How the sea hammock canopy was made.

The project 'What Lies Beneath' was made possible by the Australian Governments regional arts program, the Regional Arts Fund, which gives all Australians, wherever they live, better access to opportunities to practise and experience the arts. The Regional Arts Fund is administered in Victoria by Regional Arts Victoria.

The Sea Hammock which was part of this project was made at the Julia Street Creative Space (JSCS) in the upstairs studio, the downstairs exhibition space and also in the sculpture courtyard. Thank you to the staff and volunteers at the JSCS for the extraordinary amount of freedom and support they gave us to develop the project.

I would like to thank Mr Bob Stone, a retired engineer, who advised on issues of design in relation to appropriate engineering and safety every step of the hammock making process. Mr Stone was instrumental in organising, constructing and raising the frame of the hammock on the day of the festival. 

In September 2011 the students from the Re-engagement Centre (See previous post in October) and staff Chris Thomas and Kara Young started to make the Sea Hammock in sections. Steps to this was

Step 1. Lay out 2m x 2m of 12 pack rings and cut about 12 3 metre lengths of twine to weave the overlapping 12 pack rings together.

A big thank you to aforementioned staff and students Daerin, Robert, Aaron, David, Jacob, Jayden, Jack, Alesha, Miranda, Dylan, Dylan, Jake, Janelle, Shelby, Josh, Brooke, Annabel, Zoe, Zac, Beau, Daniel, Sharon, Jorden, Taya, Lawannah, Talia and Tesharni for your tremendous efforts in making the 2m x 2m hammock pieces. 

For a more detailed look at how this was done go to our you-tube video of two students, David and Daerin making the Sea Hammock section. The project was very fortunate to have the original music to this clip developed by composer Oonagh Sherrard. 

Due to the Reengagement Centres policy on photographs of students on social media there are no photos of students making the hammock on this blog. There is however detailed photos of students work such as photos of flotsam and jetsam and collaged sea animals in previous posts.

Members of the Rotary club of Portland completed another 10 2m x2m pieces of the 20 pieces that were made.

Step 2. Use twine to tie the smaller sections of 12 pack ring Sea Hammock together into 4  10m by 2m pieces. Then attach 2m net lengths to both ends of each 10m piece.

This rather tiresome but sometimes absorbing job was done with good humour by Emma and Victor OBrien, Sylvia Walker, Bernice Bailey and the artist Catherine Bailey. We celebrated with Thai lunches before some sessions. This part of the hammock making involved learning the double sheep bend knot and a few others which which sadly I never mastered. Seems this side of my brain has atrophied.  I do bizarrely retain the memory of a very specific fishing knot my father taught me when i was 12 years old. 

Bernice and Emma make a large section of the hammock

Sylvia and Emma make a large section of the hammock after attaching the nets at either end.

Step 4. Use 30 metre pieces of recycled rope to tie the large sections of 12 pack ring Sea Hammock together into one large 14m X 8m piece.

This was actually done by students of the Re-engagement Centre and finalised by Emma, Victor, Sylvia and Catherine.

Members of the team of ALCOA workers who happened to be making a fence at the JSCS assist in carrying the sea hammock which by this stage is very heavy and now 14 metres x 8 metres.

Victor, Emma and Catherine lay out hammock and finalise ropes

and knots and cable ties

Victor, Emma and Catherine lay out hammock and finalise ropes

and knots and cable ties

Step 5. Bob Stone, consultant engineer, Gerry and Peter from the JSCS Woodturners Group lay out Sea Hammock on the Upwelling Festival day on Henty Beach.

Step 6. Bob Stone, Gerry and Peter from the JSCS Woodturners Group lift a 4 m treated pine support post of Sea Hammock into place on the Upwelling Festival day on Henty Beach.

View from under Hammock

View from under Hammock

This amazing artwork is from the JSCS collection. It was created in consultation with Artist Gordon Stokes in 2003/2004 as a community project for people who were unemployed

Sea Hammock on the day

Thankyou to Lesley Jackson, Jo Grant, Mandy, Zhan and Jade, Emma and Victor OBrien, Rebecca Marriot, Bob Stone, Peter and Gerry

for assembling and dismantling the Sea Hammock on the Upwelling festival Day

The work ‘What lies beneath’, featuring the Sea Hammock asks us to look at how we ‘seal the fate’ of our children and future generations though our current relationship with the environment.

This installation can be seen as a means of bringing our awareness to nature. From seeing it we might ask ourselves how are our local gannet, seal and penguin colonies as well as the other sea-life, which take part in the Bonney Upwelling, such as the krill, whales and sharks are being affected by the flotsam and jetsam, which was found on local beaches and then incorporated into the work.

