A Box of Art

An extremely hot and quite busy couple of days here on the surface of the sun western New South Wales. I have accomplished a spot of wood chip shovelling and garden maintenance, A little video editing, the results of which are embedded below as well as some digital painting and I’ve finally gotten a long running paper-craft project near to completion.

The second episode of my going story reading project. 

Today a box arrived from my mother. A box of art, mostly my art, mostly from ’82-’84. So 35 year old pictures by me the child. The boys and I had a lot of fun going through the box admiring and laughing at the pictures, comparing hand and foot prints to the boy’s and mine now and of course we were then inspired to make some fresh art of our own, which I’ll photograph and share sometime soon. For today here are a couple of the prize pieces:

Bravo indeed.

This particular Sith lord made many appearances.

 

One of the many bulldozer paintings had a treat on the back.


A Brandon Cavallari sketch!

Days, Pages and Books

Update

The deep exhaustion of an eleven week term conquered all for the past week or so. The two weeks I have to recover before the next onslaught are a very welcome prospect. We will be spending almost a week of the break in Canberra with my mother and step father doing who knows what yet.

For the first time since entering the profession of teaching I have found myself wondering if all the attendant crap of education, the meetings, the record keeping, marking and behaviour management are worthwhile. I remain committed to my class and to the profession for some years to come but if, in a few years time I announce that I am starting a business, or pursuing a project instead that year, don’t be surprised. Another factor in all of this is that a masters is likely to become necessary at some point not too far down the line and the very idea fills me with dread. I love learning but my every experience of higher education so far has been disappointing if not down right infuriating and the idea of writing a thesis or completing coursework while keeping up with the day to day requirements of the classroom is deeply unappealing.

Anyway apart from a small pile of marking and a big pile of planning. My goals for the break are to finally get a photo shoot done of L in his costume, and to try and knock out F’s costume to match. The helm of F’s is already done and the other pieces should all come together with relative ease.  I would also like to begin playing with modelling software in earnest and gets some drawing done.

Perhaps I need to add a more active diarising art activity to my routine. 

The cover and 'The Passiona of Chris' comic from Arielle Gamble's zine.

From ‘A Year in a (shit) country town

The Baroque Cycle

Yesterday I finally finished ‘The Baroque Cycle‘ by Stephenson. A seven book long odyssey that has taken me almost a year of listening. I shared the first book with N in Scotland but she was not as hooked as I so I have listened to the rest myself and it’s a good thing too, else N and I would still have months to go. I myself had plenty of interruptions and have listened to and read many other things along the way. But it has been an amazing journey through the Europe of the 17th and 18th centuries that I have enjoyed being able to jump in and out of for months.

These books managed to treat the origins of currency and the markets as lively and dramatic sequences of events. Although plenty of artistic licence has been taken it is clear that meticulous research was required and drawn upon regularly by Stephenson. The origins of science in natural philosophy and the political battles between the fiercest minds of the age are the central and recurring elements and are fascinating in and of themselves. All is weaved together into a compelling narrative with destitute princesses, vagabond scoundrels, pirates, alchemists and geniuses battling over the fundamental nature of reality and creating the world anew. It has been a wild ride.

Legion

N and I are a few episodes into ‘Legion‘, which is so far pretty compelling and disturbing viewing. There is a lot of quite Kubrikian elements of style and an aesthetic that pays homage to British sci-fi from the 60s and 70s.  I am impressed by the accuracy and discomfort with which the filmmakers are able to capture the uncertainty of mental illness, the slippery transience of dream and memory and the disturbing nightmarish intensity of childhood fear.

More as we progress.

The Fold

The Fold

This is a bad book, spoilers ahead. I grabbed it as it was in a bunch of peoples favourite SF of recent years book lists. N and I listened to it together and both were felt kind of embarrassed by how easily we guessed the nature of the problem from very early on. Both hoping that it could not really be that simple, like seriously he cannot really be expecting his entire audience to not have seen ‘The Prestige’, can he? Anyway by then it was too late we were committed and had to see it through and my oh my it just got worse, and worse, and worse.

