Outsiders

Watching ABC's Insiders this week and their panel discussed the local Farrer by-election

Retiring Liberal Sussan Ley was one of the few remaining moderates within her party and clearly made a statement by leaving when she lost the leadership to Angus Taylor, particularly by forgoing any form of speech to Parliament.

Ley gained the seat after the retirement of Nationals' leader Tim Fischer, another considered a moderate within his party.

So it was surprising that a collection of esteemed political commentators from the city all agreed that Taylor's recent proposals to limit migration were aimed at the Farrer electorate.

When you consider that a city like Griffith has the most culturally and linguistically diverse population west of Western Sydney, you realise how little metropolitan journalists understand regional Australia.

Given how little faith I have in polling results, it's disheartening to see journalists with such limited understanding of an issue important to me.

 

Bigger Fish

Jo observed that within a few guitars I moved from solid colour to painting a scene this week

I call this one Bigger Fish.

After writing a list of possible subject matter I remembered the murray cod exhibition drafts were among the pile of laminated rubbish I've been cutting into stencils, so I worked with those images.

Started painting the edge of the guitar body with the diluted paint from washing brushes and am now marvelling at the marble-like result.

It's also wonderful to observe how the paint layers blend when the oil soaks into the wood.

The guitar bodies are cheap from China and, although described as maple or sycamore, commentators described it as paulownia.

This wood is very light and, while not traditional material for telecasters, is resonant when playing unplugged.

 

 

 

Share a cuppa!

After sketching, making a stencil must be one of the easiest ways for an inexperienced artist realise an idea

In comparison you can see that writing a song requires one to first build the guitar!

A season of cool

A new exhibition in Griffith explores creativity as it moves between mediums and around the world

It's the latest event from the group who developed community art in Griffith like 2024's Night At The Museum and Action Day Photography Competition, as well as the landmark Ngurambang exhibtion in 2023.

The Stay Cool project encompasses writing workshops, Japanese-style short-form poetry and contemporary music composition, as well as photography.

This collaboration between the Riverina's Red Earth Ecology and Italian record label Naviar builds on previous exhibitions, particularly the 'Crossing Streams' exhibition in Narrandera during 2017.

Curator Jason Richardson has been a contributor to Naviar Records' weekly haiku challenges for over a decade and recorded nearly 300 compositions as a result, while also writing his own haiku and publishing the book Earthwords in 2019.

"Ekphrasis is a Greek term for art inspired by other mediums and it describes a process of synthesis that's at the heart of realising new ideas," said Mr Richardson.

"Some say necessity is the mother of invention, but I am inspired by the idea that art builds empathy as it offers the opportunity to see the world through the eyes of others.

"It's the way each of us can not help but bring our own experiences to an activity that infuses creativity with meaning and spirit, which is what Jennifer Yane identifies in their wonderful observation that 'Art is spirituality in drag.'"

The Stay Cool exhibition at the Artspace in the Griffith Regional Theatre includes six 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.

"This collection of words, pictures and music brings together many creative people from around the world, so many that it might be the biggest group exhibition you'll see this year," said Mr Richardson.

"I encourage everyone to see how a picture and a few lines of text can lead to so many wonderful things, and feel what it's like to hear those observations interpreted as movements of air."

Stay Cool will exhibit from 25 April to 31 May at Artspace at the Griffith Regional Theatre

This 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.

 

Late night shopping

This picture of Woden Shopping Centre in 1975 has been stirring memories for me

That orange hue was the lighting for late night shopping, since the skylight looked brighter during the day.

Around the time this photograph was taken I would be led around this location as a small child. In fact my parents had a little harness that I wore to stop me from running away.

I don't remember Tandy in that spot, as it had moved by the time I started shopping for electronics, but next door to that shop in this photo there was a place called Hansel and Gretel.

It was while walking past there that I first smelled coffee. A path was seared into my neurons and I distinctly remember asking my mother what the shop sold.

Mum doesn't drink much coffee and seemed disdainful in her answer, which didn't make sense to me at the time anyway as I was sure she was lying and the smell was chocolate!

Wooden whale

I'm making a wooden whale

My partner reminded me that I'd been considering the possibility of using my chisels for something other than guitar cavities.

Compiling

Every week I record something, but it'd been nearly five years since I last published an album  

So it was cool to find so much material, like this electric ukulele -- which, coincidentally, I fixed the wiring in this guitar this week and it still sounds good.  

(Actually, now that I think about it, this was surprising how simple the soldering seemed after putting off doing that for years but my soldering has gotten better recently.) 

Anyway, if anyone asked me to write a Bond theme then it might sound like this if 007 was going to Hawaii. 

This track is going on my next album, I think, because it's a more straight-forward rock instrumental and those can be collected together. 

However, there was a track with a reversed ukulele part which seemed too similar to sit alongside this track, which is why it's on the album that I published just now.