Tequila!

, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Ahh Tequila - it's a bit out of focus and shot on an arty angle and looks like a bottle of aftershave, but it is the best Tequila I've ever tasted. I spent the weekend with my Adelaide Texan friends who spoilt me rotten, fed me constantly and entertained me with hours of trashy reality tv about texas roller derby. As I mentioned in my previous post. We also went to Hallett cove, a spectacular piece of Adelaide coast, saw a flock of black cockatoos near McLaren Vale, and visited the Adelaide showground farmers markets. All I can say is thanks Boone and Sarah for a fab weekend - I can't wait to visit again so I can see the final episode of Rollergirls!

Knittin' and skatin'

I'm sitting on the couch at my friend's Boon and Sarah's place in Adelaide after an almost perfect day hangin' (would be perfect if my fella was here too).

Over the course of the last couple of weeks two old activities have made a revival in my life. Knitting is getting a lot of attention in Canberra at the moment with a fab show at craft act called knit1blog1, check out the website for lots of good links to knitting and crafty blogs. It's inspired me to start knitting again, having knitted two scarves a couple of years ago and nothing since. I'm now halfway through a scarf made from scraps of wool bought from op shops. The next project will be a real life jumper.

The second revival in my life is roller skating. I'd love to know if there's any organised skating going on in Canberra. My buddy Barrelhouse bessie in Adelaide is getting a roller derby league up and running. We've been watching texas roller derby videos, discussing roller girl name ideas and hearing about a real live texas roller derby player coming to Australia to train the locals later this year.

Now I just need to get back on my skates...

Arkley in Brissy

Last week I returned from spending a week working in Mackay via Brisbane.

Ahhh Queensland, warm and sunny one day ... warm and sunny the next.

Apparently it had been raining practically non stop in Mackay for a couple of months so my timing was perfect - I had a week of warm sunny days.

While in Brissy I caught the river cat from New Farm up to South bank and popped in on GOMA for a quick visit. I caught the positively fiendish Katharina Grosse installation and the Howard Arkley show on tour from the NGV.

Grosse has built a fantastic landscape in the long narrow central axis of GOMA complete with sand banks, large canvases jutting out and big weather balloons suspended from the walls like some sort of massive multicoloured sea creatures. They are all painted with this mad abstract expressive assault of colour. It's fun, wacky and the scale is appropriate for the space, which I imagine would be a difficult space for many artists to work in, given its height and length.

I also particularly enjoyed the Arkley show at GOMA. I didn't get to see it in Melbourne, but I have often been frustrated by the architecture inside the NGVs Ian Potter Centre so I wonder how it worked there. Anyway it looked great in the big white barn of a space that is GOMA. You could get far enough away from the works to look at a whole series of large paintings at once, and there was plenty of white space to rest hurty eyes after staring at oppy dots and patterns. I particularly liked the Arkley and Davila collaboration pieces – really nice weird awkward works with so much going on in them, I could look at ‘em for ages and keep finding new elements.

I found this lovely interview with Arkely and Davila where they talked about their collaborative process:

Juan Davila: I see our collaboration as a wonderful travesty. Howard might not see it in these terms, but we are two transvestite painters, or camp decorators, who have no sense of taste, and we produced an intentionally bastard result. It has the appearance of a proper painting but as you come near the whole thing blurs, like make-up on a transvestite. We talked about being two prostitutes who would offer to decorate anything.

Howard Arkley: The paintings went back and forth between our studios in Prahran. There would be one of us at each end of a canvas, carrying it through the streets. On a windy day it was like riding a sail board down the street. You'd have to swing out into the traffic and the cars had to stop while we were twisting and turning the canvas, being dragged along like it was a big kite. It was very much a part of Chapel Street. We used to talk about the work and walk up and down the street window shopping, saying "look at this, look at that, let's put it in the painting". I would fling open the door of a place like a building society, drag Juan in, just stand there giggling at the carpet and then race out. There was a lot of energy.

More Theo Jansen

Kinetic sculpture

This guy's name is Theo Jansen, he creates sculptures that walk across the landscape powered by wind. They are beautifully engineered. Thanks to my mate Bruce for showing me his stuff on you tube - I highly recommend looking at more videos of his work...

nursies

nursies, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

My mate Ginger's (the one in the gloves) going into hospital for a v nasty operation next week. True to form she had a pre hospital party with a medical theme. It was truly weird to turn up to the Polish club and find a room full of lab coats, scrubs and people in pyjamas dancing to some latinised grooves. Love your style Ginger - you rock!

Bredbo pizza

, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Last week B and I drove down to Bega to check out the gallery there in preparation for out exhibition coming up in August. The snow traffic was steady, but not mad and the weather was perfect for a drive in the country side. Sleety rain, moments of sunshine, spectacular views of stark Cooma landscape turning into green Coastal valleys past Nimmitabel.

I can't remember the time I've seen so much green - and then there was the lovely snow dusting the mountains - and some muddy lumps of it by the road.

The highlight of the day was the wood fired pizza in Bredbo - followed by the delicious cinnamon syrupy apple and rhubarb turnover - the place is for sale so I'd recommend any one in the area check it out soon.

in the air again

I never seem to be able to pack efficiently when I go away. This is a problem because I travel for work. Somehow I need to streamline the last minute washing, drying of clothes and tearing 'round house and office gathering up all the random crap I need to take with me.

This morning I had to dash into work to collect my forgotten tool kit, itinerary and put the voicemail on.

I did however, manage to get all my shit in one pile and get myself to the airport. I'm sitting in Brisbane airport utilising a nifty internet hotspot and have just heard an announcement that flights to Melbourne are delayed due to fog. It is currently 1.35pm. I ran into a colleague this morning at Canberra airport at 11am - she had boarded a flight this morning at stupid-early-o'clock-before-sunrise to go to Melbourne for a day's work. They took off - flew to Melbourne, circled over the fog, got low on fuel and... returned to Canberra to re-fuel.

This reminds me of an article I read on the weekend about the commuter crisis in Australia's cities. Apparently it took 63 minutes to catch a train to Sydney from Gosford in the 1960s - now it takes 83 minutes. So much for progress ay...

artland

I had to laugh last night watching the weather report on tv in Sydney - the temperature was going down to a freezing 10 degree minimum over night, while in Canberra it go up to a toasty maximum of - yep - 10 degrees. While it was crisp and windy by Sydney standards, it was still a relief to get away from home and into less icy surrounds. The reason we were there was to farewell an excellent friend who is off to Cambodia to work for a couple of years and catch a bit of contemporary art. I'm already scheming to work out a way to get to Cambodia for a visit some time in the next twelve months.

While in Sydney I popped in to the Art Gallery of NSW and spent a bit of time with the Anselm Kiefer show, and the Ishiuchi Miyako show. I've loved Kiefer's work for years - he's one of my favourite artists of all time - I'm familiar with his objects - but this show also features massive paintings. What I enjoyed about the large paintings in the show was this incredible sense of three-dimensionality and space from a distance - and then up close they become these amazing textural abstracts with big chunks of cracking paint and unexpected objects mired in the surface.

