Holiday break
So the idea of a holiday break being a drum interlude is cool
I also like the approach of taking a break during the holiday, as in withdrawing from regular activities to focus on more intimate ones.
The break that I'm improvising over here is, of course the most-sampled song in electronic music: the Amen break by The Winstons.
It really is remarkable that such a potent piece of art did not get the recognition it deserves, yet has influenced so much and appeared so broadly through interpretation and transformation.
In this way I'd like to celebrate the end of the year with a break of my own and wish everyone a good one.
Community recognition statement
Today I ventured into the Soldiers Club to be formally recognised by the local member.
It was surprising to be remembered for a project from four years ago, but really excellent to be bignoted to parliament and quoted in Hansard.
Auslander
Meanwhile, I was thinking about the Labor Government backing out of their deal with the Greens to do more to protect Australia's environment.
Man bites dog
This was unexpected
Then I saw it was released by Moog!
It's like the wildest idea for a crossover, an influential and very adult movie from the '90s with one of the big synthesiser brands.
But, it's not.
This seems to be a game for kids.
Darkness
damp smell
a hum in the air
arrives from all directions
as reeds warble
we walk apart
along a gravel path
our footsteps breaking
into the swamp
among cumbungi
glimpses of water
families in feathers
the bird hide a misnomer
when ascended we are seen
a stage for a splashing applause
pelicans remain unmoved
unwilling to leave the sparse roosts
their heavy beaks return
to rest on folded wings
a humming intensifies
on a breeze cool with night
as dawn approaches
behind the Brobenah Hills
our hands touch
while passing binoculars
distances are overcome
glowing spoonbills stride the outskirts
swans effortless
sunrise passes
we return to our lives
Highly commended
Third time as runner-up in the Murrumbidgee Short Story Competition
Gradations with u
Normally I hate graduations and have skipped them whenever I can
There's long been a sense for me that they're fake and, while wanting to be well-meaning, they offer empty platitudes with small slices of bland sandwiches after a flavourless ceremony.
Maybe that speaks more to my own experience, as it probably began when I spoke as Chair of the School Board at my graduation and then went on unemployment benefits for four years rather than finding a world of opportunity.
Then, four years after finally accessing the financial support to study, I refused to wear a gown to my uni graduation and found that lots of people told me that I looked better for dressing differently.
It was an experience that might have hardened my aloofness and desire to be distinct from whatever everyone else was doing, which honestly mightn't have worked out so well in the long run.
I've changed careers a handful of times and it feels like that restlessness has been speeding up.
If there's one thing that's kept a sense of regularity since I stopped owning a dog, it has been being a parent.
This role has provided so many opportunities to revisit those difficult memories of being a child and find a new perspective that's sympathetic toward my own parents.
Therapy would have been cheaper and now I wonder if my own children will begrudge me for moments of selfishness or recognise the struggle to keep sane as obligations multiply and come into conflict with our lives together?
Anyway, today I went to my child's graduation ceremony and came away with a very different experience.
My daughter wasn't the first of my kids to finish high school, so I didn't have the shock of wondering why her class was so small.
At our regional high school it seems more than half the class will leave at the end of Year 10 to find jobs, apprenticeships or maybe they move away for opportunities in a city.
The Principal spoke predictably about how this class of students arrived five years earlier as children and were now leaving as young adults.
Ha, I thought, what a world they’ve got to find their way through.
Then she recognised that something significant happened in Year Eight, when everyone had been forced to learn how to study online.
There was a worldwide pandemic that saw the stocks of Zoom rise and gave me a firsthand observation of how differently my children approached their studies.
My oldest child struggled without the face-to-face opportunities to be assured he understood the expectations of an assessment.
My youngest seemed to get everything finished within an hour and spent the rest of the day in Minecraft.
My daughter, a middle child, was often so quiet as to be unnoticed.
She would retreat to her bedroom and I began to recognise her resourcefulness, as she never asked for assistance and clearly had observed that Google had all the answers.
When I enquired about assessments she showed me how a group of friends negotiated in a messaging application to divide the workload.
