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Call Out: Issue 8 – Art of falling

Calling all children and artists! We are ready for your contributions to Issue 8 of BIG Kids Magazine. Send us your responses to the theme Art of falling to be considered for the BIG pages. See below for all the details.
'Falling out of the sky' Anissa, age 5, Sydney Australia

‘Falling out of the sky’ Anissa, age 5, Sydney Australia

Issue 8 – Art of falling: the untimed tumble of ideas, responses and feelings to curious thoughts and unexpected events. 
 
BIG Ideas: Write a poem that falls down in the middle. Trip yourself over and turn it into a dance. Drip paint onto a page while standing on a chair. Collect 8 fallen objects you find in your room and make an installation on the kitchen bench. Compose a song high on a swing.  Write a list of things that fall. Stand in the rain and record the music it makes on your umbrella. Create an imaginary artwork in your head while you are falling asleep. Draw or write what the art of falling feels like. Think of 6 impossible things. OR create something of your own imagining inspired by the theme – Art of falling.
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We would love your response to the theme Art of falling

1. *CREATE and CONTRIBUTE your response to the theme Art of falling. You can write, film, paint, dance, draw, sew or sing your contributions which will be considered for publication on our blog, and/or in the pages of BIG Kids Magazine.

2. SEND high resolution print quality images, sound bites, videos or word docs  of your work to [email protected] including the title of the work, your name, age (if you’re a child) and location by March 1st, 2015
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Thank you so much for helping to spread the BIG word – we had an amazing response to Tiny Worlds. You can still purchase Issues 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7  HERE!
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*All entries will be considered for publication in the print pages of the magazine or on the blog. Acceptance of submission does not guarantee publication.
on Jan 25, 2015
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Tiny Worlds Launch

 

Join us at Sydney Opera House on Saturday 17th January at 2.30pm for the launch of Issue 7 – Tiny Worlds. RSVP to [email protected] and bring your friends!

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on Jan 12, 2015
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Issue 7 – Tiny Worlds

Purchase Tiny Worlds before Tuesday December 15th to have it arrive on your doorstep before Christmas! Click HERE for all the details.

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on Dec 13, 2014
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Mother Artist: Debra Batton

When Debra Batton first heard of the Mother Artist Network and BIG Kids Magazine she claims to have been extremely jealous that she didn’t think of it – but there isn’t much that Debra has not thought of. She is a performing artist, brave inventor and acclaimed director. Debra creates gravity and genre defying works for the Australian and international stage. She is currently the show director of Circus Oz and curator of her own remarkable program as an independent artist.

 

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Debra Batton researching the handstand in The Handstand Project – Photo by Heidrun Lohr

Bravery is acknowledging uncertainty and taking the next step / making the next decision

Imagination is a reaching out toward understanding the unfathomable or a blurry idea / need, surrounded by clutter in which there exists a hunch that suggests a possibility that requires attention

Generosity is remembering to enquire rather than pre judging

As a young woman influenced by feminism, I was determined to push my own boundaries and insecurities motivated by the idea that art can change the world (or at least contribute to change). Today, following a depressive period associated with menopause, I am driven by the need to make art for survival, it is as essential to me as water and air.

I had very little exposure to the arts growing up, stumbling on the Dance course at Rusden College (where I was accepted to do a BEd in P.E.) changed my life. It was one of those significant experiences that broadened my horizons and led me to numerous wonderful projects as a dancer or choreographer with amazing people.  I ‘tried on’ their processes and experimented with developing my own. One project led to another, I said yes to almost every opportunity to increase my experience in the performing arts. In my late thirties I chose to focus my attention on directing physical theatre, I was committed to the development of the art form as well as the devising process that I considered essential to create new work with an ensemble of physically based performers.

