there, I took that photo not only because I like such things, but I also had a kind of nano plan that I may use the photo in something else, something bigger than just one slightly quirky photo.

I don’t know anything much more about that little mini plan, but it could quite likely end up in a book, with other such photos, and some words written by me, and possibly with quotes from others who’ve looked at and thought about things like I’m thinking about now.

I love the way the ideas come out of my head and onto the page as I write about them like this. And just because I had no idea about putting that photo in this article when I started, I that doesn’t matter, because, well it’s interesting isn’t it, looking at the thought practises of others? I think it is anyway, and with luck, you think so too!

Going back to how this started, the biggest plan I have at the moment is the one I’ve been working on for well over a year now, the one that possible will also be with me for the rest of my lifetime, and that is the Redbanks Rust & Found Art Installation.

I created this from bits of rusty and/or metal things, then put them on the fence of our place (asking my husband whether he minded, of course). He didn’t mind so I went on putting things on our fence, until there were, by my reckoning, over 400 individual items on the fence. Oops that’s a number, so obviously I can do numbers if they’re relevant to what I’m thinking a lot about!

So once I had that number of different things, I was thinking about what I was doing, and some thoughts became ideas, then some of those ideas solidified into contexts, and it was obvious I’d taken a step up from creating and had begun actually curating this thing. That’s when I named what I was doing, and now, there are (look out, a bigger number coming) now there are around 700 individual items on display at this Art Installation.

And I’m even thinking of getting students involved and having them actually count how many things there are, and separate the number into the types of things that are there. There are vehicle related, food preparation related, farming related, tools related, and probably a ‘what the heck is that’ related section as well.

This thing is a much bigger thing that the owl-looking photo, and I am proud of that fact!

Arts

What Being An Art Installation Curator Means To Me

carolyncordon

For me, being an Art Installation Curator means thinking about that Installation often, every day in fact. There are a variety of different aspects of that, a main one obviously is having items on display, and the item above is such an item.

My ‘Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Installation’, in the Adelaide Plains Region of South Australia, is made up of found objects, so I’m always on the look out for items to put out On display, and that lovely battered and rusty Screwdriver is the latest item, and I was certainly thrilled to find it!

I was walking along the road this Art Installation is on, which is also where I live, and a slight deviation from my path brought me to this delightul tool! I quickly grabbed it, then took it along with me as my husband and I and our dog Lenny continued our walk.

it’s been a while since I’ve found an item of note, such as this one, and so when our walk was over, I happily and quickly examined possible options for a good display spot. And then I placed it out, as shown in the photo just there.

This Art Installation is home to a good few such tools, found by myself as I walk around various places. I’m not particularly looking for potential such display items, but am always open to the possibility of finding them!

Life’s like that, I feel – remaining open to good things that may happen, makes it more likely they will in fact happen. If I hadn’t taken that slight sidetrack today, this Screwdriver would have remained in the undergrowth, becoming ever rustier until it finally became a scattered collection of rusty scraps of nothing much at all.

As the Curator of this Installation, a major role is definitely the collection of such material. And the putting these items is of course an important part. Another not so readily recognised part, is bearing in mind possible ways to bring attention of potential visitors to what is on display. This aspect is an ongoing learning experience for me, and I’m glad to have this website where my various Business related interests are ‘out there’ on show!

There are over 700 items on display – tools, horseshoes, old chains, and a varied collection of other items, in various shapes and sizes. They’re found, then eventually put on display, for visitors to view.

I’m keen now though to bring an exciting new aspect of this Art Installation to the fore, and that is as a Tourist site. In the Adelaide Plains Region, agriculture has always been the most important business.

These days though, with ever increasing numbers of residents with no working relationship with agriculture, but only that of being a consumer of such products, there is much more of a focus on other ways to bring interest and so money into our region. My desire is to assist in increasing visitor numbers to the northern Adelaide Plains Region, to the betterment of all of us here!

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An Event: “But Is It Art? Come & See For Yourself!”

carolyncordon

This event will be at 2 to 3pm on the 28th of July 2025, at 1594 Germantown Road REDBANKS South Australia. If you are able to get there, feel free to contact me and I’ll keep a look out for you!

The image above shows a small section of my Art Installation, a very small part of it. But in this section are perhaps thirty or more items of the Redbanks RUST & FOUND Art Intallation, with the entire Installation having more than 700 individual items on display!

The intention with this brief display is to guage interest in it, and to showcase the variety of interesting concepts it touches on. There are definitely recycling aspects, with many of the items on display thrown away as rubbish, and headed for the dump.

To me though, every item can tell as story, about us, about how we feel about our world, and about the commnity we live it. There are concepts of road safety there as well, and the ideas around history too.

But is it Art though? I say yes, and I’d love to hear what other people think about that!

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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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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!