things of stone and wood and other things

i like when things happen accidentally, even better when a few things occur synchronistically

i found this page today and it included some beautiful images and discussion of the work of roger ackling

Roger Ackling works with discarded materials: recycled card from the backs of writing pads; fragments of wood which have been thrown away or lost. He finds his wood on the margins, the places where things meet ...

The pieces which he chooses have always had some previous use. Wood which was shaped into an object by some unknown joiner, put to use and then tossed aside. By the time Ackling finds them, among the tide-wrack and the flies, the original artefact - chair or ladder or box - will have fallen apart at the seams, and lain out long enough for its elements to be chamfered smooth by the sea and the sand and to be bleached by the wind and the salt. What they were once is anybody's guess; they have become abstract.

they are beautiful in this abstraction.

and yesterday i succumbed to a recent issue of the world of interiors (feb 2010) which included a spread on the house of sculptors mary sikkel and simon gaiger.

pieces by gaiger are promiment in the house, he carves in wood, and has made the most, i want to say langurous but that's not the right word, benches

plain (plane!) but with a seat shallowly carved out - caressing or cupping the body. perhaps they are sensuous benches

your heart, my soul

space
space
pace
space s
i saw this image in the latest art and australia,
erica van zon's take this with you
i'm not sure i understand the reference.
don't make your heart a place of peril, a place others dread?

space
s

pac
e
pace
space
i thought the other day,
my body has become a sheltered workshop rather than a temple
a place where i feel supported and i can function, but where i can take comfort in not aspiring to more

movement and light

yesterday i saw a series of images that reminded me of each other
i struggled to quite see the connection at first,
in the end, they all reminded me of movement and light
the sea life, sunshine & swells
guardian camera club, monthly assignment - night photography
Night vision. The London Eye transformed by light at nightPhotograph: Anthony Davies/Flickr







lott llov lights - german knitted light covers...





Non-Camo Netting, 2009










more of the sea life...

if it's rockin'

i like it when disparate thoughts come together

for instance, the other day there was an amusing blog in the age about aussie slang and colloquialisms

the article and its many many comments brought back words i love

galah, drongo, bonza

and learnt some new ones, She bangs like a dunny door in a hurricane, Up and down like a bride's nightie, 'Hairy-nosed wombat' referring to lady bits.

it took me back to the era of panel vans and chico rolls and surfies wearing shark tooth necklaces.

and then first dog came up with some bumper stickers, the best of which not only took the piss out of tony abbott but made me think

ooh i want that sticker, and then,


ooh but you need to stick it on a panel van
like maybe this one (from ferny creek), or

what about these?

beauties, every one

this one is on ebay at the moment
the seller assures us, Van has been very well looked after, always garaged and never driven in the rain. Only taken for the occasional Sunday drive. Very well cared for. The van would suit an enthusiast and the most fastidious buyer and the photos back this up
and then i remembered another article i'd seen just the other day, panel van 4 ever
while the owners sound like wankers (naturally enough - not the same people who owned panel vans back in the day.
i didn't know anyone with a panel van back then), it did end in "aussie" style, The van contains a bed, an esky, some clothes and a few books, everything you could ever need or want.
okay, the bit about books isn't particularly aussie, but maybe i'm underestimating the traditional owners of panel vans
there's a site called old holden, which has helpful permalinks like
holdens for sale on ebay, sandman,
holdens for sale on ebay, panel van, panel van

a few kangaroos loose in the top paddock

the guardian today included a roll-call of australian heroes, including skippy

and it reminded me how much i love kangaroos

(although i never really got into skippy.

sorry bout that, skip)

what is it about kangaroos?

their winsome sensitive noses

the wonderful thumping sound as they bounce by

i have a dream of carving a rocking kangaroo out of wood

i found a rather wonderful design for one - us patent 295988 - by australian sculptor adriaan vanderlugt

i love its flying ears

i love that it looks like a kangaroo in motion

i'd like to do one where the legs are the front rocker and the tail provides the back rocker, but this will need some devising.

