Studio Spaces is a collaboration between the Manning River Times and the Manning Regional Art Gallery featuring artists from the Mid North Coast region. It has culminated in an exhibition, Studio Spaces of the Mid North Coast, showing at the Manning Regional Art Gallery from April 4 to May 13, 2018. Go inside the Studio Spaces of Mid North Coast artists.
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Ali Haigh
“I’ve always been curious. I’m always someone that asks questions and, you know, I don’t want to keep believing the same things all the time,” said Ali Haigh.
The print maker stands in her Manning studio talking about the power of creativity.
“I think creating, or the art practice, constantly makes me question things that I think. Why do I think them, are they true, looking at things in a new way and looking outside of the box, if you will, or inside of the box looking at it from another angle.”
Her studio is set in the “underneath room” of her family home. “We’ve been in this space for about two years and it hasn’t always looked like this, it’s just sort of evolved in the past six months to be a workable space.”
She pointed out that evolving spaces are not always perfect. When she was preparing for her exhibition Pattern to Print, which was on at the Manning Regional Art Gallery in October and November 2017, she encountered some challenges.
“The plumbing, I’ve hidden it with plants, but it’s all exposed.
“So when I was doing the work, someone would be up in the shower and I’d be calling ‘Oh no! Don’t have a shower!’, because it’s leaking down onto the work,” she laughed. “I’d have buckets here to hold the drips as I’m trying to print here.
“Now, after my tantrums, they’ve been fixed and it doesn’t drip but that’s the reality of an evolving space and living in a house that’s being renovated and trying to work as well. They’re the things you never want to tell anyone but that’s the truth of being in a studio that’s evolving and growing and changing.”
This space becomes like a mix of three different areas. Sometimes I’ll screen print within this space, sometimes I’ll monoprint with the etching press and the inks.
- Ali Haigh
When Ali finished high school, her background was in textiles and screen printing. She did her a Bachelor of Arts in fashion and textile design, but it wasn’t until later that she realised she was more interested in the fine arts.
She started a business manufacturing sportswear but found what she loved was the pattern, design and print making, so she moved more into that.
For a long time her work focused on the traditional linoleum printing, mono printing and etchings. After many years of teaching at TAFE and then doing a daily creative practice called Collaborate 365 (see separate story) she went back to her love of fabric, design, pattern and repetition.
“So this space becomes like a mix of three different areas. Sometimes I’ll screen print within this space, sometimes I’ll monoprint with the etching press and the inks.”
Her studio is set up to be flexible, with her tables and printing press all on wheels. “It’s really important everything is on wheels, because I’ll move it around depending where I’m working.
“That’s probably why this space works so well, is that it can be a movable space.
“All the tables and equipment can move to what process I’m doing and how I need to set up for it. I’m so used to the processes and what I need and how close I need to be.
“It’s a little triangle, a bit like a kitchen. Everything seems to work better in triangles. When I was printing fabric I’d ideally like a really long table, as wide as the fabric is but I don’t have that, hence why I have to put tables together.”
She scored those metal tables after receiving a phone call from a Sydney-based friend whose neighbour was getting rid of them. “There was six tables. That was about 10 or 15 years ago so they’ve travelled with me over time.”
With so much on the go Ali said she works on the clean bench theory. “Once I’ve finished printing, all of this will get cleaned up so that the benches will be clean again ready to start the next process.”
She has a piece of clear perspex to work on as well because it is easy to clean, can be stored away easily and isn’t heavy.
Her roll through etching press sits on a cabinet on wheels which she got at Christmas, where she can store her inks that had previously been stored in crates.
“To try and make it easy the materials I need are under the piece of equipment that I’m working on. I’ve got little cabinets that have bits of cut out paper and pens and pencils, all sorts of things.”
