Your Mommy kills animals

The last bus to St Clair.

Photo stolen from boxoflight

I once rode that last bus, left not far from Sylvia's house actually - from my flat, she would have been 16 years younger then - she might have had a better quality of life then, than me maybe - at the time, and isn't that the big thing - time..
I reread this story, every few days and it breaks my heart - but I rode that bus once in a desperate and lonely time - Dunedin can be a hard place. - J.M.H. 

Rest in Peace Sylvia Martha Neville.

Lost & Found

Lost & Found from Joey Bania on Vimeo.

.

Yeah well, ya know.

The Pizz

 Ozymandias

I met a traveller from an antique land
Who said: "Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. Near them on the sand,
Half sunk, a shattered visage lies, whose frown
And wrinkled lip and sneer of cold command
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them and the heart that fed.
And on the pedestal these words appear:
`My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings:
Look on my works, ye mighty, and despair!'
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal wreck, boundless and bare,
The lone and level sands stretch far away".

                                                              -Percy Bysshe Shelley

Lost, standing still.

We're told often enough these days to question everything we see and hear. The out come tends to be on-line rants about the illuminati (I'm not putting a capital i there) or alien cover-ups. Myself, I guess I'm reasonably sceptical but especially so when it comes to memes and catchy good will heal the earth bullshit. Well I saw this today. It's obviously set up but I don't think that matters. I don't know what it says but the image is enough for me. I'm sitting in front of the heater bitching about the poor insulation.

Cracks in the mask.

If you find yourself in Sydney, I highly recommend a short stop at the Australia Museum. They have one of the best collections of tribal masks I have seen anywhere in the world including a few I have wanted myself for a very long time. I was stunned to see them in the flesh, these photos do not begin to do them justice at all but I hope they might inspire you to put the Australia Museum on your travel bucket list.  

 

Ambrosius Bosschaert the Younger

Dead frog with flies. Oil on copper. 1630

He who knows...

Surveillance cameras operate in this area.

I posted one of these on social media a while back and as I am sure you can imagine, the comments were text book. I'd been meaning to post SurveillanceCameraMan's videos here too but kinda got side tracked but also, wasn't sure if this was really of the minuet. Topical, yes but when I stumbled upon it, it almost seemed like a recap. I'm not sure I can explain that without sounding like I don't absolutely love this stuff but I suspect you'll know what I'm on about.

Forward twelve months or so and over the last few weeks Richard Prince has seized the press. Now before you buddy up as a fellow Prince fan I have to tell you, a fan I am not. His re-appropriation is in my opinion just really lame. The first time I heard about him I actually thought his concept was pretty cool and a fairly stiff middle finger to tweed and old port. It seemed like a warning of things to come... I'm sure you can see where I'm at. It's the same old joke and although his latest targets are fresh, almost poignant, I just can't get excited about it.

So I'll leave these for you here. A little different than Prince's angle I know but infinitely slicker in my belief. I'd love to know more about Mr SurveillanceCameraMan and I sincerely hope he has more tricks up his sleeve. There are currently eight videos on the SurveillanceCameraMan accounts on Liveleak and Dailymotion as well as one on YouTube with an interesting description.

Emil Alzamora - Mind Sculptures by Sabin Bors

Photo from Alzamora's facebook page

 In a 2010 article titled "Emil Alzamora's Sleek Metaphors," Benjamin Sutton says these sculptures "are like numerous cautionary anecdotes encapsulated in one human figure, however deformed."

