“The
wind is sliding across my skin and the sun is behind a storm cloud. The
air smells electric. I see the rain coming down towards me, hissing
along the foreshore. I should get undercover but I don’t. I melt into
the weather, unusually one with the rain and waves. All tension just
slides, I feel like I could stay here forever, sluiced clean and clear.
A dream-like state but I feel so alive, it sounds like a contradiction
but it’s not. It is perfect, even the shivers bring pleasure.” (26 Aug 2004, my visual diary.)
Tell us a little about yourself and what you do.
I am a photographer and a sculptor, sometime ago I managed to combine the two by cutting and folding my photographs. I was originally inspired by a technique called origamic architecture which involves cutting and folding but no paper is removed or added and there is no glue. This suits a photograph perfectly as the integrity of the photograph is maintained. Theoretically the photograph could be flattened back down to what it once was, of course paper has a memory so that can not happen. Recently I have been moving away from paper and into sculpting with metal and other mediums as I have started to move into the field of public art.
Who (or what) inspires you to do what you love in your own creative business?
My mother once told me when I was a child that a person spends 80% of their waking life working so I had better come up with something I enjoy. I do love the satisfaction in what I do, there is much hard work and sacrifices but I get a sense of achievement at the end which provides meaning and stimulation to my working life.
Perfect Day
Jennie Nayton Copyright
Where do you get your inspiration from when you design?
I once read about Rene Magritte who said he was inspired by both the awe and terror of being alive. There are moments is our lives where we suddenly feel this, more alive, more real. Sometimes this strikes us randomly, other times after a dramatic event, a near fatal miss perhaps. Things stand out abnormally clear and sharp, our senses of touch and smell are hyperactive. It is a fleeting sensation but feels timeless when you are in it. This moment is what inspires my practice, I seek it in my photographs and then try to make them more real by overlaying the folded pattern onto them, an extended mediation on that frozen moment. It is a very hard thing to capture in an artwork but when I manage to convey an echo of it I am very pleased with myself!
I
knew studied for close to a decade, first I studied photography, then sculpture
at Claremont School of Art and finally I made my way to Curtin Uni. My
supporting jobs for this period were rather varied, any way to make a dollar!
They included being a cleaner, singing telegrams (I was a gorilla!), being a
carer and hosting children’s parties as a fairy, among many other things. I was
a trainee at Fremantle Art Centre in 1998 which had a major impact, the almost
all female staff taught me to use a drill and a level! This was when I moved
from photography into art.
Artist- Jennie Nayton
Art Melbourne 2010
Art Melbourne 2010
Describe
a typical day in your studio space?
There
is no typical day! All depends on what deadlines are looming and what business
needs to be done first. My practice is very varied involving photo shoots,
designing templates, cutting/folding and new material explorations. The
business side takes up as much time as the creative side unfortunately.
As
a Artist what is your biggest frustration?
Paperwork and the dreaded artists
block! Having to sleep, only having two arms!
Tell
us about how you prioritise your studio work.
By need and by deadline. By what
is flowing and what is not. By knowing when to keep pushing something because
there is a seed of good in a pile of bad, and also knowing when you are
flogging a dead horse and it is time to move on.
TheFolding Process
Jennie Nayton Copyright
Since
you are working at home, can you please tell us about how do you connect with
other artists, and your customers (i.e. how do you network)?
I
work so hard juggling my life as a mum, managing my household and keeping my
art practice growing that I don’t connect as much as I should. I would like to
go to more openings as I think networking is quite important. I have been going
to Art fairs for the past few years which has been great for meeting other
artists and clients. For inspiration I go onto Flickr, the worlds leading paper
technicians are on there and quite happy to chat and share tips. I also am a
member of Artsource who email me invitations, jobs, arts news. Also I have an
ezine I send out every few months which has been fantastic form of reminding
people about who I am and what I am doing. An unexpected but great perk is that
many artists on it email me back to tell me what they are up too!
What
advice can you offer other creative people who are just starting out and
following their passions?
Tenacity with a splash of obsession are important
ingredients. Also I personally need a deadline to work against so I motivate
myself by always having things lined up to work on. In the early days this
meant entering all the local art awards and anything else I could find. I am a
bit more selective now.
Rock Study
What
dreams do you still want to achieve or fulfil in your life?
I would like to
have the funds one day to go to Antarctica to photograph the ice. That would be
amazing! I would also like to travel to other extreme landscapes (like Death
Valley in Texas) and explore their shapes and patterns with my camera.
What
is your proudest moment so far?
There
are three great moments which have stood out in my art career. The first was
when I sold a work to Parliament House Collection in Canberra, and more
recently I have won two public artwork commissions which I am currently working
on. The first will be on Newcastle St in Perth and the second which is in
collaboration with well known public artist Stuart Green will be on Adelaide
Terrace in Perth. All these moments made me jump around and do a vigorous
victory dance!
Who
do you most want to meet and why?
Too many people spring to mind, mostly I want
to raid their brains for tips and inspiration! Rene Magritte, Marion Borgelt,
Robert Irwin, Roni Horn and Tracey Moffat are some of the artists I admire.
Jennie Nayton Copyright
What
is the most important lesson in life that you have learned?
I don’t have one
most important lesson, just many small lessons which have added up to get me to
where I am. Maybe just to take the bull by the horns and also things don’t just
happen to you, you have to make them happen.
What
book are you reading right now, and do you have a book you would like to
recommend?
Foldforming
by Charles Lewton-Brain – a very exciting
book I ordered online on folding metal.
Where
do we find you and your art wort &creative services?
I
am represented in WA by Gallery East
I
also have a facebook group called Jennie Nayton: Art
and
I am on Flickr