I faced a common female dilemma at thirty seven – that I was ready for a new challenge in my work (that of Artistic Director of a small to medium company) and that I was ready to have a child and I could not leave it much longer. I chose to do both.  For me all things are connected and art offers new ways of seeing / exposing these connections. I preferred to have my son around the process of making theatre but found it difficult to remain focused especially during rehearsals. Luckily he could be with dad who worked from home (often composing music for the shows) or he went to day care. However for one reason or another he has been in the rehearsal room or theatre or tent at various stages of numerous creative projects.

As a mother artist (artistic director) it was the evening networking expectations that proved to be the most difficult. I needed and very much wanted to get home to read a bedtime story and to be awake early ready to play. This also meant I had to stop actively thinking about the work at the end of the day to give quality attention when I could. I discovered the power of leaving my unconscious brain to do its work as I slept.  The next day I could stand on the floor with my ensemble of performers and know the next step without always knowing how I knew.

My son toured with us whenever it was possible, he enjoyed the community of the ‘troupe’ on the road, he was ten months old on his first tour to Brazil and some of these friends remain very close to him. He offered us a sense of perspective as work often fell into some kind of mini crisis. He has travelled to many countries, he remembers some, especially the hot chocolates of Spain. As a pre teen he developed a comfort with travelling as an unaccompanied minor so that he could meet me on weekends or school holidays. Today he picks and chooses when he joins me on tours, he is in year 10 and staying at school and being with peers has more importance.

Being a mother has influenced my artistic work, as I became a director of physical theatre I was learning to be a mother, there is no doubt in my mind that both roles affected each other, I learnt to: pick my battles; allow ideas to gradually develop from disparate sources; encourage the discovery of possibilities rather than the replication of my ideas. I also discovered that the big picture is often blurry and that sharp focus on the immediate details eventually define the art /child as it becomes itself. In the end I wonder if I had that much control over it after all.

Being a mother of a son also gives me a connection to generations other than my own as well as the technologies that excite them.

My son loved to play on the gaming console, I was often standing with folded arms waiting for this one last game to be over in order to turn it off. As I watched and waited I began to see the potential for a new performance – I realised the main character did not travel around the screen but the environments moved around it, this reminded me of a performer dancing in a harness on the wall. (we had recently made ‘Eora Crossing’ using a new aerial system developed for traversing the sandstone wall of the Museum of Sydney) My struggle with my son and his screen time inspired the concept for a new work…’On the Case’

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On The Case – the award winning show directed by Debra

I no longer have a loyalty to genre, in the past I have belonged to Dance, Circus, Physical Theatre and Theatre associations, attending numerous conferences etc. Today I prefer to call myself a performing artist – I value dance, circus and theatre equally, and my directorial process is based on giving performers tasks finding the process most suitable to the particularity of the project is part of the art. I also love to read and visit art galleries and my process is the concatenation of my experiences with these forms. I am an improviser, as a mother artist this is an efficient, effective practice that is an end in itself, but, also stimulates and exercises the craft/s of director and performer. In improvised performance my instincts prevail; faster than my rational, intellectual understanding of what I am doing, saying or singing, it is the accumulation of over twenty five years of performance experience and never ceases to surprise me, this work often informs other work that I am directing or making.

More recently I have begun making and performing solo work between directing projects. One of my recent favourites is about the older physical performer in a culture that is enraptured with youth and obsessed with marketing. At the beginning of this work I request that no video footage (including archival) be taken. ‘Art is Uplifting?’ has been performed just three times, once being at the Tasmanian Circus Festival in 2013 with my fourteen year old son in the audience. Although the work received a very favourable response, it might have been uncomfortable with his mum on stage wearing trousers with braces attached to her nipples. The following morning as we made breakfast under the trees he said… ”for what it is worth, I didn’t like your act and everyone thinks your mad”! Less than a year later his point of view had changed. At the Mullumbimby circus festival in 2014 he created and performed his own ‘ladder act’.  It was very funny. Although he is, in my opinion, a very gorgeous mover, he performed in my friends dance film recently, he insists that he is not interested in performing and science is his thing. He doesn’t realise, yet, how similar they are. Creativity does not belong to the arts.