For example when some biodegradable plastics break down in the ocean they mimic small fish and are ingested by birds, fish, dolphins and seals causing choking, obstructions in their digestive tracts and sometimes starvation.  Some plastics also leach toxins into the sea as well as poison the food chain.

The “Seal Your Fate” motto, expressed in some of the artwork in this installation, might lead us to examine how we can further make responsible choices in our lives and our jobs to bring about a more positive and compassionate relationship between us and the sea.

I was in the middle of reading Moby Duck, an entertaining sea romp about, among other things, plastic and its effects on sea life and the ocean, when a friend who had tavelled to England brought my daughter a present.

A pink dressed plastic yellow duck from Harrods.

oh the irony.....

Community Partnerships and big thanks. - reposted!

Just been thinking about all the supportive people who have helped make the Sea Hammock for the Upwelling Festival Portland, 2011. Where to start.

the Australian Governments regional arts program, the Regional Arts Fund, and the Administering body in Victoria - Regional Arts Victoria - thank you  for the generous grant which has made this project possible.

Bob Stone - may you live long and prosper. Thanks for your engineering knowledge and attention to detail.

Jo Grant the Regional Grant Development Officer from Regional Arts Victoria - Thanks for the amazing professional support, making time to come and physically make the hammock pieces and much more.

Nikki Pevitt and Leslie Jackson from the Julia Street Creative Space - thank you for your sustained support of the project and all the efforts you have gone to to make the project a success.

Trevor Smith -  thanks for the generous material donations and the amazing arty Ab bag.

Therese Dolman - Thank you for the gorgeous screen-printed orange bags.

Rebecca Marriott and friends Sarah and Mara. How amazing to have you take part in this project. What fabulous works you all created.

Sylvia Walker, Emma and Victor O'Brien - where would the hammock be without you. Who would teach me to tie knots and them tie them. The project was all sewn up because of your generous help.

Chris Thomas, Kara Young, Andrew Eade and the Reengagement Centre Crew - obviously this hammock could not be made without your enthusiasm, good humor, tireless efforts and limitless creativity.

Gordon Stokes - you star. Thanks for coming to the party with very little notice with the exciting plastic cubes made in 2004 under a project called 'Plastics Ahoy'.

Pat, Bernard and Bernice Bailey - thanks for the additional childcare, general running around, sewing and material sponsorships. Love you all.

And Fionnuala, my patient, loving child.

Article by ABC's Jeremy Lee which supports radio interview

The Upwelling Festival celebrates a natural phenomenon - the bonney upwelling - which happens around this time each year when the winds off the coast change direction causing the currents to pick up nutrients from the sea floor leading to a kind of feeding frenzy in the ocean.

Artist Catherine Bailey describes it as a kind of 'ecological fairyland'.

It's also been the source of a large sculptural piece she's been creating in partnership with various local community groups called What Lies Beneath which will form a part of the Upwelling Festival this Saturday.

Over the past few months Catherine and a group of helpers have been collecting various pieces of flotsam and jetsam while walking around Portland's coastline, and these items have gone on to form the basis of a huge array of artworks inspired by various forms of sea life.

Some pieces directly resemble creatures such as seals, while others are more oblique takes on animals like jellyfish.

It's quite amazing to see the array of objects which have been collected and used - colanders, plastic bags, floats, and all sorts of pieces of rubbish have been sorted by colour and then used to make the works which will hang from a hammock suspended three meters off the ground.

The hammock has been constructed from 12 pack rings - the plastic loops which hold slabs of beer together, and which are normally considered the enemy of much marine life.

In using the rings Catherine was initially harking back to a childhood memory of collecting six pack rings which her mother then sewed together to make a hammock.

The one Catherine has created is a bit larger however and will be about 15 meters long. It also of course comments on the dangers of these materials to marine life.

Weather permitting, the hammock and various artworks will be installed on Saturday morning down on the foreshore near the festival site in Portland.

http://www.abc.net.au/local/photos/2011/10/26/3348486.htm

Photograph from Saturday October the 29 th,2011

Article about Garbage Patch from San Francisco chronicle

At the start of the Academy Award-winning movie "American Beauty," a character videotapes a plastic grocery bag as it drifts into the air, an event he casts as a symbol of life's unpredictable currents, and declares the romantic moment as a "most beautiful thing."

To the eyes of an oceanographer, the image is pure catastrophe.

In reality, the rogue bag would float into a sewer, follow the storm drain to the ocean, then make its way to the so-called Great Pacific Garbage Patch - a heap of debris floating in the Pacific that's twice the size of Texas, according to marine biologists.

The enormous stew of trash - which consists of 80 percent plastics and weighs some 3.5 million tons, say oceanographers - floats where few people ever travel, in a no-man's land between San Francisco and Hawaii.

