Tag Archives: art

what stays in our hearts…

06 Tuesday Aug 2019

Posted by in Animals, art

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What is it that invites us to love? Is it an invisible filament wrapping around and around, cocooning us with its energy? Perhaps it is a holographic flicker of familiarity, or simply a previously unknown glimpse of ourselves.

Once in a while we see something that shoots straight into our hearts and stays there. So it was for me with a piece of art that I recently viewed at the Art Gallery of South Australia.

For those who might be traveling to South Australia, the Art Gallery SA is well worth a look. It is a gem of a gallery. Recently they closed the main areas for a traveling exhibition of Impressionist work. During the exhibition, they used the time to reimagine their own future display of treasured works. The five main areas have now been rehung with their own collection, to great advantage. As with most things in Adelaide, the gallery is evolving and becoming its better self.

After we had viewed the main galleries we entered one of the smaller galleries and it was there I was smitten. I can’t remember if I gasped or not, but if I didn’t I should have! I know I stopped for a couple of seconds to try to take in what I was seeing. The object of my initial shock, and immediate attraction, drew me in. Was it real? Was it fake? What was it there to tell?

Thirty five years ago in the Adelaide Zoo, a baby giraffe died. It was kept in the freezer of the Queen Victoria Museum in Launceston, Tasmania, until an artist, jeweller, and taxidermist named Julia deVille discovered it seven years ago.fullsizeoutput_4ffe

Julia deVille commissioned another artist, Kate Rhode, to create the ‘vitrine’ (glass display case) that holds her sensitively posed and adorned creature. All of the jewellery was created using precious metals and jewels especially for this purpose. Perhaps more than most of the art I have seen in my life, this impacted me for its sensitive execution, and thoughtful inspiration. Julia deVille’s question to the world is:

‘why do we divide animals into arbitrary categories such as food, pets, pests, entertainment, endangered and protected species?’IMG_0569

To my thinking, this gorgeous creature would have perished to dust, or lay forever in a cold dark freezer with no one knowing it had ever existed. Instead, it has a new life. It was always one of nature’s works of art, but now it is also a human work of art. 

Always in my heart, whenever I want to visit.

The work is titled ‘Mother is My Monarch’ and these words accompany it:

Mother is My Monarch,

She is the folds of the universe in which I lie and all becomes still

Truth and Royalty

Reverence and the Revered

Feline Lepidoptera*

Mother Monarch

I hail thee

(*Lepidoptera refers to an order of insects including butterflies)

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a voice from the ages…

15 Sunday Apr 2018

Posted by in Life, Travel

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Evening stroll to the concert. View of the Yarra River.

We have just returned from a little ‘warm up’ trip to Melbourne. Even though I arrived home beyond tired, I’m calling this a warm up trip because it is a small prelude to a longer trip in a week’s time, to New Zealand.  Here is how the Melbourne trip came about…

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Satu Vänskä, Principal Violin, Australian Chamber Orchestra

A little over two weeks ago I saw a television interview with Satu Vänskä, Principal Violin, of the Australian Chamber Orchestra. The ACO has on loan a 300 year old Stradivarius Violin and Satu is the talented musician who plays it for their performances. Her interview captivated me as she described the violin as an extension of herself, as her ‘voice’, were she a singer. She explained the ACO has a fundraising program that enables them to purchase vintage instruments which become part of their orchestra. They are not just for show, they are participants in their art. She played a couple of short examples of the music they would be performing. It went straight to my heart, the way things do when we are open to experiences.

It so happens my husband was already booked to travel to Melbourne about a week hence, for a series of meetings. He encouraged me to check the ACO performances and see if they happened to coincide. They did. And there were seats available.

I believe in synchronistic adventure.

We enjoy listening to classical music but are not cognoscenti, especially me. I just listen and enjoy. Neither of us had ever attended an ACO performance. But there was something about the sound of that Stradivarius, even heard over the inferior quality of television speakers, that filtered to my innermost being. I suppose that is what great art does. But there is more…

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Dad and Mom in Rome

About forty years ago, when my Italian speaking skills were fresh enough from studies to be of some use, I organised a trip to Italy for myself and my parents. In those days I could only get two weeks off from work so it was an ambitious plan. We flew into Rome, enjoyed the delights, picked up a rental car and headed to an area about 70 miles outside of Rome to meet my father’s extended family, then south to the Amalfi Coast, then back up through Tuscany and through Cremona on our way to the Lake Como area. Like I said, ambitious. Dad and I took turns driving —oh the things a fearless father and a confident young daughter can achieve! I wonder if my Mother spent the entire trip with white knuckles?

