Diary Of An Artist In A New World

Discovering The Protective Instinct As A Dad

Tonight as is usual on a Saturday night I went to get my boys for the night. Leif was working but Pablo was on his way and I went down to Woolloomooloo to get Gian, Ashton, and Anton. Thats them in a photograph I took while walking with them. As we reached William Street a drunk woman was fighting with her boyfriend and screaming abuse at him. Every second word was a swear word. He walked across the street through the moving cars and sensibly disappeared from view but she kept screaming abuse after he was gone and so I told her to stop swearing in front of the children. She objected to that and I was the focus of her abuse then but at least she crossed the road and I hoped that was the end of it.

I kept my eye on her as we too needed to cross. As we walked across she decided to come back enraged and attacked Gian in the middle of the street. There is no obvious reason for her going for him. I was the only one who had said anything to her and then it was only the not swearing in front of children comment. She was clearly not behaving rationally. She only managed to kick Gian but she was surprised at the speed with which I sprang at her. She managed to duck and ran and I fell to the road surface but was quickly up and after her and she fell to the ground on the footpath. I never touched her but I was full of rage and told her with my fists clenched in front of her face never to touch my kids ever again. I turned away dismissively and she fled.

Just then the police arrived. Fortunately they had been driving up William Street and had seen what went on. They took my details and Gian's as well and asked if we would make a statement if necessary when they caught up with the woman. They indicated that she is well known to them.

It was just a few seconds of drama. Gian was fine (I lost a little skin from my knee when I fell) but it is amazing how we can spring instantly into action to protect our loved ones and when our kids are threatened we can become like a tiger. At times like that there is no time to think just a necessity to act. I think my boys were surprised by my reaction and speed in the situation but I think they feel very safe and protected whenever we are out in the world and maybe now they know why. 

Mel's Drawing Holiday In Europe

Mel Freedman has been coming to my sketch club for more than 10 years. He is from Glasgow and his happy Glaswegian accent and his passion for drawing are well known in the studio. This year he did the big tour of Europe and naturally did lots of drawing while there. He was happy to let me video him showing the art class his drawings from the trip and afterwards I asked him a few questions about his artistic adventures and why he draws so much. This is the result.

Lost Year: August 2008 - Paula Left

It is now 13 months since Paula moved into her own place. We had not been happy as a couple for quite some time although we retained a close family sort of relationship and are still good and mutually supportive friends. Even though it was appropriate for her to go any separation inevitably is a painful pulling apart of the wiring between 2 people. We had been together for 8 years and that is plenty of time for lots of ties. It is also a case that the simpler rejection emotions on the surface tend to obscure the deeper and more complex feelings and it takes time to deal with all that. I certainly could not have written these words a year ago while things were fresh but it is time to acknowledge what happened.

Engineering A Gorilla & More Old Friends

What a week full of surprises from friends. Firstly Saul visited, then yesterday Phil Aspden arrived just after class. Phil is the other of my closest friends who I met when I was 20 and living in Jake's Monastery. Phil was the one responsible for me moving into the monastery. (in case you are wondering the monastery was not a place of monks - it was an old rooming house full of artists, writers, poets, musicians, writers and other bohemians. I met Phil at an exhibition we both were in just 3 weeks after I moved into the Cross (again - not a religious institution, just the common name for Kings Cross used by locals). He was living in the monastery and let me know a few days later that a room had become available. Saul moved in a few weeks later.

Phil is a very valued friend but he lives a long way away and so we don't see each other very often, although it would be more often if I wasn't such a workaholic. Last night I had a lot of work to do too - I had to do the covers for the sketchbooks for the hens this weekend. But we went up to the Kings Cross Hotel and had a drink at the cocktail bar on the 5th floor. Many years ago Phil had lived there when the hotel was run down. Afterwards I worked on the sketchbooks until 7:30am.

