episode thirty-three | rona green

Published 19 February 2020

Miranda Metcalf  Hello print friends, and welcome to the 33rd episode of Pine Copper Lime (Hello, Print Friend), the internet's number one printmaking podcast. I'm your host, Miranda Metcalf. I release an episode every two weeks, and on the off weeks, I publish an article on the Pine Copper Lime website, which features images and maybe a bit more information about the artist I'm going to interview. Happy mid-February, print friends. We're officially starting to enter autumn here in the southern hemisphere, and the start of SGCI season has begun. For the uninitiated, SGCI stands for Southern Graphics Council International. It's an organization which, every year, hosts an event somewhere in the United States, which brings together hundreds and hundreds of printmakers for talks, demos, exhibitions, and usually more than a little debauchery. This year, it's all happening at the beginning of April in beautiful San Juan, Puerto Rico, and PCL is gonna show up big time. We'll be at the vendor fair with buttons, stickers, tote bags, and whatever else I can afford to buy between now and then, as well as hosting a live, in-person recording of this very podcast. I hope to see you all there. Printmaking forever, shun the non believers, see you at the party. My guest this week is Rona Green. Rona is an Australian artist whose linocuts of anthropomorphic animals explore identities, the ways we express them to the outside world, and the sides of ourselves we want to keep hidden. In this episode, we touch on maybe my top three favorite conversation topics outside of printmaking: dogs, tattoos, and competitive boxing. This interview has it all. Rona joined me from her studio in the Dandenong Ranges outside of Melbourne. So the sound quality isn't the absolute clearest, but you'll do all right. Maybe if you were planning on listening to this one while graining stones, skip ahead and come back when you're drawing. Rona is a wonderful, wonderful guest, so sit, stay, and prepare to express yourself with Rona Green. Hi, Rona. How's it going?

Rona Green  Hi, Miranda. Really good. Thank you. Good to talk to you.

Miranda Metcalf  You too. I'm really pleased I could get you on the podcast. It's pretty good timing. I think I met you maybe almost exactly a year ago today, I'm thinking?

Rona Green  I think it will be about a year. Yeah.

Miranda Metcalf  Because we met at the Mildura Print Triennial - or no, what is the name of it? Is it just called the -

Rona Green  APT. They call it Australian Print Triennial.

Miranda Metcalf  That's right. Australian.

Rona Green  And we were both speakers, and you spoke wonderfully. It was a great talk.

Miranda Metcalf  Thank you. Yeah. So I really enjoyed your talk and just thought you were a beautiful communicator about your work, doing beautiful work. For those of you out there listening who don't know Rona and her work, I'm hoping maybe you'd be willing to answer those great questions, who you are, where you are, and what you do.

Rona Green  My name is Rona Green. I'm an artist and I love printmaking. I have a studio at my home, and that's in the Dandenong Ranges in Melbourne, Australia. And I live with my partner Aaron and our companion Oomi the greyhound.

Miranda Metcalf  Aw. Yeah, I love the way you phrase that. 'Our companion.'

Rona Green  Yeah, he's very much so. 

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, cuz as someone who absolutely adores dogs and has had really deep connections with dogs in the past, it never feels quite right to say, like, 'This is my pet, this is the thing that I own,' or like all that weird language around it. With my dog E.B.E., I used to say, 'This is my friend.' 

Rona Green  Yes, exactly. Yeah. I think "pet" is more like for pet rock, isn't it? If you had a pet rock with googly eyes.

Miranda Metcalf  Exactly, exactly. It just doesn't seem as active as the relationship between dogs and people truly is.

Rona Green  That's right. They're very much a family member, aren't they?

Miranda Metcalf  You were saying that you have been in that studio for about four years. Would you consider yourself a Melbourne artist, or Melbourne based artist?

Rona Green  Definitely sort of now. I've been in Melbourne a long time. I finished my degree at University in the mid '90s and lived here from then, but prior to that, I'd grown up in Geelong, and then after that, I'd gone to University in Bendigo.

Miranda Metcalf  And so for people who don't know their Australian geography down pat...

