SUPERMARKETMONKEY

My Odyssey Part I

2012-01-22T12:50:00.004+11:00

So, in my twenty seventh year, I decided to do a long distance cycling trip for a few weeks...Alone. Something I had been dreaming of doing for a long time. My journal of that time records a similar recollection of my childhood trips up the gorge road...

...as we ascended the hills, the car warmed by the sun, I felt safe to daydream out the windows at the creeks, paddocks and towering, gnarled gums.
Occasionally we would pass a cyclist inching his way up an incline. And I was always impressed by their determination and perseverance.

And I wanted to do it independently. Carrying all the gear I needed to be self reliant on a pack rack, including tent, food, cooking gear and clothing. So, in late December of 2000, I arrived at Adelaide train station with the same bike I used to ride around the suburbs of Melbourne and I set out from there, taking that same route of my childhood imaginings. I followed the narrow slither of road into the Adelaide hills and beyond. Relishing the sense of freedom and challenge. My Journal of the trip records my first brush with any real risk. As I headed into the Adelaide hills, I noticed a sign I had seen many times through out my childhood, yet never paid any attention to. Its said, "Caution - Road subject to rock falls."

Looking back, I can see the same naivety in myself that Krakauer saw in McCandless. I was utterly under prepared.Physically, I was probably fit enough to ride 80 or 100 Kms a day but I failed to appreciate the dangers of narrow roads, and large trucks. I failed to be prepared for serious mechanical break down and contingencies. I planned no itinerary, and booked no accomodation, or camping sites. I did a bit of research, but really just made most of it up as I went along. I guess this is not unusual for anyone who sets out on lone adventures.

I spent Christmas with my Grandmother and extended family, then set out again, on boxing day, for Gawler. A relativley short ride of about 50 kms. From there, I caught the train into Adelaide, and then out again, going as far as I could on the suburban rail system out of the city to Port Noarlunga. And it was from here that the real journey began. I intended to ride down the coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula, catch the ferry from Cape Jervis to Kangaroo Island and spend a week or so cycling around the island.

On the other hand, I also appreciate that my adventure was really pretty tame and conservative compared to McCandless's odyssey. I am by nature conservative and cautious and there was really little real risk to my life apart from the possibility of being clipped by a truck, or a mechanical failure on a steep descent of which there were a few. There were a couple of moments,when I was brought face to face with my lack of preparation. On the first day of my departure from the Barossa Valley I got half way down the Fleurieu Peninsula, only to realise that it was getting dark, and I had no where to stay. I reached a small caravan park in the tiny hamlet of Normanville just on night fall, and as I knocked on the door of the office, it occurred to me for the first time that there might not be any camping sites available.

Into the Wild : progress notes

2012-01-22T11:33:00.003+11:00

Well, I am almost finished this relatively thin book. And even though I have seen the movie, it is an enthralling read. The point of difference between the book and the movie, is that Jon Krakauer doesnt just tell the story, but instead makes a study of the solitary wandering dreamer in many of us.

There are two chapters in the middle of the book that depart from the narrative of Chris McCandless' unfortunately short life. The first tells of another restless wanderer and adventurer in the 1930's who walked into the Utah desert as a 17 year old and was never seen again. His body has never been found. The second, tells the authors own story of a lone trek he took in his 20's to climb a peak in Alaska called "the Devils Thumb." His first hand account of being a young man, searching out an alternate life to the drab, conformist existence offered to him by society and his fathers expectations is probably part of the reason he wrote the book on McCandless. The experience of looking death in the face when you are utterly alone is well articulated, coming as it does from personal experience. The thought that you might never be found, the universal terror of people everywhere, is chillingly real. Neither is Krakauer blind to the naive romanticism of McCandless's adventure. And in fact he poses this as a question. Was McCandless demise the Hubris of youth? The naive romantic notions of a dreamer obsessed with grandeur? In short, was he just stupid?

Its not a stretch to say that I have been something of a solitary dreamer myself. As a young boy, I was taken on regular drives to visit my Grandmother in the Barossa Valley an hour and a half outside of Adelaide. If you take a particular route, there is a creek that runs almost the entire length of the hours journey from the foot hills. The scenery alternates between something akin to a Hans Heysen painting, and sheer gorges of blasted rock rising up beyond your view from the car window. The thin ribbon of asphalt, known as the Gorge road, can be dangerous. With many blind corners and very steep gradients, it twists and turns through some stunning natural scenery cutting its way through the quartz rock, clinging impossibly to sheer hillsides and rock ledges, It slowly rises through twisting hills and gullies until your ears pop.

Sitting alone in the back seat of my nanna's pea green mini on those long drives, my imagination was free to roam the hillsides and gullies in the silence and dark of the back seat. The fanning headlights illuminated the shadows of the bushland just off the edge of the road, and I remember fantasizing about escaping from my constrained, poor little boy life, down into the stands of gnarled eucalypts, blackberry thickets and bushland by the creek to live. And those fantasies never included other people. It was always just me...Alone.
That drive to my nanna's farm ( a place I hated to visit) was a regular trip in my childhood and so the fantasy became a regular feature of the journey. It was a way to escape the impending boredom and loneliness of School holidays spent there. While the adults talked and laughed and smoked cigarettes in the front seat, and later, while my cousins fought and hit each other next to me, my imagination roamed the creek beyond the side of the road, following its snaking pools and little rapids, and pebbly shores for a good part of the way to my grandmothers farm.

As an adult, in my 20's I had a similar desire to the one Krakauer explores in his book about Chris McCandless. I wanted to do something different. To assert some independence. To get out on my own. To take a risk.

Into the Wild Revisited

2012-01-20T22:37:00.000+11:00

Well, my sister came through with the goods as one of the few people in this world who seems to be in tune with what resonates with me. She bought me the book from which the movie, "Into the Wild" was made for Xmas.

Most people would recognize this romantic, yet tragic true story of a young man who made a conscious choice to live outside the parameters of western society's norms. He burned his money. Shook off his possessions like a. worn out coat. He followed ideals (as elucidated to him by the life and writings of Leo Tolstoy) that most would accept as being irresponsible, if not down right crazy. And he paid the ultimate price for it too. He died alone in an abandoned bus in the wilderness of Alaska. Romantic ideals, but not a happy ending.

There is obviously something about this story that resonates. Perhaps the appeal lies in the reality. No story book endings to the life in the wilderness. The screen adaptation was directed by none other than Sean Penn. It was a popular movie. Eddie Vedder featured in the soundtrack. The book takes a cooler, more investigative approach. And the reward is there to be had.

Five stars

Jean Michel Basquiat

2012-01-08T22:52:00.000+11:00

This is the second time I have seen this documentary film about the charismatic, tragic celebrity artist Jean Michel Basquiat that found himself to be the darling of the New york Art scene in the early to mid eighties.

It put me in mind of other tragic, live fast die young highly successful artists like, for example, Kurt Cobain. The similarities between Basquiat and Cobain, as far as I can tell, lie in them both having gone from sleeping rough as teenagers to global notoriety, fame and riches by the age of 25. The difference may be, and this is purely conjecture on my part, that Cobain probably never expected to be rich and famous, where as Basquiat is portrayed as having a determined ambition as an artist from a young age.

I wonder if the tragic component of these stories is not so much to do with the myth of tortured genius, but more to do with the meteor like trajectory of their lives that took them from urban anonymity to the highly unnatural state for any human being, (let alone a 20 year old) that of mega god/art rock star. It seems that when people get to a point in their creative careers where they can have anything they want, anytime they want it, have all kinds of apparently "important" people fawning over them and their work, when they are highly successful in the arts, it would seem, particularly, that the meaning of what they do begins to unravel somewhat.

It takes its toll. Yet there's little doubt in my mind that both Cobain and Basquiat were both serious artists.

Street Advent

2011-12-17T13:24:00.000+11:00

On the 17th day of Christmas...

Check out my contribution to the Street Advent Calendar here

Jeff Lang ( A darkness of my own)

2011-12-16T10:06:00.001+11:00

Well, since an unsavory incident with a mop on Tuesday, I have been confined to the house with pretty searing back pain around L5. Had to cancel my shift at work today and having expended my creative energy on a couple of new paintings last weekend, without my usual flexibility in the torso and studio, "arty" things are kind of frustrating and actually physically, rather than just emotionally painful at the moment.

So, Ill do what I've been told not to, and sit at my computer writing...

I dont remember where I first heard of Jeff Lang, but I must have picked up his name or a fragment of a song or something somewhere, and so I started searching him out in the Blues section of Borders one day. The title of the first CD I picked up was enough for me to know it was a record that would resonate with me...."You Have to Dig Deep to Bury Daddy."

Apart from his haunting virtuosity on the slide guitar, I love the subject matter and lyrics of Jeff's songs. He takes the root musicality of the Blues and applies a gritty, haunting unmistakably "Australian" imagery. The opening lines of the first song I heard confirmed it...

