Farrer election result

The result of the Farrer by-election shows a massive swing that must be understood as a protest vote

It wasn't a popular candidate, but a representative of a party in tune with disenfranchised voters.

Water is the big issue in Farrer and the major parties are all blamed for the impacts from buying water out of the catchment.

One thing that isn't being acknowledged is the dissatisfaction from Covid responses, which I think has solidified as a form of opposition -- because on the surface the mess of ideologies doesn't make any sense.

Another aspect is growing unpopularity of Labor in NSW and my guess is that the party didn't run a candidate because they knew it would attract all of the criticism toward the Minns government, particularly in response to gun legislation.

The decline in informal voting is interesting and I think shows the number of disgruntled voters has increased.

A key issue in the Riverina is the desire for changes to how water is managed in our country.

The NSW agencies badly treating a wetland has been in the news and it's worth remembering that the management of these resources was the trigger for the creation of the Murray-Darling management plan.

This region, the Murrumbidgee Irrigation Area, delivers a significant contribution to the state's GDP and, if you look into some of the ABC's remarkable investigations on Four Corners, there are surprising examples of how investments in industrial agriculture here should be gaining more scrutiny.

For a local it is significant to see the local independent candidate reflecting the longtime aim of the independent state member, Helen Dalton, to see a royal commission into the water market.

You might remember that she was courted by One Nation for this election.

It seems surprising to me that you don't need to look far to start connecting dots, given how some of the same names that have been discoloured in the rort of privatising water were out campaigning in this region.

If you're a student of history then you know the Riverina has been exploited by politicians for literally centuries and it takes a royal commission for the facts to be brought to light and justice to be served.

After FriendlyJordies' attempt at connecting the dots in the region, I guess I can understand why some journalists might hesitate but I wish more would look further into this area!

Robo kettle

Serve the public trust by offering a cuppa

Given those that saw Robocop in the cinemas are approaching an age that should be entitled to a pension, this meme hits closer to home than the satire of the original!

Capcha culture

As I logged into Facebook I pondered how the fire hydrants shown here look nothing like those in my part of the world

If I didn't watch TV shows from North America, would I know how to answer this question?

Magpie stencil

Keen to see how this one goes

Beginning to think I should cut a series of songbird stencils.

I cut a second stencil and painted a couple of birds onto a guitar body after giving it a wash with diluted paint leftover after doing the sides.

Anyway, a day later I didn't like the top bird and decided to cut another stencil.

I also bought a cheap secondhand electric sander and now the guitar looks like this.

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. 

 

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.

Wulf in paperback

I've been reading my way through a few books by Andrea Wulf 

So it was a thrill to find she'd signed this copy.

Tone up

You're not like the others

Everyone has their own perspective and sharing it is a gift.

On a residency another artist told me that it'd taken a therapist to explain to their significant other how important having a creative practise was for their sanity. 

As a result they moved to part-time work and are now winning prizes for innovative art.

Looking at Facebook

I keep pondering the semiotics of the images when I visit Facebook

The collage of stock library-looking photos have obviously been carefully selected to reflect values.

Having been through the process while working on marketing documents for institutions, I feel that I have an understanding of some of those decisions.

There are a disproportionate number of people of colour, above the statistical average, which signifies diversity.

The heart and smiley icons are significant symbols within the Facebook ecosystem, but here signify passions and humour -- rather than the angry-looking emoji that also plays a role in these responses.

Significantly for a platform that has been shown to promote negative emotions to drive engagement for advertisers, the site promotes itself as a happy place for friendship.

It seems ironic given how much of the newsfeed is now occupied by pages we didn't choose to follow.

The timestamp is where the darker aspects of Facebook's surveillance are acknowledged, but it is as much something that users engage in as we can see when our messages are seen by recipients as well as getting a sense of what they're doing and with whom.

Of all the roles that Facebook now plays in users' lives, it's the image of the knotted blue rope that prompted my reflection.

Why would a twisted thread be significant enough to go on the homepage of Facebook's website?

It looks sorta like a germ photographed under an electron microscope!

Yet the connotation must be that we are tied together through the website.

Although, now that I think about it, maybe I am the germ within their clean user-interface and attempting to infect your experience with some skepticism.

Facebook has been central within our societies and the suppression of journalism in favour of knee-jerk emotions and rage-baiting shows how dangerous it continues to be for democracies.

Journalism used to be known as the fourth pillar of democracy and we're still getting a sense of how communities can operate without a sense of the facts that profession would establish and interrogate.

So the deeper significance of the knot is that we're tied together by a US-based corporation as it dismantles democracies.

Lessons

Semester begins again next week and I'll be sent to practice teaching in a school during May

Yesterday I noticed the uni had given me three days to complete the checklist, which seemed strange since that deadline is ahead of the course starting and many students wouldn't be looking at emails yet.

One of the items on that list was information on the clothing that would be appropriate for a student attending a school, which surprised me to learn that denim is discouraged.

Most teachers I see dress in a smart casual way, except for special days like excursions when I feel prudish for pondering whether their pants aren't underwear. 

I have mixed feelings about teachers wearing tights or those skimpy things which resemble bike shorts, probably due to feeling that I would be cancelled if I wore them. 

Please wash your hands