It really was embarrassingly bad. From the grievous stupidity of the protagonist with the ever more preposterously good memory functions to the hilariously awful enemies from the ‘other side’ by the end we were groaning and offering exasperated counter commentary on every action.

 

On Bullying

 

I survived bullying. I was called gay from late year five until I left high school and went to Tafe in the city at the end of grade 10.

It didn’t matter that I wasn’t gay, not even slightly. It didn’t matter that family members and family friends were gay and I didn’t have issue with it. The label stuck, provoked a reaction and haunted me for years. The staff mostly didn’t get involved. Close friends wouldn’t hang out with me within sight of school peers. School was a pretty unrelenting misery, I have but a handful of good memories or lasting friendships from that time, barely any which were from within my actual year level. It was a dark and depressing period and it marked me for decades to come. Distrust of authority, body image issues, loneliness and trust issues as well as an overwhelmingly negative view of academia are among the lasting effects I have dealt with and I believe largely overcome.

I have been thinking about posting on the topic for some time. My high school cohort is going to celebrate a twenty year anniversary of a year twelve I didn’t attend this year. I didn’t attend the ten year and I have no compulsion to attend this one. I have mentally forgiven my antagonists but I have no desire or need to see what has become of them.

The announcement that thirteen year old Tyrone Unsworth committed suicide after a campaign of bullying based on his supposed sexuality touched a nerve. It is deeply sad and disappointing that people are still dying for who they love in supposedly progressive societies the world over. I believe his death could have been averted if people had stood up for him, challenged his antagonists and demanded better from them. The school will doubtless have to audit its monitoring and management procedures. I hope that among their responses is the introduction of  the Safe Schools Program

There will be a lot of baying for blood from “concerned citizens” targeting the alleged bullies families and the alleged oblivious staff of the school. This is deeply unhelpful. Believe me when I say that there was a time when I wanted to see violence visited upon my antagonists. I and the thousands of other bullying victims around the world understood, to our shame, a little of what drove the Columbine boys to their awful end. Every authoritarian punishment based response to bullying I have observed has backfired, often badly. I have seen restorative justice both succeed and fail to deal with victimisation of students peers. In fact the only actually successful anti bullying technique I have ever encountered is the ‘Method of Shared Concern‘. Blaming and hating on the perpetrators doesn’t help the victims, it just makes the perps better at hiding their crimes.

 

Programs which normalise acceptance, compassion and community are the strongest weapons we have against bullying and the bigotry and medieval morality of an outspoken group of religious fundamentalists should not be permitted to get in the way of their implementation.

 

Daily

Homework and preparation for the big drive.

Tomorrow morning we embark on a four day expedition to visit Candlebark and explore the surrounding suburbs.

Sports Day

Daily

Crashed early yesterday after a day with a different year one class and mayhap I will tonight as well. Today was a massive inter-school sports day hosted by one of the local mines as community outreach. I had the pleasure of shepherding a kindergarten class through the experience.

Despite best efforts I have a touch of sun and will retire early again. Very keen to get into the garden tomorrow and hopefully get some art made as well.

My new phone arrived yesterday, what a joy functioning, fast tech can be. A chunk of my tax providing a sorely needed upgrade over the iPhone4 that has been limping along in my pocket since Christmas. N is also getting an upgrade over her GS3 to a GS7.

I’ll just keep sharing little things as they occur to me. One at a time is probably for the best though.

barcelona-bubbles

L chasing bubbles in the back streets of Barcelona.

PAINting

Daily

I’m painting tonight, roughing out some visualised drafts for evolution cards and maybe tinkering away a bit on a T-shirt image.

I have been torturing myself in dissatisfaction with some cards, in particular the castle card for months now. I have finally resolved to just get on with the evolution cards and leave the terrain cards alone for a little while. I figure provided I can start finishing things again, it will get easier as it goes.

I had another wild and wonderful day with year ones today and I have another lined up at the other school tomorrow. It is an exhausting business and all I want to do is paint and garden.

This sat unpublished in draft a long time. In the end I did get a good bit of painting in but I spent most of the evening having a good chat with an old friend which was well and truly worthwhile.

