Sutra: Shaolin Monks

As a remarkable counterpoint to the Southside Festival on 18 September, on Sunday 19th we went at the encouragement of Patrick Pang, the Australian director of the Shaolin Temple to the Opera House in Sydney to see Sutra, about which I later wrote to Liz to say:

See in the short clip below that the Belgian-Moroccan choreographer is 'choreographing' or conducting the swordsman while the boy watches. The choreographer Sidi Larbi Cherkaoui spent three months with the Shaolin three years ago, has developed this project with them since. He remarked on how with a Belgian Flemish mother and Moroccan father he was always aware of being an individual, observing people 'living in their boxes', unaware. He had found that the Shaolin were, monks in a communist country, so much more open to new ideas and with a sense of freedom than many affluent, 'free', isolated, unhappy people in Europe. When the impresarios came and asked him "was this checked out by the government in China" he would answer "What is it that you think you are doing?" You see the use of boxes (by a sculptor) on the stage, for stunning effects as well as the sense in the choreographer's thoughts on life. The string group is behind the diaphanous backdrop. Wonderful music, the whole thing hypnotic, for about 70 minutes. Endorsement also of a life doing many things not in boxes  ... :-)

Christine Anu at the Southside Festival

The Southside Festival on 18 September (see preceding post) concluded with a wonderful concert by Christine Anu. Click down below the photo to watch the movie! Please remember that it's bootleg recorded/photographed with available (negligible to glaring) light, with my iPhone only. And [oops] I missed the first several bars, my finger, chilled by a softdrink bottle, making no impression on the heat-sensitive record button. Oh yes, and next time I'll stand further away from the speakers to record!

The Southside Festival at Coomaditchie Aboriginal community

The Southside Festival brings together the southern suburbs of Wollongong. Coomaditchie is an Aboriginal community, with also a cultural centre, in a place hitherto a bottom swamp land to which Aboriginal people in the region were shoved by white settlers.

The Festival on 18 September was a wonderfully warm and happy event, with two major events - a drama with circus elements and a concert by Christine Anu. Christine Anu's description of the event is here - copied below:

On Saturday 18^th September 2010 from 5pm to 9pm  the Cowper street side of Coomaditchie lagoon will become an open air theatre to a spectacular event. Local artists and performers will tell an ancient dreaming story through a combination of narration, song, large scale puppetry, live percussion, stilt walking, fire sculpture, dance, screen projections and aerial performance.

Cumbangi– The Queen of the Reeds who featured in the 2007 Southside Festival  will be returning to Coomaditchie to check on the health of the lagoon.  While she is there she will tell the story of how the black swans got their feathers.  As is traditional at the Southside Festival the Wadi Wadi Mixed Tribe dancers will dance on specially prepared sand stage.

The theme of  year’s festival is ‘home’ . So in addition to the Black Swan dreaming story – we will all focus on the value of home. Many of the local community members have been working for the last few years to clean up Coomadichie Lagoon so that the black swans (and other species) can return home.  An integral part of the performance will be a giant nest – to represent home. Audience members will have had the opportunity to write and draw thoughts and messages of home onto calico banners in the weeks prior to and also on the day of the event and as part of the performance they will be called upon to “help build the nest”.

After the performance by local artists widely acclaimed singer songwriter Christine Anu, will be performing.

The Southside Festival is a FREE event with entertainment for the whole family. The festival celebrates culture and place.  “We focus on the richness of cultural diversity and the beauty of the local environment. “ says  Sue Leppan one of the festival organisers. The festival has been hosted at Coomaditchie Lagoon by local community organisations every second year since 2003.

Here are photos of the site, the Cumbangi play, and the concert. Also an MP3 recording of last two songs, regrettably the first song has the beginning chopped off!

The photos are with iPhone in the natural and eventually negligible light

– enjoy the impressions!

first a view down over the entertainment space, down to the lagoon

Helen with Sue, MC on the night and an organiser

The apparatus for trapeze artist later 

performers prepare

Here is the full meaning of multiculturalism 

NRMA sponsorship, Salvation Army organised, 

absolutely straight dinki-di Halal sausage sandwich coming up

and the show begins

concert in next post!

sunset road photos

I cursed myself Wednesday, travelling to Wollongong, for once in the passenger seat, that I was passing amazing sunset scenes and had again left the camera at home. Then - doh - I remembered the trusty iPhone, which with its simple small lens and slow exposures does some marvellous things in moments like this. Click photos to enlarge, use back button to return.

Photos of Helen

We went on Wednesday to a dinner for Jennie George, retiring from parliament. Before we left, I had a moment to take photos of Helen with the iPhone. Pleased with results.

This second photo is with a painting Helen bought at the NAIDOC week exhibition in Nowra, 

painting by Aboriginal elder Auntie Marie Stewart, entitled Doonooch - local Aboriginal name for owl 

— the owl having also for Aborigines the reputation of wisdom

wood carving

I have become aware of some excellent items around the house where I can built experience with wood carving.