Orange skies over Westgate traffic flow

Turning the bay into folded sheets

Of copper down below

Buildings turn

From factories to magic lights that glow

And I'm taking on

A darkness of my own

If you have ever been in a sombre mood, and driven over the Westgate Bridge and down into the industrial landscape of Melbourne's west, you cannot fail to appreciate the poignancy of those lyrics. Given that it is a well known spot for suicide and tragedy ( google Arthur Freeman) it only adds a layer of meaning to the sliding notes woven between the haunting words.

There's quite a rich history of Australian blues that to my limited knowledge, began with Chain in the late 60's early 70's but it seems that much Australian Blues artists, both past and present have remained true to the American roots of the Blues.With the possible exception of Stringybark McDowell, artists like Chris Wilson, Collard Greens and Gravy, by and large seem to stick to the traditions of their blues style, both in the musical and lyrical content of their music. Apart from Jeff Lang, I haven't heard Australian Blues with the ability to conjure up such deeply suburban Australian imagery and themes quite like it. Like the Track, "The Janitor" from the Album, Chimerador - about Melbourne Cup day...

Warm November sun, cold beers flowing down

They all dress up so high and lay

money down

Come from far and wide to rise above their class

When they're back in the burbs

or out on the town

I'll sweep up their dreams in the broken glass

Sweep it down, down, down

Right down the drain

To me at least, Jeff's music is an authentically Australian blues that explores the broken Australiana world of confused children amidst searing adult tensions they dont understand. The brooding undercurrents of suburban life that are not spoken of, conflict and secrets amidst fatherly menace and motherly fear. Of course these themes arent uniquely Australian, but they are something many Australians from many levels of society can relate to intimately, yet its a deep pain for meany people that is not really broached very well or adequately in polite company.

But Lang touches the nerve particularly well in a song titled, "Mamma Why You Holding Back Now?" on his latest, if not most electrifying offering, "Carried in Mind"

I never raised one finger to help her

I could've held him back but I always froze

But I never raised a finger to help her

What was stopping me, God himself he don't know

She never said one word against him

Not in the deepest black of that angry night

No she never said a word against him

Oh mama, mama, why you holding back now?

One mans trash...

2011-12-15T21:36:00.001+11:00

Kevins Ghost

2011-12-14T13:54:00.000+11:00

Well I have been playing around with a new digital drawing tablet and am finding it a boon for my cartoons and illustrations. I am finding this tendency with the tablet to tighten up as if with the drawing tablet theres an assumption that you can get everything perfect. But that has never been my style...

The above pic shows the Ghost of Kevin Rudd Haunting Julia Gillard, who, it is said, has reshuffled her cabinet in order to stave off another night of the long knives.

I'll delete this tomorrow

2011-12-09T20:40:00.000+11:00

Its all marketing
market your self

promote your wares
promote your facade
see the world through the
empty glass
but make sure you love
make sure you do it all
for the fame
network
self
recognition

promote and
be real
but only so you can sell
the product
I was never born for this world
but into the world I must
must
must

market myself
in order to survive
when do we become real
and live
we only live
we are only ourselves,
when
we are successful
at promoting
the self
the self
is not self
self is felt

Lets try one more time...( I figured out how to upload video and audio)

2011-12-04T14:39:00.000+11:00

I do believe I will dust my broom

Forgive the missing notes and shaky start, but this is an impromtu performance off the cuff so to speak...

You cried some more

2011-12-04T10:59:00.000+11:00

Bit self indulgent this, but been mucking around with old music I recorded back in the day, and some montage stills editing:)

The Bradmill Site

2011-12-01T21:37:00.002+11:00

Took some shots today that would rival the famous Psalm.

I drive past the abandoned Bradmill textiles factory in Yarraville, and wanted to take a peek. It was opened under the name Bradford cotton mills in 1927, was once the only denim manufacturer in Australia. But it finally closed in 2002. There were signs of what is probably Asbestos, and while walking around I was taking shallow breathes for fear of a dose of Mesothelioma or inhaling particles of the copious amounts of pigeon poop.

But its a fascinating thing to walk around offices that look like they have met with an apocalyptic exodus. The original computers, calendars from 1982 are all there, covered in dust. And in one room, what was probably a staff tea room, a shelf was still lined with tins of International Roast coffee.

Street Advent

2011-12-01T14:24:00.000+11:00

Well I dont post too much about my artscapades here no more. But this one is worth it. Hooked up with a bunch of folks WAAAAY more talented than I to be part of a great little project known as STREET ADVENT.

Its basically a live street advent calendar contributed to by various street artists from Melbourne and the world. If you want to, check out their facebook page, as well as their webpage, and a blogger who has written about the project here.

Occupation

2011-11-20T09:26:00.004+11:00

The word occupy is something usually associated with despots or liberation forces. Hitler occupied Poland. The Allies occupied Berlin.The Taliban occupied peoples minds, America and its Allies occupy Baghdad and Kabul. The 99% Occupy Wall Street. Scruffy no hopers and militant socialist nut jobs occupy Melbourne. Contemporary history is littered with peoples occupations such as these. A few have succeeded but most have failed.

When the Occupy Melbourne protest first started, I thought it would achieve nothing. The media of course portrayed it as a rabble without any real direction or demands. A bunch of lazy, unwashed arts degree dropouts or dole bludgers with nothing productive to turn their hands to. There's understandably a lot of cynicism about protests like these. Protest can be a good thing. But in a world increasingly dominated by homogenized and homogenizing forces, protest for protests sake can look a little underwhelming, if not down right pointless. Part of me feels like saying, 'c'mon man. You cant win this war. It's pointless.Give up and go spend your disposable income.'

With over a hundred years of industrialization and capitalism putting down some pretty deep roots in many of the former colonies of the British Empire, you're left to wonder what blow to its foundations a few hundred ragged people camping on the steps of Government buildings can manage. What have any of these kinds of things achieved in the last forty years? There's been an Aboriginal tent embassy on the lawn of Parliament House in Canberra since the seventies.Does the fact that Aboriginal disadvantage and dispossession has continued unabated during that time, make that protest a failure? In the early days of Tasmainian settlement, the freed convicts and dispossessed of that time and context were forced to eke out an existence in the wild, uninhabitable west due to the fertile eastern part of the Island being occupied by the landed gentry with the wealth and means to control land ownership. Its nothing new.

The Occupy Movement in London has moved into a building owned by a large and powerful Bank that has lain derelict for several years. And it seems there is some very clear, and creative thinking going on there. They have renamed it the Bank of ideas. And it's a powerful symbol. Yet, there is little doubt that these too will be evicted, if not by law, then by force. And that leads you to wonder, who is occupying what?

And if the rage of the 99% peters out, dies a natural death, is doused with liberal amounts of reasonable force and is driven back to the suburbs by the strong currents of influence at the disposal of the 1%, then no matter. Because at it's heart it contains a seed of the idea that despite the array of laws, controls and mechanisms of restraint armed against them, ordinary people know they are still free enough to question and ask who occupies what. And that is a freedom that can never be curtailed.

Once

2011-11-16T23:29:00.000+11:00

A friend of mine at work is Ethiopian. According to wikipedia, Ethiopian means "the people with burnt faces." My friend from work is a tailor by trade. Even though he is ten years younger than me. In Ethiopia, that means he had what is called here, or, was once called here, "a job for life." In Ethiopia, my friend was a skilled craftsman. An Artisan. A valued professional. Here, he is but an unskilled nusiance who cant speak English. At best he is a quaint and polite person who you must talk loudly to and dont realise you are condescending and possibly insulting.

According to my friend there is no need for tailors here. Though I did try to express to him that I have seen a few tailors shops around. Where? That, I cant answer. I saw one some where... Once. Its probably not there now. Where ever it was. I dont remember. I only remember that I saw one somewhere...Once. Once. Like we will one day talk about how we once read a book. How we once saw a tree. How we once went to the shop instead of ordering our food on line. How we once used to make things like clothing.

Anyway, my friend is now employed in the lucky country to clean toilets, transport sick people and make beds in a hospital for a bit more than minimum wage. He is well liked, yet must be insulted or condescended at least once a day for his obvious difference. This he accepts with grace and good humor. Despite rhetoric about Australians being a laid back and benevolent lot willing to give anyone a fair go, I'm afraid that this is merely lip service. It might be understood by the average person of the lower classes, who is used to not getting a fair go, and therefore has the clarity of experience to guide him. But the reality is, we are actuality quite a racist lot. I think its instilled in us by osmosis through our origins as a dumping ground and outpost of the British Empire.

While in isolation, the Australian man or woman may be able to find common ground and be able to accept someone different from him, be able to listen and understand, and empathize, collectively we have since our birth been instilled with distrust, distaste and disdain for people that come here seeking...well, anything really.

A dot on the horizon

2011-10-27T09:28:00.003+11:00

Is it a coincidence that the Governments rhetoric about stopping the boats has suddenly gone quiet? I mean, apart from Chris Bowen's solemn announcement that yet another detainee at Villawood had killed themselves, what does the Government have to gain by mentioning the phrase, "more boats" in media sound bites at the moment?

