Surfaces, Angles, Corners: Queen Street St Marys

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The written and printed word is privileged in the discourses of art and in culture through its publication and by its history.

The creative construction of Surfaces, Angles and Corners: Queen Street St Marys, as a work in its own right became at that point of conscious collaborative action, ‘sculptural in concept’, of accumulation and stacking, as well as structuring and editing its way into print.

To understand this project, it is necessary to give equal emphasis to the material as well as the conceptual elements, for that opens the way to a description of Surfaces, Angles and Corners: Queen Street St Marys, in terms of its form as a work of art. The book may be entered under the terms of an aesthetic, that of a modified version of ‘social sculpture’ that is more time bound within our present, imperfect epoch and beautiful future possibility than a noble identification of all human creative potential inspired from Queen Street, St Marys.

The project may be defined as that of a continuous work that contains many disparate components, with a multiplicity of sensational aspects held in dynamic dialectical tension within a conceptual unity of purpose. Surfaces, Angles and Corners: Queen Street St Maryshas no linear structure. It is a work that may be entered at any point. Wherever and whenever, it is now: words enter the eye and mind. It can be tracked through the chronology of its unfinished making. It exhibits the insatiable curiosity, the intelligent love of the particular; it feeds on the mundane as well as the enthralling. It acts in accordance with the truth of nothing that ever happened should be regarded as lost to history. The reader is presented with a manner of relationships — creating relationships, shaping materials and events.

There are complex factors which brought the contributors to work together to produce new writing and art; these are the conditions that made the book possible. A related condition, which makes the book possible, operates in the broader social arena where work in the new directions of the St Marys community continues. In relation to this particular volume, I would like to elaborate on some ideas concerning the types of writing, their transmission and social context. But first, the project would have not been possible if it were not for the inspirational people who have contributed their time, creativity and art.

It has been a productive and edifying experience working with the members of the St Marys Creative Writers Group and arts students from the TAFE Western Institute of Nepean Arts Design Centre. Our exchanges have been creative, constructive, challenging, explorative and enjoyable. Some of the preparatory workshop tasks were rigorous in discipline and sometimes demanding of time and imagination.

Since the commencement of the project there have been significant changes along Queen Street and with any change fast or slow there are transitions and reactions to these permutations. As to have circumstances changed for participants have changed, we have changed.

These chapters of time have been tracked through a creative memory line of workshops, ideas, meetings, concepts, open communications, more ideas, and even more concepts, practical applications, talking, more meetings, further exchanges and submissions. The demands of this project has required an open commitment to explore the experienced changes within the Queen Street Riches and Textures project theme of Queen Street St Marys, and within a set timeline.

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