Memory

half-head

One of the striking experiences from my first trip to Amsterdam. The Bodyworlds exhibition by Gunther Von Hagens is incredible and confronting. Above the head of a human man plastinated and sliced neatly in half, below the brain, ganglia and primary nerve branches of another human man. 

brain-ganglia-and-nerves

Another memorable event for which we booked our first ever Airbnb (Affiliate link) the opening one off performance of the Edinburgh International Festival. Deep Time was projected onto Edinburgh castle and the cliffs below with musical accompaniment by Mogwai. Mesmerising and almost vertigo inducing the projections were superb.

It was really very special and our apartment on the royal mile set the standard for all the excellent Airbnb accommodations throughout the rest of the trip. In fact every apartment we booked that way was wonderful in one way or another. By contrast Booking.com, our other goto accommodation site was often extremely disappointing.

 

 

Home

Daily

Almost three weeks back and Cobar is beginning to feel like home again. We have settled in and are currently expecting to spend the remainder of this year and the 2017 school year here.

Tutoring and teaching work has started trickling in and the projects are piling up. A class at the local state school for next year is looking like a promising prospect and there is no shortage of relief work available regardless.

The problem with leaving blogging even a few days, let alone however many months it has now been, is that every gap adds to the amount that needs told and makes the posting more daunting. I’ve had plenty of excuses for not posting but ultimately I use this blog to track my work and I have not, aside from a couple of small things I will share over coming days, been working.

That has changed, the posts are coming back.

I do after all have a lot to track.

Projects currently in the works:

Valley cards galore. I am really behind the curve on these. I’ve been experimenting with ways to improve my work flow a bit over the last week. Not much to show for it yet though.

Editing and sorting travel images. We have so many…

ben-udliad-peak

Near the top of Ben Udlaidh

liathach-peak

At the peak of Liathach the lower western peak beyond

Editing and posting a couple of short vlogs from travel. Including crossing the pinicles (a section of the Liathach walk part of which is just visible in the lower left of the image above)

Creating costume armour and weapons for the children’s Christmas presents to order.

Extending garden paths to use up the last remaining brick piles, making room for food gardens and giving joy to little boys.

Constructing more raised garden beds for food production. The Cobar tax on fresh food bites hard.

Getting the hens and tractor back from the farm. Surprisingly three of the four survived the winter. I had half expected a fox or snake to have taken them all.

T-shirt print image ideas x3.

Children’s books x3.

Polishing a giant fresnel lens.

Fencing the front yard. For child safety and so the hens will be able to free range more.

Re-creating my classroom charts and displays. I gave away most to peers in Brisbane and I may yet have a class of my own next year. Timelines, wordwall headings, behaviour charts all need recreated.

Trying to find a way to see some of the Great Barrier Reef over the Christmas break as it is N’s birthday wish.

Deciding how and where we will live post 2017. There are many possible options right now.

Getting fitter again.

Habitualising blogging again. See you tomorrow. 😛

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

There and Back Again

Amsterdam-canal

 

In the past two weeks I have been to The Netherlands, Wales and a whole variety of places in England.

Amsterdam is a complicated, confusing, beautiful city. The division between the tourist trap, “coffee” and smart shop fueled, stoner city and the arty, bohemian cool of the Jordaan suburb feels remarkably well delineated. I’d really like to spend more time there.

I do like the positive, more relaxed and accepting attitude the Dutch have to drugs and sex but the experience of Amsterdam is marred by that being the main tourist attraction. I would really like to see a city where those attitudes are normal without an accompanying industry being made from tourists reveling in their freedoms for the first time.

 

#amsterdam knows how to throw an #edm #festival. #awakenings #awakeningsfestival

A photo posted by @liatach on

Among the many things we saw and did there, the Saturday we spent at the Awakenings festival and the visit to the bodyworks exhibition were my highlights. The level of organisation and the scale of the music festival was extraordinary. Oddly it finished at a 11PM but a grand day and night out was had by all.

flayed-saxophanist

Yes this is a flayed cadaver playing saxophone.

