Field trip down south

Jewellery class students collecting rocks on an argillite outcrop at Colac Bay, east of Invercargill. Argillite is a greenish stone, originally sedimentary rock.


The beach at Colac Bay with tutor Johanna taking pictures. Across the water is Stewart Island.

Our sexualised world

I was astonished to hear from a lecturer at art school that he found my video confronting. He is so used to semi-clad female forms dancing in time to techno music that he found the images in my video discomforting, singing mouths which panned back to show that the mouths belonged to small children. He thought it might be a very clever comment on the issue of sexualisation of children.

Today I read in Sydney Morning Herald that the Bill Henson photos have lead to a push to disallow artist's privilege for imagery of children which is pornographic. Writer David Marr says the problem with that is the "widespread notion that has been growing over the past decade that just about any image of a child naked or scantily or precociously dressed is pornographic." I suppose that if, like my lecturer, you associate techno music with scantily clad females, you could argue that my film is questionable.

The issue is not an easy one. There is a very interesting article on the art life that discusses Henson's early photos and the art world's reaction to them. In my view these early photos are not the work of a disinterested observer and that makes me queasy about the rest of his work.

Coffee pot prints

It took me a long time to warm to printing, but finally when I started experimenting with colour I got the bug. Our print course is finished and we had a free day today, but I spent the day (8.30 to 6pm)rolling the printing presses. These 2 etching/aquatint/stencils of coffee pots were the beginning of my colour experiments. Today's work sits under the presses at school. I shall be interested to have a look at it tomorrow when I have recovered from my marathon print day.

Self self

Our 5 self portraits are due to be handed in tomorrow. I am not sure they are getting any more like with time.
Self, in the style of Elizabeth Peyton. Little mirror is balancing on the clutter on my desk.

Self in the style of John Graham Self as an etching.

Stop the Stadium (in Stained Glass)

The stained glass window in the Dunedin Railway Station is one of the heritage objects in the city I like best. Dunedin is full of heritage gems but I doubt that the people who designed the proposed new rugby stadium were interested in integrating it into the character of the city as it looks like an overgrown oyster. A lot of people, even supporters of the stadium, are against council plans to provide tens of millions of dollars of rate-payer' money for a new stadium. That includes me as I think the reputation of ‘ the House of Pain’ should be built on, not squandered and I would prefer to see Carisbrook Stadium spruced up.

For my latest art school e-Art project I started with the beautiful Railway Station window and inserted anti-stadium images: the charter from the ‘Stop the Stadium’ group and photos from the protest rally on 2 August 2008. I see the new image as a reminder to the Dunedin Council that heritage matters.

Adrenalentil's progeny

Greta (aka Adrenalentil) made the track 'Softest Thing' in the 1990s. During our school holidays this week I made a 'mash up', combining her sound track with videos of her family. I thought it a nice comment on the meaning of time, the combination of the techno track with images of then-undreamt-of children.

Dot painting

Number 3: Self portrait in dots.

Life Drawing

Our current teacher insists on us drawing v-e-r-y s-l-o-w-l-y. This drawing is charcoal and chalk on brown paper.

Blossom

I was dreaming, walking along with thoughts elsewhere and suddenly in front of me was a picture of nature at her most perfect. On the tree beside the library, almost every flower was suddenly open, every flower was perfect, not a petal dropped. The flowers were single, white with a rose blush. I couldn't stop looking.
I know if you stand and stare for a while, an image will stay in your brain a long while. I still remember some early daffodils in the botanical gardens in Hamburg. I also remember that I was having a love affair with physics when the beauty of the daffodils forced my thoughts away from ruminations about Capra's Tao of Physics.
I wonder if I will remember that I saw these blossoms on a particularly balmy Dunedin day. Next day was cool and today is very windy so probably these wee flowers have been blown off their stems.

Electronic version

In eArt we are also drawing self portraits. This one was made this afternoon using Adobe Illustrator.

First ... on black

Our home work for drawing is a series of self portrait sketches. The first one had to be on black, light source from one side. Not sure about the likeness, but you can tell I don't have central heating at my place.

Heinrich Duck watches the sunset

Here is Heinrich ... watching the sunset, dreaming of sitting for his portrait once again.

Flexibility

BLU > MUTO

BLU > MUTO

Why Mum?

In our eArt class we had to make a video with at least one loop and a 'synergistic sound track to mesh with the film loop'. My group of four learned how to shoot film in the lift well. Our films were all different but we still only used about 2% of the footage we shot. I am not sure Hollywood is going to hire us any time soon.

Boots and brolly

Boots and brolly is what we have been needing these last few weeks. These are mine, lying on my doormat. I thought them picturesque enough to make an etching of.

Ruby blowing a dandelion

My first lino cut.

Snow on the hills

It rained, it hailed, then it snowed. Today Dunedin feels like an alpine village. Bright sunshine but very cold with frost until lunch time.Lunchtime yesterday.
Blue skies today at noon.

It's raining..

..it's pouring, the old man is snoring...

Beijing Opening Ceremony just for a few?

I read in the newspaper that the Beijing Olympics Opening Ceremony was wonderful. Ten out of ten they say. I can't find a single video of it anywhere on the Internet so I guess the Chinese officials and the TV stations have sewn copyright up. I have rapidly lost interest.