Rona Green  Where I was born, Geelong, is sort of a coastal town in Victoria. So we're in the southeast of Australia. So we get the super hot summer, but then the quite cold winter as well.

Miranda Metcalf  When you were growing up in Geelong, was it a big town, a small town, an artsy town?

Rona Green  It very much sort of had a small town mentality. Like if you were a bit different, you definitely knew you were, if you get what I mean. It was a place that I was happy to leave. Then again, the environment's really lovely, like it's on the coast, there's lots of beaches nearby, all that kind of thing. There's nothing wrong with that at all. It has a really nice art gallery, the Geelong Gallery. But not a huge art thing. Definitely not at that time, I wouldn't say, no.

Miranda Metcalf  So in that case, what role did art play growing up for you?

Rona Green  My grandmother and my great aunt, they really liked crafts. So that was a massive part of my childhood. Like I really loved needlepoint and embroidery and cross stitch and petit point, learnt patchwork. I remember at my grandma's house, she had an oil painting on silk, I think it was, of flowers that she had done. She was also very musical, and my great aunt and my grandma both played the piano. I finished year 12, and I remarkably ended up with reasonably okay grades. And art was my best grade. So I was proud of that, and that made what I was thinking in my head, it sort of validated externally and made sense. 'Oh, maybe I should follow this.' So initially, I guess, being a little bit more sensible, I thought, oh, I'll go and study photography. Because of course, you can look at fine art photography, you can look at commercial photography. So the course I started in Melbourne, at a place called Australian College of Photography and Communication, I think it was called - ACPAC was the acronym - it no longer exists, but they had a commercial strength and an art strength, so in first year you sort of started out doing both and then you'd end up deciding which one you wanted to follow.

Miranda Metcalf  You know, I knew that you had an interest in photography. I didn't realize that you had the background in fashion photography, which very much kind of makes a light bulb go on in my head in terms of your aesthetic in your current bodies of work that you make. Of course, they seem very much like portraits, like specific portraiture of a specific individual of some kind. And I was seeing kind of that style of that documentary portraiture maybe almost more in the '80s, where you'd see someone like Marsha Burns or Sally Mann, that kind of like, shot just straight on, the subject often looking directly back at the viewer. But of course you also see that in fashion photography as well, you see that in the glossy magazines. And so when you said something like Annie Leibowitz, where it is that line that's very often used, where it feels like a traditional portrait but that's very sort of confrontational and documentary as well, both of that definitely comes together in what you do.

Rona Green  I'm glad you say that. And I really adore Diane Arbus as well, and I think it's quite interesting looking at the contrast of her commercial work compared to the work she made for herself. And I was also fascinated, I don't know if you know the photographer August Sander, and he sort of documented working class people in the environments in which they worked, you know, wearing their uniforms or what they would be wearing while they were working. I was quite fascinated with that idea of people just sort of almost being put upon, in a sense, where he'd just say, 'Alright, here I am, I'm going to take a photo of you, stand still.' Literally, that idea of capturing the person, I find quite interesting.

Miranda Metcalf  And that balance between something that feels candid and also staged. There's really that fascinating line where someone clearly knows they're being photographed, but seems at ease in front of the camera. And I think that your figures also have that sense about them that always comes off as an incredible confidence.

Rona Green  Yeah, I mean, the idea of the gaze, I think, is an eternally fascinating sort of idea. Yeah, the idea of looking, being looked at, and being captured in a picture, a person awkwardly In a photograph, or maybe they're more confident in the contrast of, I guess some ethnographic photography versus sort of luxury fashion photography is quite stark. But at the same time, the similarities are interesting.

Miranda Metcalf  I've also been trying to get a little bit better in the podcast of just physically explaining the work, too, before we dive too deeply into it.

Rona Green  Essentially, the pictures I make are cartoons. And I utilize anthropomorphism and body decoration when creating characters in my work. I'm interested in how people express individuality and ideas about transformation and otherness. And I'm really interested in how the body can be used as a vehicle for telling a story. And I suppose that's a summary.