(there are a few rocking kangaroo designs out there but this was the most sculptural and dynamic)

kangaroos in the landscape

i like that kangaroos appear even in an urban melbourne landscape

the famous kangaroos in the surf photo that hangs behind the bar in pelligrinis

a nice blurry photo from flickr

when i visited the south coast of nsw recently i became quite excited by the idea of roos on the beach (i didn't see any at the beach, but we took a photo of a pair of roo prints pressed into the sand)

i think my favourites are the clasping kangaroos on top of a drinking fountain in the carlton gardens near the exhibition buildings. i found a history of the sculpture,

manufactured by Alexander McDonald & Co., this pink-granite fountain was presented to the people of Victoria by 1840s pioneer William Westgarth, when he returned to Melbourne to visit the Centennial Exhibition in 1888. It was removed from its original site around 1953, after which Giannarelli & Sons acquired it for their land at Merri Creek, Northcote. It was never erected at Northcote. Its composite parts were disassembled and later found around the creek with the Coburg Council. Giannarelli restored the work ... [and] in 1993, it was then purchased from the company and returned to the Carlton Gardens.

i'm so happy i found this information! i've been wondering about these two for a long time.

i used to catch the nicholson street tram into work and trolleying past them in the morning always made me smile.

kangaroos in the consciousness...

there is a this mortal coil album with a song called kangaroo on it

sort of a dumb song, not my favourite, but the lyrics visit me now and again,

i first saw you.

you had on blue jeans.

your eyes couldn't hide anything

i saw you breathing

and I saw you staring out in space

i next saw you, you was at a party

thought you was a queen, oh so flirty

i came against

didn't say excuse

you knew what I was doing,

we looked very fine 'cause we were leaving

like Saint Joan, doing a cool, cool jerk

oh I want you, oh I want you... like a kangaroo...

i'm not sure what the last line means, i want you like a kangaroo, but i love the long ooo in kangaroo

it's a curious thing, but in the movie chocolat, the little girl has an imaginary friend, pantoufle the kangarou (frenchified spelling)

at the very end of the film, the girl no longer needs her kangarou and you see it, for the first time in the movie as it hops away

and finally disappears

he looks more like a wallaby

you can watch the whole sequence here

this kangaroo on a plate, was living in england,n

this kangaroo on a plate, was living in england, but is now back in australia and is living with us

this is not a kangaroo

architectural nostalgia

i love models

i have been looking at architecture (not dancing about it or anything)

and was filled with nostalgia at seeing these models by bent architects (not sure why, it's not like i've ever made architectural models ... oh, but my sister did, and my dad did too. tender feelings for deeply missed daddy)

rce

force space

force space

models, and sketches too -

palpable and/or colourful ways of enticing the client, the audience, the reader

here is a book made by nest architects, 10 reasons to build a shed to persuade some clients to their way of thinking

and another blog about what they're reading

i love that objects are photographed against a cutting board background

makes me nostalgic all over again

waste of time, waste of space

long hard look in the mirror-time for those of us who are good at wasting it!
i saw a piece in the age online - The time we waste
the piece gets you in first off, with the immortal opening,
Artist Julian Schnabel is undoubtedly one of the bigger wankers to stride the earth, as evinced by his famous quote in which he claimed: "I'm the closest thing to Picasso that you'll see in this f---ing life."
there is also an image of a rather wonderful sculpture called, waste of time, which would look like an andy goldsworthy but for being made out of old pc monitors.
the reason for mentioning schnabel is his comment, "I believe we won't be judged on whether our actions are good or bad but on how much time we've wasted" ...
ouch.
later there's another quote from phillip adams which makes me want to punch him,
"When people say how do you do so many things? I often answer them, without meaning to be cruel, 'How do you do so little?'"

the thing is, some people are "busy" people, some people (me!) aren't
but it's true i feel happier more content when i'm achieving things, when my brain synapses are snapping

this week i glimpsed the cover of a buddhist mag, tricycle. it said, doing nothing can make you wise
it captured my imagination, and the magazine came home with me.
of course, the article is more complicated (in a simple buddhist way) than "doing nothing" but it's an interesting idea - relinquishing ambitions that cloud the thinking,
Do Nothing - A guided meditation by Dzongsar Jamyang Khyentse Rinpoche
there has never been a more important time in the world than now than to "do nothing" - but this is more about idiot-busyness - checking your phone for messages instead of calmly waiting for the tram, for instance.
ringing someone to tell them you'll be there in 2 minutes, as you walk down the street towards them, for instance.
(i quipped to myself yesterday, they're all living in their own private iphone.)

i am not quite a passenger, but if i was i'd want to be listening to iggy while i rode around,