Image: photography by Rinko Kawauchi from Halo series, 2017
Words
flaked cinders,
fall
from a sky
of ash,
a black rain.
The books
are burning,
and voices
smoke
their release
into air and flame,
all smouldering
sparks
lost,
in flight.
© Angela Jooste
Chris Burden 'Shoot'
American artist Chris Burden has passed away. When I read about this, I immediately thought of the one performance piece that stood out for me while learning about performance art, and probably for many others who are familiar with his work. Burden's 1971 performance, Shoot.
It's noted as one of the most extreme and notorious performance art pieces of the 70s. And it's right up there with works from this period such as Bas Jan Ader's three-part performance/action, In Search of the Miraculous, where Ader set sail in 1975 on a solo voyage across the Atlantic only to disappear, his body never recovered; or Marina Abramovic's six hour feat, Rhythm 0 (1974), where the artist invited her audience to treat her body as an object, giving them carte blanche to do whatever they wanted utilising 72 objects, one of which was a gun. Then there's Vito Acconci's, Seedbed (1971), where gallery visitors were met with a blank room, unaware that Acconci was underneath a ledge masturbating while narrating his sexual fantasies about the audience for them to hear.
Burden's Shoot involved getting a friend to shoot him in the arm with a 22 long rifle. The intention was to graze, not penetrate his arm.
Burden says of the act: “In this instant I was a sculpture.”
BRMC 33.3%
I’ve been waiting for this, Black Rebel Motorcycle Club doco by Yana Amur, '33.3%'. Check out the promo trailer.
drone drawing
This takes street art to another dimension. Katsu's Drone Drawing (2015), New York.
A Yoshitomo Nara Day
Can't find the words today...
wolves
Wolves down Greville Street.
Small Stakes - Jason Munn's music posters
The music poster is one of the few objects that can contribute to telling a story about a band, the gigs and the music they’re playing. So, when I came across Jason Munn’s posters for indie-rock bands, I was excited. Munn began by designing and screen-printing his own posters for bands he knew, but since his work has expanded, he now collaborates to get his posters made.
It’s the simplicity and poetic quality to the designs that pulled me in. Like a good fan, I went out and bought his book, The Small Stakes: Music Posters (chronicle books).
On the design process, Munn says: “My work has gone through a few phases. A lot of my early poster designs were collage based, combing various found imagery to communicate ideas. I would also occasionally reinterpret or reference ephemeral images, like an old record cover or advertisement that inspired me. Manipulating and changing familiar and found imagery was definitely part of my growth as a designer. My designs in general have gotten simpler over the years, but I think stronger.”
Inspired by the bands and his passion for music and design, Munn creates posters that have an almost timeless quality. Here are a few posters of some of my fave bands/artists:
small stories: to be
to be
light as
air
feather
dust
seed
spore
leaf
grain
splinter
flake
husk
wing
breath
© Angela Jooste
Live Like Jay
It’s beach weather in this part of the world so it seems like the perfect time to write a post about surfing and a pretty special guy called Jay Moriarty.
Jay was a passionate surfer and a beautiful spirit. He died when he was just 22 years old. Not surfing, but free diving in the Maldives.
Jay was a Maverick’s surfer. His early life was dramatised in the film, Chasing Mavericks (2012). The film focused on his mentor relationship with Frosty Hesson (played by Gerard Butler) and his bid at 15 to surf that hideously gnarly wave, Maverick’s in California.
16mm film Cokes break , Maldives : charliekinross@gmail.com www.charliekinrosscameraman.com A tribute to Jay Moriarity. Other footage from other cameramen and locations including Mavericks in California also .
So, what does “Live Like Jay” mean? The slogan came after his death and means different things to different people. Jay’s wife, Kim Moriarty says this about what it means:
“People will forget what you say and do, but they will never forget how you made them feel. Jay touched so many people and he tried to leave everywhere he went just a little bit better. When people were around him, they felt the love and sincerity. Jay used to love to look for the gnarliest looking person he could find, make eye contact with them and smile. He came from a place of love in his heart and would use it to break down barriers with other people. ‘Live Like Jay’ doesn’t mean you have to be a tough, big-wave surfer. Jay knew that, even for him, that would eventually end. It means find out what you’re here for and follow it. Be true to yourself and treat others well.”
(source: http://www.surfermag.com/features/live-like-jay/)
Yarn bombing!
Walking down Swanston Street to meet a friend and some yarn bombers had got warm and fuzzy with the trees.
Chasing Light: available at Amazon!
Well, there was a delay due to techie issues in getting the Amazon release of Chasing Light—but finally—it's out there!
Many, many thanks to the very talented designer Vicky Tu of Two Feathers (vicky@twofeathers.com.au) for the cover—it was great working with her to make it happen.
So—if you're interested in contemporary stories about relationships, family, friendship, love, loss, figuring stuff out, surfing, street art, art...this might be the book for you!
Check out the Chasing Light page on this website for an extended blurb etc. It is a Young Adult book and only available as an ebook from the following outlets:
Amazon/ iBooks
Enjoy!!