When we neared the Cremona area, Dad sprung on me that he wanted to stop, to see if we could find anything about the Stradivarius violins that were made there in the 18th century. Himself, a musician, Dad was from a very musical family. His father played the violin and his Uncle made violins, one of which is in the possession of the Smithsonian Institute in Washington DC. Musical talent certainly skipped my generation, though perhaps there is a lingering gene or two in my other creative endeavours.

Keep in mind, this was well before GPS systems, the internet or smart phones! We had only an ‘old school’ road map and my Dad’s sketchy knowledge of the Stradivarius. I could scarcely believe we actually found a museum or school or some such place, where there was said to be a Stradivarius. But when we arrived it was ‘chiuso’—closed. The hours were posted on the door so we decided to try and return when it would be open again. As we turned to leave, an Italian gentleman came into the piazza. Dad, never one to hold back, but knowing not a word of Italian, stopped the man, then realised I would have to do the asking… thanks Dad. If you’ve ever learned a second language, you will know that often it is not the difficulty of asking the question that is the problem, it is understanding the reply that is tricky. Eventually, what I understood was that this gentleman, a ‘professore di musica’ was also the person who came once a week to play the Stradivarius that was kept on display here–to keep it in good working order. He told us when he would be playing if we wanted to wait.

We waited.

Eventually the door was opened, probably after siesta, I can’t quite remember, I just know it was a warm day and we were waiting on hard stone benches in the piazza for a while… We were told where to go and il Professore, true to his word, was preparing the famed violin. He, and we, were the only people present. He played. Dad was riveted. Me? I was young and not as appreciative as I might have been. The uniqueness of the moment didn’t fully sink it at the time, but somewhere deep in the folds of my grey matter it has been waiting to come forward and be gratefully acknowledged.

Hamer Hall, where the ACO performed

Hearing that Stradivarius on television restored that memory as if it was only a few years ago. Perhaps the spirit of my Dad was urging me to go to Melbourne. It was the sort of adventure he would appreciate. The actual star of the performance was the up and coming Australian Soprano, Nicole Car, who has performed in London and Paris to acclaim and who is performing later this year at the Metropolitan Opera in New York City. She was superb.

But for me, the star was the Stradivarius.

What a voice Satu has…a three hundred year old Belgiorno Stradivarius that lives on through her artistry.

 

 

If you live in Australia, the ACO tour continues for the month of April. Also, there is a performance from this series that will be played live on April 22 with Nicole Car singing. I will be out of the country and can’t imagine that I will get to hear it, but who can say, with these synchronistic things? Link: http://www.abc.net.au/classic/live-music/classic-live/

breathe in life

31 Sunday Dec 2017

Posted by in Creativity, Inspiration

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IMG_8283Why do we need someone to remind us that our view of the world is unique? Why is it so difficult to understand that each and every life on this planet has had a different trajectory? Siblings can grow up in the same household and have extraordinarily different lives. We can stand side by side seeing the same view and appreciate very different aspects.

Maybe it is scary to think that others are different to us, even though we know that for the most part we are the same. We have the same motivations, though they modify with the individual. We have the same emotions, again, greater or lesser, from person to person. But it’s that teeny tiny little fraction of difference that we either focus on, and fear, or forget to celebrate…or find it necessary to express creatively.

Over a year ago I started listening to podcasts. I imagine most of you have been doing that for a while and I’m a lagger in this pursuit, but timing is everything in life. We discover when it is our time to discover. When the student is ready, the teacher will appear, as the wisdom goes. In podcasts I have found a great resource for inspiration at a time when I wanted to make some changes in my creative practices. One of the best quotes, among many excellent ones I’ve heard is…

IMG_8026breathe in experience, breathe out poetry –Muriel Rukeyser

A friend of mine says to me that the art I make is as a result of ‘having a life’. The first time she said it I knew it was true, the way you recognise truth by feeling it in your heart, rather than thinking it in your head. But this recent quotation was a beautiful reminder. And so if we breathe in our experiences, and we wish to be creative with them, we can breathe out whatever art we want to make. And it will be unique. No one else can replicate it. We can strive to be the very best version of ourselves because no one else can do that.

As a result of my creative quest and podcast listening, I began a new drawing practice. I can only say to you that the previous way I had of drawing seemed to impede my self expression. Perhaps I had not practiced enough, but I was bored with trying it that way. And so I thought I would begin again, as much as that is possible.