One of my favourite aspects of the show was the video footage showing Kiefer's studio complex in Barjac in France - he has a property containing a number of great old stone buildings, tunnels with works scattered throughout the environment - what I wouldn't give for my own personal art world!

Miyako's work was a kind of portrait in absence of her dead mother. The show contained black and white photographic images of her mother's underwear which had a kind of medical, almost xray feel to them and yet were simultaneously very intimate. These were accompanied by photographs of other ordinary intimate objects - used lipstick, a hairbrush. I particularly enjoyed the quiet and poetic feel to this installation - and knowing that the subject of the work was dead gave me that sense almost of intruding on some one's private space.

Get Schnitfaced

The other night we were walking along in the fashionable hub that is Manuka in Canberra when we happened upon a blackboard outside a pub declaring 'GET SCHNITFACED $10'. Being eternally curious and unable to pass up a bargain we went back tonight follow up on this intriguing offer. First we went and saw Bridge to Terabithia and had a good cry - I was most impressed by the very realistic children that came across as annoyingly, maddeningly brat-like.

Anyway back to the Schnitzel experience - the deal was you could choose between a schnitzel or a rump steak + salad + a schooner of beer. We were keen before we even knew about the beer so when we paid up and got little red beer tickets we were most impressed. The quality of the meal was what you'd expect for ten bucks - bland with wilted salad and crunchy potato salad. The beer was crisp and cold and made up for the boringness of the food. Ted chose the rump and got to cook it himself on the grill, surrounded by a small group of pub patrons huddled around it's radiant warmth - they kept a running commentary on the progress of the steak cooking and made sure Ted didn't burn it...ahh Winter in Canberra....

night tree

, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

foggy night

, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

As I was driving home tonight I was fascinated by the foggy nightscape I was experiencing. All the street lights created these golden pools of soft light, there was an amazing organge glow in the sky over our house. The misty fog - something I haven't seen the like of in years - created this beautiful diffused light, like a Clarice Beckett night scene. I went outside and took a bunch of photos from my front door step getting some great tree silhouettes in this lovely light.

Shopping for curtains in Spotlight

Shopping for curtains in Spotlight, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Is it universal? Do you have to wait until judgement day to be served in any Spotlight store - or is it just the case with my local? It wasn't exactly crowded at 8pm tonight, in fact we were next in line when we lined up - it still took a good 15 minutes to get to the counter - plenty of time to ponder the attractions of discounted polyester fur and numerous mysterious of kreative kraft items.

Rad '80s posters

I went along to an opening at Megalo tonight curated by a mate of mine as part of his museum studies course. Megalo is a printmaking workshop in Canberra that got started by some young arty types in the '80s. They started off in a room at Ainslie Village using an old kitchen exhaust fan to extract fumes created by their screenprinting projects. Megalo has matured since then into a Canberra institution - still a starving arts organisation, but with more room, equipment and regular government funding. Joel and his collaborator Ange have selected 40 fab screenprinted posters made in the '80s. They address environmental concerns, political issues, nuclear protest posters etc. The show is a great little snapshot of a political and social moment in Canberra's history.

It was fascinating for me to be reminded of images I was surrounded by as a high school student. It was great to see a poster for the Bitumen river gallery - the first place I encountered contemporary art as a teenager and to see a poster listing George Washingmachine and the Dead Wringers headlining a local gig. There is a great raw energy in these images - it has that '80s protest punk kinda feel - and interesting to see how many of the same issues we are still grappling with twenty years later.

Anyone in Canberra check it out - it runs until 30 June.

Geelong building

Geelong building, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

I was in Geelong for work the week before last. I have a job that takes me to all sorts of random places and has it's pros and cons. On the negative side I am getting sadly familiar with those nasty synthetic fluffy beige blankets you only seem to find in hotels and motels of a certain quality. The positives include getting to see places I would otherwise never have a reason to visit, getting out of the office, and getting the odd quiet night in a hotel where I can do nothing but curl up in bed and read a book. Tho' I do feel concerned about the carbon debt I must be racking up flying all over the place and am determined to investigate switching my house over to solar power and creating some more environmentally sustainable living habits.

The picture above is of the side of a building in central Geelong, I really love seeing a bit of colour and decoration in architecture - especially if it moves beyond the postmodern lego look. I particularly like the links this one has to wall paper patterns.

Pot latch extravaganza

Yesterday we hosted our third annual Potlatch party and had a ball. Sadly I have no photos so a description of the process will have to do. The term comes from a native American tradition - here's a blurb I've pinched from Wikipedia:

The potlatch was a cultural practice much studied by ethnographers. "Potlatch is a festive event within a regional exchange system among tribes of the North pacific Coast of North America, including the Salish and Kwakiutl of Washington and British Columbia." Sponsors of a potlatch give away many useful items such as food, blankets, worked ornamental mediums of exchange called "coppers", and many other various items. In return, they earned prestige. To give a potlatch enhanced one’s reputation and validated social rank, the rank and requisite potlatch being proportional, both for the host and for the recipients by the gifts exchanged. Prestige increased with the lavishness of the potlatch, the value of the goods given away in it.

In our mutated version people bring random clothes and small household items they would otherwise throw out or take to the op shop and dump them in a pile in our front room. Everyone goes through the pile of stuff and takes away bits and pieces they like. The rest of the stuff gets taken to the Salvos or Vinnies at the end of the day. It's a great way to recycle and have a party at the same time. This year's effort was a little smaller that previous year's but I managed to score a blue velvet jacket, some red cord trousers and multiple pairs of sunglasses while feeling virtuous that I was offloading more unnecessary stuff than I was gaining.

Ted + chook

Ted + chook, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

I've been meaning to write heaps of posts over the past couple of weeks - but have been so stupidly busy they will remain unwritten in my head. As a way of getting back into the habit I'm posting this pic of Ted and our one laying chook, Madame Duchamp, taken today on our back step. Duchamp is the most curious of our chooks and will take any opportunity of scouting our laundry when we forget to close the door.

We have two other chooks - Fifi - a white silky who looks like a poodle and is hopelessly timid - totally the bottom of the pecking order. And there's miette a black and white stripey bantam with yellow legs. She's very pretty and a total bitch - gives Fifi hell.

I love having them in our yard, especially since recent rain has delivered us some green grass. Their clucking around the garden makes the times we're at home during the day (extremely rare, unfortunately) feel wholesome and domestic. I love that when I drive in to the driveway after a hard day at the office a big black chicken comes belting down the driveway to meet me. The comedy of Duchamp skidding sideways 'round the corner makes my day every time...

MA conference

I've just spent the last couple of days at the Museums Australia conference in Canberra and can confidently report that the wardrobe colour scheme required for museum and gallery staff in Australia is black - black with red, black with grey and black with an occassional flash of a green or brown. Today I bucked the tidy trend and wore sneakers (very good for running to the car in the rain while my unfortunate colleagues hobbled in heels). Mind you I still stayed with the colour theme in my very dark blue/black jeans, black and grey stripy top under black designer cardigan... better pull out that old yellow leather jacket and inject a bit of loud, tasteless colour into my life.

