when panic looms

Suddenly in a creative rut with no time to wallow (yes, now), I try and remind myself of the golden rule of input and output, tried and tested:

More concentrated thinking and hard work WILL bring the answer. Guaranteed.

Desperation is not helpful, pessimism is not helpful, giving up is certainly not helpful, fear of criticism is just the ego talking, and general panic is the worst. It suffocates free, lateral flow of ideas as well as snuffs out all clear logic.

So.

Just sit down with dedication to spend some time; be methodical; have spurts of creative play in between the linear progress, then mix, and edit the results again. Remind yourself that this in its pure state is what you love, afterall. Keep at it until you arrive at a clue (you will!) – soon it will begin to grow and evolve into something more, enthusiasm will creep up again and start tingling in the back of your legs (or wherever). Before you know it, you're back in the saddle again, having discovered a direction.

Optimism is everything.
Remembering how the process works, by putting in work, at times when you feel nothing is working, helps in being optimistic.

Just had to say this to myself today.
Tomorrow morning, it's a pot of coffee & go go go!




– or, try making your own luck.

PS. my free beloved rubbish

PS.

6.
Photographing "rubbish" doesn't cost anything.
And, although the same things are there, free and available for every passer by, discovering a small miracle in the gutter (on the wall, by the roadside, under a stone …) always feels very private and very fortunate, unique. It sustains.




an outline for a neck piece …


a sketch for a brooch or pin …



… the beauty of old paper.

brunswick gold 2: my beloved rubbish

Two torn notes found on a garden bed, Albert Street, next to each other.
"Can you m..... the kids?" and "SKELETON!"

The toll free Family Helpline number is...

: )

* * *

There are two things I love to do while walking around: Picking up small discarded objects or natural materials, and documenting the random aesthetic of rubbish, rust and stains and the like, in which I often find immeasurable beauty and unexpected, interesting compositions and forms.

First, regarding "rubbish". What I get from studying it:

1.
Being on a lookout makes a simple walk around the block interesting: you never know what you are going to see or find. It keeps the imagination alive, and regularly moving around the neighbourhood, noticing the people, seasonal changes and happenings also brings a sense of "belonging". Something that I miss (or have always missed).

2.
It makes me concentrate on the here and now. Noticing and closely studying, perhaps then photographing, details of texture, colour and form is one of the best meditations I know. Everything else fades into the background for a while.

3.
The accidental, random clusters and palettes of colour are a source of inspiration which I regularly transform into my work, of designing and creating ornaments, objects, pictures, paintings. This is a good way of coming up with new associations, and breaking a habit of line or form (I tend to produce an alarmingly similar range of shapes over and over if I don't consciously attempt to break away from what my hand is used to).

4.
Somehow, I find that actively looking for detail, colour and form keeps the eye "alert" and helps in developing awareness of composition. I have noticed that often, after an intensive stint of rubbish hunting or object collecting (and then arranging and playing with the findings) I afterwards begin to notice people's faces and gestures, buildings and places, spatial relationships and patterns in a more acute and detailed way, too.

5.
It keeps me optimistic. Getting pleasure from small, abandoned morsels and incidental collisions of ordinary things enforces my core belief regarding life – that negative will always be balanced with positive. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder.





















shed, eclipse, silent sand



















"It's in the trees!"


Rubbish no more – now at Saver's shelves.
I want to make a giant neck piece out of these, layers and layers of beautiful curves, luminous layers and something black / red / grey mised into the structure …

PS.
Next / soon about found objects and the joy of arranging them.
In fact, I was thinking I should try and create & document one quick design per day, put together from shapes / objects / bits and pieces I find. Just to keep in the habit of making quick decisions, in order to not forget how to have fun with making, and to train myself to SIMPLIFY things. The daily "pieces" could be just sketches or visual plans, and the format a blog allows could be a good way of keeping track of these "random jewels". Maybe I could then get to make them into real pieces a bit later. Yay.
- IK

brunswick gold 1

Dawson Street.
This is our local barber shop.
Every morning I glance their window from the tram.
Every morning, I look again.


