Want to Travel? The Significance of Residencies: Nicholas Tsoutas

Carrying on a business as a professional artist - a tax perspective

Heavy frost this morning. Solid white lock on the land. The earth beats warm beneath. Waiting. Biding.

It is the middle of winter now here in the New England. The trees are bare and the branches reach through the silvery morning mists. There is a sense of waiting. Just as we await warm weather so also do the trees wait to be enlivened. The Spring will be so much sweeter for this waiting. So very sweet for the warmth and for sun reaching throught the branches to bathe us in gold.

The golden light will draw long shadows down the back of my garden. My garden backs onto a paddock with a hill in the distance. I have recently put up a studio in my back yard with a large glass door. Working in there I will see out over the garden.

The beautiful thing about the place that I live in is that the seasons are so distinct. When I lived in Moree and Tamworth there was Summer and Winter but living in Uralla and Armidale there is such a dramatic Spring and Autumn as well. The winter is harsh.

"Now we come to the Autumn of our lives". I suppose my father was in his Autumn for many years. Now it is Winter. He has had his Winter and is resting in the cold cold ground. He is in Canberra while I am up here. Down there it is a bare Winter landscape now. He and I both are wait in the bare cold.

Perhaps winter paintings? Or do winter paintings in Spring when the sap flows again? Will the sap flow again? Wondering.

Tjala Arts was started by the women of Amata in 1997 and was originally called Minymaku Arts (Ladies Arts), it was renamed in 2006 to reflect the involvement of Anangu men in the art centre.
Aboriginal art and craft has been produced in Amata since the 1970’s but it was usually sold through the occasional exhibition or to the very few passing tourists or government employees.
In 1981 a group of Amata people took their punu (wood carvings) to Uluru (Ayers Rock) to gain access to the expanding tourist market.

Following the success of this venture, the art centre was established and the artists expanded their craft-based skills to fine arts practice including painting (acrylic on canvas/linen) and printmaking.

The centre is now a highly successful fine art centre creating exhibition standard work in a variety of mediums.

The video further down this page takes the viewer around the sculptures of Walcha.

At the moment I have an exhibition showing at the Walcha Gallery of Art. The gallery is beautiful and light in an interesting town on the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales. The director, Carley McLaren, hangs the work so that it shows to the best advantage.


I am showing with Anna Henderson, a painter and sculptor/potter from Guyra and Nigel Killalea who is a painter from Coffs Harbour.

Sunset. Acrylic on paper. 8cm x 24cm

Sunset 2. Acrylic on paper. 8cm x 24cm

Sunset 3. Acrylic on paper. 8cm x 24cm

Sunset 4. Acrylic on paper. 8cm x 24cm.

Through the trees. Acrylic on paper. 1. 8cm x 24cm

Through the trees 2. Acrylic on paper. 8cm x 24cm

Anna Henderson has said she has "been a full time artist for over twenty years. I am a potter, exploring raku, sawdust and saggar firing, and I paint abstract landscapes on canvas and linen, using acrylics, oil sticks, oil and charcoal.

Living in a fairly isolated part of the beautiful New England Tablelands, I appreciate every day, the changing mood, colours and energy of the landscape beyond my front fence." Anna Henderson 2011

Anna lives and works on the land near Guyra on the Northern Tablelands of New South Wales. http://www.redbubble.com/people/annahenderson

Nigel Killalea has painted for many years in regional Australia and has explored ideas of myth and landscape. He presently works from the North Coast of New South Wales

 The Walcha community is an artistic community being home to well-known painters and sculptors. The town itsel has many outdoor sculptures by the local sculptors. It has its own outdoor gallery.

Black cockatoo. Ross Laurie

Song cycle. James Rogers

The board. Stephen King

The warrior. Tom Deko

 



Last week I won the painting section of the Armidale Art Society Competition. It was a nice surprise. It was the first time I had entered anything for years. This is the painting. It is titled "Tsunami", it is about 50x70cm and is acrylic on canvas

I have work at the moment at the Walcha Gallery of Art. The exhibition is with Anna Henderson and Nigel Killalea. The opening night was very enjoyable and the works were nicely displayed.

I came across this today. I'm not sure why I haven't seen it before this. It is old but contains a lot of familiar places and faces.

I am moving next week to a little house in Uralla. I am looking forward to watching this in my new "home town".

Images of the work of the other three artists in the exhibition, Four Women Paint Land.

Michelle Hungerford (on the left) and Fay Porter's work

Kerry Gulliver's paintings.

Eucalypt and granite 2. Acrylic and mixed media on paper. 50cm x 70cm

The exhibition opening was well attended and on the following day, I with the other three artists exhibiting, gave a talk and worked in the gallery. Not much work was done though just a lot of really interesting conversation with the people visiting the gallery.