the first entry from camden head
Well it's been almost a week (6 days 23 hours and 47 minutes to be prescise) since I arrived by train at Kendall NSW and was greeted by Janet and Glen, transported through darkening scenery to the Camden Head Pilot Station. A lot, I am sure, has happened since I left Adelaide but I don't feel I have done very much towards the residency.
A lot of thinking perhaps.
I have only just been connected up to the net today and spent the last 5 hours downloading and responding to emails. The phone connection at the house has been faulty and it's taken this long to get it fixed up. As I intended to keep this blog going on a daily basis to keep track of my thoughts and travels on this little sojourn, I will endeavour to catch up on the last week and a half through subsequent posts.
Canberra was cold. I realised I hadn't been to Canberra for over twenty years. I would like to go back again and spend a week visiting museums and places of "national relevance".
The Bill Viola exhibition which I travelled all the way to our nations capital to see "The Passions" was mostly remarkable. I say mostlly because I felt that some the of the more staged pieces didn't capture the emotion he was supposedly searching for and asking us to empathise with. "Observance" where a procession of people came forward towards the camera to pay their last repects to an unseen coffin, and "The Quintet of The Astonished" where five people were shown reacting to an unseen phenomenon, were too contrived and prescriptive. If Viola wanted to make me feel sadness or be astonished I would have rather seen what the videod characters were seeing. The best piece was the "Five Angels for the Millenium" five huge screens with a sound track to match, of a person diving into the water from various perspectives, speeds, colours forwards or backwards. The bubbles of the water looked like milky ways in the sky. It simply was quite stunning and certainly had a rejoicing or releasing effect on the veiwer. "Emergence" the piece that resembled the look of a traditional religious painting of the passion was at times interesting but again a bit to staged. "Catherine's Room", 5 small screen depicting a time of day and activity of a character within the same room however was poetic and quite mesmerisng.
Basically spent the whole day in the National Gallery with Colin Koch and little Finn whilst Alex Reid was attending Long Paddock. Finn was very good and appreciative of many of the works especially Ron Mueke's Pregnant Woman - larger than life naked pregnant woman with incredible detail and presence. Spent over $200 in books and art gallery paraphenalia - got this really cool book featuring the latest graphic novelists and comic drawers which made me want to draw comics that night. I attempted to depict two slighly surreal money situations that happened to me that day in my sketch book that night and on Saturday night whilst watching the tv just doodled some little charcters on a page. I should do that more often - especially drawing characters which I have never really done before.
Canberra to Sydney via Qantas and then Sydney to Kendall via rail the next day - a long day of travelling.
Today I spent looking up Maritime Flag Signals and Semaphore signals on the net (after 4 hours of emails) - there is a Signal Shed meters away from the house that was used to store the flags for communicating to the boats out at sea - there is something attractive about distress - distress in the environment, personal distress, distress in cultures. I will look further into this.
A lot of thinking perhaps.
I have only just been connected up to the net today and spent the last 5 hours downloading and responding to emails. The phone connection at the house has been faulty and it's taken this long to get it fixed up. As I intended to keep this blog going on a daily basis to keep track of my thoughts and travels on this little sojourn, I will endeavour to catch up on the last week and a half through subsequent posts.
Canberra was cold. I realised I hadn't been to Canberra for over twenty years. I would like to go back again and spend a week visiting museums and places of "national relevance".
The Bill Viola exhibition which I travelled all the way to our nations capital to see "The Passions" was mostly remarkable. I say mostlly because I felt that some the of the more staged pieces didn't capture the emotion he was supposedly searching for and asking us to empathise with. "Observance" where a procession of people came forward towards the camera to pay their last repects to an unseen coffin, and "The Quintet of The Astonished" where five people were shown reacting to an unseen phenomenon, were too contrived and prescriptive. If Viola wanted to make me feel sadness or be astonished I would have rather seen what the videod characters were seeing. The best piece was the "Five Angels for the Millenium" five huge screens with a sound track to match, of a person diving into the water from various perspectives, speeds, colours forwards or backwards. The bubbles of the water looked like milky ways in the sky. It simply was quite stunning and certainly had a rejoicing or releasing effect on the veiwer. "Emergence" the piece that resembled the look of a traditional religious painting of the passion was at times interesting but again a bit to staged. "Catherine's Room", 5 small screen depicting a time of day and activity of a character within the same room however was poetic and quite mesmerisng.
Basically spent the whole day in the National Gallery with Colin Koch and little Finn whilst Alex Reid was attending Long Paddock. Finn was very good and appreciative of many of the works especially Ron Mueke's Pregnant Woman - larger than life naked pregnant woman with incredible detail and presence. Spent over $200 in books and art gallery paraphenalia - got this really cool book featuring the latest graphic novelists and comic drawers which made me want to draw comics that night. I attempted to depict two slighly surreal money situations that happened to me that day in my sketch book that night and on Saturday night whilst watching the tv just doodled some little charcters on a page. I should do that more often - especially drawing characters which I have never really done before.
Canberra to Sydney via Qantas and then Sydney to Kendall via rail the next day - a long day of travelling.
Today I spent looking up Maritime Flag Signals and Semaphore signals on the net (after 4 hours of emails) - there is a Signal Shed meters away from the house that was used to store the flags for communicating to the boats out at sea - there is something attractive about distress - distress in the environment, personal distress, distress in cultures. I will look further into this.
posted by steve mayhew at
10:50 AM
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