Sunday, May 29

Fluorescent cascades of lights... visceral in glow,

Protruding, orange lips connect wiry, sheers of flesh... taught and glistening,

Party plastics whine outward... running dribble of brine and lard,

The walls ache, like a congested artery... the bacon leaks misogyny,

Wednesday, 25th May

I've been working in a primary school today. Once a week I come into a school in Brisbane to help kids (working as a teacher's aide) do a collage art project. After the release of the Jeannie Baker book entitled Mirror, http://www.jeanniebaker.com/mirror.htm the children are examining at the juxtaposition of any two cultures that look far apart at first glance and are creating a collage of two similar activities done differently. These are meant to form a kind of "cultural mirror" to each other with slight (or drastic) differences. We are considering the intersections of cultures and the points where we all meet in spite of our inherent differences.

This is a first major art project for a long time in these classes but even so, after walking around talking to these kids, (most of whom, come from distant cultures and countries) I found some of the most delightful examples of creativity coming from their diverse backgrounds and home lives. In their own naivety of age, they already show a much wider cultural understanding than the average white, middle class people of my own age.

We haven't started our collage processes with them yet but I feel almost enlightened being around an audience that attaches none of the derogatory connotations to social stereotypes that almost everyone (in different ways) gets engrained in them with an exposure to social dogma.

I can only hope that the little stint in this job will eventuate into an opportunity to do similar work (even elsewhere)

I have also done some more staining on my own piece of plywood today.

(an appallingly grainy photo I admit but my technology is failing me at the moment)
I would like to stain into the dribbles below the two eye like circles a little more and start drawing into the grain with an ink pen. In the top (lighter area) I don't want any hard lines but I would like to make more subtle washes of that amber varnish to bring more complexity into the grain.

I've been cutting into the wood this time and letting the varnish slip into the grooves. In this light I might not actually use the ink pen again and simply repeat this process a little bit.... I will definitely have to have a think about this though. I am tempted not to think overly at all in regards to this though and just let my pure intuition guide me. So now I'm not just thinking about what to do, I'm thinking about thinking about what to do........... maybe I should be sleeping now I think... :?

Friday 20 May, (10.00 am)

After my last entry I spent some time playing with an old image I had drawn a long time ago. Sordid as this picture is I want to do something similar. But I want the purple waves that are around them to be formed of wood-grain instead.  There should be a comical character like these but based on the fat-scary dude in the Health clip. But he will be emerging in a similar kind of rage from the grain of wood.


Also in addition to this gruesome character I will need to be drawing and staining into some wood again for him to appear in. So this morning I have gotten up with a very clear set of things I need to do. And I have already been hopping across to the mitre 10 to get more wood. I found these two peices of ply and now the adventure begins. Though I might go see a series of really interesting indigenous works they have at GOMA today beforehand.

Journal 1 Thursday 19th

I'm definitely starting to get worried that I have a limited ability to focus for extended periods of time. Lately I have been making and thinking about art but It seems slightly unproductive for some reason. Maybe it's because I'm not producing anything with a clear set of goals and timeframes and that kind of nonsense. SO... to remedy this dillemma I figure I will do what I set out to do with this blog and make it a very frequent (daily if possible diary that anyone can read or not be bothered at all).

I figured that this is what I feel should be happening with the internet anyway. A way for communal creativity Where people can work on other people's creative ideas and combine them with their own at their own will. So here I go...!

Today I got up and spent the first 2 hours of the day watching you-tube videos of noise-rock bands. This one really appealed to me. http://vimeo.com/10818338  ... and my day felt somehow better since I watched it. Then I spent some time reading the journals of Keith Haring and I keep getting really amazed that they almost document the same crap I've thought over in my practise but with an intangible diffference.

Then after reading this and feeling an almost manic happiness all morning I want to document emotions. In a raw way. I want people to feel something when they see art. I want to feel things when I see art. Because this is what I think the purpose of art is. F*ck putting concepts in art. Art is an excuse for all people, regardless of race, sex, age or wealth, to indulge in something as ephemeral as emotional response.

I've been working on wood. This is my first attempt at staining it, putting some black ink on it and cutting into it. I want to show the grain of plywood, like a Japanese architect trying to reveal the nature of the raw material. I want this kind of rawness combined with the same emotional rawness of the Health video clip like in the moment where he is about to knife her. The rage on his face. And like the prolonged moment where she realises what she just did.