I saw this chat group was named "Boomer remover" and callously admired the dark humour as the casualties began to rise.
Now at her graduation, I listened to people occasionally coughing around me and wondered if I was going to catch COVID again.
Many don’t acknowledge the pandemic continues.
My reflections were disrupted by movement on the stage as the speeches that blah-ed in the background came to lull.
A couple were moving with long hair that looked like something from a time before I had hair of my own.
A young man with a mullet, then a young woman took to the podium with flat long flowing centre-parted hair, that's the style of the day again it seems.
Young Mullet recounted how they'd been told they were the worst Year Seven in 25 years, while Centre-Part spoke about how they had been able to observe changes in their year advisor as he found love and got married.
There was a weird sense that something shifted in me, as I realised the kids had been watching as the world stopped and was restarted.
They had likely also wondered if anyone knew what they were doing while a defining moment in our lives entered every house and then was swept aside by the rush to resume regular life.
Often it seems a dissonance to hear people minimising the risk of lifelong debilitation with a phrase like "spicy cough" so their aspirations can fly again to holiday in unimaginative destinations.
And it occurred to me that this is the way of things, like seasons changing, inevitably cycling through changes that feel like gentle progress while really remaining on the spot like pedalling on an exercise bike.
My cynicism concluded that classes keep graduating and people keep standing behind podiums telling people there is something to look forward to.
Then the most unlikely thing happened, the graduating class danced out of the auditorium.
I don't know when choreographed dancing at graduations became a thing and I suspect I might have seen it at a previous ceremony and thought it was naff.
However, today I looked into 41 joyful faces and didn't see a single cynical outsider pretending to go through the moves.
It was remarkable that a group could agree on music, let alone the steps to go with it.
The graduation program listed names of students that I'd been hearing since my daughter joined kindergarten and, as I looked around, the parents' faces I'd known from attending assemblies all looked older.
That's one thing that's different from my schooling, I went to five different schools and my daughter has only known two.
I wondered if this little community in the Riverina had provided something more than being little.
We walked outside into the sunshine to find the students talking excitedly in small groups.
People posed for photos and I had the strangest sensation of excitement for the possibilities these young people have waiting for them.
So much is changing and there have been challenges, yet the kids have grown up and I realised that I had too.
My own relationship with schools is about to be approached from a new angle, as I prepare to enter classrooms as a teacher.
As I reflect on how much I've resented sitting through school assemblies and speeches for decades now, it comes as a shock to realise that I will have opportunities to be that blahing voice at the podium after I graduate.
I hope to have the same enthusiasm and excitement that I have seen on the faces of students.
Maybe I will know that mask-like smile that I see teachers wear during public events at schools.
Or perhaps I should recognise the times have changed and learn to dance?
Time really does move in circles, lapping seasons and ticking over years.
Each revolution brings a new perspective on the next.
I just need to keep learning new moves to stay relevant.
That look
I was hanging washing on the line this afternoon
The sparrows in the yard sounded agitated, then I saw this one caught on a branch.
Looking over them and it reminds me of Howard Arkley's Nick Cave painting in the National Portrait Gallery.
The way everything is soft except the light reflected in the eye.
It is dizzying to stand too close to Arkley's work.
If you let it fill your outlook, one's eyes try to reconcile the depth of field.
Just as it now was unsettling to watch the sparrow spinning around trying to take flight.
Don't let your dreams give up on you
Although, now that I think about it, Kleon has a book called Steal Like An Artist so he's probably on brand and practicing what he preaches!
Overcoming distance education hurdles
Earlier this year I got a scholarship to train as a school teacher
It's been fun to go back to uni, although I am conscious the attrition rate for distance education is higher than that for students studying education -- so the challenges must multiply!
One of my assessments for uni this semester is the aptly-named "hurdle" worth 0% that involves sitting the LANTITE test required of teachers to demonstrate literacy and numeracy.
This test uses a remote proctoring service based in the USA for regional students and was posing problems for my laptop's RAM and home broadband.