The sign that the council approved.


The window.
Men's haircut $17.


The head.





But wait.


Above the head:
Elvis getting an army haircut.
A rasta beanie with full length fake locks.

I hear Ruffino's does a reasonable cut.


PS. Right next door, our local deli:


Summer's gone (but I'm still here)…?

it must be the golden cough syrup …

… that's keeping me awake!
2.30 am.
Greetings from Brunswick.

PS. Posted at 11.20 pm??
I knew there was a catch in setting the blog into Pacific time!

hearts of g – happy birthday best friend!

Found an old drawing from my archives. Golden car time circa 2001!

I dedicate this pic to a sculptor friend of mine, may there be another year full of hair rising adventures for you! (And maybe you'll get a dog with stiff ears too. And better still, a hat for yourself.)

This all in an environmentally friendly spirit of course, but boots and roof racks and dusty back seats where wood, concrete and powertools must be transported are still in... for art.

Happy birthday all artists, practising or just thinking about it!
(DO IT.)
: )




PS. Soon its time to return to city streets after this viral exile. This reminds me why I (carless one) love trams so much. I shall go and make a good list of the reasons and return to the topic later.

in a search for gold IV: american yellows

Santa Monica, mall-flavoured sunlight & fries 13/02/09


Our magician and the invisible Californian hummingbird,
14/02/09


Winter trees, burning with cold, JFK 25/02/09


"Yes. Frank's gone missing."
5th Avenue, 24/02/09







Before a sandstorm, Teotihuacan, 21/02/09

And

As Frank Zappa (Baltimore, Maryland) puts it:

Don't Eat The Yellow Snow

Dreamed I was an eskimo
Frozen wind began to blow
Under my boots and around my toes
The frost that bit the ground below
It was a hundred degrees below zero...

And my mama cried
And my mama cried
Nanook, a-no-no
Nanook, a-no-no
Don’t be a naughty eskimo
Save your money, don’t go to the show

Well I turned around and I said oh, oh oh
Well I turned around and I said oh, oh oh
Well I turned around and I said ho, ho
And the northern lights commenced to glow
And she said, with a tear in her eye
Watch out where the huskies go, and don’t you eat that yellow snow
Watch out where the huskies go, and don’t you eat that yellow snow

gold an fork

On Elizabeth Street, Melbourne, there is a restaurant called 'Gold an Fork'. Not 'Gold and Fork', or even 'Golden Fork' – no letters are missing from the sign. It just is an Indian restaurant, proudly named 'Gold an Fork'.
And incidentally, they serve a boiled egg with their Thali.

PS.
I had a friend who once missed her bus and was late for work.
Never helpless, she promptly flagged down a car – and was driven to the city in a Golden Egg truck.

cloud mining

You know that building sites are just a decoy:
What they are really doing is cloud mining.

Rain or shine, they mine for light, for lost gulls or sparrows,
maybe for some city gold.

I've always thought of cranes as wading birds ; )

love to love the gloves (and cloves)

This is my first post – quite obviously.
I spent the better half of the day figuring out the image upload.

Well. The cold has its bright side:

Recently returned from a long and happy journey, our luna di miele across date lines and seasons (the gloves, the mittens), unions and farewells: a wife! I stopped, and the winter flu got me before it was rightfully due.

So now, away from work (from studios, benches, desks, studies, everyday sounds of people), spending time in the suburban silence. Lying down in a semilit space, listening through muffled senses and aching everything, and then making soup for mending.

Garlic, pumpkin, a slash of knife: there is a world inside the common veg. The fresh cuts reveal ovals and arches, such pleasure in observing random repetition. And the day old shrinkage and drying pumpkin seeds, beauty in decay (or, did I hear hello middle age? By the stove, I was, but not pregnant; barefoot perhaps yes).

I had been thinking about gold. Could these shapes turn into metal, object, ornament?
I'd like to try.

White, gold, gray, the pumpkin yellow. The warped white winter suns.
The mangled flowers. The dying, drying, curling and rounding.
My kitchen blooms.