Old Friends & Struggling With The Computer Age

I couldn't sleep. The change in weather does that, but I had also suffered from nightmares. I was in a car being driven by a woman I did not know and she decided to commit suicide by driving at high speed into oncoming traffic. I don't think her death wish had anything to do with me - I was just the unwitting passenger who couldn't do anything to stop events unfolding. Hate that and especially hate that a dream like that stops me from sleeping.

I had had about 2 hours sleep at most but since I couldn't sleep I started to do emails and catch up on some things. It was fortunate really because ordinarily I would have been asleep at the time, but being up I heard a voice from the street calling out to me. It was an old friend from up the country who had come into town unexpectedly. It was Saul Munro and it was wonderful to see him and have him in the studio for a few hours. Friends are such a reassuring aspect of reality after nightmares have earlier been unwelcome guests. 

I have known Saul since I was 20 years old. He is a sculptor (very talented) and with an admiration for Zadkine and ancient Middle Eastern cultures. Over recent years he has dealt with the digital revolution by ignoring it. After all clay and stone are timeless materials that existed long before modern electronics and will continue to exist long after humanity has morphed into something else and things digital are long gone. Can't argue with that - it's true.

Shatner, Sleep, And Electronic Reading & Writing

What has William Shatner got to do with Christmas cards? Not a lot really, I suppose, since he's Jewish. Although if he is like a lot of my Jewish friends he knows a lot of people from all sorts of backgrounds most of whom don't think about religious issues much and he probably receives a few each year and may well reply to some of them where appropriate. But that is beside the point because I was thinking of another more indirect connection earlier. 

I couldn't sleep. It is that betwixt and between sort of weather at the moment where it can't make up its mind whether it is winter or summer so if the choice of blanket density is wrong when going to sleep I can wake up from either being too hot or too cold. I experience the same thing at the beginning of winter. I hate this time of year - I would prefer it if the weather would just make its mind up to be consistently hot or cold and make it easier to sleep. Today I woke up too hot. 

I had only been asleep for a couple of hours but when I wake up like that the mind starts working and it is hard to get back to sleep. So I got my iPhone from under my pillow (yes, I have to admit to sleeping with my iPhone) and did a few emails, went onto Facebook, said hello to a couple of people, did a quick crossword puzzle and was still not sleepy so I did a quick jig saw puzzle (yes I have a jig saw puzzle app on the iPhone. It is called Allis Jigsaw. It is great - I can recommend it.

Still not sleepy. So I thought I would do some reading. I have just finished the Steve Jobs biography and intended to read George Takei's biography but then I noticed I had an interview with William Shatner in the iPod (for those who are unfamiliar with the iPhone it has a great iPod as part of the phone). I figured it was perfect. The interview is a little less than an hour and a half and would be perfect getting his perspective before starting Takei's book as they both starred on Star Trek together. I only need a few minutes before sleeping.

So, almost an hour and a half later I had finished the interview. Oops, didn't mean to do that but the interview was dangerous in that once started it was impossible to put down. William Shatner is a real gentleman, he has a wonderful attitude to life. At an age when most people start slowing down he is a whirlwind of activity. Best of all - when he speaks he speaks from the heart, a quality which has probably given him a few personal problems over the years but which also endears him to his audiences as a general rule.

What Am I Reading? - A Biography Of Steve Jobs

iCon: The Greatest Second Act In The History Of Business

Earlier this year Steve Jobs had a liver transplant and the world is faced with the prospect that his life will eventually come to an end. When a man is as young as Jobs is questions of death are rarely raised but the seriousness of his illness and his unique role in the digital revolution that we are all experiencing brings attention to the details of his life into sharp focus.

I find Steve Jobs a fascinating character and because I love computers I regard him as an incredibly important man. He is a very flawed human being by all accounts and yet is role in computing is so essential that it could be argued that computers would not be the ubiquitous devices in everyones homes that they are today if not for Jobs. He is the person who changed their development from being the toy of engineers and turned it into the first real personal computer as we know it today. 

