Three wax Aine waiting after Midnight

And we begin again ...

After Midnight. Happy (and hopeful) New Year to all. Pic by Spike Deane

cud - two American artists talk

John Drury and Robert Miller: Chicago Museum of Art project

Spike and I attended an artist's talk organised by the Canberra Glass Works.  John Drury and Robert Miller have worked together for 25 years in what i would describe as arts-based community development work.  the art produced, it seems to me, is less important than - maybe even incidental to - the processes of connection and relationship building that leads to the art.  The talk - 20 minutes too long IMHO - was interesting enough, aided by a slide presentation that confirmed for me that it is the community engagement rather than final art work that matters.

I'm not quite sure what the group of Canberra glass makers would have thought of it all.  there's a tension, I think, between Drury / Miller's commitment to found objects and readymades as the building blocks of their community-focused arts projects on the one hand and the labour intensive, technically precise and often highly personal works crafted by the bunch of 'hands-on' artisans and artists I've been introduced to by Spike.

but we had a mostly pleasant evening with some interesting ideas floated by a couple of interesting men from America.  There are worse ways to spend a Friday evening.  The food at the Kingston Hotel was ... the kindest word was ordinary and i had a quadriplegic problem that led me to scurry away as soon as the talk was done.  But that apart, I enjoyed my evening.

book-alanche

 

Living with a former librarian one's books and lives are always so supremely well-ordered ...

Poppies

Poppies. Bought yesterday at the fabby farmers market in north Canberra.

Life in a box ... or two ...

Our bedroom, ready for the removalists (an anarchosyndicalist boy band from 1920s Soviet Russia). The lost Ark of the Covenant could be in there!!

Essentials of moving

Essentials for moving to Canberra on Sunday: 3 mysterious boxes of who knows what from the studio, 1 metre-long log, 1 metre-long pink plastic mould covered in white plaster (like something out of Alien), 3 half-metre branches, half a Bunnings toolkit and a square metre of steel. Joy.

Show of the year ... so far.

Kirra Gallery, Federation Square, Melbourne

Happy re-cycler

ME OF PANDA

To Rozelle and the bicycle shop to fit a new inner tube for my wheelchair then the car park at SCA to drop off a library book then the car park at Bunnings, Ashfield, (which is always a joy) then the car park at JayCar, Parramatta road, Croydon then the car park at the Addison Road Community Centre, Marrickville.  At least I got out the van there to negotiate the narrow paths of Reverse Garbage in search of "..ME OF PANDA".  Who knew?  At least one shopper seems to have found a bargain.

Dog Debris in Dooralong

We're visiting Spike's parents at their self-built home in the Dooralong Valley.  When we arrived the soft toys of Fingle and Harry, the dogs, were scattered across the paddock like the collateral  damage of a bomb blast.  Spike gathered together the collection of sheep, cows and a rugby 'ball', ready for games of fetch after lunch.

Silver threads and golden needles ...

  My side of the bed because ... the floor is not for filing.

Opening Night

The artist and her parents at Hatched.

Waiting for the AV guys

The show opens on Friday.  Spike's work is in boxes waiting for the AV guys to fix a problem with projection.  At least the plinth is unwrapped!!! But there's time.  So, it having been a very long day with an early 5-hour flight from Sydney we're going back to the hotel for a sleep before tonight's meal with Spike's mum and dad.  

Voice

Spike had an interesting seminar at the Art College today, considering 'voice' in writing.  Her tutor had referred the class to a questioning article / sceptical review from The New Yorker (2004) written by Louis Menand.  Spike and her class mates were asked to "bring to class an example (no more than two paragraphs) of some writing (any genre) where you think the writer's voice is strong."  Spike selected the first page of Anansi Boys by Neil Gaiman.  Good choice.  If it had been me going to class, I'd have taken Prufrock.  No more constructed voice in literature. 