I want to draw more childlike, I have decided–from my imagination, playful, and relaxed.

 Picasso said…

It took me four years to paint like Raphael, but the rest of my life to paint like a child.

Having actually seen a painting by a teenage Picasso, I can vouch for the fact that he was a classical painter at a very young age. Most people don’t think of his work in that way at all.

So for the year 2018, I wish you the ability to breathe in life and its experiences, and breathe out whatever creative expression you choose. It may not be easy, but it will be your unique legacy. I leave you with wisdom from poet ee cummings, who fought all his life to be recognised as himself…

A poet is somebody who feels, and who expresses his feelings through words.

This may sound easy. It isn’t.

A lot of people think or believe or know they feel — but that’s thinking or believing or knowing; not feeling. And poetry is feeling — not knowing or believing or thinking.

Almost anybody can learn to think or believe or know, but not a single human being can be taught to feel. Why? Because whenever you think or you believe or you know, you’re a lot of other people: but the moment you feel, you’re nobody-but-yourself.

To be nobody-but-yourself — in a world which is doing its best, night and day, to make you everybody else — means to fight the hardest battle which any human being can fight; and never stop fighting.

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a Melbourne moment

02 Wednesday Mar 2016

Posted by in People, Travel

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The weekend just passed was a special one for us. We nicked off to Melbourne for a few days. The primary purpose was for me to meet one lady in particular, whose blog I have followed for a couple of years, as well as two others who I have met through the comments section of the same blog. The blogging community has been a revelation to me, and one of the more positive outcomes of our fascination with the internet and social media. The ladies’ whose blogs were represented at the lunch were Cecilia: http://thekitchensgarden.com/; Dale: https://elladeewords.wordpress.com/; Kate: https://talltalesfromchiconia.wordpress.com/; in case you want to have a closer look. Also joining us was Celi’s cousin who is from New Zealand but has been working in the Northern Territory for the last seven years. When we lived in Darwin on the northern coast we were not far from where Maria has been living. All very interesting how our lives have intersected, paralleled and overlapped.

Celi, originally from New Zealand–but living in the USA, is in Australia visiting her daughter who lives in Melbourne. Celi operates a farm half a day’s drive from my hometown. Kate migrated from England, and so there you have it, only one true Aussie out of the five of us! And none of us live in Melbourne but that is where we met. A truly global group. It was a uniquely simpatico meeting, in some ways like when you get together with special old friends and you just pick up the conversation as if you’ve never been apart—except that none of us had ever been together before!

The rest of our time in Melbourne was spent eating fabulous food, attending one of the more impressive art exhibitions of my life, and generally enjoying the urban offerings of Melbourne. On Sunday we nearly overdosed on city life, attending not one, but two ethnic festivals. The Melbourne Summer Japanese Festival was full of surprises, including many young people dressed in traditional costume as well as comic book character costumes. The Greek Festa was full of good smells and wonderfully evocative Greek music. Now that I have learned to share video clips with you, I may become a nuisance.

If you get a chance to see the Andy Warhol/Ai Weiwei exhibition please, go see it. It has been thoughtfully and carefully curated so that the exhibition is truly more than the sum of its parts. It is at the National Gallery of Victoria in Melbourne until 24 April, but hopefully it will visit other parts of the world before disbanding.

And if you ever get the chance to try ‘Crema Catalana’, the Spanish version of Creme Brulee, just do it.

Crema Catalana

Crema Catalana

Melbourne is a truly diverse, exciting city. I leave you with a gallery of photos from our short visit. (if you click on one of the photos you will be taken to a slide show that you can click through to see them in a larger format)

Young viewers at Japanese Festival
Lane in late afternoon light
Coffee at the Queen Victoria Markets
333 Collins Street
Costume at Japanese Festival
Manga character at Japanese Festival
A brief conversation
Manga character at Japanese Festival
Flinders St. Station
Porcelain Flowers, Ai Weiwei
Quote from Warhol
Fun with street artists
State Library, Victoria
Resting street artist
Hosier Ln

thoughts of an artist…

29 Friday Jan 2016

Posted by in Creativity, photography

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I regularly see or hear things that give me shivers. It was about 20 years ago now that I first became aware of this quirk in myself. Perhaps you have experienced it too. I’ve heard people explain a feeling akin to which I refer, as something that makes your ‘hairs stand on end’; though mine is a shiver down the spine. Many years ago, I asked a trusted friend who was a massage and colour therapist what she thought of this phenomena and she said ‘it is your way of recognising something to pay attention to.’ I had surmised as much but confirmation is often helpful as we blunder through life, having left our roadmap at home.