Cosmo dancing in the short film Habitual Passengers

Cosmo dancing in the short film Habitual Passengers

My son is now 16, recently he told me he needed to shave, when I asked if he needed any help he said no there is lots of advice and videos on you tube. Today it is 3.35pm the hair salon in Northcote calls, I am on tour in Gladstone Queensland, we have a day off before bumping  in. Apparently Cosmo has an appointment for 3.30. I call his mobile, he is running 5 min late but on his way. He accepts my suggestion to inform the hairdresser. The salon has my number as his contact, one of those remnants of the younger, less independent, child. I am grateful for these small details that keep me connected to him and, perhaps, more involved than he might prefer…

 

on Oct 22, 2014
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Mother Artist: Deb Sonenberg

Mother and artist Daphne Kingston was well into her 80s when she declared, by way of explaining her own prescience, “coming events cast a shadow”. We won’t hear more from Daphne due to health reasons but her words and curiosity about the shape of things to come have helped inspire this blog series. We will hear from mother artists with diverse practices and children in their twenties, teens and twos, all of them bravely sharing something of their busy, brilliant lives as mother artists.

 

  We are very fortunate to have this contribution from artist, educator and mother Deborah Sonenberg.  “Leaping and limping from one day to the next” does not leave her with much time for reflection but today she pauses mid-air to see where she’s been. Witnessing Deborah at work, the warmth and attentiveness with which she listens and responds to children is the first clue to the extent of her wisdom. The stories that emerge of her life as mother of two girls are the next and these photos don’t lie – joy springs up wherever she lands.

The Art of Parenting

Ausdance Concert Borroloola

Ausdance Concert Borroloola 1996

I trained as a theatre worker it taught me improvisation and prepared me for parenting. I have worked as puppeteer, producer, film-maker, visual artist, theatre director, actor – performer, musician, writer; facilitator, mother.

Before I had children I worked with my peers to investigate harmony and dischord in the voices and landscape of cultural identity in Melbourne. During the early 80’s the voices of refugee, multicultural and indigenous people were growing louder. I wrote music and theatre works with my partner. Many other artists contributed their knowledge of the richness and struggles of their own cultural life and identity to my voice. I was passionate and very earnest. My first child was born into this.

My true nature was born with her. I remembered how to play…. to nurture and to yield. I could no longer control outcomes.

Since her birth every project has resulted in unimaginable pathways never leading back only forward toward many joys and new challenges. Those first practice notes on the cello or violin at breakfast-time moved me into a new job as artistic director of a Children’s Music Festival. I learnt to juggle their classes, dance, acrobatics, self-defence, horse-riding, a pet rabbit breeding program and reasoning with passionate little voices asserting their independence and dependence.

I committed myself to the blending of children and an unconventional full-time creative working life…. this took us to the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Northern Territory.

Cast and Crew of BuwarralaAkarriya – Journey East 1988 Photo: Therese Ritchie 

My first child was born at the same time as an ABC documentary film project which had evolved during a long stay in Borroloola before I became pregnant. I produced this film over a number of years with my baby daughter growing beside me. This became the new life for us as a family. When my second daughter was born, she slept in a basket woven by my friend Queenie. We lived there on and off for over 15 years and many projects. Our ‘home’ was a bush camp on a hill protected by 22 ancient tamarind trees shading a powerful river below. This was a robust cultural and working life supported by deep friendships, new languages, songs, stories, art and ceremony. We all grew together, a time of great political and artistic struggle and breathtakingly beautiful events – somewhat similar to parenting teenagers. None of this I ever felt prepared for, I became student and teacher with my peers, we improvised.

Photo by Emily Batterham’ and ‘Banyule Baby Choir’s youngest member Kudzaishe Chibwana’

Generosity is to listen with your heart.