LET us go then, you and I,
When the evening is spread out against the sky
Like a patient etherized upon a table;
Let us go, through certain half-deserted streets,
The muttering retreats
Of restless nights in one-night cheap hotels
And sawdust restaurants with oyster-shells:

Double Bill

Good Friday in Sydney is quiet; offices shut, shopping malls closed (in the case of the Broadway Westfield, padlocked - of all the old-fashioned technologies to use - at one entrance), light traffic on the roads and comparatively easy parking.  Spike had an afternoon's work at the Glass Artist's Gallery in Glebe so I went to Hoyts adjacent to the padlocked shopping mall.  I arrived just in time for Wrath of the Titans 3D to be the only option that didn't require me to wait an hour in the lobby so I paid my money and entered the cinema with a bottle of water, bag of crisps and a pair of 3D specs that might have fitted a teenager.

What can I say?  WOTT is less tedious than COTT.  It takes itself far less seriously so the light smattering of humour worked well enough.  It is silliness on a stick, of course.  But that's not necessarily a bad status to aim for, so long as there is fun along the way.  There wasn't quite enough fun for my tastes while there was way, way too much hand-held camera, in the thick of the action cliche that's well past its sell-by date.  There is a bit of me thinks that if you're going to enter the territory of the epic tale with gods, demi-gods and heroes on winged horses you have to commit yourself totally: step through the magical portal, suspend our disbelief and step back, impress us with the magnitude, epic qualities of an epic tale.   Close up and personal doesn't quite cut the mustard.  All the same, I've seen worse.  And it seemed mercifully short, which was just as well.

I was back in the foyer by 2:20, close to four hours still to go so I searched Glee Books (without success) for a copy of LA Confidential then returned to Hoyts.  My second choice was John Madden's The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel, which was sweet (but mercifully not too sweet), gently funny, genuinely poignant at points and not too heavily laden with the lessons and wisdom we may acquire with age.  The cream of British acting talent of a certain age performed impeccably - I could watch Tom Wilkinson in anything (he is truly great at understatement, which makes his rare outburst of passion always more thrilling) and Judi Dench was, well ... Judi Dench.  Maggie Smith, simply flawless (even though her narrative journey was implausible to the point of being fanciful).  Dev Patel gave a truly engaging performance, perhaps the standout of the piece (given those he was in the mix with).  He's clearly been learning his craft since Slumdog shot him to fame.

I was particularly amused at the coincidence of my choices that put the irrepressible Bill Nighy in both movies as the barking mad, brilliant and brave Haphaestus in WOTT and the hapless Douglas in TBEMH.  He was terrific value in both, possibly the best thing about WOTT and triumphant in a worm that turned kind of way in TBEMH.  Either way, worth his weight in gold.

All in all, an enjoyable Friday afternoon followed by cocktails and nibbles (rather more than that to be fair) at the excellent, friendly The Little Guy in Glebe Point Road.

National student prize show 2012

The Wagga Wagga gallery housing the national glass collection filled by excellent student work from around Australia. Into The Woods by Spike looked very good among very good other pieces.  Good show

After ...

Photo by Spike

Emerging Artists Exhibit

From the end of Semester show of the glass studio at Sydney College of the Arts ...

Spike

Nadine

Erica

Katie Ann

And today's word is ...

... essay

 

Found here

a. A short literary composition on a single subject, usually presenting the personal view of the author.

b. Something resembling such a composition: a photojournalistic essay.

2. A testing or trial of the value or nature of a thing: an essay of the students' capabilities.

3. An initial attempt or endeavor, especially a tentative attempt.

From ethnographic artifact to work of art...

Not finished yet.

Scrambled on Enmore Road

My breakfast at Scrambled, Enmore Road.  Spike made the better choice ... something Mexican ... but I seem to have deleted it from my phone.  The food was so-so; nothing to get excited about but decent enough to convince you that you'd eaten a hearty breakfast ... even at one o'clock or thereabouts.  We'd had a busy morning.

The cafe is worth visiting.  Friendly folk, mixed clientele, plenty to watch go bye on Enmore Road.  I'm not wildly enthusiastic about the smokers on the pavement tables just beyond the open shop-front.  If it's true that barely 17 per cent of adults smoke, I begin to think we've reached the point where smoking should not be permitted wherever food is served.  That's a Jack sentence, which one tries to avoid as much as possible.  Here's a simpler version: smoking ought not to be permissible wherever food is served.  Full stop.
.