The etching press is used to take a print using the pressure of the press and can print something as fine as a hair. “I’m just going to wet some paper. This is probably one of the processes I do when I’m playing and looking for inspiration. I’m playing with colour and form and shape and often times it will take me a few days to actually get what I’m looking for. In some ways I’m printing for the mistake. I’m waiting until something happens that really inspires or interests me.”
She uses different surfaces to print onto, including fabric and plywood and different kinds of paper. For her exhibition she created digital prints that were printed onto fabric.
“I use a Yupo paper or x-ray film so it’s shiny, because what happens is it picks up the colour, so I can turn them over and use them again. I can build up this background colour on the plate (of the press), and then mask out areas, place shapes over...and then lay another colour over it. Then it just winds through (the press).
“Once I take this off there’s this nice residue that’s left on the plate that I’ll often print off as the ghost print. But equally now I’ve got lots of paper with colour that I can re-apply in another way, so that’s the mono printing.
“That’s the thing. I can do this and be making a mess for most of the time. It’s not until I’ve got a solid concept that I start to go, okay, this is where I’m going. It’s kind of like you need to make that mess for a little while, just to engage with the inks and look at how they work and what’s happening with them. Well, that’s me. Other people might be different, they might really plan things, but that’s how I work.”
Depending on what she is working on, Ali lays her drying work on the floor. “I make a little maze of paper out through the door and so whenever somebody comes in it’s like, ‘Don’t step on that it’s got wet paint!’ So I leave little foot spaces for them and, for the rest, every part of the floor is covered and they just have to deal with it.”
When it comes to lino printing, she said, there are many types of lino you can work with. “What you are doing is carving into it and then you’re printing the relief surface. So the area you take away, which these are just little proofs...for example the areas that I’ve carved are white and the areas that have been left pick up the colour.”
You need to make that mess for a little while, just to engage with the inks and look at how they work and what’s happening with them.
- Ali Haigh
She has draws for storage of materials and also previous work, although she said she regularly works on reducing what she keeps. “I keep trying to get it less and less and less because it just gets too much.”
Ali finds the natural world an inspiration. “I’m looking at shape and form. How can you go past the natural environment, really? It’s kind of cool. It’s the patterns. For me, nature holds everything. All the discoveries that have ever been made...I’m constantly amazed at the patterns and just the amazing things you find when you look.”
A dedicated practice revives creativity
Although Ali Haigh has a studio to work in now, it wasn’t always the case.
A lot of her work preparing for the Pattern to Print exhibition last year took place when she didn't have a dedicated space.
“I think it’s great to have a space but equally I can make lots of excuses about not making work so, I started a project called Collaborate 365.”
The concept came from Pacific Palms artist Shona Wilson who was creating an ephemeral artwork out in nature each day and then sharing photos of what she was doing on social media.
“I was really inspired by Shona’s dedication and commitment and that’s probably what I needed to do for myself. I needed to make a dedicated practice, which was the one a day.
“It was really just getting me out into nature and creating an ephemeral artwork each day. I really had no intention of doing anything with that, it was just to get back into a creative process.
“I’d been teaching (at TAFE) for a long time, I’ve got big kids now, and my life’s just sort of expanded elsewhere and I think I really needed to create a focus around making work.
“After a few weeks I started to post it on Facebook and there were a couple of people who joined in, like Naomi Grooteman; and Yvette Hugill started to do her journals. This lovely community banter started to happen.
“I’m really into that kind of thing. That’s to me what art and creativity is all about, so there’s that collaborative process and feeding off each other.”
The project went for a year and it formed the body of work that became Pattern to Print.
But it didn’t come without its challenges. “You think you want to be creative all the time but you actually don’t and I would procrastinate it. So it was tough sometimes but it was good too. It was in those times that you find out things about yourself.”
Her intention was to go to many different places to create but in the end she would go to the beach, which is walking distance from her home. “It was just one of those years where I stayed close to home which was kind of nice.”
Gradually, doing the work took Ali back to her love of fabric, design, pattern and repetition.