To talk about 'stopping the boats' at a phase in the media cycle when the contorted faces of 'asylum seekers' are being seen a little too clearly for anybody's liking, surely would not be politically astute. For while the very human faces of people with names, families, histories and horror stories, not only of their past, but their present abject situation, is so sharply in focus, how is it possible to spin the abstract fear of "more boats" being the real issue ordinary Australians are concerned about?

It simply wouldn't be a good idea. No. Far better to leave that one alone for now guys. Distance. Separation. The last thing we want is for the public perception to shift from abstract fears to raw, sticky, smelly compassion. Let it fade from consciousness a little. Let the awful humanity of the situation get dragged out to sea again first where it can titter on the horizon, as a barely recognizable threat. Let the suffering of real people seem a lot further away than it really is. Then we may regain some control over the issue.

The Killing Floor

2011-10-17T10:10:00.002+11:00

Well, the clip above is a taste of what I saw on the weekend at the Angelsea Music Festival. And this duo was definately the highlight for me. Seeing them in a tiny bar, which is really a cafe/bakeryso tightly packed with people that you could only go inside when other people came out, and patrons were taking it upon themselves to remove tables and chairs to make more room, made me think of what it must have been like in the early part of the twentieth century when the Delta blues was in its infancy, so to speak. Small, out of the way places, full of out of the way people cutting loose.

Leunig on not having goals

2011-10-01T08:31:00.001+10:00

This passage sums up perfectly how I feel about life...

"Ive never had any goals. I've had non specific, generalized hopes. I followed my conviction as a child. I did the thing that delighted me, that I really wanted to do. If the teacher told me to write an essay, Id go home and catch tadpoles and spend the night studying them, instead of doing the essay. I intuitively knew as a child what I must do. And this far that has carried me. The things I've always dreamed of are now coming to fruition. I want to grow olive trees and grapevines in the peace of the country. I love the presence of the wombats, kangaroos and trees. I want to paint and write and make primitive sculptures out of rocks. " (In their image - Contemporary Australian cartoonists, Anne Turner pg 174)

Of course thats very easy to say when you are one of Australia's most loved and successful cartoonists. But it gives me comfort to know that Leunig failed year 12, dropped out of University, worked in a western suburbs meat works, and attended Maribyrnong High School.

Australian Gothic

2011-09-26T09:17:00.001+10:00

Image:Amazon.com

So I finally got my hands on a copy of Australian Gothic. A biography of the Artist, Albert Tucker by Janine Burke. And here's a couple of stand out paragraphs so far...

"In Australia between 1929 and 1938, no paintings took as their subject the poverty, despair, evictions, demonstrations and scenes of humiliations and suffering witnessed or experienced by nearly every Australian. It was simply not a subject for either modernist or academic appraisal. An art of outrage arose but it was the province of a small, politically active group whose work mainly appeared in transitory left wing publications. The cartoons, prints and watercolours of Jack Maughan, Noel Counihan, James Flett, Nutter Buzacott, Rembrandt McClintock and Herbert McClintock formed Melbourne's art of the Depression. The socialist artists of the early 30's might have preached only to the converted but they created a turbulent underground force that emerged, at the end of the decade, to challenge the art world. Tucker would deeply register their impact."(pg 46)

"Tucker adopted a central idea of Read's. 'Internal necessity is perhaps the key phrase of our time.' First flagged in Art Now, internal necessity was the individual and romantic impulse that motivated and compelled artistic production. To Tucker it was 'not only my own view but probably the view of all my peer group, that people did something out of an inner compulsion, an inner need and unless you had that inner compulsion or inner need, then its not worth doing. And you cant have some teacher from outside saying do this and do it this way." (pg 109)

Other stand out themes so far...

The Melbourne of the Depression era. Little Collins St and other inner city land marks where Tucker and other noted Australian modernists hung out and would have walked, talked, painted, brooded and squelched out their cigarette buts in the blue stone laneways that are now festooned with paste ups, stencils and graffitti. Tucker's mother was raised in Yarraville and around the Maribyrnong river. But she yearned for the "middle class" lifestyle of Malvern, where Tucker spent his boyhood. The other thing that strikes me, just like it did in the biography of Charles Schulz, was the loneliness and isolation experienced by Tucker in late adolescence and early adulthood.

Magpie Season

2011-09-23T09:22:00.002+10:00

Strangely it has nothing to do with football and everything to do with Reg Mombassa

The worlds best treasurer

2011-09-21T12:15:00.002+10:00

Recent Painting

2011-09-17T19:49:00.000+10:00

Playing Fetch (acrylic on primed cartridge paper)

Pretty happy with this

Wow!

2011-09-15T12:46:00.000+10:00

Boy was I shocked to see one of my zines in the background of this youtube clip...(the red cover behind the lady with the glasses head on the left)

A matter of Perspective

2011-09-15T08:54:00.002+10:00

So I was contacted by the manager yesterday, to say that the lovely folks at lentil as anything would like to keep my artwork up on their walls for another three weeks. They were supposed to be taken down yesterday, but interest in the work has been pretty good, with two defnate sales and at least two or three other enquiries for me to follow up later today. So I have already covered my costs. Anything else from here on is a total bonus!

We were speaking with the manager yesterday about the philosophy of "paying what you feel". Which is how the restaurant operates its business. While I must confess that this may have been in part a sneaky little ploy by my mind to avoid putting a concrete value on my artwork, I like to also think that there is a subverting of, or perhaps a challenge to what the value of art is. It allows people the freedom to make up their own mind. Who am I to say what its worth?

A few years ago, I went to see Howard Arkley's retrospective at the NGV in Fed Square. Afterwards, I was walking down Swanston St against a heavy current of human traffic going the other way. A homeless man sat on the edge of this traffic with some photocopied drawings laid out on the pavement in plastic pockets. I had just seen Arkleys vast canvases of fuzzy airbrushed suburban houses and grey freeways painted against day -glo neon backgrounds. Hung in monumental spaces on vast white surfaces. The homeless artist in Swanston St also depicts houses and buildings and urban streetscapes. Surreal labrynths of detailed brickwork that have no entry or exit point. Three dimensional fortress like modern castles that seem to hang, isolated in space.

The Arkley exhibition, seems to be subtley, suggesting to us what art is. The vast, solemn spaces. The monumental scale, the entry fee and pristine silence all suggest that what we are looking at is really important.That we should be considering it carefully. The homeless artist's exhibition on the Swanston St pavement is also revealing something about art. There are just as many readings and meanings to be gleaned from his A4 photocopies that have scuffed muddy footprints on the edges.But there is nothing to tell us that it is as worthy of consideration as Arkleys monumental offerings. Unless we stop to look at it.

But like they always say about art, its supposedly subjective. A matter of perspective.

Crazy Kat

2011-09-10T14:12:00.000+10:00

Wanted to do something with Bob Katter and here it is...inspired by this article

New Website

2011-09-09T22:17:00.000+10:00

So I am getting all slick and marketing savvy and now have a new website where you can in all honesty see my art and cartoons alot better than you can here, thanks to the slide show application that is included. There is also a page of my outdoor paste ups from the last three years, (most of which are no longer in existence) and even though its basically the same thing .(even down to the name) I think its a much more consolidated format. I'll probably still post more "personal" musings here but anyhoo, thats the latest.

The Stricken City

2011-09-06T12:49:00.000+10:00

From the expressionists to Albert Tucker, Artists have always been interested in speaking about the hard things that happen in society. Came across this on a Facebook link and thought it was interesting.

The Terminal Position

2011-09-06T11:16:00.001+10:00

Julia is hoping to be picked up from the terminal (position)

What can I say?

2011-09-05T11:22:00.001+10:00

I have been enjoying drawing Julia Gillard in a bikini and heels:)

Julia's Leadership

2011-09-05T08:25:00.000+10:00

The Grave beckons..

Julia drums up support in the Labor caucus

A couple of toons from yesterday

My gift is my fish..

2011-09-04T09:21:00.002+10:00

This was not inspired by the bible, but it does have a strangely biblical connotation...

Some Exhibition Photos

2011-09-01T17:06:00.001+10:00

Some snaps I took after hanging these pieces for last nights "opening" at the Lentil as anything Vegan Restaurant at Abbotsford convent. They will be up until the 14th of September:) I was quite surprised, and encouraged by the interest in the most grotesque pieces:) Was also pretty rapped to meet and talk with the dude who started the whole Lentil as Anything thing. He told me that he was into performance poetry and had once stood on stage to perform naked while holding a dead fish in his hands. Gutsy. He's also met the Dalai Lama and used to live in a tent in the coastal Gardens of St Kilda.