(I had resisted previously because I don't need their other services and who wants to be associated with an acronym that sounds like cuck?)
Australian internet often leaves a lot to be desired and service providers have been criticised for promoting speeds that don't reflect the bandwidth available to users during peak times.
Anyway, I think I've found a solution for my final LANTITE attempt today for 2024.
I reduced the screen resolution from 1920 pixels to 720 and now the proctoring service's test says I could host four students on my connection!
Now I'm wondering if I should offer my caravan as a study centre?
Halloween exam
Amused by this requirement while I attempting to log into the LANTITE exam on Halloween
Or perhaps they're going to check my Origami skills?
It seems weird that I can have two sheets of paper but nothing for making a mark!
Where did the bands go?
Rick Beato raises an interesting observation here about how few contemporary bands appear in the charts
I think one of the things he misses is that pretty much all of recorded music is available online. In the past albums would go out of print, unless they were really popular.
The other thing is that contemporary music is so much more competitive, with that many more artists and they don't get the budgets and experience available to previous generations.
(Part of me is amazed at the older stuff that my kids listen to, but another part of me ponders those two points above.)
Another factor influencing their ongoing success might be that by the 1990s many bands had stopped touring material before recording it, which means they wrote and recorded songs without performing them for audiences and missed having that opportunity to fine-tune structures or develop material beyond to be more memorable.
And, yet another idea, the demise of bands fits within a broader trend identified in Bowling Alone: The Collapse and Revival of American Community, a nonfiction book by Robert D. Putnam published in the year 2000. (After all, Regurgitator sang that "Music is sport!")
Peed off
There really are too many questions in a day, I think.
Recently I read that teachers make an average of 1500 decisions each day and I know that for me this will be mostly deciding not to drink cuppas since I can't wee during classes.
Dear artists
Creative expression is part of my weeks, though not as daily as it used to be
And playing drums or dancing for 10 minutes is a mood-changer.
Collaborations
Music has always been the key requirement for membership of an online colony, along with English for me
The earliest was the Ninja Tune forum that introduced so many remixing techniques, which continues in the Shinobi Cuts Remix Chain albums.
That led to two tracks and the second became a soundtrack for a walk-through the Marea Bright exhibition at the Museum of the Riverina.
Pain in the arts
This morning I listened to a discussion about engaging men in the arts
Yet, once you get past the marquee banners outside those institutions and the million-dollar prices in auction houses, there are less men involved.
Particularly when you go beyond leadership roles or anything that might convey status.
And it was obvious in the Zoom session that, aside from the panel and one gender-ambiguous name, I might've been the only male in the audience.
In fact only three of four men promoted as being on the panel showed up!
So I asked a few pointed questions about the opportunities for men to engage with the arts and hoped to get a conversation going.
For example, I questioned whether education is to blame as a lot of the exercises I see in primary schools are largely paint-by-numbers-type activities rather than processes that encourage reflection.
It's the way that practicing art prompts me to acknowledge my emotional well-being that I think points to the greatest benefits of promoting creative activities.
I mentioned how liberating it is to make art in a regional area and also shared my favourite quote:
“Amateurism,” says Sharifullin, “is what defines provinciality. On the other hand, it’s hard to stay professional when you’re surrounded by philistine stereotypes. People think you’re a weirdo if your happiness doesn’t depend on the size of your bank account. So you must have balls of steel to do arts. It’s not that bad if you have a few like-minded people around, though.”After the Zoom session ended and I'd been for a walk, I reflected on the subject by thinking about my sons.
There's a distinct difference between the oldest and the youngest when it comes to creative practice.
One of them is an active writer and singer, while the other has hated art since he started school.
Then it occurred to me the former is less self-conscious and perhaps more confident in making art, while the latter has often looked for approval from peers.
As I pondered this I returned to the idea that "you must have balls of steel to do arts."
Could it be that men don't engage with the arts because they don't feel confident?
