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 Griffith 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 Griffith Regional Theatre

This project has been supported by Griffith City Council through their 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. 

 

Automaton

This leaves me feeling like I might be a robot

The capcha requires so many ticks that it feels like a trick and, sure enough, I had to do another.

Speak up!

I'm usually the silent one

It was something that confronted me while working in a school last year, when I was reminded that I had a duty to actively engage in establishing acceptable behaviour among students.

That aspect of becoming a teacher and being a nagging voice isn't comfortable for me, but I am learning to fit that role as well as being a better ally.

The first piece

 

Composition assignment

One of the things about having kids is recognising patterns everywhere

 

I see aspects of myself and also how they vary. So it's been interesting working with my second son on the same musical assignment that my first son had a few years ago.

Both boys asked for keyboards to write on, then observed the performance of moving from one chord to another could be challenging. It's at this point that I reiterate how a great product like Suzuki's Omnichord addresses this for non-performing musicians. Nah, they say while visibly recoiling, let me try programming beats in Ableton Live.

After happily programming beats for a while, they lose interest and time passes until the deadline is drawing closer. I draw their attention to how time-consuming it is to pick drum samples after programming one loop, then they realise how the Omnichord exports half a dozen parts as soon as you press a button.

It's at this point that the experience of supporting their songwriting diverges, as my first son took a whimsical "what if it were Bossanova" idea toward improvising a melody. Meanwhile, this week my youngest took a couple of lessons toward writing a song.

We looked at the photo and I told him to plot an intro, a verse, a chorus, a middle-eight and a double chorus before concluding. After a couple of attempts he recorded a full take playing an arrangement from start to finish, with a bit where he got lost adding a build-up.

A day went past and he picked instruments from Ableton Live, as well as exploring the MIDI functions.

The night before the assignment is due and he returns to the project, agreeing that it needs something. We consider improvising a vocal that can be turned to MIDI and made into a solo instrument.

Then I mention my idea that it could be a protest song pointing out the problems with his high school's toilets. My second son has been listening to Bob Dylan and considers the idea, how would it go? I wrote some lyrics weeks earlier based on the Dr John song he likes.

My son had his phone out and starts drafting ideas, which are tested against the existing arrangement to identify lengths for verses and lyrics. After singing it through one time, we record it and mix the result.