The author remarks Alzamora’s “uncanny aesthetic” as “a fusion of classical sculpture and Surrealism, with occasional shades of Minimalism and Expressionism,” and that “each bust, body and hybrid organism has a striking presence and tangible mass. Most forms are creepily, intentionally lifeless, calling to mind ancient Greek sculptures, but also the imposing, enigmatic object-hood of a Robert Smithson installation. Other works still bare traces of the artist’s hand, calling to mind the stretched-out bodies of Alberto Giacometti.” (Benjamin Sutton, Emil Alzamora’s Sleek Metaphors) Mention of the “primordial chasm between body and mind” and the visual commentaries on contemporary body image issues “reflecting the idea of being fundamentally estranged from one’s body” avert the viewer to the artist’s manifest intention to denature conventional representations of the human form. Lyle Rexer too thinks that in Alzamora’s sculpture, “concept meets craft at a very high level,” and sees this in contrast with “the general de-skilling of art and the rise of conceptual strategies, which have gone hand-in-hand since the early 1960s,” amounting “to an old-fashioned, Henry-Fordish division of labor” that has taken over in the art world. Rexer adds Alzamora to a list of sculptors such as Cemin, Kiki Smith, Pier Consagra, Martin Puryear, or embroidery artist Angelo Filomeno, who “demonstrate that knowledge of materials, and, more importantly, of techniques, opens doors to imagery that can’t simply be ‘conceived’ out of the cultural ether.” (Lyle Rexer, Emil Alzamora: Random Mutations That Work) The author addresses not only the artist’s “virtuosic performances,” to mark the line between fairy tale and allegory, which – as in the case of Kiki Smith – is always “in danger of veering into literalness, an art that speaks too much for itself,” but also the psychological and political character of the distortions of the human “that work only as expressions of a distorted society.”

More from this article by Sabin Bors at Anti-Utopias.

Emil Alzamora's website

Alzamora on Facebook

Hanna Hasse Bergström

Hanna Hasse Bergström is rocking my world this week. I painted sheep skulls for quite a while but I never really got a handle on the surfaces. They are quite tricky and the areas broken up by the shapes and joins really are a difficult mistress. Give it a go if you dare. Check out Bergström's carved skulls and more of her work here.

I really am going?

The sleep is poor and has no definite pattern.

After the tone, please leave a message.

I feel a bit like a stranger here at the minute. I know ya hip to stuff. Well, stuffs a bit busy on my end and I've kinda tapped out a bit. Not like "I'm not doing any more stuff" but more like, "I've gotta cut back on stuff here and there to try and get the ends to stretch a bit closer". Well, I've trimmed here are there, I've budgeted and evaluated. I've made lists and memos and sent apologises in advance. I'm doing it right and I think good but there is a ways to go. It's not how many push ups you can do but how many you can do after it starts to hurts and that's where I'm at. A bit jelly in the arms but I'm grunting and swearing like a (K)noxious sailor and the complications are not extraordinary. Just processes, apart from a dirty wee flu, hopefully not passed on, and as processes, will be processed.

Anyway, today has been a goodun. For a reason I'll never be or deserve to be privy to, the universe has sent a few kind words. Some short catch ups, messages and well wishes. Sweet tags like butterflies and moments of serendipity, played out like Lynch on ecstasy. The timing of so many today could not be coincidence could it? Perfect like? Fresh clay. I could go on and on tonight, I'm gushing, so before a make an ass of myself, Cheers! I'm doing everything I hope you expect me to be doing and some more, there's also a healthy dose of stuff on top too. New stuff soon, old stuff still and soon more old stuff and new stuff but with more catching up.

Beep

You're not wearing your appliances. - Rosemary Nyle

Life is what happens to us while we are making other plans.

To-do list

I love talking about making art and even more so about making sculptures. I've become a bit of a one song dude in this respect really. If you talk art long enough to anyone in the know, the conversation eventually turns to or comes to the conclusion that, making art is a process of problem solving. That's my experience anyway. That's why I think I like it so much. The challenge is everything to me. In fact whenever I meet someone to whom this is not the case I am immediately suspicious of their ability. Not for any other reason than if it is anything other than a personal journey, something must be missing.

Anyway, I'm leaning today, sun shining, too cold to be a fantastic day, skyward in my usual art making attire, puffy white blouse, boat shoes, no socks and baggy yet strategically and fashionably splattered pants and it came to me. I've been working (thinking) on a pair of sculptures for ages. At least a year (laugh if you want) I would expect. Nothing unusual I suppose, similar to all my work really but they  had an inherent problem in their manufacture I just couldn't solve. Today was the day. It's so very simple now it's kind of embarrassing but I just couldn't see it but today I did. That's just how it works. I'm really happy, it feels like a real win. Hope you've all had a good one too.

