Notes from a Pawpedaller

Material Things: Group printmaking exhibition coming soon

2012-01-31T08:55:00.003+11:00

'One day it might all be gone'

Silk cut lino print © M.Burton

This is the start of a new series of prints for a show in October at the Eltham Library with fellow artists Libby Schreiber, Maria Barbaro and Kylie Sirett. The theme for this exhibition is 'material things.'

Sam Wallman: Being born is goin' blind

2011-12-20T10:43:00.002+11:00

I don't seem to leave the bush much these days, but I was more than eager to break out of the trees for the launch of Sam Wallman's fantastic new comic book 'Being born is goin' blind.' The delivery room was 'Wooly Bully' in North Melbourne, a great little venue that deals in beverages and comic books.

I love Sam's work. Sam can write, draw, tell stories, and make mini visual essays that leave you with a heightened sensibility of all things. ALL things? Holy moley, what does that mean? It means that as I sit here I'm making connections between the rarely considered amoeba, fossilized plant matter and anonymous factory worker that made the plastic keys that are clicking away under my fingers. These thoughts are simultaneously subdividing into continents, religions, political systems, loaves of bread, draining baths, ring tail possums, sex, the tips of tree branches, future meteorological projections and synthetic polyester fabric. Sam joins the dots and after you close his book your mind keeps going.

'Being born is goin' blind' asks some grubby questions, but criticism of humanity comes across as affectionate, detailed, and often very funny. See more of Sam's work and buy his book HERE.

I saw it in a dream

2011-11-20T08:04:00.004+11:00

'Scribbly boring' silk cut lino print © M.Burton

I have just completed the sequel to 'Self portrait with beetle,' an image I have struggled with for weeks. I have been very taken with the patterns of the 'scribbly borers' in some of the fallen trees around my house. 'Boring' and 'drawing' have become a kind of rhyming slang to me. I wasn't sure what to do but luckily my subconscious took over and I literally saw the the design in a dream. So fitting, as this week also marks the posting of Jeannette Davison's lovely article about all that emerges from my cocoon of a studio. ISIIAD (I saw it in a dream) is an art and design blog, and her recent post is HERE.

Epileptic: David B

2011-11-07T13:46:00.000+11:00

The English version of David B's graphic novel 'Epileptic' (originally published in French as 'L'Ascension du haut mal') emerged in 2005, and although it has taken me 6 years to finally read this extraordinary work, the timing is perfect. It is a synthesis of everything I have been investigating in printmaking, autobiographical comics and the human condition, making it the most resonant read I have had in a while.

The author's world is a vivid, confronting and personal account of his childhood growing up with an epileptic brother, and I have never felt more inside a narrator's universe. Panels are layered with different levels of consciousness, with the illustrations departing from the text to describe both the surreal and everyday dimensions of the story utterly seamlessly.

A beautiful and haunting graphic novel.

A panel from David B's 'Epileptic'

Teasleeves

2011-11-06T08:50:00.001+11:00

'Teasleeves' silk cut lino print © M. Burton

Back to the printing press

2011-10-06T20:19:00.003+11:00

'Self portrait with Beetle' 30 X 30cm silk cut lino print © M.Burton

A new chapter has begun, and the spring weather sprung here at my new digs at the Dunmoochin Foundation. Here begins a new journey as artist in residence, following the footsteps of so many others who have been inspired by this unique pocket of protected Australian bushland.

It is my great fortune to have 24 hour access to Clifton Pugh's old etching press, which shall hopefully see a new body of work and some bolder experiments in printmaking techniques over the next year.

Out of Hiding

2011-07-30T14:35:00.007+10:00

Here it is! 104 pages bound and glued to be held in your hand. Please come and coax this comic book out of hiding at the Melbourne Writers Festival on Sunday 28th of August at 1pm. Click HERE for more information. Published by Black Pepper

"At first glance, Mirranda Burton's art room is a hidden world full of strange eccentric characters and mysterious minds. But stay a while and in that room you'll find all the joy and sadness of life, the pain and comfort of community, and the ultimate meaning of art. This hidden world is our world; it is where we all live, together and alone.

In Hidden Mirranda Burton is writing about what matters most, and she does so with such gentle humanity and wisdom these stories will stay with you long after you turn the final page and reluctantly close the art room door.

It is one of the most beautiful books I have ever read."

DYLAN HORROCKS, author of Hicksville

Coming Soon!

2011-05-23T10:26:00.001+10:00

It has been all quiet on the blogspot front in a desperate bid to finish my comic book. Yes! It's coming! Please come and join me at the Melbourne Writers Festival at the end of August to celebrate the smell of fresh printing ink! More details as to where and when are coming soon.

Patti Smith: Just Kids

2011-02-15T18:35:00.006+11:00

When I was 19 I discovered Patti Smith's album Horses. Someone had left it lying in the grubby trails of oil paints, clay and charcoal fingerprints that filled the studio I shared with two other art students. There was no-one around, and the acoustics were perfect. Dirty old floorboards greeted the keyboard intro to Gloria like old friends, and by the time the chorus came I felt like I, and everything in that room had woken from a deep slumber.

Patti Smith has stirred me once again with her recent autobiographical work Just Kids. Without focusing on the celebrity aspect of her life, she invites us through the back streets of her artistic journey, visiting her late teens and early twenties as she embraces the harshness and beauty of new York City in the late sixties. It is here that she meets the young Robert Mapplethorpe, and enters one of the most significant relationships of her life. Wild, young and free, little do either of them know that the incredible love and faith they have in one another would fuel their artistic careers to the extent that they did. This is a tale of magic and hardship, faith and courage, but above all, a tender memoir.