The Great Artist

2011-08-30T09:58:00.000+10:00

The thing I like about cartooning, is that it has the ability to diffuse artistic pretensions. A snobbish and sickening malady I have unfortunately been prone to since I was a small child. Since I am hanging, curating and promoting my own art exhibition that opens tomorrow, with practically no experience at doing any of it, I am regrettably leaving myself open to having that ugly little demon of artistic pretension exposed. With this in mind, a cute little narrative appeared in my sketch book this morning that, if not able to take away the terror, and least is able to ground it. And guess what? You can see it here.

Distant Voices

2011-08-29T09:28:00.001+10:00

I picked up John Pilger's Distant Voices for $5 at a market on the weekend. In the opening chapters he writes powerfully about two issues that have been making mainstream media coverage quite a bit lately. The "criminality" of London rioters, and Media ownership. Specifically that of Rupert Murdoch.

Significantly, this is not a new book. It was first published in 1992. And the copy I now have, looks to have had the front cover chewed by vermin. Isnt it funny how the riots and the Murdoch Empire's collusion with Police and Government seems to have become like this book? Ney, the implications of that whole line of enquiry, are now consigned to second hand junk stalls. Just old, out of date news, chewed at the edges by rats.

How to write a novel in one easy step

2011-08-25T07:06:00.000+10:00

I am quite partial to community radio. And yesterday I heard someone say something on community radio that rang very true.I dont have a direct quote, but they were talking about writing books. Novels, to be specific. And the general gist of what they were saying was that if you never write a novel, then you never really wanted to write a novel. Its quite simple, really. Because writing a novel, or investing deeply in any form of art, takes a lot of energy and is really quite hard work, actually. Its like another simple saying I heard or read somewhere. If you want to learn how to draw, then draw!

Im having an Art exhibition...Yikes!!

2011-08-21T07:57:00.003+10:00

The generous folks at Lentil as Anything Abbottsford will be hosting some of my artwork opening on the 31st August @ 7.30pm. Following the Lentil ethos, works will be offered for sale (like the lovely vegetarian food) on a "pay as you feel" basis. If you cant make the opening, you can see it any time and enjoy a lovely lentil pay as you feel meal aswell!

Its not politics its physics

2011-08-18T20:59:00.000+10:00

www.poptower.com/rise-of-the-planet-of-the-apes.htm

Well, you know, I hate to harp on an issue that for all intents and purposes, is, like the automobile infernos of Birmingham, lying like wet ashes in the popular consciousness. But I cant seem to allow myself the indulgence of moving on from the London riots to graze in the next trough of slop in the 24 hour news cycle.

Like the legoland riot I posted this morning, the question of its meaning is a haunting one.

I have to admit, I was starting to believe the general, ( Media driven) consensus that the London riots were not in fact some kind of political protest; some surge of the poor against the barricades of disempowerment. But merely the "unconscionable" of the lowest elements of society. "the Ferals" as "we" commonly refer to them. I nearly fell for it. Started to think, yeah, well, maybe the political rhetoric was actually spot on. Maybe there isnt some massive conspiracy of the rich and powerful. Maybe the bleeding hearts have finally been shown a thing or two about human nature.Maybe the Government is right in what they are saying. Maybe...yeah. Maybe what you see on the news is right?

Then, who should show up but that fresh breeze some of you may know as Naomi Klein...

Of course London's riots weren't a political protest. But the people committing night-time robbery sure as hell know that their elites have been committing daytime robbery.... The Tories are right when they say the rioting is not about the cuts. But it has a great deal to do with what those cuts represent: being cut off. Locked away in a ballooning underclass with the few escape routes previously offered – a union job, a good affordable education – being rapidly sealed off. The cuts are a message. They are saying to whole sectors of society: you are stuck where you are, much like the migrants and refugees we turn away at our increasingly fortressed borders. (www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2011/aug/17/looing-with-lights-off)

Klein reminds us that what happened in London is actually not a precedent. Its nothing new. But unfortunately, in our age of instant connectivity, and instant dis - connectivity, we too easily overlook the need to invest time and patience in understanding the over arching narratives and unheard realities behind violent acts like these.We are herded like animals by the 24 hour news cycle to move on. We are belted over and over again for a few days with a tightly packaged narrative. Its effect is like a drug infusion, released into our mental systems via incremental drip rates that, by the time they are finished, have us believing what ever it is that is being said.

Ironically, there is an analogy of this in the movie, Rise of the Planet of the Apes, which I happened to see at the movies last night. An underclass of "filthy animals" rise up against the powers that control and manipulate every aspect of their lives, merely for economic profit. What I found striking was the idea that the violence employed by the apes (who are armed with nothing but brute strength, rat cunning, and a few primitive implements) is very easy to judge. I can almost hear myself saying, that "violence is never justified, no matter how badly you are treated."The wonton destruction of infrastructure, the property of others...these things that in David Cameron's words were acts of nothing more than "criminality"are so easy to judge and condemn from a position of power.

when you rob people of what little they have, in order to protect the interests of those who have more than anyone deserves, you should expect resistance – whether organised protests or spontaneous looting. And that's not politics. It's physics.

legoland riots continued

2011-08-18T08:45:00.004+10:00

Someone posted this on you tube which I thought was interesting. It came up in a google search link underneath my previous posts on the topic. Obviously someone else could envisage the absurd surrealism of using the benign little yellow men to illustrate the folly (and gravity) of human violence.

The Keys of the People...

2011-08-17T09:43:00.001+10:00

are entrusted to those they elect

A prophet of the times?

2011-08-12T18:39:00.001+10:00

www.getmusic.com.au/pjharvey/biography

I dont know if you could consider artists to be prophets. I read some stuff years ago, (admittedly by professing christians who were also artists, or involved in the arts) that suggested that (good) art, usually not Christian, often has a prophetic edge or voice. I guess your take on that idea would be conditioned by how you understand the word, "prophet" and or "prophecy" and its meaning.

I grew up with that strange idea that 'prophecy' was about people speaking with some weird spiritual disembodied voice, (Gods voice - which of course can never be questioned when it is wrapped in the term prophecy) about the future.Usually it pertained to the end of the world, or some other catastrophic event.Judgment on, "the worldly" or some such. It derived largely from the American Pentecostal movement and its derivatives in Australia.

Well, I dont subscribe much to Christian theology much anymore, though it certainly still interests me. And if you havent already clicked off this page, then you might be wondering why I am writing a post about the theology of prophecy...?

Its because of P.J. Harvey actually.

I bought her most Recent release, Let England Shake and in truth, listened to it once, maybe twice, before it became consigned to the other dozens of compact discs I no longer listen to. But since the London Riots, I actually have'nt stopped listening to it.

The Lyrics..

Let me walk through the stinking alleys
to the music of drunken beatings,
past the Thames River, glistening like gold
hastily sold for nothing.

and this...

How is our glorious country sown?
Not with wheat and corn
How is our glorious land bestowed?

I dunno if thats a prophetic voice, but England is certainly shaken.

2011-08-10T12:22:00.002+10:00

I noticed in my stats that my previous post in which the tag, riots was used is picking up a few page views. Some question the point of portraying rapacious violence. I think alot of people who claim to be peace loving and generally liberal, would find it offensive. And yes, I like that it is potentially offensive. But its not like this arbitrarily...at least I dont think so... Its flippant portrayal of something that can be so ugly; something that at the moment is taking place in a very REAL way in London, on the surface, appears to be the opposite of all our "civilized' and 'enlightened' society supposedly stands for. But so much of our civilization is based on violence and oppression rendered in a less obvious form.

Anyone walking along Donald St, Footscray can see the above images. And originally, I think I intended them to mock the senslessness of human violence. But in light of the London riots, maybe there is another reading emerging...

I wonder if the agents of the Empire (ie: media coverage) are doing anything less than treating the supposed offenders with a kind of disdainful flippancy? I dont claim to be an Anarchist, but I do claim some sympathy with its principles. And I think, (with my admittedly limited understanding of the true context, that could be proved misplaced later) that those engaged in violent resistance in England are being reduced by agents of Empire and power to nothing more than these lego men. Caricatures we can easily indict and condemn when our power is threatened.

My Bird like a Soul

2011-08-08T10:52:00.000+10:00

Most of my artwork goes up on my Facebook page these days. But I thought I'd post a new canvas I'm pretty happy with here. I've started using Atelier impasto gel medium with acrylics and it seems to really be suiting and adding something to my style and palette. It works beautifully with both thick impasto applications of paint, as well as thin washes that really add a luminosity to the underlying textures I've been trying to develop. As I think I have said somewhere before, Atelier Impasto Gel Medium, where have you been all my life?

This work is for sale. If interested, you can contact me on my Facebook page or via email : nommric@gmail.com

I have no idea where I'm going...

2011-08-03T16:37:00.002+10:00

Well a new paste up went up today in the midst of roaring winds blowing across the Princess Highway. Its an abandoned space I recently discovered. Pretty much sandwiched between West Footscray Station and the Whitten oval.What would be known colloquially as a "shooting gallery" and I dont mean anything to do with archery or carnivals with little black metal ducks.