I worked as a Cultural Development Officer for the NT Government and later in regional Victoria. My work enabled others to explore art and form, identity and place. This work was shared with individuals, groups and communities. We made new work together. If I was without skill or knowledge we learnt together, a parallel to parenting my girls. As a family we travelled and worked. We introduced ourselves with songs and puppets inspired by Chinese acrobats. The most delightful puppet members of our family, the Dancing Krasnapolskis, lived in a suitcase. These puppets are now 30 years old. The children grew up with them and other puppets as family. We all learnt to give of ourselves.

The Dancing Krasnapolskis are still dancing.

Mayas Krasnapolski Perf 2014

 Imagination is to dance with the unexpected

 My creative life as a mother has relied on my ability to trust and improvise when presented with achievable and inspiring opportunities. My childrens’ well-being was the perimeter. I would never have expected such a rich journey with my children as they grew into adults. It was such a short time on reflection.

I work for a wonderful Melbourne based organisation ‘Kids Thrive.’ We deliver ‘child-led’ community change – imagine that !  As a team of artists and specialist educators our arts based programs create long-term partnerships with community organisations, schools and their communities. Together we give voice to children; their thoughts, ideas and hopes in performance.

My daughters are now in their 20’s.They both study medicine, one Western the other Chinese.

They are both healers, worldly, creative and intuitive.

 

on Oct 20, 2014
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Mother Artist: Alexandra Harrison

 With 2 weeks until the next Mother Artist Forum at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Sydney we are thrilled to open the 4th blog series with guest curator and long time BIG contributor and artist, Alexandra Harrison. Here Alex describes the everyday dance of life as a mother artist, and gives us a taste of other artists navigating similar terrain. 

 (We look forward to seeing you at the 2nd Mother Artist Forum and film screening on Sunday 25th at the MCA for a continued conversation about the challenge and rich terrain of navigating motherhood with an ongoing professional art practice, and we would love to hear your own stories in comments below.)

“In the beginning there is pure expectation – I can only fail”

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BIG Child Artist Response Project contribution by Alexandra Harrison

Pregnant with Rainer, I completed an anthropology degree, bought a house and made two new dance works. One was my most enormous to date – a festival of sorts comprising of a full length ensemble dance piece, a lecture, 2 short films, a video installation, a community dance project, a durational solo, a 1 hour drum roll and an exhibition. The other opened less than a month before Rainer was born and just a few days before we moved to our new home. Rainer Mallee landed 2 days before Christmas to crown the year.

I remember soon after Rainer’s arrival feeling awed by the demands of a day. But it’s the duration (days, nights, weeks, years) that makes motherhood extreme. Like so many of the conditions of motherhood, there is a practical and philosophical richness that creates artistic practice and contributes to the life of the mind; the necessary pressure of duration produces invention.

Since Rainer’s birth my achievements have been a little more piecemeal. But I have a collection of the biscuits and sweets given to him by strangers, a (long) list of the times he woke me between 3 months and 7 ½ months, a tally of the number of baths I have managed with my partner, a (long) list of Rainer’s words at 18 months and have painted thousands of tiny crosses to form water colour cross stitch. I have made 35 felt mice for his playgroup fete and sanded 55 timber offcuts for outdoor building blocks whilst pushing Rainer on the swing. I have developed a meditation practice whilst putting Rainer to sleep each night, an open studio practice for Ray and his friends and managed a collaborative contribution to every BIG Kids magazine but one. We have made two (very) short films and performed a 2 minute duet involving walking from one end of the stage to the other holding hands when he was ten months old.

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Alex and Rainer performing in Clock It for the Big West Festival – Photographer Paul Dunn

Collaborating with Rainer necessitates a sympathetic relationship with repetition. Concepts of drudgery are not useful – certainly repetition in machines is replication but in humans it is change. My brilliant Papa said “knitting uses a series of loops. And loops, unlike a weave, allow for movement; stretch and range”. I think of repetition as a loop so when Rainer says “again” or “I like some more please”, we repeat faithfully and look for the appearance of difference. I have heard language form and comprehension dawn and observed the specific moments of apparent sameness that send Rainer’s repetitions in new directions. I have witnessed natality – the birth of a new idea.