Photograph: Robert Mapplethorpe

Bird Wrinkles

2011-01-09T12:07:00.005+11:00

'Crows' Feet' (silk cut lino print) © M. Burton

I have been getting really interested in skin lately, and so came up with this design. Lino and wrinkles are a match made in heaven!

No cake for Huckleberry

2010-12-30T10:30:00.000+11:00

Sigmund Freud's field day

2010-12-29T08:33:00.000+11:00

Holiday time

2010-12-28T10:48:00.005+11:00

These dream comics I did a couple of years ago, which disappeared into my dusty, crumpled paper piles. I thought I'd bring them out of the 'archives.'

Time to set the Pigeons free

2010-12-19T15:10:00.003+11:00

The year is winding down and what better way to finish than setting a new book free. Last Monday night we saw the release of 'Pigeons: Stories in the Post Volume II.' This is the result of a 6 month mentorship by post between a number of Australian authors and comic strip creators and a class of children from Footscray City Primary School to create short stories and comics. Hurrah! Here it is in print, and a rather delectable little book it is!

I worked with a young lad called Bill, who could barely keep the lid on his imagination throughout the project. The result was his lovingly rendered comic strip story 'The Six Days of Kookooness.' There are two other comics in the anthology, mentored by Bernard Caleo and Jen Breach.

So what's all this about Pigeons? 'Pigeons' is the energy of two passionate individuals, Jenna Williams and Lachlan Carter who generate community based projects to promote literacy and the sheer love of books and writing in young people. After doing an internship with the genius organisation 826 Valencia, founded by Dave Eggers in San Francisco, they have returned to Australia to create similar magic. Visit their website HERE.

Out of hibernation; the hatching of new artworks

2010-11-18T10:38:00.007+11:00

Multi-block lino print 'Bird Brain' © M. Burton

During my recent adventures as artist in residence at Luther Secondary College I created this linocut. Bird symbolism and human psychology seem to be an ongoing theme. Here are two more linocuts created in my present residency at Laughing Waters, Eltham:

Keeping a low profile

2010-07-21T19:00:00.003+10:00

Life is busy, and I have been lying low. I hope to come out to play soon.
(Photo taken in Central Australia, 2008)

2010-06-17T17:26:00.003+10:00

2010-06-06T12:56:00.002+10:00

For me, it was love at first sight.

Fumetto International Comix Festival, Lucerne, Switzerland

2010-05-23T19:11:00.028+10:00

This month began with an adventure far from my shores in Lucerne, Switzerland. Apart from being a beautiful, historic town set against a back drop of breathtaking alpine scenery, every spring in Lucerne you will find the place blooming with comix. Thanks to the Fumetto International Comix Festival, a wide range of talent from around the world is showcased with a focus on innovative and non mainstream creators. The 9 day festival not only hosts numerous exhibitions but also features talks, discussion panels, workshops, book fairs, and the opportunity to meet creators throughout the week. Each year Fumetto holds a competition, with all entries writing and drawing to a specific theme. This years theme was 'You + Me =Us.'

A milestone in my short history of making comix was winning the Scenario Prize for my story 'P.S.' Click on each page for an enlarged version.

So many fantastic artists were exhibited and their books launched, but I will highlight only a few. I enjoyed discovering the work of Chihoi, a creator based in Hong Kong.

À L'Horizon (published by Atrabile) is a collection of short stories that will haunt you pleasantly after you have closed the book. Chihoi takes universal experiences to a philosophical and often spiritual level (although not in a religious sense) in a beautifully understated way. His imagination is vivid, as is his sense of poetry. His books are not yet available in English, but hopefully this will soon change.

Another great discovery at Fumetto was Brecht Evens, hailing from Belgium.

This is the French edition (Les Noceurs) although it will also soon be available in English from Drawn and Quarterly under the title 'The Wrong Place.' This book is a visual feast, a festival of colour, but all carefully considered. Whether Brecht's characters are vacuous or vibrant, his choices in colour help describe his characters but also leave the reader questioning how we read people in social situations. As French operates at a much slower rate in my brain, reading this edition only ensured I lingered longer over each page, allowing me to enjoy it even more. Don't even bother reading any more of this blog until you have clicked here to see more of Brecht's work.

Brecht also specializes in drawing peoples phobias and dislikes, so here are mine illustrated in the inside cover of my book. This is me with a WET bath mat and LARGE caterpillar.

Finally, it would be criminal not to mention Emmanuel Guibert and his book 'The Photographer,' originally published in France some years ago but published only last year in English by First Second.

This is an incredibly moving book. Emmanuel tells the story of his friend Didier Lefèvre, who travelled into a war ravaged Afghanistan in the mid 1980s as a photographer, documenting a mission carried out by Médecins Sans Frontières. Humanitarianism meets human atrocity and while the Doctors seem to be performing heroic achievements on a daily basis in very primitive conditions, it is often the Doctors who are humbled and changed by their experiences. Didier's voice is honest, as are his extraordinary photos that feature throughout the book. My last words are simply, please read this book.

Here is a drawing of Didier Emmanuel drew for me in my sketch book with an ink dropper.

A comic book?

2010-05-22T14:17:00.007+10:00

Welcome

2010-05-20T16:00:00.002+10:00

Welcome to my blogspot.