Contact
Here is a contact sheet of mine that I came across . I think that I took these in the early 80's.

Marcel Duchamp

Is 'groundbreaking' the new 'cutting edge'?

No more than 2 months ago I heard on local radio an ad for the Govett-Brewster that used the adjective 'groundbreaking'. Then I saw it in an Adam Gallery e-mail. And a day or two ago I saw it in print somewhere else, put it aside but can't find it at the moment.

Cutting edge has been the artspeak favourite for some time, but I can imagine groundbreaking taking over. It has more gravitas although just how many groundbreaking shows there can be at one time I'm sceptical about. Still that won't deter the copywriters.

Other shifts have been the change from 'emerging artists' to 'new artists' to 'new generation.' New Generation is a phrase that will stick for a while I think. The Arts Foundation are using it, and we just had a show here at the Govett-Brewster for New Generation artists, although Peter Madden was in it and he was born in 1966 which I would have thought was pushing it a bit.

These phrases all raise interesting questions eg could an 'emerging artist' be a 60 yr old whose career was coming on stream. Similarly could a 'new artist' be someone who was older.

I'm waiting for some shows for 'receeding artists'.

Monday, late afternoon.

There have been many visitors in town because of the Tom Kreisler opening on Saturday night. (see posting below) Went to the after-after match party which for me is staying up late. Bed somewhere around 3.30 Sunday morning, hence no blog yesterday!

Noise control came to the party, not because of me I hope. Certainly, on the front page of the Taranaki Daily News this morning, there were no photos of Peter Peryer being forcibly restrained by members of the Riot Squad.

One highlight conversation I had was with Wystan Curnow, and it was about Buick Dynaflows. He told me that Ray Charles uses the word Dynaflow in one of his songs. I need conversations like this, where there is cross-connection, it's brainfood.

I missed out on the opportunity to ask Wystan if it's true that he is named after W.H.Auden, (Wystan Hugh Auden). I heard this many years ago and I've never asked him. I hope it's true.

I'm sorry that over this weekend, someone wasn't employed to make a documentary of this event, or at the very minimum, even if it had been done in the most rudimentary manner, take some photos. I would like to be able to link you to a page that showed you snaps (preferably flattering) of who was there. Oscars New Plymouth style.

Saturday afternoon I cleared out surplus spectacle cases and laid them on a table so that guests here as result of the Kreisler opening, could help themselves. I fetched a camera but I don't think that this image below passes, but all the same, I was surprised that I was still burrowing into this territory because I thought that Matisse 2005 had solved it. I'd written up the theorem so to speak.

It was a time when I felt a connection with Surrealism in general and Dali in particular and when I came to have a new respect for him. There were others too of course, I mean no disrepect to their achievements. Miro I come to appreciate increasingly, for example. Arp as ever, Calder's kinetics. And seeing two El Greco works in Spain in the late 90's changed my thinking somehow. They had power and it was raw.

Here are some photos from the last 18 months.
The one at the top is the spectacle cases, Saturday evening. I bit mannered I feel. Matisse is better. After Dali 2005/06 I still think is too interesting to consign to the dustbin.

Matisse 2005

After Dali 2005/06

Going to this opening later. 20 mins walk from here to the Govett-Brewster.

Angel's Trumpet Flower 1932
Georgia O'Keeffe 1887-1986

I have these flowers in my garden and frequently just have to pick up my camera.
This is from the most recent occasion.

More Potatoes.

Several months ago I prepared a small patch of this rich Taranaki earth in readiness for planting potatoes. I've never grown potatoes but my father did and successfully. Milton always dug some from his garden to be part of christmas dinner eaten on the day of the harvest, although dinner in this case was the middle of the day, turkeys and trifles and christmas pudding with coins inside, and of course hats and crackers.

I researched what potatoes were most suitable for my needs and bought a small bag at a nursery. Instructions stated that they had to be laid out in a warm place and not planted in the ground until they had sprouted.

The problem for me was as soon as they sprouted I enjoyed their look so much I couldn't bear to bury them. Yesterday and today I have been looking again, now several months on. The sprouts have a purplish hue.

Still not reached the final version but my educational opinion is that it's a good idea to keep making sketches. Living with the versions that don't work helps me to understand what needs to be done. Not that I do it in words, much of it probably happens when I'm asleep. If I don't understand why a work falls under the bar I may be doomed to repeat it, which is what I fear most.

Meanwhile, the earth where I was going to plant the potatoes has gone back to weeds. I'll prepare it again but this time for a crop of Iceland Poppies. Last year I had about 40 plants, and with not an abundant amount of care, was able to pick bunches for months. I enjoyed being able to give bouquets away to my friends and neighbours. This year my goal is to plant 100 so if you see an older gent with glasses and a large bunch of Iceland Poppies in his arms, walking up Willis St it could be me. Please say hello.

Astronomy and the Camera.

The camera has since its invention been put to many important uses.
Currently, cameras are busy recording photos of the universe, landscapes of new beauty. Here is a site that publishes many of these images.

I visited this radio telescope in 2000. Called the Very Large Array, VLA for short,
it's in an isolated part of New Mexico, USA.

I took these two photos while there, but only ever made a couple of prints of each.