Miranda Metcalf  In terms of composition, you have these really graphic images, they tend to be portraits of, again, you said anthropomorphic animals, often sort of human body, animal head, that look like very formalized portraits, but the bodies are always adorned, sometimes in various stages of dress, very often tattoos, would you say always tattoos?

Rona Green  Yes, certainly, of my work over the last several years, that's definitely been a fascination that I've had. 

Miranda Metcalf  Because I think that all goes to this idea of the body and self expression and the ways that we choose to alter the bodies with which we are born to communicate something to the outside world.

Rona Green  It's interesting, I was giving an artist talk to some high school students a few weeks ago. And one of the things I always like to say to students when I speak with them is, it's [what] Robert Rauschenberg said, 'There is no poor subject.' And I love that idea that everything is valid. You know, wherever your interests lie, you know, follow it, in a way. When I was a kid, my great aunt and uncle, they had a great book collection, and I adored the books they had on Egyptian art. Half human, half animal gods and goddesses, I just thought were amazing. And the idea that a culture of the big animal qualities really jelled with me, even at a young age. But also as a kid, I loved cartoons and comics. And the idea of the anthropomorphic animal characters, Bugs Bunny and the like. From both those interests, Egyptian art and cartoons and comics also fit into my aesthetic somewhat, because it's very much about simplifying things, looking at shapes and lines, particularly in cartoons and comics, you know, bold lines with often solid colors.

Miranda Metcalf  Do you find that you kind of start with a notion of a character that you feel like needs to be brought into the world, or do you kind of start drawing and doodling and sort of have that character be revealed to you through the actual creative process?

Rona Green  I'm not thinking in the beginning, you know, is this character an introvert or an extrovert? And where will I take that? Often, the frustrating thing is you think you've got a really certain idea, but then it will end up being completely different from what you initially thought when you're first scribbling. But I sort of approach it in a few different ways, because often I'm looking at an actual animal, and then sort of transcribing that into sometimes what I call a "manimal." Sometimes it's a person that I'm turning into an animal creature, and other times it will be purely an imagined character.

Miranda Metcalf  And I'm hoping that you could talk to us a little bit about your process specifically, you know, how the images from your sketchbook actually make their way into becoming prints.

Rona Green  Yeah, so I guess for the, probably the past decade, I've focused on linocutting and specifically sort of hand-coloring linocut prints. So once I've done the drawing and got it to a scale that I like, I transfer it onto the lino block and then cut away with my u- and v-gouges and get the image to a state where I'm happy with it and it's ready to be printed. So at the printing stage, I use oil based ink and print onto a bright white, really smooth paper called Somerset. And once the printed element has dried, then I go to the stage of hand-coloring it, so I use pigmented drawing inks and watercolor to hand-color the prints. And once the hand-coloring is dry, then I flatten them, and then they're sort of ready to finish off and sign the edition.

Miranda Metcalf  And has this been, sort of for your last like couple bodies of prints, this has been pretty consistent for you?

Rona Green  Yeah. Sort of prior to that, I was working with sort of monochromatic linocut, just black and white. And color has always really been a challenge for me. So I thought, ah, bite the bullet. And once I did take the leap, I'm sort of really enjoying that challenge. So now color is sort of an integral part to sort of suggest environment that the characters might be within, maybe suggest an emotional reaction that might be encouraging the viewer to have a response to the color in a certain way. Although there's no guarantee of that. It's sort of something I'm playing around with, sort of that emotional quality of color. Another interest of mine is pop art, you know, I love the idea of things being, I guess, relayed through media that the average person on the street can relate to or understand. That idea of a very simple, bold, graphic line.

Miranda Metcalf  I love that idea of accessibility as well.