On a more professional note the conference raised a number of interesting issues and propositions. The first focus session I attended looked at interpreting contemporary art in art museums and working with audiences to get them engaged and interpreting contemporary art for themselves. This is something I as an artist and gallery worker am particularly interested in. Jane Deeth has done some nice work at the Tasmanian Museum and Art Gallery researching how audiences engage with contemporary shows and ways to get them to express their responses to the work. What I liked about her approach was that it goes beyond bombarding people with information and just telling them about the work. She is more interested in getting people to look at work and form opinions and ideas for themselves.

In Tassie she put cards into the exhibition that asked the audience for comments and found that the majority of the responses were judgement calls - I like it - I don't like it - it's crap etc. However when the questions on the cards were changed to ask the audience to comment on the differences between the works or some other element that required them to stop and think a little longer she found that many more of the responses began to interpret the works - to talk about the discursive element in the works.

I'm fascinated by the reactions of people who go into galleries and get frustrated and angry with contemporary art - that a bunch of inanimate stuff/things can piss people off so much. It was really interesting to see in this case, that if people were encouraged to spend a little more time to think about what they are looking at, and if they were prompted by a question that directed them to think about a particular aspect of the work came up with really insightful and sophisticated responses. My theory is that we are basically a visually literate society and bombarding people with lots of text explaining stuff only works for those of us who like reading. If there are other ways of reducing the sense that the art is alienating and confronting and deliberately trying to make people feel stupid and can get people to stop and look for a while - rather than trying to give them answers - we can create some interesting conversations.

If I still have a brain tomorrow I'll write about some of the other sessions - for now it is time for a nap and then beer and pizza - the perfect way to finish a week of cultural bombardment...

stage 2

stage 2, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

It took four days to get this room clear - the floor was clear literally for a few minutes - now it is covered in a drawing made of hot glue and fishing line - I'm getting it ready to send off to an exhibition in Queensland. Since it is 6 metres long I need to test the strength of the fishing line to make sure it won't fall apart while it's on show. It's times like this when wonder why I don't stick to nice little pencil drawings...

before #2

before #2, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Time to do a little cleaning - this is the before shot and actually looks misleadingly tidy - it's far worse in real life. This is what happens when artists and musicians cohabit. So far I've spent two entire days sorting out this room and T has spent a day in there. We've emptied and refilled four bookcases - thrown out several garbage bags of junk - removed partial and entire works of art to the garage and relocated a drum kit. I reckon there's another two days work to get it entirely functional.

The motivation for this clean up - I have a work of art that needs to be unpacked and checked before sending away to an exhibition - it is six metres long and four metres wide and requires a certain amount of non-dusty, wax or plaster encrusted floorspace.

buttons

Nothing like a bit of instant gratification. I went to the Push your buttons exhibition at ANU School of Art Gallery today and saw some interesting work, and most excitingly got to make some buttons of my very own. There was a busy little group of visitors cutting, arranging and stamping out very cool badges. I got into a bit of a frenzy and made about a dozen. The image above shows Ginger's and my bug and beetle collection - there's also a sneaky fly by Waratah Lahy in there too. I put a few more images on my flickr page - think I might go back tomorrow and make a few more.

Anyone in Canberra can go along and make buttons for free tomorrow between 12 and 4 - the exhibition continues till 5 May.

Miscellaneous Correspondence

I went to an exhibition opening tonight at the local Contemporary Art Space and thoroughly enjoyed Jane Barney's installation. The letter of invitation gave me such a giggle I'm going to quote it here almost in it's entirety:

Dear Art Enthusiast

RE: Miscellaneous Correspondence Exhibition

Enclosed please find a small fridge magnet. Though it appears to be an abstract blur, this magnet is an important component of the image Woman in dress reading near man in suit, and is part of the exhibition Miscellaneous Correspondence.

Could you please convene, with your magnet, at the opening ...

... If you are unable to attend, please send a proxy with your magnet.

Shoul you feel compelled to file this letter as a record, then the file would correctly be titled 'Miscellaneous Correspondence', and the letter would be folio # '1'. Please do not attempt to file your magnet as a record as it does not fall within Redord Management Guidelines as a fileable item. Should you feel compelled to file a resord of your magnet, please make a paper facsimile for placement on file as folio #'2'. You may also wish to consider putting your magnet on your fridge as a visual reminder of the upcoming event.

111 other art enthusiasts will receive the remaining 111 components that comprise Woman in dress reading near man in suit. 112 public servants will receive 112 components that comprise the image Man in white collar. By compiling their miscellaneous correspondence, public servants and art enthusiasts will compete for the coveted title of 'Best in Records Management'....

One of my friends was understandably miffed to fall under the category public servant, I, on the other hand was thrilled that though I derive my income from public service related activities, I was rightfully categorised as an art enthusiast. When I left, both magnet murals were unfinished so I wait with baited breath to find out who won the coveted title of Best in Records Management.

Laura's chucked a wobbly

Laura works on my floor, she is a recalcitrant photocopier who arrived wrapped in plastic, Laura has attitude. The following excerpts from our office email list will give you an idea of Laura's personality:

Laura's sleeping in...

Laura is missing a part that keeps the hole in the Ozone layer stable- The part has been ordered, ETA unknown.

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news …. I’ve changed the toner … and it wont’ accept the new cartridge … can
someone come fix it?

Do not use LAURA as we have no yellow toner

Dear IT
We have an enormous problem. The magenta on Laura is gone. Please come and fix it now.

Does anyone else work with an anthropomorphic photocopier?

directional clothing

directional clothing, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

To catch up on the last two weeks - I spent very little time at the National Folk Festival this year as I was popping into work all weekend to finish off stuff before spending a week installing a show at Geraldton in WA (about 5 hours drive north of Perth).

I did catch Fred Smith doing a snappy rendition of a song called Tension - it has the fabulous lyrics 'just don't stuff my clobber full of flora!'

Also was mightly entertained by the Dolls - I'm biased as my fella's band was supporting them - but the rest of the audience appeared to be having a ball too. I also caught bits of Mic Conway's National Junk band - their version of the Sex Pistols God Save the Queen rocked. Also saw the Lawnmowers, Bluestone Junction and a bit of Totally Gourdgeous and Mystery Pacific (website doesn't appear to be working - will try and add a link later). All well worth catching if their in your neck of the woods.

So Easter Monday I was on a Plane to WA - the best and sometimes worst part of my job is the travel. Its fantastic going to places I would otherwise have no reason to visit and great meeting and working with a wide variety of people. It's also stressful working in unfamiliar environments with a wide variety of people.

