Diary Of An Artist In A New World

Real Refusés XII

The afternoon was busy with hanging and dealing with the difficulties artists present hanging crews. It seems many artists think that somehow magic is involved in holding an artwork on a wall because sometimes there is no easy way to get excessively heavy, warped, and poorly constructed "stretchers" hung in any kind of professional looking manner.

Miracles are necessary. A little swearing sometimes helpful. But some how, some way, the last of the paintings were hung just as the first visitors arrived. Just enough time to quickly change into a suit and get presentable for the show.

My role from there is to greet visitors and speak. Lesley welcomed everyone, then I did a small talk and thanked everyone and then introduced our official opener - alternative media publisher Lawrence Gibbons.

At the exhibition opening visitors vote for the Peoples Choice award. This year it was a thousand dollars donated by a lawyer who likes life drawing and remaining anonymous. Her generosity is appreciated by all.

More Jacarandas

I just adore the Jacarandas in Sydney so much I have to share a couple more photographs from Darlinghurst. Aren't they beautiful?

Spring Flowers In Darlinghurst

It is spring and the Bourgainvillea is flowering. In one street a terrace house is a mass of crimson beauty. In a lane in a vacant lot and covering the broken timber wall at the back of derelict houses the Bourgainvillea is a wild mass engulfing the ugly with a huge pile of beautiful crimson.

My Little Mulberry Tree

It's mulberry season!

Just around the corner from me is a miracle of nature and the drive to survive. In a tiny triangular bit of vacant land between two buildings, and behind an old wooden fence, is a tree. I don't know what type it is, and it doesn't matter, because under that tree, and spilling over the fence is a Mulberry tree/bush. Every year for more than 20 years it struggles for a little light, and a little space of its own in this world, and every year someone chops it down. Despite the tiny slivers of late afternoon sun that it has to make do with, each year it clambers back over the fence with fresh branches and leaves and on cue provides a feast of fast ripening mulberries for those who pass by. I like to believe this strong willed little mulberry is making its gift just for me, and so I give thanks each year as I taste the new crop and wish my little mulberry all the best and long life.

Whatever Happened To Peter?

In Forbes Street SCEGGS (which is a private girls school) has a new arts/music building next to old St Peters Church. Sometimes when I walk by I see the girls through the window, instuments in hand hard at work making music. Little do they know that on that very spot many years ago a mad artist made music in a very unusual way. His name was Peter and I often wonder what he is doing these days and where he went.

Back in the 1970's a little old brick terrace house stood where the SCEGGS music room is now, and it was in a state of continual re-invention by Peter. He had removed the floors so that walking in off the street it was a cavernous 2 story space with just the outside walls left and from the street one had to step down to the bedrock which once was under the house, but, by then, was his floor.

Leaning against the wall to the left as you entered there was the steel strings from the interior of a piano. These Peter would play with the back of a spoon. I still remember the sound that made. It felt like being in a magic garden full of wondous things to be at his place.

The exterior of the house was Peter's artwork. He continually painted it. One day it would be spaceships in the sky, then a forest would appear. All the windows had been removed and replaced with objects like a car windscreen. It was colorful and marvellous and I loved seeing it, but now it only exists as fragments in my memory.

So whenever I walk past that part of the street and see the girls making their music in their brand new building with their well dressed teacher I cannot help but contrast the sight with that zany music I heard all those years ago and the mad artist who was making it, and wonder, whatever happened to Peter?

Beauty In The Transition From Day To Night Sky

As day turns to night the transitions of color are fleeting but wondrous to follow. As touches of yellow and mauve  and dusky rose move with the clouds it is necessary to move from street to street, and like a Chinese garden, every place reveals a new paradise for the eyes.

Dawn brings its own joy of changing light, but it is the transition into night rather than the new day that really excites me. Perhaps it is just that I am so much a creature of the night and love the lights of the new evening so much that this is my favorite time. Perhaps it is just that the richness of color is so entertaining in the new surprises it has each day. Always different, so often sensational.

If, as an artist, my only purpose lay in recording this extraordinary poetry of the sky in the evening, then I would have a full and wonderful career to enjoy. There is so much inspiration in the changes of light to inspire the soul forever more.

These few photos chart the changes from the first fire spreading through the clouds to that dark green curtain that, like Indigo, is not really a color, but is a transition between colors right at the moment when it is neither one nor the other. And Then the street lights and the moon take the stage. This, then, is an evening in Darlinghurst.

My Little Mulberry Tree

Last night in the dark in Forbes Street I discovered a little treasure. Despite the cold, my little magic mulberry tree had opened a first leaf. There were two of them, tiny and fresh, about the size of a five cent coin. I noticed the  hint of something catching the dim street light above my head and drew the branch down low enough for me to run my finger tips over the softness of the new born leaf. It is very eager to come to life this special little mulberry.

It shouldn't even be here. I discovered it many, many years ago. It grows in a tiny space between two buildings and a few scraggly thin branches weep over an old wooden fence. On the other side of the fence is such a small dark space, that its only real life is in those few fingers that escape the confines. Over the years the property owners have tried to cut it down, but each time it manages to extend its tendrills over the fence once more and then suddenly produce a surprising mass of leaves. Later in the year it will fruit and I will have a taste of two or three delicious mulberries. I have the feeling as I eat them each year that the fruit is somehow just for me, as if the tree and I are having a clandestine affair in the street. it is that kind of special treat that has grown a life inside me beyond the fruit itself. It is as if when I am passing there, I can hear a whisper... "have you forgotten me that it took so long? I have been waiting, all alone, just for you."

One day, perhaps, I will see someone else enjoying a mulberry there in the street and I will wonder what sort of relationship they are having. Meanwhile, however, I prefer to believe that the mulberries were always just for me.

TAP Gallery 18th Birthday

Lesley Dimmick has finally come of age. 18 years of running the best underground gallery in Sydney. Literally thousands of young artists have had their first show at TAP.

Ten years ago I met Lesley when I wanted to stage the first Real Refuses exhibition. That started a close friendship that has endured while I have seen TAP grow slowly year by year. I remember TAP's 10th birthday party. It seems like it was only a couple of years ago.

So tonight Lesley celebrated with an exhibition, with a band, with friends, and with a wall of photos of the madcap people and events of recent years.

Happy Birthday Lesley and TAP

Dusk In Darlinghurst

Dusk in winter, when the air is crisp as soon as the sun goes down and colors become rich and intense. Because the sun goes down while it is still working hours the city buildings alway look so beautiful in winter evenings and I love the contrast btween the light of the sky, the lights of the city, and the softer lights of the streets of Darlinghurst.

The Walls Of Darlinghurst

Darlinghurst has many walls, many old walls, many stone walls. At night the people go to bed and it is the walls that are left outsde to tell their story's.
From churches to humble old houses the walls of Darlinghurst have characters. Personalities that reach out as you walk to say hello like old friends. I especially love the white house precariously perched on a street corner on top of a huge squared off piece of bedrock. The house was probably there when the street was narrower and the widening of the street took all but the foundations of the house.