Rona Green  Yeah, I agree. Yeah, it's something... I really adored the idea of an image being able to exist in multiple from the very beginning, like it's something that I thought was a fantastic quality of printmaking. And the other thing was in third year of university, we had a technician, Jackie Coma, and she initiated a print exchange, and I couldn't believe the lecturers would be part of it, as well. And so all the students, lecturers, and technician, made an edition, and then we all got one of each other's as sort of a memento, I guess, of our study. And I was floored, you know, it was remarkable. I love, I still have it now, I love it. Having that record of a piece of work of everyone I studied with and the people who taught me, it was something that made a really big impression upon me, that shareability.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, to be in an exchange or a portfolio, you know, you can get incredible work, and it's just in exchange for your own. It's really beautiful. And I think that printmaking also has this sense of it where, you know, accessibility within certain circles of the art world can be almost a dirty word, right? That if you're making something that someone who doesn't know art responds to, you're somehow not making something that belongs within the elite. And I think that printmakers kind of naturally have an aversion to this as a group, to make a broad generalization, because we are interested in accessibility and we are interested in dispersing the artwork that gets created. And so I like that, so much as a part of the printmaking culture as well, is that I don't see that kind of snobbery as much as I do in other places in the art world.

Rona Green  No, I would agree. As you know, printmakers are great swappers. Like they're always happy to do a swap, which I think is a fantastic thing. And you know, potentially, I think it's probably their natural personality. But also then, you're in the studio workshop environment when you're learning, often if you want to continue making prints when you leave study, you access a workshop where other artists are working. There's quite a communal spirit amongst printmakers that, in a way, you have to have as part of you, in a sense, to engage in that medium, very much when you're beginning, I think, especially. But I love it. I used to teach at [Box Hill Institute], I was there for over a decade. And when I was teaching printmaking, we would always have an assignment that was an exchange, and I'd always make a piece of work as well. When I taught photography, we did that as well. And the student loved it, you know, they were so engaged with the idea of it that it was always really rewarding.

Miranda Metcalf  I'd love to circle back from a moment to talk about your work specifically, and this idea that just sort of has popped up as we're chatting where your work is so much about the body and expression through the body and the way we use the body. And I'm wondering if that has any particular connection to the fact that you are an athlete, that you are someone who uses the body not only in the abstract world, but in the physical world as well. If you've ever thought of that. 

Rona Green  That's so funny. I don't know if I'd apply the term "athlete" to myself. 

Miranda Metcalf  But you are a boxer, though, and that's an incredibly athletic undertaking.

Rona Green  I know. Oh, that's so funny. It's really interesting. In high school, I did rowing and sort of competed a little bit, but it was more what my best friend did. And so I kind of tagged along and did that. And then for many, many years, I didn't do any sort of form of exercise. And then I sort of hit middle age and went, 'Oh, the old back's getting a bit stiff, maybe I should start to do some exercise.' So I ended up going to the gym, and I thought, right, to be accountable, I'll have a personal trainer once a week, because that will make me train more. Because otherwise I'll get in trouble with them. So we ended up hitting the pads and started doing a bit of boxing, and then the next thing I know, I'm getting a mouth guard made and all of a sudden sparring with the boys after school hours, and then thinking, oh, maybe I should go in a competition. But I think it probably does tie in. I like the idea of pushing limits and testing what you're made of, if you know what I mean. And I think that probably does tie in somewhat with my work, being interested in different types of people and types of personalities and different motivations, for sure. But yeah, oh, I love boxing.

Miranda Metcalf  I did a bit of boxing in the last couple of years. And I loved it. I loved it so much. And I recently had to quit, and I really miss it. I loved it though, because it's the most cathartic experience. And there's something about sparring that, I mean, talk about meditative. Like, you are never more present than when someone's trying to hit you in the face.

Rona Green  Oh, I know. I know. It's interesting. I think it's funny when you bring up boxing because it makes me think about the links between what I'm interested in expressing in my work and then maybe part of boxing, because a lot of my characters look a bit showoff-y, but at the same time, I'm very interested in vulnerability. So there's a performative aspect, I guess, to the characters, because often they're looking straight at you and engaging with you and sort of inviting you to judge them and decide what you think about them. And I think with boxing here, you are never more vulnerable, because you cannot hide. There is no way to hide. You're only as good as you are. And that's all there is, you know, you can't pretend that you're better.

Miranda Metcalf  Oh, that's fascinating. 

