I’ve been busy over the last several weeks with a number of web development projects.  One exciting project I worked on over the summer was a website and some product photography for Crazy Casts.

Crazy Casts are a Melbourne-based business dedicated to improving the comfort and design of paediatric arm slings.  They have just launched their first range featuring two fun designs, rainbow and camouflage prints. I’m looking forward to watching this business grow and expand its design offerings.

Check them out at www.crazycasts.com.au 

This is a fun one. The studio artists of Trocadero Art Space are contributing to Due West Festival with an open studio event on the 26 & 27 August titled Sweet Footscray Arts.  The Artists Guild are mounting an exhibit round the theme #gentlearts called Tea & Biscuits.

Continuing my reflections on emotional labor and unpaid labor conducted primarily by women I have made a work called Bring a Plate. There will be an artist talk at 4pm on Saturday 26. There’s so much to see with all the studios open so I really encourage you to check it out if you get a chance.

Canvas is prepped

Before I go too far…

Lambeth piping aspirations and tools

This is my first attempt at piping and YouTube deserves much thanks for hours of excellent tutorials.  My results are a bit rough and ready but I think it carries the message which is all I can hope for.  I really would have loved a cake topper in gold or baby pink saying ‘it’s a girl’ but time was against me in sourcing one. Now I have acquired a new skill (potentially one I could commercialise with a bit more refinement) I might make more cakes in the future so I won’t say never.

Danielle Smelter, Bring a Plate, 2017, chocolate mud cake, buttercream, fondant, royal icing, plastic cake stand, 9 inch, installation view, Sweet Footscray Arts 2017

I currently have work on display at Trocadero Art Space as part of the The Artists Guild group show Giving Form. I had the real, actual flu in the lead up and for the opening week so I’m a little behind the times in advertising it.  Fortunately the exhibition runs until 27 August which overlaps with Sweet FA, the Trocadero Art Space contribution to the Due West Festival. So if you can drop in on the 26th or 27th August you will see both projects.  Now to make work for Sweet FA…

Giving Form exhibition Trocadero 2017

Hand embroidery detail embedded in hair brush

Prints before stitching - This Made Me Think of You

Hand stitching the words into the prints

Gallery installation This Made Me Think of You… (1-6)  2017

My work is a series of photographic prints into which I have stitched words. The work developed from my reflections on the emotional and domestic labor that is predominantly the burden of women (especially historically).  It encompasses both the banal and celebratory aspects of women’s engagement with this labor. 

Reflecting on the exhibition theme Giving Form, the textile objects depicted in my work are the physical form this female labor often historically took and/or was undertaken through. My own stitching gives physical form to the weight of emotional labor and reveals the often unseen/undervalued labor. Its rough execution highlights a generational loss of skills in needlecraft that were hard earned and often undervalued in relation to traditionally male artistic pursuits awarded the honour of high art.

I’m participating in a group show featuring small scale works at Arnold Street Gallery in Bendigo.  All works are available for purchase.  The exhibition theme is white light.  

‘Arnold Street Gallery is celebrating works by their past and future exhibiting artists. The exhibition focuses on concepts surrounding the festive season. Artist works make a play on themes of light and how a white christmas maybe portrayed. Small works include various mediums involving painting, drawing, printmaking, ceramics, sculpture and photography.’ 

Brendan Purser, Mark Dober, Erin Ricardo, Liz Nelson, Danielle Smelter, Julie Andrews, Susan McMinn, Belinda Eckermann, Maria Vanhees, Kathy Connors, Daniel Marks, Gary Vaughan, Rebecca De Figueiredo, Neil Matterson, Kain White, Jeanine Kolasa, Hugh Waller, Tony Day 

The exhibition runs 13th December 2016 – 7th January, 2017.