Bodies moving in concert is a strategy in dance. On stage synchronicity is rehearsed, organized and impressive. But it is strongest when it is a consequence of acute attention or a serendipitous meeting. Rainer and I spend a lot of time exploring synchronicity. We practice in the car trying to yell things at the same time, or at the kitchen table with simultaneous turns of the head, or in the studio moving and stopping together. Success was felt by both of us before Rainer was twelve months old and is still met with unmixed delight. We practice our timing and sharpen our awareness, we follow each other and improvise. For Hannah Arendt acting in concert is both a manifestation of freedom and a crucial securing of that freedom through acting. It is a powerful practice dependent on plurality – the accepting and respecting of otherness. We encounter independence as well as each other in our synchronous play.

Erin Manning talks about parenting as an exercise in radical non-ownership. Rainer is absolutely and radically not mine yet my task is complete responsibility and care for what is radically not mine. This is magnificent. Excited at the prospect of not being at the centre of my own existence I am de-centralized by motherhood to new degrees and in new ways all the time. There is an opportunity here to abandon bastions of self-absorption; moodiness or battles for rights with my partner. My failures at dealing with conflict respectfully and efficiently have necessitated the invention of peace (Rainer dislikes yelling and carefully logs my sadness). I am learning too how to keep working when my heart is sore and how to listen harder to Rainer when the ground feels shaky. I hope to offer spacious and evolving love.

Alex and Rainer working on their 14m watercolour cross-stitch - Photographer Jessica Tremp

Alex and Rainer working on their 14m watercolour cross-stitch – Photographer Jessica Tremp

Beyond the personal the choreography of motherhood is endlessly complex. Reading philosophy through pregnancy I discovered this new (for me) condition was an opportunity for thinking through new (for me) concepts; splitting of the subject, flux of body boundaries, innocent narcissism, new spatial proximities, depth disappearance and double intentionality. I read cross-culturally and even cross-species to expand the perspectives and possibilities offered by my own cultural habitus. My intimacy with other mothers does important work in offering a community to my family and proving again and again the necessity of diversity in approach. I realize that the conceptual richness of motherhood was invisible to me until now and I fear it’s no accident.

On discovering I now have Rainer, a director friend of mine said instructively you aren’t going to make work about being a mother now are you? I think of the media infantilizing of mothers into “mummy”, when working with children is some of the trickiest psychological work I have ever undertaken. I think of the endless tomes lauded as serious literature where (mostly) men pursue alcohol and some (narrow) concept of women even into their old age in ways that are laughably adolescent. I am incredulous that maternity is considered negligible grounds for creativity, when here is an underworld of bona fide dirty, desperate beauty.

But some do acknowledge this reality. I am grateful to my collaborators for their openness to a toddler wandering in and out of the rehearsal room. I am grateful to my brave partner for saying yes and falling in with me in spite of the “dark shouters caution and prudence”. Gratitude extends to past collaborators who showed me integrated models of motherhood with children in rehearsal, on tour and on stage. I remember one Legs on the Wall co-production with a group of utterly wild Canadians and six accompanying children which produced more laughter both on and off stage than I have ever before enjoyed. The Canadians were so adept at inclusion they formed a circus with their kids that performed all around the country. Then there are Lilly and Jo of BIG Kids Magazine who offer a place for artists and children to put things and share with the world. Their work makes the mother artist visible in gently ingenious ways.

I’m yet to form a circus, publish a magazine or even make another dance work – but onward. I prepare a performance lecture on the choreography of motherhood, I continue watercolour cross stitch on an impossible 14m piece of parchment, I write a small book welcoming children to dance, I dance duets with Rainer that no one else will ever see, I mentor for a show in Perth, I choreograph My Lovers’ Bones and I work with a beautiful organization called Kids Thrive. I cultivate new curiosities every day through my relationship with Rainer and I value and trust the work of mothering – and I reckon being Rainer’s mother is art if I say it is.