Rona Green  And I think it's a little bit like being an artist, you know, when you have an exhibition, you are completely exposing yourself and inviting people to judge work, in a sense. Which is not a negative thing, it's just a natural part of the process. But when you're boxing, you're in that ring with one other person, or when you're competing you've got the referee in there as well. But you can only do your best. There's no further you can go, as you say, in that moment, and I think to be exposed in that way is a really interesting space.

Miranda Metcalf  That is so fascinating, and I completely identify with that feeling and that moment of realization of how vulnerable you are. Because if you're doing boxing and you're doing bag work or drills or something like that, there's a certain sense of like, 'Oh yeah, look how hard I can hit this bag, and look how many pushups I can do,' and like whatever it is, there's that little bit of like ego and it feels good. But then when you get in a ring with someone, any of that outside, like what you may be perceived as, completely goes away and just that sense of like, wow, all that's left is two raw talents. And who's quicker, who reads bodies better, that's kind of the only thing that's left. And it is super vulnerable, and at the same time, there's of course this great tradition of showiness with boxers. The capes, and the coming in, and the big personalities. Yeah.

Rona Green  And I mean, there's obvious kind of parallels, like printmaking, there's a lot of repetition involved and you have to be very technical and almost have a certain restraint at times. Because I find printmaking is a mediator in a way, which is something I love. I think that's a great thing about it. And in boxing, your training is just repetition, repetition, repetition, but come the day, it's like, will that kick in? Because as an artist, you do your training, and one of my big things is trust the process. And in boxing, you go, 'Oh my goodness, can I trust myself to execute on the day of competition?' It's quite fascinating. Because I mean, as well, with printmaking, I'm very superstitious. If I set the press up a certain way one day and it all works, it's got to be exactly that way every time. That kind of thing. And like with boxing, you need to have everything right, all the good socks, you've got to have your good socks on so you'll feel comfortable.

Miranda Metcalf  Oh, yeah, 100%, I had the sports bra that was like the lucky sports bra. You know, you cannot have a good day without this one. And I think that's so fascinating, and that idea of trusting the process, because I know that you can train and train, and I know the first couple times I was ever in a sparring situation, everything just flew out of my head. You know, it was like, all of a sudden, you're just running around the school yard, like, 'No, don't hit me!'

Rona Green  I know. I can't even remember in my first match. Like, I remember things about it. But it was just such a flurry of adrenaline. It was crazy. And it's amazing, then, the more you go on, you've got to find that calm spot in the chaos. It's really interesting. And I think that's the same with printmaking in a weird way, especially when I used to teach, because obviously, you've got set class times and all this kind of thing. And I'd be teaching linocut, and then people would crazily start cutting their linocuts. And I'd say, 'Hey, hey, hey! Put the brakes on. You have to work at the lino's pace. You don't tell it how fast you want to go.' I said, 'If you want to achieve what you want to achieve, deep breaths, be one with the lino. You've gotta work with it, not against it.' Because I think process often dictates the pace. It's quite an interesting thing. And I think that all art forms, and particularly printmaking, often, the different techniques dictate the pace that you can move at. You can't rush an etch. It is what it is. With lithography, you can't rush sponging, or you'll mess it up. It's like, you've just got to embrace the process. Trust it, go with it.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, and I was thinking one other kind of thought, sort of circling back to this idea of that kind of swagger and that presence that some of your figures have, but also that interest in vulnerability. And it hasn't occurred to me until we're just talking about it now, but that really is, of course, they're two sides of the same coin. You know, it's saying, to have confidence is to be comfortable with vulnerability, because that's what that is. Because, of course, when someone's shrinking or trying to protect themselves, it's fear of being hurt. And so you can't have one without the other. And I think that your figures do that so well because there's this presence in them, but also a vulnerability as well. And I don't know, I'm wondering how much of that comes from the fact that you're using animals, because we have such a sense of kind of stewardship over them, particularly domesticated animals.

