Tamawarra II

Tamawarra II Mixed media.

Getting ready to speak is not like an express train.

The art of writing a piece for spoken word performance of any kind is a long bang on an anvil with a steel hammer. Sometimes the sparks fly fast and furiously and then the slow “ting, ting” is on again. The joy of the smart phone is that an idea can be caught on the note pad or recorded. Makes banging easier. And then rewrites happen inevitably when the inspired idea sounded so good but with critique and reflection it  ”falls off the anvil”. But the inspired idea and phrase still need putting down however many times they are burnt. We need others to work with us and give us reflective feedback to “co-construct the meaning.” Having never been a comedian, my observation of my son and other wonderful people I have met in Brisbane and Melbourne at the comedy festivals is that the feedback takes years but it can be the fire that the steel needs for the anvil to make an impression that delivers a work of art that get people saying: “That was bloody funny. How does he [she] do it?!”

God’s graffiti message.

On the way up the hill to the Mental Health Ward at RBWH I found some scrawled graffiti, old style. Stone on stone, scratched on the wall near the steps. Unmissable. “God [loves] everything”. Then last week the “everything” was scratched out. I love graffiti and this outsider artist conversation!

Decompos-ART

Cleanup behind one of the street art walls at Jugglers after 2 years of neglect and the January 2011 floods reveals the beauty of some kind of print process taking place naturally – no human intervention at all.