This space was, and still is, just begging for some serious paste ups. I try to restrain myself, however, from just pissing all over everything like a dog with bladder issues, for as much as I am prone to impatience, I do like to make some attempt to take what I do with paper and home made glue seriously. In this instance, which I have titled, "I have no idea where I'm going," I think it at least gives the Junkies on the nod behind the fence something to look at.

Information Vacuum

2011-07-26T22:35:00.000+10:00

This morning while driving to work two and a half hours late, I happened to catch a RRR presenter interviewing an editor of Crikey.com about media representation of the awful Norwegian tragedy over the weekend. As the news broke, but the actual facts were still very much unclear, it is apparent that many supposedly reputable media outletsm were already calling it Western Europe's 9/11.

And somewhere in there, the phrase "information Vacuum" was used. And I thought to myself, that is an interesting turn of phrase.

Passion and Aggression

2011-07-24T10:11:00.001+10:00

Malcolm Turnbull and Tony Abbott discuss conservative environmental policy... with a little more colour and stylization...

The Scissors of Unity

2011-07-23T11:14:00.003+10:00

When the 7pm Project had the leaders of the three major political parties on their show a few weeks ago, Tony Abbott appeared, to my mind at least, to be the least personable of the three. Not withstanding Adam Bandt's near standing ovation for clearly being the hero of progressive politics. It appeared to me that Tony Abbott was the least liked by panel or audience alike. He does give the impression of being something of an oafish stand over bully...

Malcolm in the middle

2011-07-22T15:49:00.000+10:00

Malcolm Turnbull has weighed back into the debate by reiterating his stance as a "green" conservative. I have been wanting to do an illustration of him for a while and here are today's efforts. Above, we have "Malcolm in the middle" the softer, greener, progressive conservative. Below, we have farmer Malcolm, watering his political aspirations...

Corner of Barkly and Donald St, Footscray

2011-07-21T11:58:00.001+10:00

So here is the first offering of rioting lego men taking to the streets...

Legoland riots

2011-07-19T09:44:00.001+10:00

So one of my latest all important obsessions is painting lego men (I'm up to about twenty so far) holding, or raising above their heads, implements of senseless and sometimes rapacious violence. Lego men are such an immediately recognizable symbol to many people and in late popular culture have reached something of of an iconic, if not cult status.

Wikipedia notes that, "the Lego world came together in 1978 with the addition of the Lego "minifigure". These small Lego people have posable arms and legs, and a friendly smile. The figure was used in many varieties of Lego sets, allowing consumers to construct elaborate towns with buildings, roads, vehicles, trains, and boats, at the same scale, and populated with the smiling minifigure Lego citizens."

I like to think they possess a certain benign passivity that juxtaposes itself sharply against the kinds of implements and acts of senseless violence humans are so freely given to. They are so strangely inanimate yet so given to animation. In their simplicity, so easily recognizable, they represent something quite basic. Something fundamental. Perhaps we can recognize a universality in their frozen yellow faces? The shock of a raised meat cleaver, delivered with a benign, indifferent smile. We would never do such a thing. Would we?

A good likeness?

2011-07-16T10:27:00.000+10:00

I posted this illustration on Facebook and asked people to tell me who it was after a disagreement with the better half over the likeness to its subject, Rupert Murdoch. The first comment on Facebook suggested it looked like Lynden Johnson. The second suggested it might be the newsreader Brian Henderson. Brian Henderson? C'mon!! At this point I began to groan inwardly at the prospect of the better half being right about something, and me being...err...wrong. Luckily, an obscure facebook "friend" suggested it might be Rupert Murdoch, which really saved me from having my face completely, rather than partially coated in egg.

Personally, I can see the likeness. Its subtle, but I think its there. Unfortunately, when doing caricatures, it helps that your subject is immediately recognizable to the people viewing it. I think the technique is good and developing, however, which is a positive:)

New life for an old girl

2011-07-13T10:08:00.001+10:00

Yeah so I know I tend to wax lyrical from time to time about my musical journey which I must say began at a very tender age. I remember wanting an instrument as young as four, but at the age of six or seven, while waiting at the bus stop in down town RADelaide with my mum, I used to sneak into a basement music shop there and marvel at all the shiny instruments. I was in there regularly enough for one of the sales people to hand me an instrument one day. Which I no doubt made a god ugly sound on and annoyed all the customers. I was also in there often enough for my mum to notice. She bought me my first guitar for my seventh or eighth birthday.

So on turning 38 recently, my gift to myself, with some financial help from my mum, was to install a pick up in the sound hole of my old ply wood acoustic, which I have been playing for nearly twelve years...

I also invested in a Roland Microcube buskers amp, (very reasonably priced) which despite its small size produces a mighty distortion sound and is well suited to my needs.

Installing the pick up was a relatively simple operation requiring nothing more than a hole drilled into the body of the guitar and screwing the jack into the hole from inside the body. Its positioning was basically necessitated by how far I could get my arm inside the body of the guitar through the sound hole.

The verdict?

Very Happy!! There's new life in the old girl yet..

The Vegie Patch

2011-07-03T17:22:00.001+10:00

Well I seem to be taking to the garden like a duck to the proverbial water at the moment. As you can see, I have spent this weekend digging up two garden beds and trying my hand at a bit of soil conditioning. Have dug one bag of sheep manure, (which I sourced from here) into one bed with some sugar cane mulch and added some gypsum to both beds to help break up the heavy clay soil. And seeing the soil is so heavy clay, I plan to also trying my hand at making my own mud bricks to border the beds and keep them level.

The three bins against the fence are the beginnings of my composting escapades and each bin has a hole drilled in the bottom of it with a garden stake in the middle and a length of slotted ag pipe over the top so the heap gets good oxygen supply. They also have about six holes drilled around the bottom and are sat up on the garden stake off cuts for good air circulation.

Now all this soil and manure under the finger nails business is well and good, but it actually remains to be seen whether or not I can actually GROW anything GREEN, let alone edible!!

South

2011-07-02T10:35:00.004+10:00

So those paying attention may note in the side bar that I am currently reading SOUTH by Sir Ernest Shackelton. Actually its been lying around for quite some time since I got side tracked by the biographies of the Italian artist, Modigliani (your quintessential suffering tuberculor poverty stricken artists story) and Charles Shulz, the creator of Peanuts comic strip.

I really only picked up south as I was out of other options and needed some good bed time put me to sleep reading.But this is in fact an extraordinary and compelling story of the 1915 Endurance expedition to the South Pole, during which Shakleton and his men managed heroic feats of survival on the polar ice fro two years after their ship the Endurance was crushed by ice floes and sank.

I have bookmarked some short passages ( they may be long to you) that I found haunting. Not only for the beautiful writing but for the sublime reality of it. And would like to share them with you now...

"So the shadows come and go silently, melting away finally as the sun declines to the west We seem to be drifting helplessly in a strange world of unreality. It is reassuring to feel the ship beneath ones feet and to look down at the familiar line of kennels and and igloos on the solid floe." The floe was not so solid as it appeared. We had reminders occasionally that the greedy sea was very close, and that the floe was but a treacherous friend, which might open up suddenly beneath us."

"We were helpless intruders in a strange world, our lives dependent upon the play of grim elementary forces that made a mock of our puny efforts."

This one's a cracker...

"At the head of an ice tongue that nearly closed the gap through which we might enter the open space was a wave worn berg shaped like some curious antediluvian monster, an icy Cerberus guarding the way. It had head and eyes and rolled so heavily that it almost overturned. Its sides dipped deep in the sea, and as it rose again the water seemed to be streaming from its eyes, as though it were weeping at our escape from the clutches of the floes. This may seem fanciful to the reader, but the impression was real to us at the time. People living under civilized conditions, surrounded by natures varied forms of life and by all the familiar work of their own hands, may scarcely realize how quick the mind, influenced by the eyes, responds to the unusual and weaves about it curious imaginings like the firelight fancies of our childhood days. We had lived long amid the ice and we half unconsciously strove to see resemblances to human faces and living forms in the fantastic contours and massively uncouth shapes of berg and floe."

While looking for something else, I stumbled on these photos taken during the expedition which can really help contextualize what must have been an amazing but incredibly tough experience.

The Shadow People

2011-06-24T22:17:00.000+10:00

Acrylic on Canvas

go back where you came from

2011-06-22T22:24:00.003+10:00

So I should have been studying my little brains out this evening seeing as I have two resits tomorrow and little hope of passing them. You see learning maths for me is like deciding to learn to speak Japanese after only speaking English for the last thirty five years. Its gonna be a pretty tough ask. The syntax and grammar just doesn't fit with my dominant fluency. In all likelihood I will have to repeat the subject. Which may not be such a bad thing. Maybe I will never pass it. But the language analogy is a good one, as if you have ever been to a country where the dominant language is not the one you are fluent in, you will understand that you can feel pretty damn helpless and powerless in your effort to communicate. This results initially in a head full of frustration. But slowly, you begin to pick up little bits and pieces and while it may take you a long time to be able to engage in a basic conversation, the comfort of knowing you are at least able to tell the difference between asking where the toilet is and insulting some ones mother can be a powerful thing.