Geralton, like many coastal Australian towns appears to do a brisk trade in the alternate, spiritual, hippy, tiedyed, dreamcatcher variety of retail outlet. I didn't get to the store above during business hours so my curiousity about the directional clothing was not satisfied. Also spotted around town were shops with the inspirational names: Inna Dreams, Fantasy Fings and Crystal Hemlock.

Street art in Adelaide

, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

This is a detail of a nice bit of street art I spotted in Adelaide last week while attending the fringe - I love this artist's sensibility and the way they play with transparency and form, I'm also a sucker for anything with birds in it. There are a few more on my other flickr page.

APT at GoMA

YUKEN TERUYA
Notice - Forest (detail) 2005
Collection: Ota Fine Arts, Tokyo

Two weeks ago I had a flying visit north to Brisbane, land of wooden houses and warm breezes. We got a couple of sweltering days and balmy nights to bring back in our memories as we are now being hit by the first cool winds heralding winter. After we returned we got the first of what I've always called the snow winds. Biting southerlies with an icy edge are for me the one true sign that winter is really comming (mind you it's coming nice and slow and should stay that way as long as possible...).

To hang on to the warmth in my mind a little longer I'm going to muse on my visit to the APT (Asia Pacific Triennial) and my first visit to GoMA. Brisbane's new Gallery of Modern Art.

Overall I enjoyed the exhibition - it felt consistently strong, nicely installed and resolved, maybe a bit too nice - there were some politically quite confronting works, but somehow the gallery just makes everything so clean. The GoMA has beautiful big exhibition spaces, but the entrance is not great, and some of the workmanship on the actual building looks a bit shoddy. Their installation of indigenous work was absolutely stunning.

So the entrance - you go through these sliding glass doors that act as a kind of air lock into an entrance way with very high ceilings and a feeling that you're sure exactly where to go to find the art. Once inside I discover an arctic breeze that encourages me to remain in the actual gallery looking at the art for the shortest possible time before scurrying outside to prevent the onset of hypothermia. It seriously was that cold - I had been at the Queensland Art Gallery earlier and it was noticably warmer, even then I was wearing long sleeves.

The shoddyness - we were looking at these grey panels in the doorways between the galleries and noticed the some were quite dented and were not level at the bottom - picky I know but who ever screwed in those panels either used too much force or the material is too soft for it's chosen purpose. The highlight of the APT at GoMA for me was the Anish Kapoor installation - really gorgeous, though apparently a problem for the gallery with visitors accidentally walking into a few of the works. Quite difficult to control as there are some children's activities that actively invite physical interaction and Kapoor's work does mess with perception and can be quite disorienting. The education/kids stuff was fantastic as always - QAG really knows how to do this stuff well, they create really intelligent and engaging activities that provide insight into the works and give audiences something to create and do as well.

I could go on at length about the works in the show across the two venues but I need to go to bed so my highlights were:

Yuken Teruya - images can be seen here, here and here - these paper works were delicate, witty and thoroughly engaging. It's great to see a simple concept handled so skillfully and in this day or high tech multimedia everything to be engaged by art made entirely from paper bags.

Sangeeta Sandrasegar - images here and here - these were also paper based works - cutouts of incredible detail, my favourite was a wall installtion of white hands. The paper was so fine and delicate that at first I saw only the shadows made from the silhouettes of the paper hands pinned just off the wall.

Nursa Latif Qureshi - Indian miniatures with a subversive contemporary edge - images here, here and here

There was so much wonderful work in this show I could go on all night - but I won't so all I can say is that if you can get to Brisbane before May and see it for yourself - go!

Great QBN architecture

Great QBN architecture, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

I will get around to talking about GoMA as mentioned in my last post, but in the meantime I thought I'd pop in an example of the exciting architectural features of my own home town Queanbeyan. I'm thinking of doing an occasional series on Hideous Architecture. Something small town Australia has many examples of, and something I see a bit of travelling 'round the countryside installing art exhibitions. This is my local leagues club, note the wave form awning at the front, a nod to postmodernism without being too risque and the funky geometric forms that create sculptural interest. i haven't decided if it really fits the category hideous, though the front view is by far the most sympathetic...

stickers and stencils

stickers and stencils, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Saw some nice street art in Brisbane on the weekend, also APT at QAG and GoMA but not much at MOB and missed IMA completely (ha! see if I can get any more acronyms into a single sentence). I will write a full report on APT and GoMA later in the week. Apart from the art the highlight was visiting relatives who live in Torbreck, Brisbane's first highrise apartment block built in 1959 and watching the sunset over the city.

stickers and stencils

stickers and stencils, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

black things

I had a sneak preview of Mel Douglas's work in her studio in Canberra yesterday - She's a local glass artist who makes very, very beautiful objects. She's having an exhibition at Sabbia Gallery in April in Sydney. I can't upload pics at the moment, so go to the website and check 'em out.

Who knew?

Who knew?, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

On an evening walk, as a way of avoiding the group of dodgy men hanging out down by the river, I walked through the carpark under Riverside Plaza in QBN. I've lived here for five years now and this is the first I've heard about a fashion precinct. I must say, while I have my doubts about the existence of the so-called precinct, I'm quite taken by the word travelator.

On an entirely different note I spent a couple of very pleasant hours at the Front this afternoon and caught Randall Blair doing some solo stuff, (this guy has a fantastic voice) and a couple of fellas from Hashemoto who I am falling deeply in love with. If you have a chance to see them play - check 'em out.

Autumn morning

I woke up at 5am this morning, tried to sleep for a while then gave up and got out of bed at the unheard of time of 5.30. I productively used my time to make a dress out of some scraps of fabric, drank copious amounts of tea (current favourite Chai 2 - Glenborg tea - it has corriander seeds in it) then by 8ish discovered I was out of novel things to do around the house. Rather than clean the house - which has gone ferrel recently - I headed off to the markets.

It was a stunning Canberra Autumn morning, the kind that makes me feel all fresh and new and goodwill to mankind and way to chilled to get shitty with the speeding tailgating roadrage fuckwit in the new ute. I love it when - after being harrassed by a dork who has tried to drive over the top of me, sped round me and raced off - I end up right next to them at the lights on the other side of town. I particularly love it when I'm in that crisp Autumn morning happy frame of mind that enables me to turn to the other driver and give them a big cheesy grin and a cheery wave.

Happy day

And why is it a happy day? Well because there were many hot air balloons suspended in the still sky over Canberra, and that always makes me happy.

After the hail storm

I spent pretty much all of last week in bed with a rather boring virus and then returned to work yesterday to an enormous pile of work and millions of emails and phone messages. It was almost enough to inspire me to turn around and head straight back home again. I stuck it out knowing I'd have to face it sooner or later then headed over to the Art School to see the postgrad exhibition that was open to the public for a few hours. Due to the freak storm the other week (the damage and aftermath faithfully captured by Ampersandduck who works there and is involved in the clean up operations) the school is in a sad state of disrepair and the two poor students due to have their final exhibition only got to show it to the public for a few hours after their postponed examinations had occurred. I really enjoyed Pamela Lofts crisp images of outback/rural environments littered with rusting metal and decaying houses. The way the light played over the man-made elements in the close cropped views of interior spaces, and the contrast between this and the external spaces in the images was what I found most engaging.