Rona Green  Yes, that's right. Yeah. And I think I've very much focused on the domestic animal for a long time, and I think it is that, like, I'm quite interested in body language, you know, you're talking before about the posture of the figures and that kind of thing. And you have the idea of an animal when it exposes its belly to you for a pat, and that kind of thing. And I think that's why I'm interested in skin as well. It's interesting to think about, what do we conceal? What do we reveal? That idea of hiding or sharing, those sorts of things, and the notion of trust, when you're exposed, and that sort of thing? Yeah, they're all ideas that I like, that I think tie in with that notion of the gaze as well. It's interesting, particularly going back to talking about social media from another respect, you know, people expose so much of themselves through social media, and then get upset when they're judged. And it's kind of like, well, that's what we do. You know, that is what humans do. We're fascinated with characterizing and judging and putting things in holes, you know, filing things away, and trying to make sense out of things. Trying to make life neat. We constantly need to be making judgments so that we go, 'Right, I've made a decision on that, let's move on to the next thing.' It's what our brains love doing, and while it can be negative, I don't think that that is intrinsically a negative quality. I see it as the way that we try and make sense of the world. So what I love is, when I have an exhibition, I love getting feedback of people coming up and sort of telling me what their favorite work is, and if it reminds them of a person they know, or how they engage with it. Because there's certain characters of mine that I go, 'Oh, I don't know if I would be friends with you or not.' And when I hang the show, often if the actual installation is being done for me, I have to send notes to say, 'These two pictures can't be next to each other.' And they say, 'Why?' And I say, 'Because they wouldn't like each other.' The characters in them would not be friends. So it's weird how you even anthropomorphize your own work itself in that way. I certainly have a very firm idea of the backstory for my work, but I'm very happy when the audience comes to it and brings their own narrative, you know, that's one of my favorite things. I'm not set in my ways about how the work needs to be read, because just like people, we like some people and not others. And that's what I find interesting about when people engage with my work.

Miranda Metcalf  I think it's really good when authors of work can just sort of release meaning in that way, and understand that it's going to mean something to them, and something else to someone else seeing it, and a third thing to a third person seeing it, and that meaning doesn't have to be static, and it's so much more interesting when it's not.

Rona Green  I think so. And I think when you can let go of that, it's really rewarding, because you can take on feedback, and every now and then, something someone says might make something click in your mind, you know? And make you think about where you might push something next, or, wow, I've never seen that link that they brought up before, or a connection. So it's a good thing. I think it's only a positive thing to allow multiple readings of your work.

Miranda Metcalf  Definitely. I'd love to hear you talk a little bit about the use of tattoos specifically, because that's a really fascinating point of the work in terms of what we... we were talking about this idea of what we show and what we conceal. And a lot of your recent figures with their tattoos, they'll have tattoos, they'll be standing there shirtless, or with a tank top on, and they'll have tattoos that would be concealable if someone was wearing just a T shirt, but you can see them. And they're kind of, a lot of them are more traditional tattoos, or edgy tattoos, you know, like 666, that kind of thing for some of the characters, and yeah, it's an interesting element of your work, and I'd just love to hear you speak about it. 

Rona Green  Yeah, I think pictorially, what fascinates me about using the tattoo as a motif is I love the idea of a picture within a picture. So that, from a compositional point of view, I really enjoy playing with that idea. But I suppose my interest in them would have originally stemmed from when I was quite young, and my mother was from Broken Hill, and a lot of her relatives were miners. And they had tattoos. And I mean, obviously they worked underground a lot, but they also spent a lot of time in the very harsh sun that's hotter, as well, in Australia. And their tattoos were kind of almost more like a birthmark. They were sort of faded, and just so much part of them and their skin and their body, that I just loved looking at them, you know, I thought they were just amazing. And they were very traditional sort of things, but I think that 's something that just stayed with me and I was always kind of interested in. And then you sort of get into music when you're a teenager, and of course, tattoos are often a part of that for certain types of musicians, and that sort of thing, so then you are more exposed to it. And then when I moved out of home, I actually lived in a share house with a guy who was doing a tattoo apprenticeship, so then I started getting tattoos myself and experiencing the idea of wearing them, and you get to talking about where I grew up, it's a little bit more conservative. You get a tattoo, you certainly find out about people who mention you. So the tattoo's a really interesting device for exploring ideas about attraction and repulsion as well.