Danielle Smelter, untitled triptych 2016

White Christmas Wonderland at Arnold Street Gallery, Bendigo

Exhibition documentation for The Artists Guild 

Subterranean exhibition in Good Shepherd Chapel Gallery at Abbotsford Convent Nov 2016

Subterranean exhibition in Good Shepherd Chapel Gallery at Abbotsford Convent Nov 2016

Subterranean exhibition in Good Shepherd Chapel Gallery at Abbotsford Convent Nov 2016

Subterranean exhibition in Good Shepherd Chapel Gallery at Abbotsford Convent Nov 2016

Subterranean exhibition in Good Shepherd Chapel Gallery at Abbotsford Convent Nov 2016

Subterranean exhibition in Good Shepherd Chapel Gallery at Abbotsford Convent Nov 2016

Subterranean exhibition in Good Shepherd Chapel Gallery at Abbotsford Convent Nov 2016

Subterranean exhibition in Good Shepherd Chapel Gallery at Abbotsford Convent Nov 2016

Subterranean exhibition in Good Shepherd Chapel Gallery at Abbotsford Convent Nov 2016

Event photography for Vivien Anderson Gallery

Vivien Anderson Gallery relaunch party Oct 2016

Vivien Anderson Gallery relaunch party Oct 2016

Vivien Anderson Gallery relaunch party Oct 2016

Vivien Anderson Gallery relaunch party Oct 2016

Vivien Anderson Gallery relaunch party Oct 2016

Photoshop distractions out of exhibition documentation for Holly Block

Holly Block 2016 (edited)

Holly Block 2016 (before)

Performance documentation 

Jill Orr performance workshop, Monash University May 2016

Jill Orr performance workshop, Monash University May 2016

Jill Orr performance workshop, Monash University May 2016

Danielle Smelter, untitled from the series #wild_abandon 2016, giclee print on museum rag

I’m participating in another group show with the women of Tribe for Art, an ARI by and for female artists. The exhibition is titled Subterranean and is located in the Good Shepherd Chapel Gallery at Abbotsford Convent. It opens Saturday 5 November and runs until 20 November. I will be exhibiting work from my instagram project #wild_abandon, a reflection on things that lie beneath the surface of contemporary life. Most images were collected around my local neighbourhood in West Footscray.

I recently completed building a website for writer, and artist Kath Dolan. Kath is an absolute professional to work with, and never missed a detail.  If anyone is looking for a writer to promote their creative activities I cannot recommend Kath highly enough.  

She also has an interview series, Why Thank You, I Made it Myself, launching shortly. It features local creatives and focuses on demystifying what it takes to run a creative business. You can subscribe via her site.

I’ve recently completed a website for Melbourne-based writer Phillip Taylor. Phillip wanted all his work in one location so we consolidated a couple of existing blogs and added a few independent projects pieces and publications to the site as well.

A former football diehard, I’m completely disengaged these days but still found Phillip’s Hawthorn AFL blog Twenty3 quite enjoyably humorous, and I love the way he ties each round into broader world events.  But what I particularly enjoyed reading was his live music blog Earwax. 

If you’d like to explore Phillip’s work head on over to philliprtaylor.com

Sufjan Stevens Hamer Hall, Melbourne

I began playing around with a new project idea this week, not sure where it’s headed yet. I do have another exhibition coming up later this year though so perhaps there will be something in this project for that.

Danielle Smelter, Still life in Dutch style, 2016

I’ve been a little quiet online recently as I focused on a few web design projects.  One of those projects is a website for an exciting new commercial gallery that launches in Bendigo this week.

Arnold Street Gallery is the work of Bendigo-based artists Susan McMinn and Tegan Wheeldon and is designed as a contemporary art space incorporating 2 working studio spaces. The gallery’s launch exhibition features new work by Belinda Eckermann who completed her MA at La Trobe University in Bendigo in 2013.

Check out the gallery and Eckermann’s work at www.arnoldstreetgallery.com 

Belinda Eckermann (un)Controlled opens 11 July 2016 at Arnold Street Gallery in Bendigo.