I then popped upstairs - with a hard hat on - to the clocktower, where I worked for a couple of years for Art Monthly. The room has been completely cleared, the festy carpet removed and the plaster coming away from the ceiling was being held up by long beams of quite fragile looking timber. It was amazing to see what once had been a cave filled with piles, stacks, shelves and many many intrays of paper - completely empty. The editrix is optimistically planning a new minimalist look for the room which I'm looking forward to seeing.

smashed potato

arty mash, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Ohh its just so pretty

arty dessert

arty dessert, originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Last week we had a very posh first wedding anniversary dinner at Courgette - local posh restaurant - sister to Aubergine - I love that these places have the names of vegetables. It reminds me of some performance art I saw in the nineties where the fabulous Megan Elliot sprouted random french words in an endearing aussie accented monologue whilst wearing a very sophisticated evening gown. At one point she needed both hands to gesticulate wildly so she very efficiently placed the stubbie of VB from which she had been swigging snugly into her rather voluptuous cleavage. I'd love to have a picture of that...

Anyway back to matters marital - we have two anniversaries - the living in sin one which has us turning twelve this year in May, and the legal one, celebrated for the first time last week - woohoo. For years we never thought we'd get hitched, but we've attended many ceremonies over the years and had begun to appreciate the idea of getting all our loved ones together for a celebration. It was totally worth it - bar the three million times in the last year that I've been asked 'how's married life', followed by 'so when are you having kids?

If anyone is looking for a posh meal I thoroughly recommend Courgette - it was fab and had the best (and probably most expensive) mashed potato I've ever eaten. My most excellent sculptural dessert was almost too good to eat - but my sugar addiction won out in the end.

blockhead

Ted bought New Boots and Panties on the weekend - he's been hanging out to find it on vinyl for some time and finally gave in and ordered a CD because apparently it's pretty rare.

Ian Dury has to be one of my all time favourite songwriters with gems like:


You come awake
In a horny morning mood
And have a proper wriggle
In the naughty naked nude
Roll against my body
Get me where you want me
What happens next is private
It's also very rude...


And...


Here come duck-tail Danny dragging uncanny Annie, she's the one with the flying feet
You can break the peace, daddy sickle grease, the beat is reet complete
And the jump-back honey in the dungarees, tight sweater and a pony-tail
Will you guess her age when she comes back-stage, the hoodlums bite their nails

Sesame Street Pinball Cartoon

Mr T finally discovered the time wasting wonder that is youtube and spent hours in the middle of last night enjoying a nostalgic journey throug Sesame Street and Dr Seuss animations. The pinball number count is one of my faves

bird or fish

I'm reading a book about the history of airships at the moment. It starts with a quote by Dr Hugo Eckener - the first expert airship pilot and proponent of the development and use of Zepplins for passenger transport and war machines. Zepplins were invented by Count Ferdinand von Zepplin, a somewhat mad enthusiast who spent years (and lots of money) trying to get the airship idea off the ground.

Anyway Eckener said:

The mass of the mighty airship hull, which seemed matched by its lightness and grace, and whose beauty of form was modulated by delicate shades of colour, never failed to make a strong impression on people's minds. It was not, as genarally described, a "silver bird soaring in majestic flight," but rather a fabulous silver fish, floating quietly in the ocean of air, and captivating the eye just like a fantastic, exotic fish seen in an aquarium. And this fairy-like apparation, which seemed to melt into the silvery blue background of the sky, when it appeared far away, lighted by the sun, seemed to be coming from another world and to be returning there like a dream...

xmas poodle

xmas poodle
Originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

My Mum's poodle Lily on xmas day after a little too much fun

Conversation after xmas lunch

Scene: Post large Christmas lunch at which much fat, sugar and enough alcohol was consumed:

T: Yairs I think i'll take a nap
E: Tell them about the pills dear
T: Yairs I've got a nice pharmashish who gives me little pills - I like the Mogadon
J: Funny how drugs sound like the names of the bad guys in Star Trek...
E2: hehehe I am the evil Lord Voltaren from the Celebrex nebuliser come to do battle with that traitor Vioxx and the Zyrtec angiogram rebellion....
E: mwahahaharr the Zyrtec rebels don't stand a chance against the organised forces of the Cyclobenzaprine Flexeril. Their only chance is an alliance with Elavil and the hordes of Pamelor, and while the state of Etodolac is in such disaray with Elvail's nephew Meloxicam plotting a coup, Pamelor will continue to focus on internal affairs...


to be continued...

signs

Originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

A couple of weeks ago I was in Mount Gambier for work - I am lucky to have a job that requires me to work closely with art and to travel. I managed to escape the work for a morning and have a wander 'round town. This old Odeon bowling alley sign is one of the tastiest pieces of neon I've seen in a long time.

Fear

I was asked today what I fear. I've been asked this before, but today I felt confronted - upset even - and really like having a big old cry... why?

So what am I afraid of? Well I needed time to think about it so I googled 'I am afraid of...'

These are my first three results:

1. I am afraid to show you who I really am, because if I show you who I really am, you might not like it--and that's all I got.
2. i am afraid of deep water
3. I am afraid that my penis is too small

Interestingly after the top 3 there were a whole bunch of I am not afraids - so I had to go back and put inverted commas around the question

Then I got:

1. I am afraid of windows vista (?)
2. I am afraid of felling God (???)
3. I am afraid that people watching me think I'm foolish
4. I am afraid of the end of the world
5. I am afraid of death
6. I am afraid of speaking in public


Is it possible to be fearless - really fearless...

I'm going to keep thinking on this one

tempting fate

Your Language Arts Grade: 100%

Way to go! You know not to trust the MS Grammar Check and you know "no" from "know." Now, go forth and spread the good word (or at least, the proper use of apostrophes).

Are You Gooder at Grammar?
Make a Quiz

urban wildlife

Yesterday at the time of just too early in the morning to be fully awake I was sitting drinking a particularly awful cup of tea at Melbourne airport. While staring into space I noticed a happy fat little sparrow popping between the tables. It flew directly between the heads of two clean-cut men in uniform and bounced around collecting crumbs between the table and chair legs.

This wasn't any near an external entrance, and the sparrow looked very much at home. I watched for a couple of minutes then realised a second sparrow was doing a bit of preening under the table next to me. It had a really good go at it's tail and under it's wings - looked like it had a bit of and itch and fell over trying to get to a hard-to-reach under tail spot.

some words

I really like words that trigger sounds and pictures in my imagination. At the moment I'm particularly enjoying words that are melifluous. There is a rhythm and melody to some words - melifluous is a great example - I think it's got to do with the repetition of the ls.

Then there's echolalia

It doesn't appear in my old collins paperback and it's too late at night for me to go ratting around in the dark to try and find my big new macquarie so I'm going to give what is my understanding of the definition of this especial favourite word. It's the spontaneous and uncontrollable repetition of words spoken by others. It can also be the sounds a baby makes repeating sounds they hear around them.