It brought to mind the powerful observation from bell hooks in her book The Will to Change:
The first act of violence that patriarchy demands of males is not violence toward women. Instead patriarchy demands of all males that they engage in acts of psychic self-mutilation, that they kill off the emotional parts of themselves. If an individual is not successful in emotionally crippling himself, he can count on patriarchal men to enact rituals of power that will assault his self-esteem.
Night At The Museum
Griffith Pioneer Park Museum's first night time event in living memory was an explosion of colour
The Museum's historic and replica buildings were bathed in large-scale animations with a variety of styles and materials.
Locals Andrew Keith and Bernard Gray were joined by regional artists Jason Richardson and Greg Pritchard.
The group of eight also learned skills in design and event management for the public outcome on Saturday night.
An audience of over 160 people from all ages attended and were able to appreciate the diversity of projection art techniques.
The opportunities for night time events at the Museum offers a range of possibilities at a venue traditionally used during the day.
Art at the heart
I am a believer there is more in common with art and sport than what divides them
This was an argument I wrote earlier on here, which is becoming a theme as a share this article that a friend recently posted online.
From my perspective the real value in investing in sport or art is getting the broader community involved.
Imagine how much everyone would gain in their physical and mental health if Australia invested the millions that go to elite sport into programs for accessible arts?
Opportunities for haiku
This is a summary of the presentation that I gave for the Haiku Down Under event last weekend
My aim was to outline various creative strategies for using haiku as ekphrastic, either in responding to other media or being an inspiration for new material.
The presentation outlined opportunities to incorporate poetry into exhibitions, collaborations, music and other approaches to art.
I introduced the work of Garlo Jo and Marco Sebastiano Alessi with discussion of an interview with the former and was joined by the latter for the second half of the presentation.
One benefit of exploring activities like those I promoted is to raise the profile of poetry and help a wider audience gain those benefits familiar to each of us as writers of short reflective works.
When the going gets weird, the weird turn prose!
The title from my session came via self-described “gonzo journalist” Hunter S. Thompson, and it’s an energy which reflects my gonzo approach to haiku: “When the going gets weird, the weird turn pro.”
It led me to give a quick word about definitions, particularly my looseness with them, as I am kinda brash and move fast, so some ideas and definitions tend to get broken along the way — which is a character you’ll see that I’ve embraced in my practices.
I work quickly and don't get too caught up with following rules.
However, early on in the discussion I saw a message from Amelia Fielden in Zoom's chat that kinda derailed me, as she commented that I shouldn't pluralise haiku as haikus because that wasn't how the Japanese would do it.
"Please stop saying haikuS. The word haiku is both singular and plural and does not take S at the end (for plural)"I explained my approach is probably American and reflected on Kerouac's statement:
“The American Haiku is not exactly the Japanese Haiku. The Japanese Haiku is strictly disciplined to seventeen syllables but since the language structure is different I don’t think American Haikus should worry about syllables because American speech is something again."
Not sure if it helps, but my parents were both born in North America so maybe that's part of my heritage.
Introducing Garlo Jo from Bourdeaux
I met Garlo more than a decade ago when he contacted me on Facebook and asked me to contribute to his Vent de Guitares project.
If you own a guitar, it’s a technique that worth trying — use an open tuning and allow the wind to vibrate the strings. It’s a generative approach to music.
Garlo was invited to develop a project in Japan during the mid-90s using this approach and it was there he became interested in haiku.
“In Japan I understood the importance of haikus. A Kyushu newspaper had a haiku each week-end and before the concerts we organised a haiku contest. Maybe haikus is a way to feel nature, even in a big city like Fukuoka, you can listen to the wind by means of bamboo, flags and furins… and haikus.”A haiku competition was developed to complement his musical project and I think that's one good strategy to incorporate poetry into other events.
Garlo followed the project in Japan with the development of his CD 99 Haiku.
“On the CD, each haiku is related to the haiku before by its evocation or by the music. You can listen to my progression or make your own progression.”
This is a good generative idea, a kind of choose-your-own-arrangement. It’s something I want to highlight here as a theme.
“I focused on French and Japanese. I think that the ideal way of listening to this CD is to have one and only one haiku each day for 99 days. A radio station in Kyushu broadcasted the CD that way. It has 99 haikus because 99 tracks is the limit for CDs."
