dream days. been 30+ degrees the last few days and not cooling down a lot overnight. jane was in town overnight so i was left to my own devices at the centre today. had a satisfyingly productive few days since ive been back. before i left i had taken some decent photos of a few of the paintings and ordered some postcard prints of them, with the thought that travelling tourists are more likely to buy a $3 postcard than a $3000 painting, so at least its some income - we are making about 250% profit on each so cant hurt. and the paintings will still sell. they arrived on monday and look incredible. i finally got around to printing the screens i made up with the guys here a few weeks back. pretty basic set up. no clamps, so one person is holding the screen in place while the other pulls the print. registration is impossible so im just guessing, and its working so far. a few have lost interest, but warwick has really taken to it and stuck around and we have printed his screen and he has printed the other 3 guys screens as well. from what we have to work with, the prints are really impressive. he's now asking for more screens and extra colours etc so im glad one of them has got something out of it.
ive turned into a bit or a marketing nut lately. after the postcards, ive also made a poster/invitation for an exhibition we are having in town starting next wednesday, and hand printing a lino stamp to attach to some bags and aprons etc that we will take in to sell. all the women have been madly painting to get things finished. nothing like a approaching deadline to boost productivity. we've got the art centre's own exhibition as well as Desert Mob which is a big exhibiton and market where all the art centres from central Australia come together in Alice Springs, all happening in the next 2 weeks.
i walked back to the centre after lunch today, to find 10 tractors all lined up on display out the front. 7 weeks ago i might have found this odd but not a lot could phase me anymore out here. they were a bunch of men from coastal victoria that were in town for last weekends truck convention and had driven their tractors all the way out here from alice springs, and onward to chambers pillar and back again. i made the trip out to chambers pillar in a car a week ago and the road was bad enough, its rained a lot since, they were pretty insane. i sold them a few hundred dollars worth from the gallery, so all in all a good day.
ive been told that i cant mention a certain governing body that i have had issues with out here by name anymore because when you do a google search of their name, this blog comes up! im impressed... they've stuck a giant sign on the roadside when you first arrive in the community Welcome to Titjikala: many voices, one dream then some crap about idealistic desert living. its insulting and offensive to the people that live here, but they'll soon realise that and it will be torn down in the dark of night like every other unwanted sign. jane thought we could make some tongue in cheek 'ideal desert lifestyle' settings under the sign to photograph and email around.
who needs tv, really.
No comments:
Post a Comment