And echopraxia

Not such a melifluous word but good looking - meaning the spontaneous repetition of the actions of others. Words to do with movement are generally popular with me. Of course theres somnambulate and perambulate and perambulations, anything of an ambulatory nature...

Favourite song lyrics

My Sea Monkey - secret track on the end of a Clouds CD

My Sea Monkey mustn't love me
he has no fur, nor eyes for to see
he is no king, he cannot wear a crown
my Sea Monkey can't even swim around

but I love him

and I'm sure
he's gonna love me
when he gets to know me more...

It's snowing

I am sitting at the National Gallery of Australia looking at the snow flakes melting as they hit the windows. Ahhh Canberra in November - there's an old wives tale that you must not plant your tomato seedlings until after the Melbourne Cup has been run, to safequard against late frosts. Well the Melbourne Cup ran last week, I won 60 dollars and I guess I'm lucky I'm a lazy gardener.

Sarah's churches

Sarah writes the best emails. Here's her list of Texan churches (real ones seen whilst driving through Texas):

Freedom Church
Cowboy Worship
Church of the Prairie
Fellowship of the Leather Saddle
Old Time Fellowship

acting up

Just started going to an acting class - man it's fun. I have no pretentions to acting prowess of any description - this is purely for fun. What I didn't expect was all the running 'round, this little chicken isn't as fit as all that. The lying on the ground singing, throwing chairs around and wrestling shakespear to the floor is certainly a helluva lot more entertaining than sweatin' it up at the gym.

Goddess

Go see this exhibition right now:

http://www.artgallery.nsw.gov.au/sub/goddess/

immediately

make sure you have a few hours

take a magnifying glass

If you don't live near Sydney - it's worth travelling to see

Stainless

Anyone in the vicinity of Canberra must check out the exhibition Duty cycle by Rachel Bowak at Helen Maxwell's gallery until November 11 http://helenmaxwell.com/home.asp

Rachel has focussed on common domestic objects and made a series of life size stainless steel line drawings. They are elegant yet quietly humorous - and so sexy in that new designer homeware that just begs you to spend your entire credit limit and take it home to admire forever kind of way.

I like the way she's kept the installation sparse and simple and particularly the way the pieces that sit on the floor casually lean against the wall as if they've been put there to rest, while the user does something else and intends to return momentarily. There is also something about the arrangement that makes me think of language and lexicons, the works are like a list, a vocabulary of familiar things with the particularity (is that a word?) drained out of them so they take on an iconic status.

Asylum Street Spankers - Hick Hop

I know I just blogged these guys already, but I couldn't go past this beautiful combo of country and western murder ballads and hip hop...

Asylum Street Spankers Video

I love these naughty buggers - now I just need a magnetic yellow ribbon and an SUV

Sand snail trails

Sand snail trails
Originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

I took this last week at Glenelg beach. I was entirely unaware of the existence of these snails until I went to the beach with Starfish super girl Sarah. Now this is going to sound like a really bad tongue twister - Sarah saves starfish on the shore at Glenelg when they get stranded. (She saved two the first day we went there). She has many other amazing talents, and if she hadn't mentioned the snails I would have thought these scribbles were made be someone drawing in the sand with a stick. I love that they are made by these slow moving lumps under the sand. I'd really like to do a time-lapse photo project of them creating these beautiful line drawings one day.

big rocking horse

big rocking horse
Originally uploaded by Kate&Ted.

Somewhere in the Adelaide hills is another big thing - it is neither fruit nor Australian native animal, nor crustacean - it is - in fact - the big rocking horse! (with tiny rocking horse in lower right hand corner

the flattest city

Is Adelaide not the flattest city in the world? I know there are hills - I haven't seen them yet but I'm assured they exist. Feeling slightly disoriented by the flatness and lack of big circular street patterns...(that's what you get coming from Canberra)- I'm used to a visible ring of gentle rolling occassionally snowcapped hills letting me know exactly where I am. Here I'm loving being able to ride a bicycle everywhere and prending I'm actually fit because I'm not struggling up any pathetically gently rises.

I've also eaten the second-best pizza of my life this week. The best was consumed at a fairylight bedecked restaurant by the name of Babylon, complete with crocheted lightshades, red check table cloths and maps of Italy, situated in Huay Geaw Road (spelling could be completely wrong) in Chiangmai, Thailand. That pizza was without a doubt the best I've ever eaten - lovely light melt-in-your-mouth crust, perfect amount of toppings, not a great pile, and perfectley tasty. Babylon was run by a big ol' Italian man and his small Thai wife.

So this week I had organic pizza at Good Life in Glenelg - seriously magic pizza - it's awsomness must be tried to be fully appreciated! Go there - now!

inspired art

smworkofart
Originally uploaded by manthatcooks.

I found this image while surfing flickr last night - It's the first work of art in a long time that's make me laugh out loud - unfortunately the owner of the flickr page who posted this informed me they sold out - what I wouldn't give to own a large work of art!

domestic bliss

note: size of kitchen relative to size of tyres

poor neglected blog

Oh poor neglected blog! Every time I walk past the computer I feel guilty - I think of all the crap in my head and say "head why can't you come up with something to say, or some ideas to work through, or some witty bit of something you read to relate to the internet?" and my head says "... think I'll wag my sewing class where I'm failing zipper insertion 101 (but getting advanced high distinctions in unpicking) so I can watch spicks 'n specks which I haven't seen in months". And then the cold hard reality that I've blown my broadband downloads and no longer have the patience to wait more than a second for anything, and should be writing that grant acquittal and should really be doing a whole bunch of other stuff takes over... and my poor blog disappears into distant recent memory.

To add to that tedious list of excuses dear blog I'v gone and got myself my first ever full time permanent job in the public service (woohoo), after thirty years of part-time casual three jobs at once or flat broke nothin' I'm adding another layer to the domesticated picture of Queanbeyan life. I now have the job, the mortgage, the knee-high grass (summer will take care of that), a wedding ring (post eleven years of living in sin), three chickens hanging round the five vehicles in the yard - and a front room full of drum kits and car parts. Neither of which I know anything about but the old man keeps himself busy doing mysterious stuff with them - right at this very moment he's sitting in the kitchen doing something to the mag wheels with the white walls on them.

Next time I'll revert to the intended subject matter - If I can remember what that was... (come on brain there's intelligent witty commentary in there somewhere...

Imploding and Exploding Organs

Imploding and Exploding Organs is the subtitle of a chapter called Life Under Pressure in a book called Life at the extremes: the science of survival. I haven't read this chapter yet but I'm filled with very graphic imaginary images of organs imploding and exploding. This useful tome - the kind of book it's essential to read if you plan to be an underwater oil rig maintenance person or are travelling to the moon any time soon - also mentions nitrogen intoxication, which happens when you dive beyond a certain depth in the ocean.