Miranda Metcalf  Oh, for sure, yeah.

Rona Green  it's quite fascinating. But what I find funny that my work is offering is that kids really like it. It's kind of unusual Yeah, they're sort of fascinated with it. But one of my favorite things was when my nephew would have been about four, he came to one of my shows, and I asked him to give me a review of the work, what's his impression, and he kind of said, 'Sad. And spooky.' And I thought, oh, he's really kind of tapped in to a bit of what I'm interested in. Because, you know, I'm quite interested in personal histories and the idea of the tattoo reflecting on a life lived, in a sense, and I thought it was kind of interesting how he had tapped in on the idea that often maybe the expression of the figures is a little bit jaded or world weary. And that was something that I appreciated that he hit upon at such a young age.

Miranda Metcalf  That's so interesting, because - well, there's a bunch of different things in there - I think one is that, because you do use graphic images and bright colors and animals, I think that a cursory glance, someone might come away thinking, like, 'Oh that's cute! Look at the little...' you know, if you're someone who's not engaging with it, because these are things that of course we associate with brightness.

Rona Green  Yes. In their surface reading of it, yeah.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, on the surface reading, but when you stop and spend a little bit more time with them, you do see that kind of world weariness, which again, always reminds me of fashion photography. Like, when do you see a model smiling, I mean, really? There is that cool element of it as well. So that's really interesting that your nephew, someone who was just not really necessarily engaging with the work, might think like, 'Oh, yeah, this would be something that'd be cute for a four year old,' that the four year old is the one who's like, 'These animals have been through some shit!' Like, he's the one who picked up on it.

Rona Green  Totally tuned in.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, totally tuned in on it. So I love that.

Rona Green  So I really like that idea of the body telling a story, I find that very interesting.

Miranda Metcalf  And all that idea of tattoos, and the decisions that we make to mark ourselves in a way that becomes a snapshot of where we were in our lives at that time. And we continue to change, but the tattoo doesn't. And I think that that's what stopped me from getting tattoos until I was 30, is that I was really sort of fearful of that idea that, oh, like, 'What if I didn't like it anymore? What if 35 year old Miranda hates 25 year old Miranda?' You know, these kinds of fears.

Rona Green  Yes. And the question of regret, I find quite interesting. It's intrinsically tied into it, isn't it? But isn't it funny that when you finally do get marked, all of a sudden, it's not as big a deal as you thought it was? 

Miranda Metcalf  Totally. 

Rona Green  It kind of breaks through a barrier of preciousness, I think. It's quite interesting.

Miranda Metcalf  I completely agree.

Rona Green  Not that it's not important, I think it still can be important, but yeah, it doesn't seem quite so precious anymore.

Miranda Metcalf  And there's an element of trusting yourself that I found to be really liberating, and I think particularly as women, you're trained to second guess yourself and your instincts, like all the time. And this element of, 'No, I know me and I know what I want, and I'm comfortable with the idea of a future regret as well, but I also trust myself in this moment.' It's really interesting, and I think that's part of the reason why I feel like there are very few people who just have one tattoo. 

Rona Green  Yes, exactly. Exactly. 

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, you either have none, or you become fascinated, and especially if you're philosophically minded at all, it's an incredibly interesting process to choose and decide and all of the things, and where people place it, like all of my tattoos are quite visible, they're all below my shoulders on my arms. So there's something about me, which is like an extrovert, you know, if you get even spookier about it, you know, I've got a lot of fire sign placements. I'm just that kind of classic, extroverted person that, for me I remember thinking, why would you even get a tattoo that no one would see?