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Alex and Rainer working on their 14m watercolour cross-stitch – Photographer Jessica Tremp

on Oct 17, 2014

A New BIG rhythm

These are racing days filled with the sweetness and mystery of creating Tiny Worlds, as many BIG opportunities are opening up all over Australia. Inside the gathering speed I am slowly getting used to the new rhythm of Twyla (almost 6!) as my right hand person, while the extraordinary Jo Pollitt works on back to back dance projects.

It is a beautiful experience to watch my own child inhabit the growing pages of the next issue and both contribute her own ideas as well as respond to the content in ways that take it so much further than I could have imagined. Twyla created the colouring page for Tiny Worlds and met an obstacle in the process where she thought she was going to have to start all over again, after already spending a very long time working on it. It was beautiful to watch a creative struggle that I have faced often in my own practice and see her solve the problem in a way that extended the work visually. Her sense of accomplishment in entering her own unknown and coming through the challenge to a greater landing was encouraging. BIG has always been about opening portals to ways of seeing, understanding and responding to the world in ways that invite children into the actual joys and challenges of creative practice. It is always so exciting to be at the stage of actually seeing all the incredible contributions come to life on the pages and our designer is completely inspired! SUBSCRIBE NOW to make sure you are in the very first mail-out of Issue 7 – Tiny Worlds!

Lilly x

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Colouring page – ‘1000 tiny snails’ by Twyla, age 6

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‘she swallowed a tiny world’ by Twyla, age 6

 

 

on Oct 14, 2014
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BIG and The Dallas Museum of Art

Exploring ideas of culture in the creation of imagined worlds at the Dallas Museum of Art. Photo by Adam Gingrich.

Exploring ideas of culture in the creation of imagined worlds at the Dallas Museum of Art. Photo by Adam Gingrich.

BIG doors are opening across oceans of distance to all kinds of interesting artists, projects and organisations across the world. Side by Side, a collaboration with fabulous Mother Load artists Natalie Macellaio and Lesli Robertson, took me virtually into the Dallas Museum of Art via video to share the creative processes underpinning BIG work and provoke the creation of imagined characters and worlds. Children and parents worked side by side responding directly to exhibits in the museum to collaboratively create anthropomorphic creatures and constructed imagined worlds for them to inhabit.
Designing and creating anthropomorphic creatures at the Side by Side workshop.

Designing and creating anthropomorphic creatures at the Side by Side workshop.

Flying virtually across the world to talk about BIG concepts of collaboration and response.

Flying virtually across the world to talk about BIG concepts of collaboration and response.

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on Aug 17, 2014
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A BIG goodbye from ‘senior’ ed Luca

Luca farewell gift

Luca and his BIG thank you gift

Luca has been the ‘senior’ ed of BIG Kids Magazine since Issue 1 – First Flight. He was deeply in the dreaming of this project before it was BIG and has written the editors letter, workshopped themes, drafted ideas, supported us with honest and critical feedback for SIX issues. He was 8 when he began – making his first major editors call when he pushed us to choose a different image on the webpage animation – the one it turned out everybody loved! Since then he has watched BIG grow from ideas scribbled on a midnight page to MANY pages featuring (published!) ideas that fly all over the world. Quite a wonder. Quite a journey. He is now 11 years old and after his first school camp is careering fast to the end of primary school. He hands the reigns to Twyla, who at age almost 6, feels the perfect fit to launch with Issue 7 – Tiny Worlds:

It has a been an honor to be the senior editor of BIG Kids Magazine for so many issues. I have loved helping to develop each theme and idea. I want to thank my mum Jo and also Lilly for making the magazine and I hope it keeps going on and on and on. I feel ready to follow other interests as I get ready to start highshcool next year.  The tiny thing in my world at the moment is a baby chick called Kenny, I also have a gem collection and would love to see baby turtles one day. I wish Twyla goodluck for the next issues – especially Tiny Worlds which we workshopped together – and I can’t wait to see it.