"...christened 'the rapture of the deep' by Jacques Cousteau." (I love that phrase)

Basically like alcohol intoxication - the author goes on to say that scientific tests on the effects of nitrogen intoxication have been done and one normally serious scientist who volunteered as a subject cheated on his dexterity test. (I'd love to know how you can cheat on a dexterity test...)

"Such studies sufficed to show that divers suffering from nitrogen narcosis could not be expected to behave responsibly and might react in ways that threatened their own or others' lives. Indeed, some intoxicated scuba-divers have been known to offer their mouth-pieces to the passing fish..."

Apparently people recover very quickly from nitrogen intoxication.

"The typical reaction was,'My God, I'm sober.'

spelling meditation

This is a short version of my first piece of video art.

notes from a page of brainstorming in my sketchbook

- an astral travelling machine - a contradiction
waltz
spirit guides, frogs in the drain, a truck wreck, a light plane crash, a flood, a crime scene

suffocate
sing
striations
an incomplete archive

a man writing an encyclopedia of odd behaviour
shafts of dust filled light
camels

blind

sleeptalk
ear trumpet

think i need a hair cut

black boxes

Got distracted when I posted this video and forgot to say what it is! (blame a very snotty head cold). This video was taken at the NSW Art Gallery of an installation by Evelina Deicmane as part of the Sydney Biennale. The idea is that you stand inside the black boxes and look out through rectangular holes and view the works on the walls. From outside the boxes, the wall pieces appear to be black panels. From inside the box you can see images of people sitting in domestic spaces. It's an interesting work, but I have to admit I found the people interacting with the black boxes and the way they moved around the room just as interesting and nicely absurd.

music for one apartment and six drummers

I love this!

melted glass

I went to my studio the other day - which is really an expensive storage shed until I build some internal walls and get the electricity on - and discovered a dead car out the front. There was another one up the end of the street. Two burnt out cars in my small, quiet, isolated on the edge of town opposite the river very lonely at night street where sits my lonely studio. Mr T went back later and removed the one unburnt wheel. Having just that morning had our perennial groundhog day conversation about the exponentially expanding amount of stuff and the strangly shrinking quantity of storage space in our house, I'm still wondering what can be the use of a single wheel from a vehicle that does not remotely resemble any of the five T already owns? (He's now fallen in love with a white thing in Adelaide with a red leather interior and lots of shiny chrome)

Cool melted glass though...

dead white genius

I hate the genius tag that gets attached to old dead artists like Picasso, but I do heartily recommend the exhibition of his and Dora Maar's work that's on at the NGV at the moment. Fantastic documentation by Maar of the painting of Guernica and great colour pencil drawings. I love colouring.

pants

Last year I was lucky to get to use the Prototype room at the High Court of Australia to show some of my work. The Prototype room was literally built as a prototype to test out some of the materials and design ideas that were being used in the construction of the court building. These days it's an almost forgotten area off to one side of the court that's a bit run down but popular with the occasional bunch of skateboarders.

This got me thinking about inventions - good ones - crap ones - flops - disappointments and great ideas that never quite made it. So I made a series of works inspired by real and made-up inventions called the Amazing museum of spectacular innovations and admirable attempts. The paper permanent press trousers above are my favourites, specially because I have a nice pair of brown 70s ones I modelled these on and also because permanent press trousers were actually invented by an Australian.

weekend in melbourne

Getting to Melbourne late Saturday afternoon somewhat reduces the art viewing opportunities, but I did get to look in the window at Gertrude St on Sunday and saw some great graffiti round that part of town. The highlight of the trip was definitely Hiraki Sawa's video work at the NGV International. Anyone in Melbourne before December should definitely get to see this. Since my last post was a whinge about all things I don't like about video, this one is about what I do like.

Sawa's work was quiet, strange and compelling. All his work uses his own apartment as an environment to create these surreal vignettes and 'events'. One piece follows the shadows of camels and the occasional elephant across the domestic surfaces, mesmerising as they continuously travel across the interior landscape. There are lovely moments where a group of camels circle around a light fitting or climb along the edge of the stairs. In another work miniature aeroplanes use the bed, table and kitchen bench as landing strips, as the video progresses, the hallway becomes a very busy flight path with many planes crossing as they enter and exit through several doorways. What I particularly liked about this work was it appeared simple, yet seemless. The sound tracks were beautifully integrated and you could enter at any time and didn't need to see the entire work to get something out of it. That said, I think I spent about forty minutes in that one section of the gallery and thoroughly enjoyed it. I'm glad I saw the Picasso exhibition first, because after viewing those videos I didn't want to look at anything else - I just wanted to take the memory away with me without jamming anything else in on top.

biennale biennale

Detail of Gormley's Field installation at Pier 2/3 Sydney Biennale. Check out biennaleofsydney.com.au

Went to the Sydney Biennale on the weekend - only saw the MCA and the Pier parts, so I'll be going back to see the rest. I had this instant reaction of irritation when I got there. I immediately started telling Ted what was wrong with each of the works and how it would be better. I needed to chill, get some perspective and find something I enjoyed - which I did.

Highlights of the Biennale for me were:

- Julie Gough's lovely ti tree and cuttlefish installation
- Djambawa Marawili's barks - this work was beautifully installed in Pier 2/4 and had the best artist's statement
- Antony Gormley's impressive Field project - really moving work and placed in such a fantastic environment
- Mona Hatoum's tensely delightful motorised domestic assemblage - really don't know how to describe this one, it's clean, sharp and poignant
- Julie Mehretu and Stephen Vitiello's sound and drawing installation

I only saw a bit of the show - so I need to go back and see the rest. Being tired and hungover means I had a somewhat grumpy encounter with much of the work I saw so the following whinge reflects that particular state of mind.

I love art and most of my waking hours revolve around it - but sometimes it really annoys me. So much installation art tries too hard and wants to make sure you get everything - it ends up coming across more like a museum education display or a documentary. Now I'm getting started on documentaries I also got pissed with how much indifferent video art I saw on the weekend.

The following points are not criticisms of the Biennale but video art in general. Don't get me wrong, I have nothing against video as a genre, and I even make videos myself, but here's what bugs me:

1. Most video art I have seen recently looks like documentary. I love documentaries, but so many artists make something that's not a good documentary and not very engaging art - just doesn't quite get there on either count.
2. I'd like to see artists challenge the genre, mess with it, do something unexpected even...
3. When the gallery is full of videos and there is nowhere to sit I get cranky
4. Noise bleed shits me - you go into a gallery and all the sounds from the different installations overlap creating an irritating cacophany - that makes my head hurt.

That's my whinge about video.

fragments

Where did I lose you, my trampled fantasies?
Andre de Richaud

But exaggeration is always at the summit of any living image.
Bachelard

I have hands to pluck you,
wee thyme of my dreams,
rosemary of my excessive palor
Breton

I heard myself close my eyes, then open them.
Masson

it's too cold

it's too cold
it's too cold
it's waaaay toooo cooold...