Introducing Crossing Streams
Next I discussed my first experience using haiku in an exhibition for Crossing Streams, which was a collaboration with Marco and the Naviar Records community.
Local writers were invited to contribute to the three-week event in Narrandera during October 2017 and contributors ranged from age eight to eighty-something.
I ran workshops to help develop this material and then illustrated the submissions with my photography.
Working with Marco we selected five poems to be shared with the Naviar Records community and the result was over five hours of original music that was played in the exhibition.
One of these was my first recording using Garlo’s vent de guitar technique in response to a haiku by Peita Vincent.
Also exhibiting was a project developed by Dr Greg Pritchard, who shared his collaboration with weaver Kelly Leonard and also ran a workshop as part of the program of events.
Poetry as a micro-journal
My interest in writing haiku began in 2001 after I moved to Wagga Wagga and got my first mobile phone.
The Short Messaging Service (SMS) function led me to start broadcasting short poems to friends as a way of sharing my observations about living in a new city.
This foundation was based on the seventeen-syllable approach suiting the 140 character limit of SMS.
The microjournal approach developed further in 2016 when I made a new year's resolution to write one each week, then increased from 2017 when I began writing one each day.
These were published on a blog.
It was a creative practice that became useful for generating content.
A body of content provides material you can utilise in a variety of ways, and I’ll outline some ideas that I’ve used.
One idea is rensaku, which I believe is the term for a sequence of haiku.
This was the approach used in my poem River Of Time that was published in the Poetry for the Planet anthology.
These kinds of sequences are also interesting to capture the mood of a year, which I’ve done a couple of times by selecting examples from my microjournal and stringing them together.
Another approach was using haiku with photographs as part of an exhibition at Griffith Regional Art Gallery in 2019, which I also published as the book Earthwords.
The book that developed from an idea that was irresistible to me, incorporating the Cut-up Technique to invite the reader to cut the pages to generate new poetry, either through deliberate selection or random collisions of phrases.
As a writer I liked the way that sometimes so much can be achieved just by swapping the last and first lines.
For more about cut-ups and their history.
Introducing Bassling
Bassling is my musical pseudonym and haiku have played a role.
The cut-up idea was one I used for a performance at a book launch, which I also recorded for the Naviar Records prompt that week.
One more approach to using haiku is the lyrics for Ghostly Melody.
Haiku can require editing to sit into music as lyrics, but can offer great raw material to work into a song.
In conclusion
Haiku and other forms of poetry offer benefits in terms of being a reflective writing practice and it's worth raising the profile of these activities to engage an audience.
There are strategies for stimulating writing, such as adding haiku competitions to other events.
The material produced through writing haiku can lead to a variety of outcomes, whether exhibited or edited into other formats.
My examples included stringing haikus together to make rensaku-style pieces, as well as using the Cut-up Technique to create new material from existing phrases or as a performance.
I have also used haiku as raw material to become song lyrics.
Dancing across generations
Dancing was part of my studies as a primary school student
It was incredibly unpopular as it involved old-fashioned folk dances and hand-holding while moving around a circle.
Unlike how learning music at school led me to avoid taking any lessons for all of my life (yet I now have over a dozen solo albums), I did seek out breakdancing lessons at the local YMCA and learned routines.
However, it’s a different experience for my kids and it’s unlike my upbringing because I never saw my parents dance together.
In comparison my family engaged in dance battles in the kitchen some nights.
So it was obvious to me how social dancing took a massive leap with the popularity of the game Fortnight.
When we were at a Burner event one time and he refused to dance, I encouraged him to just floss a bit and he got such a reaction that he soon moved to the centre of the dance floor.
Night At The Museum
Griffith Pioneer Park Museum will be seen as never seen before at a night-time event on Saturday 7 September
The line-up will include Griffith’s Bernard Gray and Andrew Keith, whose live-coding skills have been a feature of events in Banna Laneway and the local Art Gallery.