Peace Dudes,

Luca.

BIG Kids workshopping tiny worlds Jan 2014. Luca, age 10, Sacha age 8, Twyla, age 5 & Nadia, age 4.

BIG Kids workshopping tiny worlds in Jan 2014. Luca, age 10, Sacha age 8, Twyla, age 5 & Nadia, age 4.

tiny houses by Sacha, age 7.

tiny houses by Luca’s brother Sacha, age 7.

 

Nadia and Kenny

Luca’s sister Nadia and Kenny

Nadia portrait of kenny

Portrait of Kenny by Nadia, age 4

on Aug 11, 2014
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Call Out for Contributions!

CALLING ALL CHILDREN AND ARTISTS! There is a month left to send in your submissions for Issue 7 of BIG Kids Magazine – Tiny Worlds

Closing date for submissions: August 15th, 2014.

'endless possibilities' by Marianna Marx

‘endless possibilities’ by Marianna Marx

Tiny Worlds is about small windows to peripheral places, minuscule moments recorded in time, microscopic imagined habitats and the way that intimacy bridges distance and makes the world smaller, and bigger at the same time. We are looking for paintings, drawings, photographs, stories, poems, micro scripts, film stills and choreographed ideas to publish in the pages of BIG. It is important to send in high quality images that show your creations in the best possible light so that they land clearly and beautifully. Visit our CONTRIBUTE page or see details below:

1. *CREATE and CONTRIBUTE your response to the theme Tiny Worlds. You can write, film, paint, dance, draw, sew or sing your contributions which will be considered for publication on our blog, and/or in the pages of BIG Kids Magazine.

2. SEND high resolution print quality images, sound bites, videos or word docs  of your work to [email protected] including the title of the work, your name, age (if you’re a child) and location by August 15th, 2014.

*All entries will be considered for publication in the print pages of the magazine or on the blog. Acceptance of submission does not guarantee publication.

on Jul 12, 2014

Our BIG day at the MCA

We are so excited to share here the success of both the Mother Artist Forum and the launch of Patterns and Pathways at the Museum of Contemporary Art on Sunday. Phew!

Powerpoint screen crashes at midnight, a suitcase that missed the plane from Perth, sick kids, a storm and an earache…and STILL we made it into the loading dock of the MCA before 9am. And so the very BIG day began and we didn’t draw breath until back at the airport that evening.

Mother Artist Forum gets underway

Mother Artist Forum gets underway

Thank fully the support from the MCA, and our friends and family was incredible. MCA children’s learning co-ordinator Susie acted as grand conductor of the day and enabled us to focus solely on the set up and running of our events. The MCA store wonderfully set up a BIG display and hosted our book signing. Chrissie, Georgia and the AV team were a dream and our panelists Emma Magenta and Emma Gale brilliantly matched the mood bringing gifts of humour and musli in brown paper bags. Our copy editor Karen Cormer, who we met for the very first time after almost 3 years of working, was set immediately to task as were the inspired Pied Piper duet of Rose and Jem, official photographer Nathan, and single hand support team Merrin. The audiences for both events were SO wonderfully engaged and we loved hearing and seeing pictures of all the chalk patterns created by children on their post launch pathways home .

holding up our patterns drawn with eyes closed

Holding up our patterns drawn with eyes closed during the launch

Highlights included giving out of artist prints by Lilly to artist mother’s of babies under 12months and the joy from those receiving them.

Meeting copy editor Karen Cormer for the first time and so many wonderful contributors and online friends

Twyla’s first public speaking assignment in the official launching of Issue 6 and cutting of a red ribbon held by us

Our cover artists meeting for the first time

Emma Magenta’s alter ego

Hearing women speak about their stories

Watching the tangle of coloured string creating collaborative audience patterns in the air

The feeling in the theatre

Meeting so many kids, grown-ups and artists at the book signing

Signing the mags outside the MCA store where we once dreamed of being stocked!