It might have been Steve Wozniak who was the engineering genius who designed the circuitry and programming for the first Apple computer but if that was all that happened it would be nothing special. There were many brilliant minds in Silicon Valley who had the desire and ability to make circuit boards for computers that anyone (not just universities and government departments) could buy. But none of then, Wozniak included, saw much beyond the circuits and geek talk. 

Alan Turing had done the math for the first computer algorithm back in 1936 making him the father of all electronic computers but they remained huge and inefficient machines until the transistor and the integrated circuit enabled miniaturization in the 1960's. The first personal computer was the Micral in 1972 and several others followed over the next few years. Problem was that all these computers required expert knowledge. The computer was just a collection of components and the user had to use a soldering iron and screwdrivers to assemble the machine. Then the software had to be installed into the machine every time it was turned on. No wonder people had to be very enthusiastic to use one. It probably helped to be a genius like Wozniak.

But then Steve Jobs came along. He didn't know much about circuits or software. He was a college dropout who had studied Zen and calligraphy. He had a vision which was that a computer had to be something different to what it had been up until then. It had to be able to be operated by ordinary people without a degree in computer programming. It needed to be fully assembled when bought - you should be able to just plug it in. It needed and operating system that stayed in the computer memory. It needed a television screen so graphics could be seen (previous microcomputers relied on flashing lights) and it needed a mouse to make it easier to control. Wozniak apparently didn't agree but Jobs was insistent and so he drove Wozniac to make computers the way Jobs wanted them to be made. The Micral may well be the first personal computer but it was the Apple was the first one that you and I would recognize as being one. The modern personal computer market was born. And it was Steve Jobs who envisioned it in a realistic way and made it happen. 

Root Canal Therapy

Toothache

To have it out or not? that is the question --
Whether 'tis better for the jaws to suffer
The pangs and torments of an aching tooth,
Or to take steel against a host of troubles,
And, by extracting, end them? To pull, to tug!
No more: and by a tug to say we end
The tooth-ache, and a thousand natural ills
The jaw is heir to.

- W.

For me it was not to have it out but to save the tooth with root canal therapy and braving the anxious spasms of fear and surprise as this or that makes a noise. In the dentists surgery even the smallest noise becomes the snap of the twig that the soldier, all alone in the woods, hears magnified, and fears more than anything.

Ralph Dayman is a superb dentist with an unusual ability to instill calm in the over imaginative artist. It is a pleasure in some perverse way to, at such a vulnerable moment, be in the hands of a patron of the arts. In that spirit here are a few poems about dentists and teeth.

Dealing With Anxiety At The Dentist

Root canal. The words strike irrational fear. Like snakes, we instinctively recoil from certain things. Dental work is one of them. I was at the dentist today, and root canal therapy was the agenda. I get very anxious. I was a victim of a country schools dental program in which there were dental nurses only - no dentists - and they drilled without anaesthetic. It was the country in the 1960's. Boys displaying courage was more important than spending money on anaesthetics. The only encouragement consisted of being told that only girls cry and be still. Now I would never go to any dentist voluntarily unless there is great pain.

My Friend Clarence

Dr Clarence Rainwater was my friend. He was my best friend. He died recently not long after his 88th birthday. Over a few months whenever I phoned him I could see his decline. He would repeat himself and at times was confused and toward the end found difficulty in relating a voice on the phone with someone he knew well. I spoke with him 4 times while he was in hospital. It seemed to me he was getting better, but then the next time I tried to ring I discovered that he had died.

I first met Clarence in the late 1980's in Cairns. He was interested in drawing, I was running a sketch club. I soon discovered he was a wonderful artist with the camera. I loved his individuality, his love of books, his love of fascinating things like crystals and old microscopes and cameras. I built his darkroom for him at Boden Street at the end of his garage. He gave me a Graphlex camera in return for it. I also bought a Speed Graphic from him. We generally spent Tuesday nights together talking science and philosophy and art. In the country it is rare to find someone really interesting to interact with.