Marcus Eriksen, director of research and education at the Algalita Marine Research Foundation in Long Beach, said his group has been monitoring the Garbage Patch for 10 years.

"With the winds blowing in and the currents in the gyre going circular, it's the perfect environment for trapping," Eriksen said. "There's nothing we can do about it now, except do no more harm."

The patch has been growing, along with ocean debris worldwide, tenfold every decade since the 1950s, said Chris Parry, public education program manager with the California Coastal Commission in San Francisco.

Ocean current patterns may keep the flotsam stashed in a part of the world few will ever see, but the majority of its content is generated onshore, according to a report from Greenpeace last year titled "Plastic Debris in the World's Oceans."

The report found that 80 percent of the oceans' litter originated on land. While ships drop the occasional load of shoes or hockey gloves into the waters (sometimes on purpose and illegally), the vast majority of sea garbage begins its journey as onshore trash.

That's what makes a potentially toxic swamp like the Garbage Patch entirely preventable, Parry said.

"At this point, cleaning it up isn't an option," Parry said. "It's just going to get bigger as our reliance on plastics continues. ... The long-term solution is to stop producing as much plastic products at home and change our consumption habits."

Parry said using canvas bags to cart groceries instead of using plastic bags is a good first step; buying foods that aren't wrapped in plastics is another.

After the San Francisco Board of Supervisors banned the use of plastic grocery bags earlier this year with the problem of ocean debris in mind, a slew of state bills were written to limit bag production, said Sarah Christie, a legislative director with the California Coastal Commission.

But many of the bills failed after meeting strong opposition from plastics industry lobbyists, she said.

Meanwhile, the stew in the ocean continues to grow.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch is particularly dangerous for birds and marine life, said Warner Chabot, vice president of the Ocean Conservancy, an environmental group.

Sea turtles mistake clear plastic bags for jellyfish. Birds swoop down and swallow indigestible shards of plastic. The petroleum-based plastics take decades to break down, and as long as they float on the ocean's surface, they can appear as feeding grounds.

"These animals die because the plastic eventually fills their stomachs," Chabot said. "It doesn't pass, and they literally starve to death."

The Greenpeace report found that at least 267 marine species had suffered from some kind of ingestion or entanglement with marine debris.

Chabot said if environmentalists wanted to remove the ocean dump site, it would take a massive international effort that would cost billions.

But that is unlikely, he added, because no one country is likely to step forward and claim the issue as its own responsibility.

Instead, cleaning up the Great Pacific Garbage Patch is left to the landlubbers.

"What we can do is ban plastic fast food packaging," Chabot said, "or require the substitution of biodegradable materials, increase recycling programs and improve enforcement of litter laws.

"Otherwise, this ever-growing floating continent of trash will be with us for the foreseeable future."

How to help

You can help to limit the ever-growing patch of garbage floating in the Pacific Ocean. Here are some ways to help:

Limit your use of plastics when possible. Plastic doesn't easily degrade and can kill sea life.

Use a reusable bag when shopping. Throwaway bags can easily blow into the ocean.

Take your trash with you when you leave the beach.

Make sure your trash bins are securely closed. Keep all trash in closed bags.

Trash is also a problem in parts of San Francisco Bay. For an interactive map showing some of the worst locations, go to www.savesfbay.org/baytrash.

- Justin Berton jberton@sfchronicle.com

This article appeared on page W - 8 of the San Francisco Chronicle

Read more: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/10/19/SS6JS8RH0.DTL&hw=pacific+patch&sn=001&sc=1000#ixzz1cgIIsmpM

Whats it all about?

The work ‘What lies beneath’, featuring the Sea Hammock asks us to look at how we ‘seal the fate’ of our children and future generations though our current relationship with the environment.

This installation can be seen as a means of bringing our awareness to nature. From seeing it we might ask ourselves how are our local gannet, seal and penguin colonies as well as the other sea-life, which take part in the Bonney Upwelling, such as the krill, whales and sharks are being affected by the flotsam and jetsam, which was found on local beaches and then incorporated into the work.
For example when some biodegradable plastics break down in the ocean they mimic small fish and are ingested by birds, fish, dolphins and seals causing choking, obstructions in their digestive tracts and sometimes starvation.  Some plastics also leach toxins into the sea as well as poison the food chain.

The “Seal Your Fate” motto, expressed in some of the artwork in this installation, might lead us to ponder how we can further make responsible choices in our lives and our jobs to bring about a more positive and compassionate relationship between us and the sea.

Interview with artist Catherine Bailey by Jeremy Lee on ABC Regional Radio

Nearly there - Upwelling Festival Day - this Saturday October the 29th, 2011.

Had Jeremy Lee from ABC Regional Radio in the studio today.