Ulysses Davis

Get Off My Back

Ulysses Davis was a Barber who's shop was home to hundreds of his wooden sculptures. When asked if he sold them he replied “They’re my treasure. If I sold these, I’d be really poor.”

Beast with wings

Tomg of Pontius Pilate

Strange Fruit

If you are interested in the late Mr Ulysses Davis I can highly recommend this book.

The owls are not what they seem.

Dear Facebook Friends, Showtime did not pull the plug on Twin Peaks. After 1 year and 4 months of negotiations, I left because not enough money was offered to do the script the way I felt it needed to be done. This weekend I started to call actors to let them know I would not be directing. Twin Peaks may still be very much alive at Showtime. I love the world of Twin Peaks and wish things could have worked out differently. - David Lynch

This is the truth.

SUNDAYS from PostPanic on Vimeo.

 sundaysmovie.com

story & directed by MISCHA ROZEMA - cast BRIAN PETSOS - SOFIA SISNIEGA - score composed by BEN LUKAS BOYSEN - director of photography JON GAUTE ESPEVOLD edited by MISCHA ROZEMA - vfx supervisor IVOR GOLDBERG - co-producer mexico STACY PERSKIE KANISS - production designer mexico ROBERTO BONELLI associate producer ANNEJES VAN LIEMPD - screenplay by KEVIN KOEHLER - sound designer JOCHEN MADER - producers ANIA MARKHAM - JULES TERVOORT

Out Of This World

Goose Fair Nottingham 2010

When we look back at it all as I know we will
You and me, wide eyed
I wonder...
Will we really remember how it feels to be this alive?

And I know we have to go
I realise we only get to stay so long
Always have to go back to real lives
Where we belong
Where we belong
Where we belong

When we think back to all this and I'm sure we will
Me and you, here and now
Will we forget the way it really is
Why it feels like this and how?

And we always have to go I realise
We always have to say goodbye
Always have to go back to real lives

But real lives are the reason why
We want to live another life
We want to feel another time
Another time...

Yeah another time

To feel another time...

When we look back at it all as I know we will
You and me, wide eyed
I wonder...
Will we really remember how it feels to be this alive?

 

And I know we have to go
I realise we always have to turn away
Always have to go back to real lives

But real lives are why we stay
For another dream
Another day
For another world
Another way
For another way...

One last time before it's over
One last time before the end
One last time before it's time to go again...

 

  - The Cure
 

 

Between Two Worlds

Alongside his esteemed career as a filmmaker, David Lynch has worked as a visual artist for 50 years, producing an extensive body of paintings, photography and works on paper. ‘David Lynch: Between Two Worlds’ is a rare opportunity to consider Lynch’s entire creative vision and the relationships between his practice as an artist, filmmaker and musician.

Developed closely with the artist, the QAGOMA exhibition features more than 200 works and is organised around three ideas – ‘Man and machine’, ‘The extra-ordinary’, and ‘Psychic Aches’. Moving between the porous divide of the body and the world it inhabits, the exhibition explores the subjects of industry and organic phenomena; representations of inner conflict; and the possibility of finding a deeper reality in our experience of the everyday.

Source (GOMA)

Gregor Gaida - All links leave this place.

Gregor Gaida - Falter 2014

Gregor Gaida - Attaboys 2012

Gregor Gaida - Attaboys 2012

Gregor Gaida - Rest von Schwarz 2008

Gregor Gaida - Lateral I 2007

Click here to see more of Gregor Gaida. 

SS Hororata

SS Hororata

The SS Hororata was ordered by The New Zealand Shipping Company Ltd of London on the 15th of October 1912 and completed by William Denny & Brothers of Dumbarton on 23th of May 1914. The 9461 ton vessel was powered by six single ended Scotch boilers running at 222psi, two quadruple expansion four cylinder steam engines producing 8493ihp @ 88.5rpm, driving twin screws for a speed of 15.7 knots (29kph).