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Entering the launch balancing BIG on our heads!

In the breath between the Mother Artist Forum and the Launch

Jo and Lilly in the breath between the Mother Artist Forum and the Launch

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Lilly shares the reality of her ‘studio’ during the mother artist forum where ideas of amplified creativity and the compression of time and focus were highlighted

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Book signing outside the MCA store

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discussing the impact of collaborative art practice with children

Lilly and Jo signing outside the MCA store

Lilly and Jo signing outside the MCA store

on May 29, 2014
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Mother Artist – Stephanie Lake

Bravery is keeping on working even through gnawing doubt
The mother artist experience is? Controlled chaos.  It’s feels like trying to answer what it feels like to be a female human – I don’t know any other way of being alive!  The two are intrinsically linked and probably feed each other in ways I’m not even aware of.  Essentially being an artist and being a mother is beautifully busy.   I usually feel like I’m not doing a particularly good job of either but I struggle on and it’s wonderful.
Stephanie and daughters in rehearsal with Sydney Dance Company

Stephanie and her daughters watching Sydney Dance Company in rehearsal for ‘Elektra’ at the Sydney Opera House 2014

How has becoming a mother enhanced, limited, provoked and/or disrupted your creative practice?

Initially, becoming a mother made it blindingly clear that I was in fact an artist simply because I missed it so much.  I had three years away from performing when I had my babies and I’m so happy that I took that time to be there for the precious days.  By the time I came back to working (very gradually!) I was so amazed and grateful to be continuing that every minute in the studio was fantastic – but on the flip side I had such a low tolerance for time-wasting.  No more indulgent conversations with choreographers or dancers – I was in and out of rehearsal like a shot and back home to my darlings.
Imagination is the stuff the comes into your head in the shower or when you’re waiting 
Has mothering impacted your actual creative process and ways of making work? 
I am much more efficient in my creative process now.  I also value what I do as an artist more highly I think – because I want my girls to grow up believing that art is important and that a creative life is an option.  One of the first commissions I had after having the kids was to make a solo for a curated season  – I’d plonk my toddler and new baby on the couch next to each other and choreograph the work in front of them – as if I was doing some kind of fun show for them.  To my credit I could usually hold their attention for about half an hour at a time.  And the piece got made.
Do you ever collaborate with your child, respond to each other, or work side by side to create work? 
Sometimes their objects and their way of playing creeps into my work.  I’ve been known to steal some of their craft stuff/games and take it in to rehearsals as props/instigations.  Their collection of toothpicks were used in the DUAL image and it’s one of my favourite photos.
We often work side by side, me revising the day’s rehearsal, planning a class, writing a grant, them doing their homework, drawing, playing.  Seeing the way they play together is totally inspiring – their games last hours, they have incredible stamina for imaginative worlds.  They can go on tangents in ways I can only dream of.
Generosity is handing something over without expectation of getting something in return
Has it become easier/changed over time?
Definitely easier, largely thanks to my incredibly supportive partner (and collaborator) although I miss my squishy, sweet-smelling, chaos generating babies.  It’s been awesome, tricky, tiring, hilarious, deeply wonderful being a mother.  If you’d told me my life would look like this 10 years ago when my young (somewhat overwhelmed) self found out she was pregnant I wouldn’t have believed it.  Raising children and making art = a very good life.
Steph with her girls on tour with Chunky Move in Arizona

Stephanie with her girls in Arizona on a 6 week US tour with Chunky Move

Stephanie Lake is an award winning choreographer and dancer based in Melbourne.  As a performer and choreographer Stephanie has worked with companies including Sydney Dance Company, Chunky Move, Lucy Guerin Inc and BalletLab and has toured extensively nationally and internationally.Read more about her work here.
on May 23, 2014