I missed the Gunther Von HagensBodyworlds exhibition when it came to Australia years ago. So I was very eager to see it at its permanent home. I was not disappointed. It is amazing and bizarre. The whole experience is made more peculiar by the twee, “Happiness is good for your health” messages displayed and inserted throughout the exhibition. These are in contrast to the remarkable preserved cadavers, unpleasant medical conditions and genuinely creepy character of Gunther Von Hagens himself. A man who meets too many criteria on the mad scientist supervillan list to be taken seriously when he encourages you to ‘Don’t worry be happy’.

Post bucks weekend we turned over the guest house and headed south for the wedding of Steven and Jill in a wee town outside Swindon.

avebury-stone

Massive chunks of stone and bored children.

Chalk-horse

If only that cow had better aim it’d have an eye.

The wedding was lovely, the hotel grand and even my speech went down well. Two nights in Swindon flew by and we headed west via some standing stones, a chalk horse and a roman ruin to visit maternal relatives in Wales. Cardiff was a hoot and included a tour of a significant portion of the local playgrounds, much to the delight of L and F.

 

Cardiff-pier

 

Perspective art on the barrage in #cardiff.

A photo posted by @liatach on

Post Wales we headed back east for dinner with friends in London and two nights in a grand old dive of a hotel in Slough. From where we went to…

LEGOLAND!

Which was, as expected a grand day out. We had hoped to stay at the Lego hotel for the complete experience but we left it too late and prices became outrageous. Some of the outdoor Lego pieces have seen better days, green slime in the water features, cracked and faded plastic on the builds, awful expensive food, and labyrinthine park layout. All did not matter, the rides were great and everyone left beaming.

The submarine ride through a giant fish tank with sharks and Lego Atlantis was my favourite. Unfortunately F was too small for many rides but had a great time regardless, L was only just tall enough for some of the big rides.

Lego city firemen, Viking splash and Star Wars Miniland featured among L’s highlights.

The whole day was improved by the accompaniment of my wonderful cousin Jenny.

Post Lego we drove in one mad and seemingly endless day from London back to Glen Orchy Scotland and collapsed into our own beds again. Four days later and normality is returning. Bedtimes are being pushed back to more reasonable hours and the washing is finally done.

Through all this I have of course been watching the slow motion train wrecks of Brexit and the Federal DD election in Australia. Thoughts on them another night.

Brexit-Dont-panic

 

Snapped in passing at a Moto on the way north. I like it because of Hitchhiker’s of course.

There is art to be done and further adventures to contemplate.

Crivens! its been over a week

One of the problems of going a few days without posts is that a psychological barrier is formed about sitting down to creating a new post. I mean look at all the things I now need to post about, worse still look at all the art I haven’t made this week. This has not been helped by ongoing bedtime battles that have pushed well into the evening. We have now resorted to denying daytime naps whenever possible. This does not work on days that involve driving as F will invariably be out like a light by the bottom of the driveway.

I have been working but not as I gauge it, creating. I’m plugging away at my best man’s speech. A tedious process but important. I’m off to Amsterdam this weekend for a stag do. Late next week we will be heading south for our friends wedding, visits with Welsh relatives and to the delight of all a trip to Legoland.

I’ve finished a book or two. N and I slammed through ‘Reamde‘ by Stephenson. Which is a ripsnorting adventure story with some interesting ideas mixed in. It is more a piece of airport fiction than the mind stretching Spec Fic I have come to expect from Stephenson. N and I were completely hooked so it did its job well.

I finished ‘Slaughterhouse Five‘ by Vonnegut which has been on my reading list for years. Vonnegut is a favourite of mine so this classic has been a bit of a glaring omission. It is a strange book, deserving of a post all its own at some point.

Now listening to ‘The Fatal Shore‘ By Robert Hughes. As always finding the heartless barbarity of Edwardian and Victorian English systems confronting.

We’ve been on exploratory adventures within the region most days. North to Fort William through Glen Coe, South East to Doune castle and the Wallace Monument in Stirling, twice to Glasgow and on many small walks. Even to a small event hosted by a local amateur naturalist club. Where we participated in opening and cataloging the catch from moth traps set the previous evening. After which we had a lunch overlooking Castle Stalker. To my chagrin we have been up no mountains yet. I hurt my ankle last weekend being silly in the garden. Fortunately not badly and I’ve recovered fast.