Captained by Charles Campbell Taylor the 511ft 2in hulk and her 110 man crew could ferry 5 first class and 1066 steerage class passengers and cargo from the shores of Scotland and England to New Zealand and Australia in approximately six weeks. On the 24th of August 1914 she was requisitioned as Australian expeditionary force transport A20. In mid 1926 the SS Hororata ferried a little girl, not yet old enough to walk, from her birth city of Glasgow to be carried over the Bridle Path road from the port of Lyttelton to a new life in Christchurch, New Zealand. That same little girl has recently celebrated her 90th birthday. I was lucky enough to share it with her. 

 On the 5th of April 1943 the ship now called SS Waroonga was torpedoed by U-630 in the North Atlantic, coordinates: 57.10N, 35.30W. She sank the following day. 

 On the 10th of December 2014 the New Zealand born daughter of British immigrants and a New Zealand man of Scottish ancestry flew from Exeter Airport in the United Kingdom to Christchurch International Airport in New Zealand to be married. 43 days latter, Air New Zealand flight NZ7911, a Boeing 737 800 operated by Virgin Australia ferried the Newly-weds to Melbourne Australia...

 Happy birthday Nan. x

Some places are like people: some shine and some don't. - Dick Hallorann

The historic Stanley Hotel is excited to announce a public competition to design a 10,100 sq. ft. hedge maze inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980).

The contest will attract designers, both amateur and professional, from around the world who will have an opportunity to put their work and name on permanent display at the iconic Stanley Hotel in Estes Park, Colorado, which draws hundreds of thousands of visitors a year.

The Maze will serve as an homage to the film, which was itself inspired by author Stephen King’s experience at The Stanley Hotel. It also will commemorate the 20 year anniversary of the current ownership of the hotel, which began May 1st, 1994.

 

“There are few hotels in the world that share a history and story as unique as

that of the Stanley Hotel,” said John W. Cullen, owner of the property. “I am

thrilled to share this special moment in my life and the hotel’s history. 

We have built this place together over the years and I'm excited to invite

everyone to be a part of its legacy through this special design contest.”

In true Colorado spirit, the hedge maze will be comprised of 1,600 to 2,000 Alpine Currant hedge bushes and will be a prominent feature on the hotel’s picturesque front lawn. A placard with the contest winner’s name will be placed at the site of the maze.

The ribbon-cutting for the maze will take place on the opening night of the 3rd annual Stanley Film Festival on April 30th, 2015.

The winning design will be chosen by a special panel of Estes Park residents, Stanley Hotel employees and film festival staff. The contest winner will have their name placed on a recognition placard in the center of the maze. 

Aspiring designers and Stanley Hotel enthusiasts scroll below for contest and submission details. The deadline for submissions is January 31, 2015.


 Click here for the Stanley Hotel.

 The historic Stanley Hotel is excited to announce a public competition to design a 10,100 sq. ft. hedge maze inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980). - See more at: http://www.stanleyhotel.com/themaze#sthash.MmUzlPWW.dpuf

The historic Stanley Hotel is excited to announce a public competition to design a 10,100 sq. ft. hedge maze inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980). - See more at: http://www.stanleyhotel.com/themaze#sthash.Q4OLj6JQ.dpuf

The historic Stanley Hotel is excited to announce a public competition to design a 10,100 sq. ft. hedge maze inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980). - See more at: http://www.stanleyhotel.com/themaze#sthash.Q4OLj6JQ.dpuf

The historic Stanley Hotel is excited to announce a public competition to design a 10,100 sq. ft. hedge maze inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980). - See more at: http://www.stanleyhotel.com/themaze#sthash.Q4OLj6JQ.dpuf

The historic Stanley Hotel is excited to announce a public competition to design a 10,100 sq. ft. hedge maze inspired by Stanley Kubrick’s The Shining (1980). - See more at: http://www.stanleyhotel.com/themaze#sthash.Q4OLj6JQ.dpuf