Dr Greg Pritchard will be returning to town and he is arguably one of the earliest proponents of projection art in Griffith, when he exhibited his skills while working as the inaugural Regional Arts Development Officer for Western Riverina Arts.
Joining them will be a full class of emerging talent gaining experience under Scott Baker’s tutelage as part of the Bioluminescence Project that has been touring NSW this year.
“It’s also wonderful to add new colours to the landmark location of Pioneer Park Museum.”
Mr Richardson has been active in the Riverina, from adding a projection event to the first Leeton Art Deco Festival in 2011 through to coordinating the InFrequency tour that played events in Yanco and Tanja with many of the same artists involved in workshops and performances.
“I helped establish Red Earth Ecology as an artist-run not-for-profit to develop opportunities in the region,” said Jason Richardson.
The Night At The Museum event will be Jason’s final activity at Griffith Pioneer Park Museum as he leaves the role of curator.
“It’s wonderful to bring colour to this exceptional community-based organisation and I hope everyone will join us in seeing the Museum in a new light,” said Mr Richardson.
“You can bring a torch to add your own light and it will assist families with exploring the event.”
Entry to the event from 7-9pm on Saturday 7 September is by gold coin donation and attendees are required to wear suitable footwear to navigate unsealed pathways at night
Snacks, refreshments and soup will be available for purchase.
Night At The Museum is supported by Griffith Pioneer Park Museum, Red Earth Ecology, Western Riverina Arts and Create NSW through funding from the NSW Government.
Can a gun make you gay?
Fore(gone)sight
One of my favourite moments in Star Wars, a film which admittedly has many moments, is when Obi-Wan Kenobi instructs Luke "your eyes can deceive you, don't trust them"
Humans have at least five senses but sight dominates our lives.
It's been a frustration for me as an interdisciplinary artist that Australian galleries focus mostly on visual media.
It's also been an interest for me as a way to explore opportunities, such as soundtracks for exhibitions or blindfolded tours.
So I'm interested to see that pommel horse champ Stephen Nedoroscik takes off his glasses when he performs. “It’s all about feeling the equipment. I don’t even really see when I’m doing my gymnastics. It’s all in the hands — I can feel everything.”
This also relates to my earlier observation about the shared aspects of art and sport, particularly how they're united in culture.
Many athletes talk about not-thinking when they’re at play.
“I have to focus on not thinking,” says gymnast Simone Biles.
“If you think about a trick, sometimes it makes it harder,” says skateboarder Minna Stess. “When I’m skating, the best thing is to not think at all.”
It reminds me when I'm at a life-drawing class, as soon as I start to think too much about the picture as it takes shape, it will begin to fall apart.
Likewise, I get into the flow state of creativity by being in the present and not worrying about the result.
Seeing is believing, says an adage that's clearly out of date with our world of digital manipulation.
I think seeing is easy to rationalise and also to assure agreement with those sharing a view.
However, I am a believer that appealing to other senses can be more persuasive.
My partner, for example, gets amazing results from smelling good and her exhibitions have included tactile exhibits that defy sight by asking people to put their hands into prepared boxes.
And my sister's cooking is another remarkable skill, which has led me to incorporate cooking into my gallery events through my love of sharing new toasted sandwich recipes.
Sport, like art, are components of our shared culture and I want to encourage everyone to explore their senses.
Vale varnish wattle
Our varnish wattle got blown over
The current location wasn’t ideal, as it meant walking off the path and caught on the clothesline, but I am sorry we won’t be watching the puffy blooms herald the start of another spring.
Live foley sound
It was a series of invitations that led me outside my comfort zone
Her talk was sensational and, although the breakfast was not my usual thing, I had an opportunity to talk with one of our town's creative luminaries.
She was in the process of rehearsing a play for a town festival that promotes Art Deco and the interwar era of the 20th Century.
It was interesting to learn how Leonie had taken lessons from her previous production and arrived at writing a radio play, which allowed the actors to use scripts onstage.
When live sound effects were mentioned she had my full attention.
There was a challenge with ensuring these props could be heard and, after I spoke about the potential for contact microphone, she asked if I was interested in becoming involved.
