Eastern Suburbs Art Group

I put together a list of possible activities when I made the ‘About’ page of this blog, they are things that we talked about at the second meeting on 24 July. Here’s the list: Still life drawing and painting Collage-making Excursions to public and commercial galleries Lessons Pottery Exhibitions Giving and receiving feedback about completed work Sourcing and storing art materials It can help people to enjoy meetings if they have some things in mind and prepared prior to arriving at the group location, so I’ll suggest a few things we might do in advance of the next meeting on 31 July. One thing might be to write a short statement defining what you think art is for, this doesn’t have to be long, just a few sentences can be sufficient to encapsulate ideas that you might have harboured for years without putting down on paper. Another goal can be to make a note of exhibitions that the group can go to for an excursion. I’ve found for example a show featuring Sidney Nolan’s Auschwitz painting

On 16 July I met with a man named Simon and we talked about what to do with an art group in our area. Over coffee in Eastgardens we chatted for about 30 minutes mulling over topics as diverse as careers and the subjective and objective approaches to making art.  The conversation was easy so we decided to go ahead and set up Facebook and Nextdoor pages, which I did when I got home.  The next day I did some admin work on the web pages in order to choose the right image to go with them and to set up some rules for discussion. I also at the same time updated my LinkedIn page which had been referring to me as a journalist. I’d previously added a “role” as visual artist but the substance of my public profile didn’t reflect my new calling suitably and I remedied the situation. Simon graduated from the National Art School some years ago and while we discussed his fondness for Jeff Koons and Takashi Murakami he didn’t bring along samples of his work so I don’t know much yet. I showed him some i