. Peter Adams

Last year I posted a short one minute video that was part of an advertising campaign by Tourism Tasmania. Recently, the producer of that video sent me a five minute, “Director’s Cut”. This is a really beautifully crafted video. Enjoy.

Tourism Tasmania – Peter Adams from Brad Sayers Director on Vimeo.

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I’ve given up.

Too many times my chisels have fallen to the dirt floor beneath my carving bench and shattered when hitting the soft dirt.

Too many times I’ve felt confined in my studio working behind “windowless walls” wanting desperately to take my art out into the great outdoors.

Therefore, I’ve — literally and figuratively — buried my carving tools. Never again will my bare feet be in danger.

Three dimensional sculpture is so last century.

Instead, I shall become an “en plein air” artist working — not under the protection of some wimpy studio roof — but directly with the elements; with whatever the great earth goddess and sky god decide to throw at me.

And I shall be using paints just like the great artists do. Artists who are not mere sculptors.

To this end, the above photo demonstrates the seriousness of my investigations into how human manufactured colours blend, interact with, dissolve into and supplement the “natural” colours of their surrounds.

The play between the various actors on this stage is subtle, yet so enriching to the engaged mind willing to look at art in a non-judgemental, mature way where chaos is brought into sublime harmony with the forces of light and dark, the moon and sun, or, even with eagles flying overhead whose shadows dance fleetingly across the land.

With time, nocturnal animals, such as the possum or feral cat, will leave imprints on the still wet paint and re-define the notion of “Who is the real artist”, or, “Can art be whatever sells?”

Future intentions are to get a solo exhibition of this cutting edge canned art at a national gallery in order to bring to city folk a deeper appreciation of how nature willingly accepts whatever we humans spill out onto it.

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“When you’re up to your ass in crocodiles it’s hard to think about draining the swamp.”

Can you see in the middle of the above photo the notched bit of wood that is my next sculpture ‘Belly Buttons’? If so, I’m glad you can because I haven’t seen it in several months.

Littered across the front of the sculpture is the detritus of the many other jobs that have taken me out of the studio.

And still to come (as visible in this photo): #1 — reworking the Denmark sculpture ‘Buddha Beads’ presently under a large grey tarp in order to install it somewhere on the land. #2 — two stacks of wood delivered last week for two separate projects: posts for the Gaia Walk and boards to replace rotting decks, and, #3 in the foreground, over 100 star pickets and enough fencing material (300 meters) to surround the three dams that comprise the Peace Garden as required for public liability insurance.

My friend Paulus chided me a few months ago by saying, after I told him about the Middle Garden Project I was constructing, “Why aren’t you making art?”

Yes, indeed. But the question could be asked: “Is the making of art necessarily confined to one’s studio?”.

All I have to do is look at a page out of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks to feel assured that I’m being creative. I mean, Leonardo had several ideas/projects going on at once and no one ever chided him for rarely finishing anything other than a few wonderful paintings. No one ever thought he was wasting his time on irrelevant projects.

To Leonardo, everything — no matter how mundane — could be looked upon with an artistic eye and scientific curiosity.

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