Dried native lilies in milk jug. Waterlogue

Dried native lilies in milk jug. Waterlogue

Dried wild flowers. Waterlogue

Dried wild flowers. Waterlogue

Recently, I read a blog post and within minutes found myself purchasing the book to which it referred with great anticipation and still experiencing shivers. It’s unlikely it would be the same experience for most of you, because we all respond viscerally to different things. If you have been sharing much of my creative journey, you know without even reading to the end of this post, it will change my perspective. Everything visceral does this, whether or not we recognise it.

The blog to which I refer, and have included links a number of times previously, is Brainpickings by Maria Popova. The book with which I connected on this occasion is ‘Daybook – The Diary of an Artist’ by Anne Truitt. Brainpickings’ posts are based on books, sharing the views and comparative analysis of other books, essays and life observations. I hope Maria gets a commission from Amazon or Dymocks because she has often moved me to purchase books about which she has written. Maria’s blog post, and the now deceased, Anne Truitt’s thoughtful journal, reinforce the power of the written word to change ideas–even lives. 

Grasses

Grasses

Last year I wrote about Elizabeth Gilbert’s book ‘Big Magic’. I relished this book so much I did not want it to end. It wrestled with the age old question of ‘what is the difference between being an artist and leading a creative life?’ Truitt, herself an artist, with background education and experience as a psychologist, left that profession to follow the creative life. Her psychoanalytical mind and her artistic soul, have given her a unique voice. She takes this question a step farther, asking whether or not one who practices art can, or should, call themselves an artist.

Devouring this book in near record time, has taken me a step closer to understanding who is an artist?

In the grand scheme of things this is an unnecessary question to answer. Of course. That we exist is all we really need to acknowledge. But my human ego wrestles with it. Truthfully, no one except us probably cares what we call ourselves, though others often want to put us into one crab basket or the other by asking ‘what do you do?’, thus labelling us according to their understanding of whatever you answer. Truitt points out there is baggage that goes with calling oneself an artist, indeed, with any label, but, specifically, there is often (not always) an arrogance and competitiveness in the echelon of calling oneself an artist, with which she and I don’t care at all to be associated.

Grevillea and Rosella Pears

Grevillea and Rosella Pears

Perhaps the most compelling reason in the affirmative to label oneself, is so that we are not allowing others to define us. Early in the book, Truitt writes “I refused, and still refuse, the inflated definition of artists as special people with special prerogatives and special excuses. If artists embrace this view of themselves, they necessarily have to attend to its perpetuation. They have to live it out.” And isn’t that the dilemma of any label we put on ourself or others? The need to live out the expectation can be heavy baggage. I know personally, I stick to one suitcase with rollers when I travel and attempt the same when accumulating baggage in life!

I see now that one must separate the expectations of the artist, and the process of being an artist; leading the creative life, as Elizabeth Gilbert calls it. To set oneself aside as something special, either because one calls oneself an artist, or chooses not to, is an egotistical rationale that may or may not correlate respective skill, message or intent.

Later, after a period of residence in a community of artists, Truitt is reflective of her former attitude and admits:

So to think myself an artist was self-idolatry. In a clear wind of the company of artists this summer, I am gently disarmed. We are artists because we are ourselves.

This was the nugget of truth that lay in my shivers. My deeper self had recognised this immediately, and felt much more at peace. The process of being oneself doesn’t require a label, it just requires unfolding.

Treasures.

Treasures.

one camel, no wise man

21 Saturday Dec 2013

Posted by in Animals, Uncategorized

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We are traveling again. I wanted to share some words and photos with you but thanks to WordPress, I cannot. Being the security conscious subscriber I did as suggested by WordPress and set up a two step security verification. It did not work and worse, when I tried to disable it, it has blocked me from my own account (except it seems for publishing?) as well as from commenting or ‘liking’ other blogs. They have not seen fit in over a week to answer my query for help so I can assume I’m on my own. This may very well be my final post on WordPress, but I do have another blog on tumblr called amosthemagicdog if you are inclined to have a look. Thank you all for a lovely time, all the best to you, and hopefully we will meet again. XXcards

‘Plan B’

06 Thursday Jun 2013

Posted by in art, Creativity, People, photography, Travel

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IMG_1613Two years ago when we were in Paris we had the good fortune to discover the Musee d’Orsay closed. What’s that I say? In fact it was to have reopened that very day, after recent renovations, had it not been for an industrial dispute that kept it closed.  Of course, initially, we (especially I) were disappointed.  Late works by the Impressionist artist Manet are a favourite of mine but difficult to find except in this museum which has a large collection of Impressionist art.  And I was on a Manet jag at that point in time.  There was nothing to do, but resort to our ‘plan B’.