 

Took a drive through the ever spectacular #glencoe today.

A photo posted by @liatach on

 

#headshot #caughtbyhand #golden-ringeddragonfly #macro #insect Cordulegaster boltonii

A photo posted by @liatach on

Robert the Bruce @ the #wallacemonument #scotland

A photo posted by @liatach on

 

Many more pictures to share that I have not Instagrammed but the upload function is glitching. I’ll try and include them tomorrow.

 

 

 

Big week

I started this post on Sunday, was interrupted by tiredness and a call for cuddles. Monday evening we had a black out that lasted well into Tuesday morning. Tuesday we had a dilema with Boris the dog which preoccupied us until late that evening. Yesterday was my birthday and we didn’t get home until quite late in the evening. Which brings me to today which was lovely but thanks to inconsistent routine bedtimes have been prolonged battles of attrition and I am sitting down to write now at 10:30PM having gone for an evening walk up the mountain side to check the Hydro inlet and give wee Boris a ‘poopurtunity’. It is still light though fading now and the midges as ever, are awful out.

The Boris Dilemma

Tuesday evening while continuing to clean the guest house N noticed that Boris the lovely old Scot’s terrier mutt who is our charge and pride and joy whilst we look after ‘Arichastlich’ was missing. We begin searching for and calling him high and low all around the property inside and out of the house which we had left open as we came and went from the guest house. Our initial theory was the he must have heard some thunder which we with vacuum cleaner going had not and in true doggy fashion freaked out and gone to ground. We had witnessed this behaviour first hand the previous day when he had hidden under the boys beds at bed time due to far off and not very loud thunder – not helpful, but understandable-. So we concentrated first on hiding places within the house and around the grounds. Only once sure that he was not there did we begin to widen our search down the road in each direction, contacting neighbours, checking up the hillside, with tup and horse in the field we visit daily. Eventually we bundled everyone into the car and set off down the road stopping to call out. In this way some two awful hours later we found wee Boris hanging out in the car of a camper by the river some kilometers down the road.

The explanation for this we now think most likely is that Boris as is his way jumped into the car of some random who had stopped to look at the pigs in the neighbouring field and as he previously did not wear his collar at home assumed he was lost. The camper who was caring for him reported that he reportedly tried to get into a number of cars and nearly been taken by a driver of a white van with him to a town some distance away. But having encountered a camper staying in the region had left him there. Would he have made his own way home? There is really no telling as he was clearly making himself at home in the camp.

The relief at finding Boris cannot be overstated, he is without doubt the most precious of our charges here. I made sure to take a few beverages back to the camper in thanks.

Yesterday I wanted to do get some history in on my birthday so we visited Kilmartin to view sculpted stones, cairns and these standing stones which are part of a lunar observatory over 5000 years old now and perhaps even then, in a sheep field.

Kilmartin-stones1 Kilmartin-stones

 

Found a bunch of interesting wee beasties to photograph this week.

 

 

 

 Creative

Apart from a little work in Illustrator, a little speech work and an hour’s painting on the castle card I have done shamefully little creative work this week.

 

 

Eye of Newt

The rope swing  with big red rubber buoy up the back got plenty of use today. We also visited the horse and tut (ram), these two bachelors occupy the field opposite the house and both are ever eager for attention much to the boys delight.  A spot of fishing for tadpoles in the pond nearby. Caught the first newt I’ve ever handled, a feature of practically every British children’s book. Salamanders and the like are exotic to me. They look remarkably like miniature crocodiles hanging in the sunlit water just below the surface.

Primary care and odd jobs precluded creative work until it was to late to want to start.

Been doing plenty of readings from this hilarious translation in my admittedly dreadful accent:

See yon snake! Is he daft or no? There’s nae such thing as a gruffal … Oh!

A photo posted by Nadine (@nadinemmitchell) on

#millipede found cleaning and put outside. #macro #arthropod

A photo posted by @liatach on

Politic

This list, well lets just say it isn’t getting any better. The opposition could do worse than just replacing their entire campaign materials with a link to it.

Interesting parallels in Kings Cross’s history with current developments. Hopefully no murders this time around though.