any way you know how

i have just visited the wonder of the tjukurrtjanu exhibition currently at ian potter ngv
visiting galleries looking at art is about as close as i get to spirituality - institutional spirtuality anyway (because nature will always give you a spiritual charge or pulse - looking at the ocean, the solemn eccentric beauty of eucalypts)
Ronnie Tjampitjinpa
Pintupi born c.1943
Wartunuma (Flying Ant) Dreaming 1991
synthetic polymer paint on canvas
i strolled in wonder through the exhibition - too much, too beautiful.  it will take many visits (luckily the exhibition in on until february so i can make many return pilgrimages)

Yala Yala Gibbs Tjungurrayi
Pintupi c.1928–98
Snake and Water Dreaming 1972

on one wall there was a quote from charlie tjararu tjungurrayi,
if I don't paint this story some white fella might come and steal my country
which made me think
(1) fair point, and
(2) tell your story any way you know how

this is what i need to do, tell my story any way i know how

a recent converstation included the observation (not mine) that whenever you see documentaries about artists they show the work they're currently doing, it's always about how to live, finding ways to live

this is what i felt about the art in this exhibition, it's hundreds of stories about how to live

i had forgotten

i had forgotten about christoph niemann's blog/graphics and how good it is/they are,
here's one about roads, called "my way"

sweeps and lines of colour, joining the dots

i spend a lot of time looking at ffffound, here's what i've ffffound recently,

a sweeping velodrome via designporn

a scribble sink-hole (via wowgreat)

i love scribble - i'm comfortable with it. if i was one of the mr (or miss?) men, i would be the messy one.

(sadly at the end of the story mr neat and mr tidy turn mr messy's riot and exuberance of scribbled pink into a turgid solid pink - nothing going on there)

i love the chaos, creativity and unexpectedness of scribble.
i've been listening to the meditations of psychologist/buddhist tara brach lately and in one of her stories she puts a question to a friend,
"if you weren't being [judgmental/worried/angry] what would you be able to be"? 
i asked myself this question - if i wasn't critiquing other people's behaviour how would i be?  the answer that came back was "curious"
i think mr messy looks open and curious - the looped lines provide spaces and room to breathe

room to think and not be too prescriptive
with steve jobs death, newspapers are reproducing an address he gave to a graduating class at stanford some years ago.  he told them
...[Y]ou can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something — your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever.
later...
You've got to find what you love... If you haven't found it yet, keep looking.  Don't settle.  As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it.  And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on.  So keep looking until you find it.  Don't settle.
finally and heartfelt...
Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma — which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of others' opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

julie morstad images

while looking at these, i was listening to a podcast,
"sleep is the poor man's nirvana"

ahead of the trend

my sister sent a photo from paris,
lucky i got mine before the queues started!

references

two images i saw today, reminders me of great moments in modern art
nose and eye pillows, by jenni rope
dali's far more miserable eye set for spellbound

kids in boxes


1931 costume ball, architects as the new york skyline of their own buildings ...

From left to right: A Stewart Walker as the Fuller Building, Leonard Schultze as the Waldorf-Astoria, Ely Jacques Kahn as the Squibb Building, William Van Alen as the Chrysler, Ralph walker as 1 Wall Street, D.E.Ward as the Metropolitan Tower and Joseph H. Freelander as the museum of New York.

addendum, this one is so obvious i can't believe i haven't seen it before!

life's rich pageant

today i saw this blog ... wonderful rich photographs, images so rich you can taste them

the magic of light

planes landing, probably ffffound

traffic, this isn't happiness via ffffound

days of our lives

calendars are getting cheap to make
here's a great one, an artists' project featuring

"texts taken from an English coursebook the artists found in the garbage, the short textual extracts become poems to digest month to month."




you can buy one, at printed matter nyc
but it's a 2011 calendar, so it's time has almost come and gone.

tiger tiger burning bright

just when you least expect it, the tigers win a game.
and again they're talking about the eight.
not the tigers getting into the eight, but stuffing around the teams that might get up and into finals footy.
go tiges!

apropos of nothing

classic seats, good colours

i see red i see red i see red (i see red)

this morning, i spotted a red cortina driving down collins st

not this one, obviously

shifting my gaze to the left i saw a lovely red clutch with a huge buckle in the prada windows

again, this isn't a photo of the one i saw

i liked the detail of the tail-light of the cortina,
and the detail of the heavy prada buckle

in my mind i put them together
click-click
trying to take a photo of the cortina before it
trying to take a photo of the cortina before it disappeared in traffic (i didn't manage it), i noticed how red my hand appears when seen close up through the camera lens
this is a photo of the red of my hand held close to the lens
this afternoon, i tried to take a photo of the red prada clutch in the window.

it had gone.
an interesting experience of the here and now.
already, things i saw this morning are history

so perfect, so spiky

work by mari andrews, via you have been here some time, via in turn fffffound
ffffound

ffffound

ffffound

ffffound on the same day, this long century work by mira bilotte

i like the layout of both sites
i like the layout of both sites
i like the layout of both sites
i like the layout of both sites
i like the layout of both sites
i like the layout of both sites
i like the layout of both sites
i like the layout of both sites
i like the layout of both sites

i like the layout of both sites

but the works themselves give substance to the layout.

clear winter morning

good morning for crisp photos

deja vu

oh, this isn't happiness is just a wonder of excellent, naughty, thought-provoking images...

a sample of today's favourites






it's may be mean, but this one reminded me of some of the "style" blogs. i've loved the design files for ages, but lately the plethora of wanton consumerism and shop-bought heavy style in people's homes is making me queasy. (especially when accompanied by thousands of shrieks, !!!, OMGs and tacky compliments. where's the grace?)
the interiors stink of money and aspirational lives.
and i don't want to be aspirational like that.
not any more, any way.
i like this one particularly because it says what i've been thinking for some time

people are using phones (and take away coffee) like they used to use ciggies - distraction, a prop for self-possession