Season of Cool

Great news to learn that our innovative international collaboration has been extended until 24 July

The Stay Cool exhibition in Griffith Regional Theatre's Artspace explores creativity as it moves between mediums and around the world

This project evolved from writing workshops into contemporary music composition and is illustrated with stellar photography.

The collaboration between Red Earth Ecology and Italian record label Naviar builds on previous projects led by Curator Jason Richardson, particularly the 'Crossing Streams' exhibition in Narrandera during 2017.

This group exhibition includes poems that were distributed with the Naviar Records community of musicians, where each inspired dozens of pieces of music linked via QR code, as well as sharing over a dozen other haiku contributed by writers attending the online workshops supported by Western Riverina Arts earlier this year.

Many of the contributors are exhibiting for the first time and some, such as Wagga Wagga's Anne Carpenter, are new to writing haiku poetry.

"I am now so aware of Haiku that my walks with my dog now consist of me tapping my fingers against my leg or in the air as I count out the syllables to describe the ever changing morning sky," said Ms Carpenter. 

"It must look rather funny to others out for their early morning walk. It has given me a new perspective on what I see, hear and feel."

A selection of poems were distributed by Naviar Records to a community of musicians from around the world, who interpreted the words sonically.

"It was really emotional listening to the sound tracks created in response to my haiku," said Capertee Valley-based artist Leanne Wicks.  

"I knew it would be cool to participate but there's something a whole lot deeper going on with this cross-creative collaboration."

An album of music from the Stay Cool project is available to download at https://naviarrecords.bandcamp.com/album/naviar-haiku-32

"It is wonderful to be part of an exhibition in Griffith," said Marco Sebastiano Alessi from Treviso in Italy.

"I hear the city is known for its multiculturalism, so an exhibition of Japanese-style poetry that brings together people from around the world should be right at home."

Stay Cool will exhibit from 25 April to 24 July at Artspace at the Griffith Regional Theatre,

The project has been supported by Griffith Regional Art Gallery, as well as financial assistance from the NSW Government through Western Riverina Arts and Create NSW

Brown falcon with waratah guitar

 

Capcha snap

Recently I decided to stop using Facebook

One of the things that I don't miss is completing these tasks every time I logged in.
 

Let's go algae

Not my photo but it inspires me

Obviously there's a political context for North Americans, but I really like the idea of celebrating microorganisms.

Currently I'm back into milk kefir, for example, and previously I've been keen to celebrate the local cryptogamic crust.

Dreams are wild

Been a while since I wrote about a dream and my partner thought this one was significant

I was at some sort of a corroboree, where First Nations men were bringing food from a shipwreck in a river nestled in a lush, tree-filled valley and that included hot pizza. 

 

When we sat down to eat in a big venue, it was clear that I was attending with people I knew from work and saw Ray from the gallery while I was eating prawns. 

 

An older man sat down, seemed to be my manager and he said he was sorry about the death of my father and how they didn't know what killed him. 

 

I still had a mouth full of food and he said he'd come back later to talk about something important.

 

Later I realised this manager figure looked a lot like my paternal grandfather.

Jo saw this as a healing dream, where I was supported by male ancestors in a process that was still occurring through the nourishing quality of eating. 

 

She asked me to reflect on the role of prawns and, since they were being served by Ray, and I assume it is a symbol for my creative practices. 

 

I have been thinking lately on how few men engage with the arts and how my guitar-building project could be a way to interest more of a male audience. 

 

The location of the river with the shipwreck seemed to be the wilder landscape in a section of the dream from the night before, which was a journey between Sydney and Bega.

Interesting to me is that my grandfather's coast house, where I spent time through my childhood, is in that stretch of the landscape.

Potato

Half a potato is a serve of vegetables

It surprised me when I learned just how nutritious the humble spud can be, so I began eating them more often.

Easy to cook in a microwave but obviously sublime when roasted. 

Cheap too, only $6 for 2.5kg at my local supermarket.

 

ChatGPT knows me

Recently I asked the large language model about myself

I found a fair bit about Jason Richardson — he appears to be a multidisciplinary regional artist from Leeton, NSW, working across sound art, electronic music, photography, writing, curation, and community arts projects.