Sure, I said I'd have a look and see what assistance I could offer.
After a few ideas didn't work, I found the actor providing the foley sound was keen for help.
As I kept going to rehearsals I became part of the play.
It was my first dramatic performance since Ye Gods in year seven at Woden Valley High School and I had a lot of fun.
Photo by my brother Will Macleod.
Railway crossing
It's wild how diesel locomotives cross the road on the way to the supermarket and surprising there are no level crossing boom gates.
The train blasts the airhorns and pushes into the traffic, because who is going to argue with one of these colossal carriages?
Australian culture
It was Tuesday 8 June 2021 when I met Ken Dray, Senior Policy Lead, Policy & Partnerships for Create NSW
Western Riverina Arts had invited a group of locals to a discussion in the Leeton Museum and I asked why sport and the arts were often presented as opposites, when they clearly have so much in common and are united as being cultural activities.
Ken thought only France had a Ministry of Culture that housed both.
Anyway, I was thinking about that conversation now we have the NSW Department of Creative Industries, Tourism, Hospitality and Sport.
Australian culture is sometimes presented as a joke, but I think it's significant that we are the meeting point between the oldest continuous culture recorded in human history and one of the newest, as well as most multicultural.
Many people are surprised when I point out that the Western Riverina region is the most diverse community outside of western Sydney.
My worry is that "creative industries" is too often presented as services like graphic design.
Everyone benefits from engaging with the arts and it needs to be recognised as something more significant than some form of consumption like reading a book, watching a film or buying a souvenir.
Justice for all
"Social justice" is a term in my school reference from the end of Year 12
At the time I was the Chair of the School Board at Lake Tuggeranong College and had lent support to promote various concerns that included seeing condom-vending machines installed in toilets. It's interesting in hindsight that the assistant principal who wrote the reference identified that quality as it has continued to be part of my activities in various communities from lobbying and campaigning through to informing my creative practices.
Over the last decade I've been based in the town of Leeton and put some of my energy toward raising concerns for the benefit of everyone, as well as demonstrating a passion for teaching. I have volunteered my time to campaign for improved services based on the need for equality, particularly in health services and education.
As part of a small group I drew attention to the shortcomings of the local hospital, which is often without a doctor on duty. This included generating media interest and also chairing a public meeting that drew an audience of over 100 people to the neighbouring town of Yanco, as well as elected representatives from the three levels of government. That led me to volunteer my time during elections to support candidates addressing issues of public health, as well as distributing materials to improve funding for public education after the Gonski Review.
There have been various opportunities to share my knowledge and experience with the community. One of my first initiatives while working as a Corporate Communications Manager for Leeton Shire Council was to develop digital capacity in the community, including workshops to assist businesses in getting online (some tourism operators didn't have email at that time) and also demonstrating digital media techniques through workshops. The latter included showing photo-manipulation to children as a school holiday activity at the library and led to developing workshops supported by the regional arts board in using free software for editing digital media.
My skills in developing communications have been part of working in various roles to support community groups and, in turn, has led me to be a founding member of Red Earth Ecology. This organisation provides support to curate exhibitions that raise environmental concerns, as well as being a way to promote the benefits of engaging with art. As a not-for-profit we have used the funds generated through our activities to sponsor a photography competition currently exhibiting, and the Ngurambang exhibition at Griffith Regional Art Gallery last year included a series of presentations to high school students about historical and environmental themes including colonialism and geology.
My experience in producing exhibitions led me to work as a curator in a community museum, where I have found opportunities to engage locals and improve the representation of First Nations history through displays about topics such as Murray Cod and pandemics. I am currently assisting with a projection-based public outcome with the Bioluminescence Project that will focus on the environment through manipulating digital media.
Finally, I think it shows that my interests have aligned in my role as Community Representative for the Griffith Base Hospital Arts Working Group. In this position I have agitated for various outcomes, such as ensuring communities throughout the region have been consulted and that local artists can be considered commissions, gain experience and contribute to the permanent displays.