The interview can be heard on Thursday between 6-8am

on 96.9 FM

Julia Street Creative Space Upstairs Studio with artworks 

destined to go under hammock canope on Henty Beach (Weather permitting)

Upwelling Festival Day - this Saturday October the 29th,  2011.

Otherwise you can see these works in the upstairs studio at 

19-21 Julia Street, 

Newest work by artist Catherine Bailey

Seal Your Fate

made from Altered Abalone Bags, Acetate, Photocopies, 

Permanent Marker, Fishing Line, Cotton Thread

Flotsam and Jetsam

This work incorporates work from the artist and students

 from the Portland Re-engagement Centre

Bag lady 

Plastic Bags, Permanent Marker and Bubble Wrap

Portland Re-engagement Centre

One of the community partnerships which was initiated by Nikki Pevitt, the Arts Program Coordinator at the Julia Street Creative Space, was with the Re-engagement Centre. The students from the Re-engagement Centre along with the coordinator Chris Thomas, teachers Kara Young and Todd Barnes and volunteer Andrew Eade became actively involved in the making of the Sea Hammock. They did a mind blowing amount of work in a very short amount of time which I put down to truckloads of creativity and talent, great support and leadership from Chris, Kara, Andrew and Todd and a real enthusiasm for making something artistic for the community. 

Whilst making the hammock is the fairly pre-structured part of the project, creating artwork with the Students from the Re-engagement Centre was a more organic process driven by the students. Firstly to gage their artistic abilities and the group dynamics students tried a bit of drawing and tracing Upwelling Animals on plastic bags. This lead to the large 2mx2m plastic bag sculpture which also includes a little bit of the artist's recycled artwork from a previous plastic bag installation. We beach-combed for the next 3 - 4 weeks collecting flotsam and jetsam from Whites, Murrel's, Shelly and Bishop's head beaches.  There was a lot of plastic flotsam and jetsam on these beaches which look out towards the place where the Upwelling Event occurs. So students talked a bit on these trips about the effects of plastic on sea life, what toxins it releases into the oceans as it slowly breaks down, how that gets into animals and human systems and how it might mimmic little fish as its breaking down and get caught in the stomachs of local wildlife such as seals, penguins, birds etc. During one trip to Shelly beach a student called Miranda, was taking photos of some beach debris and came up with the idea of photographing the flotsam and jetsam and then collaging the photos onto cardboard which was cut in the shapes of seals, dolphins etc.   This led to one of the major projects by the students from the Re-engagement Centre.  Please see  - Steps to making the life-sized collaged sea animals below. 

Apart from these two projects, within the bigger project, the students and teachers from the Re-engagement Centre made at least half of the canope made of 12 pack rings for the hammock, measured all the rope used, made a tent for the tenticles project, and projected, drew, cut and painted all of the iridescent-painted canvas animals which are cable-tied to the underside of the hammock canope.  Please see the Youtube video of students Dav and Daerin making a 2x2m section of the sea hammock. Thanks Aaron for the filming. Making sections of the hammock was repetitive and frankly boring (as well as tough on the knees) but these guys made it seem like its fun. Also I did almost promise Andrew, who was volunteering his time to the Reengagement Centre, a plaque for his efforts in the making of the hammock. Not sure if he can ever be repaid. So this community partnership created the foundation and much of the major work for the hammock.  And I am really indebted to the students and teachers for the amazing, festive, artistic and humorous work they did for the overall project.

Steps to making the large collaged sea animals.

1. Shelby, Annabel and Alesha took photos of mainly plastic flotsam and jetsam collected by all the Reengagement students of local beaches.

2.  Rob,  David,  Miranda,  Lawannah,  Dan, Talia and Jenelle projected images onto cardboard of seals and dolphins and then they and others from Tuesday group cut them out.  Dav and Rob did much of the tracing and drawing of the animals

3. Everyone participated in the collaging of the animals with the photographs including Chris, Tod,  Kara and many more students such as Shelby, Jenelle, Daniel,  Sharon,  Jorden, Taya, Lawannah, Talia, and Tesharni.

4. Dylan and Jake made holes in the pieces and tied string to them as well as designed and crafted the red-net fish (at the same time) - multi-talented.

Concept by Miranda

Photos by Shelby,  Annabel and Alesha

Collaged Upwelling Animal made by many hands

Collaged Upwelling Animal made by many hands

Collaged Upwelling Animals made by many hands

Portland Re-Engagement Centre

"............through projects like yours (The Sea Hammock) the students are not just learning about art - they are learning team skills, improving their communication and also giving to the community  (in the form of the artwork for the Upwelling Festival) which has been so supportive of them through the Re-engagement Centre "

Chris Thomas - Coordinator of the Portland Reengagement Centre