Rona Green  I know! Well, it's quite fascinating, it's funny you say that, because when they found Otzi the ice man and the discovery sort of made people think, oh, he's got tattoos, but no one ever would have seen them because he would have been rugged up to the climate conditions. So the thinking is that they were for actual medicinal purposes, or perhaps that because, I think one was on the back of the knee, for example, and they're thinking, 'Why would it be there?' And they're thinking maybe it was a kind of protective or medicinal thing for an injury or something like that, which is all hypothetical because obviously they will never really know. But I think motivation is interesting, and as you say, are you an introvert or extrovert? Where is your tattoo placed? What is it for? Is it a memento? Is it a memorial? Does it show certain proclivities or a sense of hierarchy within a social system? Is it just things that you like? Yeah, it's a really interesting thing, that idea of getting a permanent picture on your body, to me, is fascinating. And going back to regret, I think regret is such a big part of being an artist. Particularly with printmaking, because with my chosen medium now that I work in currently being linocut, if you cut something away, I don't care how many people say you can glue it back on or whatever. If you're hardcore editioning, it pretty much never holds up. So that idea of, yeah, you've got to make - particularly in my work, because it's very linear - I've got to make very precise marks, so there's that pressure, but then also pictorially, about the imagery you're making, you might finish a work and then all of a sudden have a lightbulb moment where you think, why didn't I do this to that picture? I should have put this in it instead of that, you know, which obviously is the stuff that keeps you motivated and propels you forward to make more work. But I love the artist Philip Guston, and I think he said something like, 'Satisfaction means nothing. Frustration is everything.' And I really gel with that, you know, I think you don't want to be comfortable. You always sort of want to be propelled forward on that little tank of frustration that keeps you going.

Miranda Metcalf  Yeah, I love that. One of the things, when I first started getting tattoos, that I came to this realization that, in terms of regret - this is gonna be a little dark - really, the worst thing that's going to happen is when I'm in this lab going into the incinerator, someone's gonna look at my tattoos and say, 'Huh, someone was born in the '80s.' You know? And just - zzzzz! - in I go!

Rona Green  I know, it is a bit like that. But at the same time, I love that quality of tattooing. It's just like this amazing patchwork of a body that you can sort of read so much into, and whether that's accurate or not, who knows, and once you speak to somebody... But I really like that idea that someone's imagination can be ignited by body decoration. And I think that's what attracts me to use it in my work as well, that it really gets people to engage and start making up a story or narrative in their own mind. And it's encouraging them to really immerse and engage with the imagery.

Miranda Metcalf  Well, I feel like I could keep talking to you about tattoos and boxing and art for just about ever, but to wrap things up, I always love to end by asking you to let people know where they can find you and your work and see it, or any exhibitions you have coming up, anything in that camp. I'd love to hear you talk about that.

Rona Green  Yes, so 2020 will be a big year for me. I've got a solo exhibition at Penny Contemporary in Tasmania, and also one at Australian Galleries in Melbourne. And then I'll also have another solo show at Burrinja Cultural Center in Upwey in Melbourne, as well as group shows in New Zealand at Solander Gallery, and in Adelaide at West Gallery Thebarton. And you can find my website, it's ronagreen.com, on Instagram I'm @ronagreenart, and on Facebook I'm Rona Green Artist.

Miranda Metcalf  Beautiful. I will put links to all of those and to the galleries in the show notes so people can easily follow up with you. And thank you again for taking the time to talk with me. It's been just absolutely a delight to dive into all of it with you. And I'm really looking forward to sharing it with people.

Rona Green  Oh, thanks so much for the opportunity, Miranda. I've loved chatting with you. Thanks heaps.

Miranda Metcalf  Well, that's our show for this week. Join me again in two weeks' time when my guest will be Joseph Velasquez. There's so much to say about Joseph, I'm not sure where to begin. So let me just get you all pumped by telling you, he's a founder of Drive By Press, a mobile printmaking studio which toured with bands such as Spoon, he's a beautiful speaker about community engagement in printmaking, and he has coordinated a recent fundraiser and donation called Let's Leave A Press that got a brand new Takach press to Puerto Rico in preparation for SGCI 2020. This episode, like all episodes, was written and produced by me, Miranda Metcalf, with editing help from Timothy Pauszek and music by Joshua Webber. I'll see you in two weeks.