a cool night

firewood

Someone's got a wood fire burning nearby and the smell has taken me straight back to Switzerland where we spent a wonderful  week in the village of Wilderswil walking in the mountains last year.
Smells can be such powerful memory triggers. I wonder if they could be utised more in artwork?

missing friends

french dialogues

french dialogues

Another cold night in Brisbane (10C) and another "Grey" image from frozen Stanthorpe referring mainly to the french battlefields that have given their names to settlements around Stanthorpe.

rainy day

A very wet and dark day in Brisbane today. The few veges I still have in are loving it, my brocoli is starting to make some headway and the snow peas are starting to get serious about climbing. Had a few more friends get stuck into my great crop of rosellas but I probably have enough for another pick of about a bucket-ful if anyone wants to come over. I'll post another monochrome or two out of "Grey" for you.

solar

place of flowers

"Grey"

Eukey Rd Stanthorpe

The first work in my new diary "Grey". I'll tried to use mainly monochrome colours and reduce bright colours for a while.I started this diary in August last year. My wife Jenny and I like to go to Stanthorpe in the cold and get a little cottage with a roaring log fire to relax for a few days. The black cypresses near our cottage gave me lots of "juice" for the first few drawings which I started out there in front of the fire. It's a pity I may  not be able to make our yearly pilgrimage this year but there's still plenty of work to do before this diary is finished.

boat people




1972

 



instinctively

 



prior

 























"1972" took me back to Holland to look for my roots. Although it was an extremely interesting and valuable experience, I did not find my roots and left just as firmly rooted to Australia as ever. My unrooting was to happen much later. These were some of the last in "Margins" and prompted by the boat people dilema facing our politicians.

what ever you do



another scan





little Tokyo





what ever you do





floods



A few more from "Margins". Japan, Holland and London were very much on my mind. Even my medical events intrude occasionally. I rather like the change in pace and atmosphere with 'floods' and "little tokyo".

marginal again



leave something behind



stuffed

directions

More from "Margins". Again the spatial room format compartmentalises and organises disparate and connected thoughts and experiences.

dreamer

Postconditions

Dreamer

I have a few more pages from "Margins" for you to explore and give me feedback on. "Postconditions"also shows some of the contrails I mentioned recently. They made such an impact on me in Switzerland last year with the crisp blue skies. "Dreamer" is still in Switzerland and has much shallower space both literally and in the space of my memory. Work on "Grey" is proceeding slowly but steadily and I feel like a shot in the arm to get me moving in new directions while still holding on to some of the constant concerns that don't change much.

dry

Dry

It never ceases to amaze me how many contrails you see on fine days in Europe. With the weather starting to cool down in Brisbane, we should start seeing a few in our crystal clear skies, although we don't have anywhere near the amount of air traffic. Our "Dry" has well and truly broken with record rains and floods just about everywhere in eastern Australia. This image from "Margins" was started while we were still in drought but finished last year . The whole dairy "Margins" has only just finished.I ahve been exploring the use of 3-D space(like a room)  as linked with the different times and places that are linked by memory.

knowing where your head is

where your head is

"margins"- another diary bites the dust

Recovery has its bonuses. Large chunks of time where you are confined to barracks. So more time to spend on different aspects of my artwork. I have almost completed my diary "Margins 09-11". As I work on many pages and diaries at once the work is connected in a rather web-like way,not at all sequential.
I'll post several images as I organise and catalogue each diary. My next one to progress is "Grey".


"Floors of memory" refers to our trip to Switzerland last June and  makes memory links with Japan and Sri Lanka. These places have very large memory files which come to the surface more frequently now that I have a better idea of how to boot my brain. "Dissolve the floors of memory" is from T.S. Eliot

floors of memory

a cow

I wish I was a cow

At least a cow has four compartments to her large stomach. That would give you much more room for adversity. My little crafted stomach is about the size of a pork sausage the gastro-surgeon tells me. I should have asked him "Fat or thin?" This image is out of one of my current diaries and is one of several I made to help me cope with my gastric cancer.

Small is beautiful

My first celebratory meal at home with my new "stomach". Notice the little 'smiley face' on my meal, it's wonderful to have such a thoughtful wife.

a special meal

recovery back at home

 Although I have to be careful in managing my recovery, I have been able to do small works in my diaries again. All these new experiences most of which I will hopefully forget. Before I do they are very useful in changing the context of previous memories as I now have something new to compare them with. And so I change. You can see this change in "Margins" and how it  is linked to earlier diaries "No Thanks" and "Next Station"

"Perfectly Cured at 74"