I hate the cold, my head needs a beanie on it all the time, hat hair doesn't suit me, the two doonas fall off in the night, my joints hurt, I can't get my car to start.

There was a damn fine frost this morning though - the kind that covers the fields and turns the trees into sparkling ice chandeliers.

I know anyone who comes from a really cold place will laugh at my pathetic inability to cope - but minus two degrees after 9.30am is just so wrong...

slowness

There is a secret bond between slowness and memory, between speed and forgetting. Consider this utterly commonplace situation: a man is walking down the street. At a certain moment he tries to recall something but the recollection escapes him. Automatically, he slows down. Meanwhile, a person who wants to forget a disagreeable incident he has lived through starts unconsciously to speed up his pace, as if he were trying to distance himself from a thing still too close to him in time.

In existential mathematics, that experience takes the form of two basic equations: the degree of slowness is directly proportional to the intensity of memory; the degree of speed is directly proportional to the intensity of forgetting.

Milan Kundera Slowness

weather

I found a couple of notes in my sketch book from last year today - I think they came from Apsley Cherry-Garrard's diary of Scott's tragic voyage to the South Pole:

...the weather was horrid, overcast, gloomy...

...the weather was about as poisonous as one could wish...

Poisonous - what a great word to describe weather!

I've been thinking about turn of last century exploration lately because of all the mountaineer news in the media - what makes people go to such extremes? There's something really fascinating about existing right on the margins of possible existence

There's also another note in my diary at the bottom of a page of scribbly drawings of men pulling sleds:

one and half hours to put on your socks

It reminds me of this other quote that keeps popping back into my head:

...how much exploratory or pioneering activity is performed on the basis of distant displacement of internal objects, seeking legendary wealth?
Lawrence Cawte - Last of the Lunatics

another list of things to make

things to research:

William Francis King - pedestrianism
cloud seeding


things to make:

more hot glue drawings
curiosity cabinet of strange and mysterious anomalies
an online component to the Modest Museum of Impressive Innovations and Admirable Attempts
blimps, flying machines, icebergs
another bicycle grass cutter
heater element sculptures
spinning shadow lanterns

Utopias

Something I discovered reading the Faber Book of Utopias:

Utopia means nowhere or no-place. It has often been taken to mean good place, through confusion of its first syllable with the Greek eu as in euphamism or eulogy. As a result of this mix-up, another word dystopia has been invented, to mean bad place. But strictly speaking, imaginary good places and imaginary bad places are all utopias...

Things to make: (little utopias)

teetering towers made from cardboard and strung with fairy lights
magic lanterns and viewing devices
ear trumpets
melting lampshades
astral travelling machine
flick books using sign language
wax casts of my sneakers
colonial decorative arts reliefs
solar powered jewellery

end of semester

It feels like this semester has lasted all of five seconds... suddenly I'm staring down the barrel of student assessments, end of semester meetings and much multilayered admin. All I want is a week at the coast and a big sleep - maybe I'll get it, I'm waiting to see if I can get hold of a cheap family house to rent. Then I'll finally get to do some drawing and get my head into some new work. Teaching makes me think about art all the time, look at exhibitions and be processing ideas for my own work. I love this time of semester because I see the students pull off some amazing projects, but it's also stressfull when they don't get it together 'till the last minute and it's a huge relief when it's all over and done with. I can't complain about the last minute stuff - I'm so like that myself - at least I've grown out of pulling allnighters.

The image above is from a performance about six or seven years ago. My friend Emma and I spent a day building a cubby house and served tea - I think I need to do some more play like this....

Imagining Antarctica

Last year I made this huge curtain using glue and fishing line. I used a hot glue gun to draw on glass. I then peeled the glue patterns off and stitched them into long panels using fishing line. I'm posting this pic tonight because I still find it hard to believe I pulled it off. The curtain was 6 metres long and 4 wide. I'm thinking about doing some more work with this material, but probably not on that scale again.

Ted told me that the safety data sheet for hot glue advises users to wear goggles when gluing because, apparently your eyes can absorb fumes from the glue. He didn't seem to think you needed to wear a mask though...

Emily

I got up early this morning to make some work for a little exhibition - due in yesterday, and ended up cleaning out a box in my studio. I'm doing bouts of cleaning so I can move the piles of junk to the new studio down the road (yay!) Now I have a nice big shed away from my house - I can go there and not be walking plaster into the living room and getting wax on the kitchen floor - and - not be interrupted by guilt associated with what a desperate mess the rest of the house is and I really should be cleaning the bathroom.

Anyway in that first stage of cleaning where I really just redistribute the junk further across the floor I discovered a little Emily Dickinson book and was reminded of some of my favourite bits of her writing:

Presentiment is that long shadow on the lawn
Indicative that suns go down;
The notice to the startled grass
That darkness is about to pass.

Love that bit about the startled grass - and another one on dawn:

When night is almost done,
And sunrise grows so near
That we can touch the spaces,
It's time to smooth the hair

And get the dimples ready,
And wonder we would care
For that old faded midnight
That frightened but an hour

Emily you rock...

Live

Anyone in the Canberra region, make sure you check out Steven Holland's installation Live at the Canberra Museum and Gallery

CMAG

It's inspired by a seven metre long snake skin shot by Steven's partner's Grandfather in 1910. The show opened on Saturday and Steven had the original skin there to show us - I truly couldn't imagine a snake on that scale 'till I saw this skin.

Steven spoke very poetically about our various associations with snakes and pointed out that live spelt backwards is evil. He's fascinated by the way we ascribe human qualities to animals and the kinds of relationships we have with them.

spelling meditation

This pic is a still from my first ever video piece. I've got loads of documentation of performances on video, but this is the first actual video work I've made. It's interesting because I started learning Auslan (Australian sign language) a couple of years ago, and it's taken this long for it to start to appear in my work. I don't really know what I think of it yet, I literally made it last weekend and stuck it in an exhibition on Tuesday. I just videoed my own hands spelling the word meditation over and over again. When you see the video you see the spelling from the point of view of the speller. Normally if you are watching someone sign you see the other side of their hands - so it's like the viewer of the video could be spelling the words to themself, carrying on an internal dialogue - provided they know how to finger spell...

Crispy morning

It's a crispy winter morning here - icy even. I'm sitting at the desk with the heater right beside my knees and thinking about cleaning the house, moving into the studio, marking essays and how I'm not actually doing any of those things. Bear and I had a conversation last week about how our house looks like our bedrooms did when we were sixteen. But now it's an entire house that's in a state of chaos. There's not a single surface clear of piles of paper, books, clothes, works of art and random junk. Now I have a studio (great big freezing shed a five minute walk from home) I have no excuse for using the house as a workspace. Well I guess I'd better get onto it and move all my junk over there so we can have a front room again. Poor bear has started lamenting that he can't remember when we last had a meal at our kitchen table, because it's buried under the piles of stuff that have taken over the house. Maybe it's an alien plot and all the stuff is secretly multiplying at night - so every time I clear a space, it is magically consumed by more colonizing stuff.