This is a statement prepared for a recent application and I thought I may as well post it here as well.
Recent project
The next exhibition in the Griffith Regional Theatre’s Artspace will showcase local photography and an historic occasion when it opens on Monday 24 June 2024
“Around 3,000 people enjoyed the day and it was one of the biggest Action Days in recent years,” said Griffith City Mayor Doug Curran.
Traditionally held on the Friday before Easter, since 1971 the Griffith Pioneer Park Museum Action Day has seen the old machinery in action, and the displays that celebrate the history of the region brought to life.
Attendees this year were invited to take photos of the Action Day, and dozens of these images capturing various activities will now be exhibited as part of a competition that will be decided by votes from visitors to the exhibition.
Prizes were sponsored by Red Earth Ecology, a not-for-profit artist-led environmental organisation, who are keen to encourage everyone to engage with the Museum’s significant role in the Riverina landscape.
The Under 18 Category winner has already been announced, being James Favero.
The photographers competing in the Open section include Simone Borg, Emma Kenny, Neil McAliece, Sarah McCorkelle, PJ Lale and John Samuel.
The images have already found an appreciative audience among the staff and volunteers who worked during Action Day.
“We’re so busy focusing on the event that we often don’t get a chance to see all of the attractions,” said exhibition curator and Pioneer Park Museum staff member Dianne Silvester.
“It’s wonderful to see so many people having a great time.”
Theatre manager Marg Andreazza said, “We love using Artspace to exhibit local artists, and this particular exhibition is great because it features photos of a much-loved local event, taken by local people,” Ms Andreazza said.
The Action Day Photography Competition Exhibition will be on public exhibition from Monday 24 June until Friday 16 August with winners notified after it closes.
Switching gears
Recently saw this observation about writing and thought it's something that extends to many creative pursuits
It's something that Michael Stavrou addresses in his book Mixing With Your Mind and he frames these as left and right brain activities.
While this metaphor doesn't do justice to the way our brains operate, it is a really insightful discussion for the proposal that creative people benefit from grouping likeminded tasks.
For example, if you're writing and in a state of flow, then the process can be disrupted by needing to open a dictionary and find the appropriate word.
Someone like Julia Cameron in her book The Artists Way, I think, would likely say to keep writing -- even if it's just repeating the word until the sense of flow returns.
That's the kind of recklessness one can indulge while writing a first draft, before returning at a later time with a more critical perspective to finesse those words with the rigor required for publication.
And I think there's a similar distraction from producing work when a person begins second-guessing what they should be doing, although that is likely more akin to Sartre's notion of "being for others".
Best cheese lately
This has been a favourite in recent months and I was happy to find it half-price at the stupormarket.
I am so grateful to live in an age when truffle has become so plentiful.
(You can find it flavouring chips!)
Worst chips ever
Normally I encourage brands to be adventurous and I think they've done a good job of raising tolerance for spice.
However, the ramen flavour is undefined and a poor representation of the dish.
Door of Knowledge
Flashing
It was the first class where I felt confident to flirt with the model, but nothing could prepare me for the eye contact.
Usually the model is staring past me and not smirking about the muzak playing Duo Lipa as an instrumental.
When I get to the point of having my life flash before my eyes, I expect I'll see a lot of Jo.
Asleep at the handlebar
It brought mind the time that I fell asleep while riding my bike.
I was returning home from a party in Canberra around 4am among frost and probably too drunk.
Between the Governor General's residence and Scrivener Dam is a tunnel that leads under Lady Denman Drive.
It would've been in that tunnel that I had a micro-sleep, as I awoke to the vibrations from straying off the bike path and found myself passing through the trees among the grassy slope that drops toward the Molonglo River.
Anyway, it wasn't something that I'd recommend!
I am, however, impressed with the fellow in Craig's photo and his ability to nap safely on a bicycle.
Air friar
(“He used to relate as the cause of his failure his forgetting to provide himself a tail,” William wrote.) Eilmer may have been the first person to travel any meaningful distance through the sky, but he remained on the ground for the rest of his life."
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