I have a friend who came to this country with out knowing a syllable of English. Yet when they arrived here, they learned it the hard way by getting a job as a cleaner in Crown Casino. They will never enjoy the mastery of the English language that I undoubtedly possess, (*wink*) but they get by and they will never know how much I respect them for taking such a gutsy, difficult journey.

New Painting

2011-06-19T18:00:00.000+10:00

Charity Begins at Home (Acrylic on canvas)

Using this new Impasto gel medium is really giving me the effects I have been wanting for a long time

Some New Paintings

2011-06-18T12:53:00.000+10:00

Lifeboat (Acrylic on Canvas)

Floating Devil (Acrylic on canvas)

Charity Begins at home (work in progress)

Some new paintings using impasto gel medium

Unity..

2011-06-17T21:41:00.001+10:00

We were at the only place to buy anything around here the other day, and the clearly better half noticed bin smoking. "we will probably see that on the news tonight." I said dismissively. "Bin sets fire to shopping centre". I giggled and kept walking. Not content, the better half alerted a shop owner near by and the shop owner summed up the vibe of the neighborhood very succinctly. "Nobody around here gives a fuck." He said.

Since I moved to Altona Meadows I have noticed a species of bird in my backyard that I never saw when I lived in leafy Essendon. The New Holland Honeyeater

The Punch & Judy Show

2011-06-08T11:19:00.000+10:00

For a better view click here

Abstracted Figures

2011-05-29T11:27:00.000+10:00

I went to see Albert Tucker's Images of Modern Evil series at Heide last weekend and I was struck by the fact that they were done nearly 70 years ago! In a Post - Post Modern age, I am still catching up with Modernism:)

Do I have my head in the clouds...

2011-05-27T15:36:00.000+10:00

Or do I have clouds in my head?

The End Is Beer

2011-05-21T14:43:00.005+10:00

Australian Doomsday Cult Awaits the Rapture

The empty plate

2011-05-18T21:51:00.003+10:00

Water colour sketch of my mum(out of shot) eating cheesecake. Creative efforts have not seemed to be working the last few days.

Will Osama get his virgins after all?

2011-05-09T08:05:00.004+10:00

So I've done three cartoons of Osama Bin Laden since his death, and they all show him going to heaven, not hell. Which no doubt many people would find a little strange if not down right offensive.

I have to say that I find the orchestrated US triumphalism put on display by a compliant world media over the death of one man to be whiffy if not down right on the nose. And the really disturbing thing about that is that we (the people) seem to absorb the message fed to us (propaganda) via osmosis as if supreme good really had finally defeated supreme evil.

Which again, is something strange as who of us would have ever heard of him, let alone blamed him for the massive hole put in the freedom of the west, if not for a hand fed, and carefully controlled and manipulated media? Its common knowledge that the US has covertly propped up, supported, armed and assisted leaders who killed, tortured and generally degraded many more people than Bin Laden ever did. And what about their own military faux pars? Any one remember Abu Grahib? Anyone?

Obama rode his slogans about the 'audacity of hope' all the way to a landslide victory to become the first minority President of the United States, (a curious irony in itself) and yet there he is all but crying out from the deck of an aircraft carrier, 'Mission accomplished!' over the death of one person. Which, to my mind is an audacity of a totally different kind. Yet I'm aware that to shift the cross hairs of demonization from east to west really only perpetuates the cycle.

Osama goes to heaven...

2011-05-04T10:07:00.000+10:00

Osama goes to Paradise

2011-05-04T08:40:00.000+10:00

untitled

2011-05-01T23:39:00.001+10:00

Study of Fear & Love

2011-05-01T13:38:00.001+10:00

A serious man

2011-04-24T09:59:00.000+10:00

Its hard to take Peter Garrett seriously sometimes

The Orange Headed Woodpecker

2011-04-23T10:45:00.003+10:00

An Endangered but tenacious bird native to the Altona Wetlands that migrates north to feed and destroys the habitat of the Abbott Possum

Sibling Rivalries

2011-04-22T09:25:00.008+10:00

So maybe its a little late for this post, as the political media circus has undoubtedly moved on from Julia Gillards comments about unemployment. But while they move on to the next sensational sound byte, the many thousands upon thousands of people on the dole are still nervous about their fortnightly cheque. And at the risk of sounding a little predictable, I must throw my two cents out into the ether as its a topic about which I have some understanding.

But before I do, a little background to set up my proposition.

I work in hospitals as a cleaner and orderly which affords me both an insiders view of the health system, as well as a position of being able to observe it with a degree of healthy detachment. I am not a health professional, yet I am privileged to be able to see the most intimate workings of that system.

What I observe from my privileged position in the health care setting is the constant tension involved in maintaining human dignity and compassion for people who, when they limp into hospitals or collapse in Emergency departments, are often being squelched and dehumanized in the slowly turning cogs of the very system that is helping them. Its a given paradox of the health professions. And indeed, there is an expectation we have of that system we pay for with our tax dollars. Not only an expectation, but I would go so far as to say, an assumption we collectively make. An assumption that we see unveil itself when ever a failure of that system is reported in the media. A child dies needlessly, a vulnerable person is treated unfairly, or at the extreme end, gross medical negligence or incompetence occurs. When this huge, complex, largely impersonal system lets us, or anyone else down we are outraged and indignant. A media posse converges on its still warm carcass.

Now if you'll permit me, Ill draw a parallel here. I'll contend that the health system and the welfare system have some clear similarities. Similarities that political rhetoric has a tendency to ignore when it suits. They are cousins, if not siblings to the same mother. One, angelic. The other, despicable. They are both there to support vulnerable members of society. But they are rarely portrayed as serving that same broad function. In one overburdened system, the people using it are portrayed as victims of the worst kind of negligence when it fails them. While in the other, the people using it are usually the ones portrayed as the abusers and the negligible. Why is the latter system, the less angelic sibling, so rarely accused or indicted for failing those under its care?

I dont know if you've ever spent significant amounts of time on unemployment benefits, but I have. And like those with chronic health problems in the health system, being unemployed for any significant amount of time, becomes an increasingly complex issue. It impacts greatly on your ability to function well and to live happily. It can and I think invariably does end up becoming a health issue. God forbid you would find yourself in a position of needing to be assisted by both systems at once. I would contend that in this respect being rolled through the cogs of the welfare system is no different to being rolled through the cogs of the health system. Its a complex business which may involve overlapping conditions and dis-eases that need expert diagnosis and care.

But those with chronic psychosocial problems in the welfare system do not get impartial, non judgmental expert diagnosis and care as does anyone walking into an emergency Department. Even if their wounds are self inflicted. The little tolerated products of the welfare system get pushed around like unwanted cattle, left feeling accused by implied judgment of their need for support. If this kind of conduct were in evidence among health care professionals towards patients with say, self inflicted diabetes as a result of poor nutrition, their ethical practice could be called into question. And if such conduct were reported by the media, public outrage would no doubt follow.

So why do such high ethical standards seem to be expected and assumed for those suckling at the teat of the health care system, yet not of its poorer, less desirable relation?

At another time, it might suit Gillard and Labor's political purposes to align the party with these people they are now demonizing should the political winds shift and a change in tactic be required. Until then, they will no doubt remain the unwanted children of a support system that is supposedly foundational to Australian values.

The other night I watched a Documentary by the YES MEN. They published a hoax edition of the New York Times in which every article was the direct opposite of the stories reported in the mainstream news. Headlines such as, "Public Housing Funding Tripled" and "Iraq War Over" had readers laughing out loud and furrowing their brows at the absurdity of headlines proclaiming a fairer world.

What if something similar occurred with our welfare system? You'd laugh right?

Happy Easter

2011-04-21T22:01:00.002+10:00

Pulling his weight

2011-04-16T11:51:00.003+10:00

"Start pulling your weight you lazy bum!!"

New Surroundings

2011-04-16T10:40:00.004+10:00

Well, Im back at my computer in some new and very different surroundings. I had been complaining in the first few days that I felt like I was selling out and moving into an area of such banal suburbia that it would mean creative death. It was both a death and a birth I think. But you never understand the birth when when you feel the death. All the houses looked the same, the streets, the local shopping plaza. I felt far removed from all the hipster bookshops and creative ooze of Brunswick and Sydney Rd etc... Far from the inner city suburbs, way out in the suburban waste land of Altona Meadows, with the smell of rotting seaweed on one side of the road, and the industrial faceless monoliths of chemical companies and retail logistics warehouses on the other. Petrol and oil plants dotting the near horizon behind cherry lake billowing god knows what from their stacks into the atmosphere.

Sound appetising?