A few key things about him:

* He’s known musically under the alias **Bassling**, creating experimental/electronic music and sound art heavily influenced by field recordings and regional landscapes. ([RealTime Australia][1])
* His work often focuses on the Riverina environment, especially sound, memory, local history, and community identity. ([RealTime Australia][2])
* He has collaborated with regional arts organisations including Western Riverina Arts, The CAD Factory, and Leeton Art Society Inc. ([Leeton Art Society Inc][3])
* He’s also worked as a curator and arts facilitator in the Riverina region. ([Leeton Art Society Inc][3])

Some notable projects and themes:

### Playground sound recordings

One of his better-known projects involved recording the sounds of playground equipment around Leeton using contact microphones, then transforming those recordings into ambient/electronic compositions and audiovisual installations. ([RealTime Australia][1])

### Environmental and wetlands work

He created community/environmental art around Fivebough Wetlands to raise awareness of the site’s ecological importance, including installations featuring local and migratory birds. ([NSW Landcare Gateway][4])

### Haiku, poetry and sound

He’s also active as a poet and collaborated internationally with sound-art and haiku communities through The Haiku Foundation and Naviar Records. ([The Haiku Foundation][5])

### Regional arts advocacy

Several profiles describe him as someone deeply engaged with regional Australian creative culture — especially how geography and local environments shape artistic practice. ([RealTime Australia][1])

One profile from [RealTime Australia](https://www.realtime.org.au/regional-profile-jason-richardson/?utm_source=chatgpt.com) describes how he became interested in transforming everyday regional sounds into music after exposure to experimental sound artists in Wagga Wagga and the Riverina.

You can also browse some official or arts-related pages here:

* [Leeton Art Society – About / Our Riverina project](https://lasi.com.au/about/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
* [Regional Profile: Jason Richardson (RealTime Australia)](https://www.realtime.org.au/regional-profile-jason-richardson/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
* [Cities and Memory artist spotlight](https://citiesandmemory.com/2025/06/artist-spotlight-jason-richardson/?utm_source=chatgpt.com)
* [Orana Arts creatives profile](https://www.oranaarts.com/creatives?utm_source=chatgpt.com)

If you want, I can also dig deeper into:

* his music releases and where to hear them,
* exhibitions/projects timeline,
* whether he still performs under Bassling,
* interviews or videos,
* or connections with the Riverina experimental arts scene.

[1]: https://www.realtime.org.au/regional-profile-jason-richardson/?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Regional Profile: Jason Richardson | RealTime — Australia"
[2]: https://www.realtime.org.au/a-common-magic/?utm_source=chatgpt.com "A common magic | RealTime — Australia"
[3]: https://lasi.com.au/about/?utm_source=chatgpt.com "About - Leeton Art Society Inc"
[4]: https://landcare.nsw.gov.au/groups/murrumbidgee-landcare-inc/birds-of-a-feather-flock-together?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Birds of a feather flock together — NSW Landcare Gateway"
[5]: https://thehaikufoundation.org/haiku-music-challenge-18/?utm_source=chatgpt.com "Haiku Music Challenge 18 - The Haiku Foundation" 

 

Alda on overcoming writer's block

Recently I finished reading Alan Alda's autobiography Never Have Your Dog Stuffed

It had been on my brother's bookshelf and, since he's lightening his possessions before moving house, I offered to take it away.

Alda is a comedian, so I figured it would be an entertaining read, but I also learned he's a scriptwriter and found his advice on dealing with writer's block to be interesting enough to want to share it here: 

Norman Lear told me once about a way of working that had saved him from severe writer's block... 

I dictated the scenes into a tape recorder and disciplined myself never to go back to change or even listen to what I had said earlier. I was working from an outline; so it became a kind of controlled improvisation, but it poured out. 

[...]

Later, reading the transcript of what I had come up with. things that I couldn't even remember saying. I reworked the script many times before we shot it, but most of that draft... wound up in the picture. 

Socket to me

 

PHONies

One of the weirdest things is how many commentators make the observation that Pauline is Australia's version of Donald, yet fall into the same dismissive position when criticising her 

It's like they somehow expect an increasingly illiterate group of people to read their thoughts in media that most of the population have abandoned. 

(Yes, it's kinda ironic that I'm writing this thought here.) 

I'm beginning to think the only people who consume the Fourth Estate are working in the major political parties, because I doubt there is a readership outside of those vested interests that cares. 

 

Fairy guitar

We had fairy wrens in our garden earlier this year while the zucchini plants were growing

So, of course, I decided to record the scene on a guitar. 

Keep calm and carry on driving

Over decades I've seen my partner go from giving a finger, to keeping it under the dash, to now arriving at the boss move of dishing out a thumbs up

Raising an opposable digit is satisfying for the ambiguity.

It looks like "yeah" but actually would sound like a sarcastic note that ends in "good one, Richard Cranium."

It's also an excellent way to stay calm in the face of Ranger danger.