Two years ago I had a large cypress cut down in the front yard. There is a big stump still out there for me to carve when a little more experienced (entirely in the public eye). There is, from the same tree, a post in ground in the back yard, which I put there with a view to carving one day. And there are two benches, sliced halves of that cypress, in the back garden. Today, brain fagged with a virus and restless, I was able to go and work on one of those logs, part done a figurative carving, practice for the big vertical items.  Here below is a progress report in photos. As I worked I was thinking of the Etruscan woman whose tomb we saw in Viterbo, photo here. The tools I am using are the Pro-4 Woodcarver and the Mini Grinder from Arbortec. The burn marks, which I may leave for effect (ears, eyes, hair, breast), are caused by using the Mini Grinder with the cutter getting blunt.

Enough done for today, nice to be able to go look and think about where to go next. Already been interesting, you shape it then you realise as a novice that it still looks like a block of wood more than anything else, and cut more and more and more. I came to the view that for the artistic form the minimum amount of remaining wood is probably the ideal and also most real or moving... but that is to be balanced with the practical need to sit on her...

Bottom and legs not yet begun. Some detail and refinement in the upper body needed. Having worked from above, seeking satisfaction looking at it from above or obliquely close up, when I walked to the house and turned around to look from a distance, she looks a bit dim and half faced. I will have to lie down to complete shaping the face, including the lower side.

wood carving

I have been carving a burl cut from this great log

and realised just now, in the evening, talking to a friend and trying to describe it, that I have been so preoccupied with the carving that I have failed to photograph it. As burls go it is very big, about 50cm x 80cm, and 25cm deep. Old, complex, dark swirls from fire and - in the swirls - traps of black amber, surely the product of the baking of sap in bushfires. I am endeavouring not to carve out a bowl form but a landcape. The tree washed into our place by violent flood. The burl reveals now, as I carve, shapes which evince the rugged landscape where the tree grew. So I am calling it Forest Escarpment. The form evolves, not defined in advance, shaped by its own natural swirls.

This is a primitive flash photo, I need to use daylight to effect to show the carving, which is up to 10cm deep now, in basins and ravines. This is a pretty poor way to display this, I will do better next day or so.

... and as to quality in the carving of burls, here is some extraordinary work, albeit with very different wood from the type and character of the wood I am working on... it encourages me to seek refinement...

nude while listening to Liberal candidate

Title sounds a bit exciting...

I had been listening to local ABC radio, waiting to hear if they gave time to Matt Sproule, talking about our community forum on mental health, tomorrow, with election candidates

... instead of Matt, I listened to Joanna Gash, seeking reelection to parliament,

... and and and, I just kept working with charcoals on this figure, 120 x 75cm , charcoal pencils on black gesso on masonite. I think she looks better on the board than on the screen, but the harsh impact of the photo is educational for reviewing where to go next with the drawing. And of course, with nudes or whatever, the biggest question is knowing when to stop...

don't forget that to see the rest of the blog, 

you click on the blog title at the top

Family photo - Cat

I just discovered on the iPhone this photo of Cat serving crepes with strawberry sauce last month. Tasted as good as looks. "You brought us up as food snobs Dad," she said many years ago.

Strange photos

I had been concentrating on design of The Back House Press and then suddenly, or eventually, there arose the opportunity to take these photos...

I will reveal what they are in a few days.

Guesses welcome - use comment box!

setting up for multiple creative directions!!!

For our books, including a new one sent to Blurb last night, we have a new blog here.

The new book conbines some photos with extracts from novel in progress, scenes which were inspired in part by a storm photographed. A sudden shock to the photographed past - a 1000gb external hard disk has stopped responding. So much for safely placing raw photos in an external brick!! But a fresh start is good and sometime maybe can unlock the mystery of the not-spinning disk... it may only be the power supply, of course...

I have been caught up by some political activity for a moment,

...though also setting up the devices in the house to make it easier to draw and paint (a huge Italian architects drawing board 1500x1000mm, $100 from eBay)

and a new (old - Mac G4) computer, to do the novel (portrait screen) and manage photos (landscape screen, second monitor) taken with a new (old) camera, a Fujifilm S3, which has best reputation for dynamic range (keeping the detail of the very bright, seeing into the dark at the same time).

Also we have acquired a timber jig to cut lumber of which we have huge new quantities at Bodalla (see two posts back)

.. and an (old and monstrous) radial arm saw from eBay to make furniture and studio, etc.... to make art from great pieces of wood, I hope. Two interacting things have this week triggered off impulses to design with wood. First, in making some garage space, finding a bin of children's wooden blocks. Second, watching a documentary about I.M Pei "Learning from Light". ... which gave new meaning to spilled children's wood blocks. At Bodalla we have great chunks of dark Eucalypt and other native timber and also lots of pale Paulownia. The precision of the radial arm saw may enable us to combine these in interesting ways, for different practical or aesthetic purposes.

The hammer will show the size of this log below, washed in in February flood