Small Collects 4: Yes, that too

Small Collects is what I once wrote on a box of stuff that had either been sent to me over the years or I'd found or bought on travels. This is a subset of infrequent posts that feature my personal collection of ephemera and creative publishing outputs.

yes, that too: Nicci Haynes, Canberra

SO THE VOICE IS SORT OF / INSIDE AND OUTSIDE / OF THE BODY / WHAT ABOUT / WRITING   YES / THAT TOO

I try not to buy art these days, because I have nowhere to put it. Seriously, I am renting a flat, and I'm allowed to have no more than one hook per room and two in the loungeroom. I put four hooks in the loungeroom because it's also the dining-room, so I counted it as two rooms. It was really hard to pick what to keep out from my wonderful collection of framed works. I do have a lot of art: wall-pieces, prints, objects... all boxed up, except for my own work and my artist book collection, which is also boxed, but living in the wardrobe of my office (the spare room). I actually own a house, in a country town, and I'm renting it out to a nice bunch of boys who don't care that it's unrenovated. One day I will move there, do up the bits that need doing up, and fill the rooms with salon-hung art and bookshelves and then I'll never move again. At least, that's my COVID-19 fantasy, the thought that keeps me going. Who the fuck knows what any of us will actually be able to do in the future. 

But sometimes I can't resist, and this piece was irresistible: small, affordable, good and, even better,  by someone I love to pieces. We are colleagues, friends, collaborators, and beer-buddies. We've only had one fight that I can remember, and that was in the US after two intensive weeks of teaching classes and that would stress anyone out. We both see the absurdities of life and cackle like crones together regularly. Even after that fight, we found ourselves each trying to activate our travel sim cards at either side of a room, shouting OPERATOR into our phones at seemingly random times, which cracked us up mightily. 

Nicci's work revolves around the weird inarticulate nature of language and communication. She used to present her ideas as abstract prints, often deep blues and blacks, full of energetic mark-making with the alphabet playing guest appearance, and then suddenly she actually leapt into the work, placing herself like an explorer, a cosmonaut, a deep-sea diver, delving into the various corners of this universe of her own creation. She now makes machines, costumes, sets, and works with film and sound, setting loose hundreds of miniature selves who caper wildly through the world's innate absurdity. 

This is one of a casual set of prints she made for the annual Megalo Members Show. In 2018 it was themed Postcard: A Lost Art. I had just finished my PhD, and was granted Critic-in-Residence at ANCA Gallery. So you can see why this little piece resonated. 

Check out her work here. If you follow her on Instagram, you'll get to experience short grabs of her work: drawing machines, animation machines, electronic sound machines, collaborative performances with dancers, musicians, and other artists. 

I feel that holding onto small pieces of her practice, like this little postcard, is a futile gesture in the face of her energy and imagination, but it cheers me up whenever I look at it. Especially right now, when I can't sit at her kitchen table, eating home-made olives and dip with Sonoma bread and drinking Crankshaft beer. It's the little things, eh.

Colophon: Nicci Haynes, Untitled (so the voice is sort of inside and outside of the body what about writing yes that too), 2018. Etching in one colour on card, 108 x 153mm, torn edges. Nothing on reverse. Unsigned, edition unknown.