‘Plan B’ took us to the Jeu de Paume museum which specialises in photographic exhibitions.  The weather was unseasonably warm and the queue was unexpectedly long.  Neither of us had heard of the photographer whose exhibition had recently opened, but it was our last day in Paris and we had done most of the things in the city area that we had intended to do so we decided to take a chance that the long queue was a good indication of what lay inside.

The photographer’s name was Diane Arbus.  Like many artists she diligently worked at her art form, but fell into the subject matter accidently.  She became intensely dedicated to photographing those in our society who dwell on the ‘fringes’.  Her own tragic demise, suicide, probably to escape the debilitation of a fatal illness, ended a career that shed light on part of our society in a way little else has done.

When I read the following stunning quotation of hers, it changed forever my view of photography.

They (photographs) are the proof that something was there and no longer is.  Like a stain.  And the stillness of them is boggling.  You can turn away but when you come back, they’ll still be there, looking at you.

–Diane Arbus -response when asked for a brief statement about photographs, March, 1971

Next time, we’ll just make ‘plan B’ our first choice!

(if you select the above link, you will find a portfolio of some of Diane’s work, and very, very teeny tiny at the middle bottom are the forward and backward arrows so you can view it)

Too Old for Encouragement?

12 Monday Mar 2012

Posted by in Inspiration, Life, People

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Life Drawing 11/3/12

Today I found myself wondering about ‘encouragement’.  You hear the word ‘support’ a lot these days and that’s a good thing, but it doesn’t seem quite imbued with the emotion that the word ‘encouragement’ conveys. Perhaps it is just semantics, but whatever you call it, it’s what we give to those who are either struggling or who are working at something. We validate their efforts.  It needn’t be a verbal thing, it can be a smile or a nod, or it can mean just ‘being there’ for someone… and it needn’t even be physical presence, but the kind of enduring relationship where the other person knows you are ‘there’.

More specifically, I was thinking today about an experience I had yesterday which was immensely satisfying.  I’ve been attending Life Drawing sessions for a few weeks, twice a week. Last week was an awful session where I was sure I had some stranger’s hand attached to my body, it was so unwilling to do what I wanted!  I found myself questioning why I was pursuing the Life Drawing and I really had no rational answer, except that it just felt like something I wanted to do. (I’ve learned to pay attention to that still small voice that encourages me, even though I am not sure why!)  I’ve never been particularly interested in drawing or painting the human form but for some reason last year I had the urge to take it up again (we had to do it years ago at University and that was mostly where I left it except for a few very brief encounters).  I had gotten only a few sessions under my belt when cancer and travel interrupted me for the remainder of the year.  When I emerged from the challenges of last year, I found my first thought was to get back to Life Drawing.  Wow.  Where is that coming from?

But even after the unhappy result of last week’s session, something moved me ahead.  Out of the blue, a friend offered me some new paper and some pastels, and then I put one foot in front of the other… a little sketch, an experiment with materials, an instructional DVD, a card from the newsagency with a pastel drawing of Degas ballerinas.  I had the feeling they were all feeding something inside me, and then… Yesterday when the time came for Sunday morning Life Drawing, I was just glad to be there again, with no expectation of a particularly good result, but ‘hope springs eternal’.  in a very short time, I found myself ‘in the zone’, and the drawings, while not masterpieces, were flowing and had some life to them, and something had shifted.  My fellow artists were complimentary, and not in a general way.  They had specific comments that I recognised as ‘true’ and sincere.  It was so encouraging.  It was… life affirming.  I was in the creative flow again, and the reward was joy.

Life Drawing II 11/3/12

This morning Ali’s email said she is finding it a struggle to settle on a topic for her first essay of her Master’s Degree program, and to wade through the academic reading to find what she needs.  Indeed.  I will write to her and encourage her, because I have realised if I am not too old for encouragement to be helpful, her 23-year-old-self certainly is not!  Are we ever too old to enjoy words of encouragement?  I hope not.