Well, yesterday I was driving the back roads among these industrial wastes in the morning, and I spotted a lone black swan in silhouette against the shmimering water of the Altona water treatment outflow. Saw a seagull, floating like a brilliant, luminous white smudge against a backdrop of menacing grey cloud. The idle grasslands, the anonymous massive warehouses. The (dare I say it) beautiful sculptural shapes of the huge oil and petrol tanks...

And I am realizing after all the stress of moving that I am really lucky. I have a beaut new upstairs studio and office area, plenty of space, and am making a life with someone creative and lovely. There is always a sense of pressure when faced with growth. A sense of loss of something you thought was "unique", but really was just a perpetuation of a kind of death.

I've been trying to get back into the rhythm of drawing and have some cartoons about Julia Gillards ( who just so happens to have resided in Altona before she moved to the lodge) comments regarding unemployed and have a bit to say about that particular political football, which hopefully I will get around to posting sooner rather than later.

Just a Minute Mr Smith

2011-04-05T12:04:00.002+10:00

Some of my class mates rang me yesterday to say that they were starting their placement at Sunshine hospital. (Where I work sometimes as a casual Patient Services Assistant) I didnt go on placement with them coz the University changed the dates of our placement with a weeks notice and I had already arranged to move house during that week. I stood my ground on this, despite the program managers best efforts to cajole me into 'being flexible.' And in the end, seeing that I wasnt going to budge, I was told that other arrangements would be made for me. I was labeled as a sook and a squeaky wheel by the program manager. And despite my outrage, began to feel that maybe they were right. Maybe I was being precious.

Well, turns out, after having to rearrange their whole lives, give their employers a weeks notice for leave, and squeeze the entire acute labs and theory into two days (without a teacher) to fit in with the Universities change of plan, my fellow Cert IV students ended up being 'dumped' in the aged care wards anyway, which they have been upset about in the first place coz most of them work in aged care and have up to 25 years of experience in that field and are wanting to learn more than they already know.

The sweetener offered to us for changing the placement dates at such short notice and railroading most of us into rearranging our whole lives to fit in with the University was that it was a 'great opportunity' for us as its really hard to get placements in hospitals for Enrolled nursing Students. So everyone except me accepted it and 'sucked it up' like good little princesses.

Well it just so happens that in my capacity as a Patient Services Assistant (PSA) I mostly work at the Western Campus in Footscray and I have seen and talked to Enrolled Nursing Students from my university (which will remain nameless) doing placements on the renal ward.

I got a message from one of my class mates saying that she wasnt happy about the ward she was on, (Secure Dementia unit) and she had already sent an email to the program manager.

Perhaps in standing up for myself, I wasnt such a sook after all.

The Armoured Tank of Peace & Love

2011-04-04T10:23:00.002+10:00

I think NATO calls it peace keeping

Shaun Tan

2011-04-03T11:16:00.004+10:00

Some thoughts from an article on creativity by the incredible Shaun Tan

For me, that’s what creativity is - playing with found objects, reconstructing things that already exist, transforming ideas or stories I already know. It’s not about the colonisation of new territory, it’s about exploring inwards, examining your existing presumptions, squinting at the archive of experience from new angles, and hoping for some sort of revelation. What really matters is whether we as readers continue to think about the things we have read and seen long after the final page is turned.

And some more thoughts from another article by the same

Being an artist is not about manipulating objects or an audience so much as constantly assessing a series of often accidental and mysterious ideas.

Artists Anonymous (AA)

2011-04-02T12:40:00.006+11:00

I've been packing up my 'studio' in preparation for moving and found these illustrations I did last year in the 'studio' I rented at the MREAM building which I posted about here. I didnt really think much of what I produced in the three months I rented that little cubicle. But I was pleasantly surprised by those drawings. Particularly the Tony Abbott Raising Work Choices from the grave Rembrandt rip off.

I am also now contributing to a drawing blog aptly named Drawaholics. There are some really accomplished illustrators contributing there and they do some really great professional work. Me, I am there to be challenged to draw in a more disciplined way on particular themes. Which is always helpful.

In other completely irrelevant news I have ordered my first book off amazon. The biography of Charles Shultz the creator of peanuts, after I read about the darker side of the strip in this post

An Unpleasant Business

2011-03-30T20:29:00.008+11:00

Well, its always an unpleasant business but I did manage to get my second print run of Life without chooks stocked in not just the Sticky Institute, but also Polyester books in Hipster cool Brunswick Street. Also available (at the Sticky institute) is something that has lain dormant for some time and that is the zine of this now dormant if not dead blog, which I have called The Third Autumn.

Now we have the links out the way, as I mentioned, its an entirely unpleasant business.

There I am, walking into a shop in one of the shabbiest Chic strips in this latte quaffing, city with the little DIY booklet that I drew, wrote, cut, paste, photocopied, folded, looked at, admired, stapled, folded, pasted, stenciled, stapled again, looked at again, etc... with my timid little soul splashed all over its pages like vomit, asking the mildly disinterested gum chewing person behind the counter if they would mind terribly much if you left it on their shelves with the slim hope/chance that some stranger might be interested enough to first, pick it up and second, actually take it to the counter and hand over the loose change in their pockets so they can keep it.

Yes. Its definately an unpleasant business. The woman who took delivery of my creative efforts at Polyester, giggled as she skimmed the little red booklet. I wanted to cringe, but took solace from the fact that there was at least some reaction. A reaction means engagement. After a few little chuckles she commented that it was "cute." That word that people so often use in describing my work. I'm used to it now. Quite okay with it actually. But it was at that point that I chose to exit the shop. I exhaled a long draught of pent up anxiety and wandered back up the unbearably creative Brunswick St in a slightly less tense mood.

The difficulty is that I find all that unbearable yet intoxicating artistic creativity and style and free thinking really attractive. But I will never be part of its fabric, and the thought of attending gallery openings and do's and discussing socialism and reconstructivism and rooftop gardening over red wine in the early hours in such precincts really sickens me a little. But there I am, hiking up the street after my weekly therapy session with a calico bag full of little chapbooks.

And as if that wasnt enough, I then find myself in Brunswick, doing things like this...

Its a long way from Altona Meadows to Brunswick St. But its a compulsion really. Which is maybe why I put my self through all this unpleasant business

Milk Wars

2011-03-29T23:30:00.004+11:00

Coles' usual shit was exposed in a senate inquiry into milk pricing, of all things, when the CEO of said company was quizzed by the irrepressible Nick Xenophon, ( the only parliamentarian whose name begins with an X, as far as I know) as to whether the lowering of the price of Milk to a dollar a litre was more about gaining market share, and not, as the company maintains, lowering costs for their customers.

You see, such a significant price reduction, while marketed as being such a win for the everyday battler, is actually calculated to drive people to buy the cheaper brand, which you guessed it, increases the amount of milk sold buy the coles brand, which - ipso facto - increases Coles market share of that particular product to near monopoly.

Me, I resisted the marketing ploy and continued to buy the Pura brand, even though it is almost two dollars more expensive. I did so, mainly because I am upwardly mobile enough to afford it, which of course, if I wasnt, as I used to be, I would have been "driven" by Coles desire to make life just simply peachy for those who have no other choice but to help them on their way to more profits for their share holders.

Aint life grand?

Alone with your words

2011-03-27T10:56:00.010+11:00

Here's a little something I just read from here...

But the speed with which words, once written, are now being read—a speed shaped by technological innovations long before the Internet turned the quick turnaround into the virtually instantaneous turnaround—has set me to thinking about the extent to which writing, for the writer, ought to have a freestanding value, a value apart from the reader. There is too much talk about the literary marketplace, the cultural marketplace, and the marketplace of ideas. We need to remember that a book—or a painting or a piece of music—begins as the product of an individual imagination, and can retain its power even when largely or even entirely ignored.

I dont discount that when I got into blogging that it was an absolute boon for my dogged creative expression. It was for me, like so many other obscure voices in the wilderness I am sure, the oxygen that set alight, kept and keeps the flame of creative voice burning. But as you go on, the instantaneous nature of the medium, while at first giving an instant gratification to your long suffering creative urge soon starts to feel like you are hurling coloured stones at a void. The less you experience that initial instantaneous gratification of someone out there somewhere responding, the harder you try to get it. The creative process starts to be dictated by peoples responses, or the lack there of. When you start inhabiting that space you lose the capacity to be alone with your imagination. Which is from whence cometh the magic.

Very rarely has my imagination oxidized into creative energy when I am desperately looking for, waiting for, longing for the sustained slow release or fast and sugary chemical reaction to take place. I joined up with this drawing blog to help with the discipline of regular drawing and cartooning, but the drawing challenges there leave me feeling slightly underwhelmed. Not coz they arent challenging, but because I cant force imagination oxidization. There has to be a connection between the firing and the movement, otherwise its a dead process. I feel this pretty acutely down to the actual feel of the pencil in my hand. You know when the oxidization is occuring coz the movement across the paper just seems to happen. Thats why I dont think I can ever really treat the creative process as a "professional" matter. Despite my best efforts and not withstanding the accompanying limit of my talent and ability, I believe that any success that comes my way in this regard will be incidental and purely accidental. Yet I am, for some reason, simply driven to create things of all kinds. I cant help it

To use some of my newly aquired nursey analogies it is the oxygen molecule binding to the haemoglobin molecule that gives life to my cells and keeps necrosis at bay. People who know me( the lucky few...heh) have told me this over and over but I never really get it.

