Arts

What Being An Art Installation Curator Means To Me

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!

New Ideas

A Literary Yard Sale?

Sometimes I get ideas, you know … And as a writer, getting ideas is a good thing, yes? Well, up to a point certainly, but what if the idea is taking away from writing time, of more truly is distracting the writer from writing.

That is what is happening to me at the moment. I had a great idea, or at least one that seems like a great idea, a community building idea, and I have been working hard on this idea for the past week or so, and I haven’t been doing much in the way of actual novel writing.

So today, whilst in the middle of promoting my ‘great idea’ I had a brilliant idea – I would hold a reading of my published words at the event that is my ‘great idea’, and it may be the first time such a thing has ever happened. I could be wrong on that one, but I can probably truthfully say it hasn’t ever happened where I live.

This ‘great idea’ I’ve been working on is a Township wide yard sale, where as many houses in my township set up a stall and sell things from their own yard. I’m hoping for at least ten households will get involved, because that would mean the local Primary School will get fifty dollars from the fee to take part. If every household got involved, wow, that would be awesome, there are at least forty households in Redbanks, where I live.

So forty households times five dollars that’s two hundred dollars to the school. Not a bad donation … My little township, while a nice place to live, is lacking in any real feeling of being a connected community. Small groups of people are friends, but there isn’t anything everyone there is interested in.

Could this yard sale that takes in all of the township be the catalyst for bigger and better times for Redbanks? Who knows? I just know that if it does happen, I played a part in it, and that feels like a good thing to have spent my time doing. And hey, maybe I will sell some copies of my own books, and get to sign copies for the buyer/s, that would be a great thing!

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