Elvis Costello (Coloured in)

2011-03-25T20:09:00.003+11:00

Added a bit of colour but I think I tightened him up a bit too much. I got two five star ratings for this on Toonpool, where you can also see it in a bit more detail.

I have to say, Im more excited about these two very small affirmations than the prospect of clinical placement at the moment. Also had an email from the Sticky Institute saying that they had paid $32.40 into my account coz the Zines I posted about here, had all sold.

I dont want to go to Chelsea

2011-03-25T09:40:00.006+11:00

A second attempt at a pencil drawing of Elvis Costello who I have formed the habit of catching on ABC late on Thursday nights. Last nights guest was Bruce Springsteen who is always totally awsome as he now has that aura of the grand ole man of music statesman thing going on.

I've been pretty low as I'm discovering there's a lot of things about the whole nursing gig that I know will really rub me the wrong way. I want to care for people.Particularly those without any power in the cogs of this strange beast of a society we live in. Those little glimpses I get when I am actually present to another person even in the humble act of giving them a blanket spur the juices of motivation, but are they enough? There's so much I need to know and do I really want to know it? I am also becoming ever more keenly aware that the politics and militarized, hierarchical nature of the health care machine as we know it are gonna really push my buttons and I dont know if I can or really want to deal with that. It seems your required to have this vulcan like emotionless mask when your a nurse and be capable of just taking shit from everyone from the top to the bottom. I dunno if I can or want to do that. Maybe my idealism about nursing was missed placed. It usually is. I kind of got the whole "stop your sooking" vibe when I stood up for myself over change of clinical placement dates with really short notice that are really going to interfere with a pretty big life transition thats going on for me at the moment. But hell, other people in the group are in worse positions than me and they are sucking it up.I wanted to and did stick to my guns, and got what I wanted, got my point across and maybe even acknowledged, but your left with this sense that your the "squeaky wheel" that is chucking a tantie and requires constant appeasment. Like, c'mon boy, you really are making this a chore for us/me.

Well, yes I am. I am gonna make it a chore for you coz I dont think its right or acceptable, but your left with the little question in the back of your mind as to whether sticking to your guns will really make much difference in the long run.

The life cycle of the late 20th Century

2011-03-24T19:39:00.002+11:00

Did I ever post this?

2011-03-23T08:52:00.004+11:00

Im really not sure, but Im getting all nostalgic trawling through the drawings folder and getting into that strange space where it all seems futile and pointless and like a big waste of time. Which of course I know its not as my old friend Raquers used to say, it feeds my soul, and that, if nothing else is a reason to do it. But I must say that from time to time it gets disheartening that you accumulate so much of this stuff and it just ends up as so much gunk blocking up the drain and leading to an overflow onto the floor which just needs to be cleaned up again. Do you create merely to pack it away? Its maddening sometimes.

That's one of the drawbacks to being self taught. By the time you've hacked your way through the bracken of misconceived and misunderstood pathways and techniques etc... trying to get to a place you dont even know exists, you can only come to that uncomfortable awareness that your stubborn need to figure it out for yourself means you've wasted alot of time.

Barak Obama

2011-03-21T19:28:00.002+11:00

The Weather Vane

2011-03-19T10:42:00.003+11:00

Thanks again Scott for the inspiration

Julia Gillards Bag

2011-03-14T18:48:00.003+11:00

According to the latest poll, Julia is carrying a bit of political baggage.

UPDATE: Well, the above cartoon was inspired by a comment made by a political reporter on last nights news. But I caught some of the Prime Minister's appearance on Q&A later that evening and what came through in that appearance was Gillards ability to engage people authentically. When she appears in sound bites as a talking head, she seems very wooden, and I think it puts people off. But I think she left the audience last night pretty impressed. The thing that stuck out to me, was her conviction about Labor's ethos in policy formation seemed clear and authentic.

Pulling the plug

2011-03-13T09:46:00.001+11:00

Its so easy but do we really want to?

Pauline Hansen practices her victory speech

2011-03-10T00:02:00.001+11:00

Sheeeeeeees baaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaack!

Black Death

2011-03-09T09:25:00.005+11:00

The librarian gave me a wry smile when she told me to enjoy the book I had just checked out. I had been browsing the shelves while waiting for a computer booking a while ago and it just jumped out at me.The Black Death by Philip Ziegler.

The author identifies some pretty interesting traits in the social fabric of Europe at that time. In medievil terms, Europe was undergoing something of a boom.

"By 1300, in Central and Western Europe, the amount of land under cultivation had reached a point not to be matched for another 500 years....By the middle of the thirteenth Century, Europe was becoming uncomfortably overcrowded."

Then there is the moral dimension of the times.

"The Europeans were possessed by a conviction of their guilt. They were not so sure of what, exactly, they were guilty but the range and choice was wide."

And of course, there is the role of Medicine and health care.

"Fourteenth Century men seem to have regarded their doctor in rather the same way as twentieth-century men are apt to regard their priest, with tolerance for someone who was doing his best and the respect due to a man of learning but also with a nagging and uncomfortable conviction that he was largely irrelevant to the real and urgent problems of their lives."

So it should make for some interesting reading and reflecting.

Childishly playing with squares

2011-03-08T11:38:00.006+11:00

Since I've been in a bit of a funk about a few things, most of which Im not sure Im even aware of, I usually solve this dilemna (temporarily) by ignoring just about everything and sticking my head in the sand of creativity which sometimes produces fruit and sometimes not. I dont know which category the above efforts fall into, but I've been mucking around with these squares of folded paper, colour and shellac and how they are placed in relation to one another. Textures. Tones. Shape. Space. While it is simple, each one actually takes quite some time as the drying time, the layers of colour and shellac required to build up the surface is pretty tedious. There could be as many as a dozen coats of shellac, and two or three coats of colour underneath for each one. Except the bottom right in the bottom pic as it is what you would call, a blank canvas.

Wayne Swan

2011-03-07T10:41:00.001+11:00

Wayne Swan and Tony Abbott haggle over the Carbon Price

No Quarter

2011-03-06T11:56:00.004+11:00

You might (but probably wont and who could blame you really when this is nothing more than an attempt to...(a) procrastinate about finishing my homework (b) continue groping around in the fog of my life for something meaningful) remember this post on some paste ups I did in an abandoned building a while ago. Well to answer the question I posed to no one in that post, looks like there was no quarter given. I like how the colours of the spray paint used in the tags actually complement the colours of the paste ups. And I quite fruitlessly wonder if it was a conscious or unconscious choice.

Uncollected Works

2011-03-02T23:14:00.008+11:00

Watched this late night thing on ABC about an exchange program between artists in Indonesia and Australia the other night. They brought a bunch of Indonesian artists and their work to Sydney to participate with a number of "artist run" Galleries and cooperatives in an arts festival. I thought to myself, why not just rent a shop front and get a bunch, or even just a handful, or even just two or three like minds on board?

Why the hell not?

My mum's cousin, it turns out, was an original member of MREAM and,along with my 1991 media teacher, a post Goughist I was never really aware of where I got my inclination for artistic weirdness, being all fatherless and stuck with the lonely, abandoned little boy syndrome and what not. But after attending a family do recently I discovered the links in both those chains. I was sitting with my maternal Grandfather who started telling me how it was he became a 'bit of a loner' having come from boys homes and such. There was the same weight in his eyes that I see in my mums. Another link in the chain, it seems. And although that might seem sad and depressing, it was really pretty helpful to me. I really enjoyed reconnecting with my grandfather. Thats not something I can say about many of the males in my family. On the artistic side, there is a side of my family that is actually full of artistic types, which I have never had much to do with, thanks to being removed from them by geography, and family differences in affect and social class and what not.

On the upside, I stumbled on PSALM's blog yesterday, thanks to this guy. It has some great photos of heaps of abandoned buildings around Melbourne town. And I stumbled on a very helpful link to a squatters collective. I've seen those kinds of links before, but this one has very useful information about squatting. Interesting reading.

I found a new use for my bible

2011-03-01T23:56:00.003+11:00

The Party Line

2011-02-28T13:16:00.007+11:00

A quick scribble inspired By Scott's recent Post

Nick Cave

2011-02-28T10:10:00.002+11:00

A Brave Face

2011-02-26T14:09:00.003+11:00

Acrylic, collage, shellac on plywood The idea is kind of inspired by someone elses recent works which you can see here

Howlin Wolf

2011-02-26T13:19:00.003+11:00

Howlin Wolf looking a little Jaundiced and like he could be the father or long lost relative of Lawrence Fishbourne. Still, If practice doesnt make perfect, it at least passes the time:)