And feel free to post a review and share it with someone who might also like this story.
Do what you love
Do what you love. Easier to say than do. Finding something you're passionate about and then making the effort to do it takes guts, determination and hard work.
If you've ever wondered what you might love to do and how to go about doing it, check out this great article by Paul Graham, How to do what you love (web article).
For some, the commitment to follow their passion comes with its own problems. Perhaps what you love doing morphs into work—a job—and the everyday stuff that a job entails, such as business dealings, deadlines, money commitments and the pressure to keep a certain standard. Losing that spark that fires you to keep making work is a real possibility.
And then there's success. Yes, this can be an issue! Writer Elizabeth Gilbert talks humorously about how the success of her Eat, Pray, Love became a challenge to doing further work, and led her on a journey to find her muse. Check out her TED talk here.
The flip side of success is failure. For J. K. Rowling, failure became the motivator to follow her love of writing and to create Harry Potter. In her wonderful commencement speech to Harvard graduates (and yes, there is a whiff of irony here, discussing failure to graduates from one of the most elite universities in the US), she speaks of personal failures, life experience and how hitting a low point all became fuel to pursue her passion.
Ariadne the storyteller
Image: Ariadne in the film, Inception
Okay. Time to get lost.
My friend Hanna returned my copy of the film Inception some time ago, and she’d stuck a yellow sticky note on it with a thought bubble: “I still don’t get this???”
Aside from laughing at the comment, it got me thinking so I watched it again, and whoa—it’s a trippy film, but what struck me was, at it’s heart it says a lot about storytelling.
And that storytelling is a lot like constructing, journeying and getting lost in a labyrinth.
A couple of other incidents lined up to make this observation seem even more plausible. I was at lunch with a friend and she’d read a manuscript of mine and made the comment that she’d got sucked into the story and it was similar to getting lost in a labyrinth.
As for number three (and perhaps there are no coincidences here), I found this gorgeous exhibition catalogue on contemporary tapestry and weaving The Fabric of Myth at Compton Verney in Warwickshire, United Kingdom (2008). In the catalogue essay Ariadne is interpreted as a storyteller:
Image: Ariadne, 5th century AD, woollen tapestry from Egypt
“In cloth-making or storytelling, one begins with a thread. One thread, one thought. The legendary figure of the storyteller begins with Ariadne, the jilted lover of Theseus who went on to marry the god Dionysus […] Ariadne’s thread represents a story’s narrative, for it is the storyteller who creates a labyrinth of thought, leading her listener into another world…”
I love the myth of Ariadne and the labyrinth, so all these connections set my mind spinning. Christopher Nolan (director of Inception) has the character Ariadne as the builder of the dream/labyrinths (in the ancient myth it’s Daedelus), but also the one who leads Cobb down into his deepest subconscious, to face his demons. In the myth, Ariadne offered Theseus the thread to help him find his way into and out of the labyrinth, but ultimately, to face the Minotaur. There are wonderful parallels here.
The Swiss psychoanalyst, Carl Jung, likened the journey of individuation of having to go deep within oneself to unravel one’s own psyche (soul) in order to transform, to become more conscious, as being akin to journeying into a labyrinth. Leonardo da Vinci constructed a model labyrinth, where at the centre, was a hexagonal room made of mirrors. At the centre, you have to confront yourself.
Similarly, to free himself in Inception, Cobb must go down (effectively into limbo, and again, Jung refers to the labyrinth as a symbol for the underworld), to face his wife/conscience (sorry— spoiler) to accept his part in her death in order to transform and incorporate this experience consciously.
There are so many layers in this film, just like a great story.
But a narrative constructed as a labyrinth—the noun text comes from the Latin texere which means “to weave”. Ariadne had her thread, her clew, to weave through the paths of the labyrinth; to give a sense of connection and direction. In walking, or weaving through the labyrinth, we continually recreate the journey, so that we become co-creators of the labyrinth.
So, there’s all these elements: of text as weaving; of the writer as creating threads/clues for the reader to follow—to get lost in the story, its layers, complexity, another world, its wonder—but to provide a means for the reader to navigate and come through to the end of the story.
And maybe the reader will be transformed. Maybe they’ll have a new perspective or idea about something. Maybe they’ll feel different themselves, or about those around them. Or, maybe simply, they’ll have been entertained for a time, enjoying the escape from their own lives.
The writer/storyteller as the creator of labyrinths—it’s a beautiful idea.
No Face
It's crazy with people Christmas shopping in the city—but this fantastic reference to Miyazaki's character 'No Face' in the film Spirited Away caught my eye (perfect placement near the dumpsters!).
I can't breathe
Image: Poem by Jason Fotso, 2014
This went straight to the heart.
Poet Jason Fotso's words when he posted this on Twitter: "A poem I wrote about Eric Garner, written solely with rearranged letters from the entirety of his last words."
A Yoshitomo Nara Day
Yeah—another one of those days...
make good art
Neil Gaiman Addresses the University of the Arts Class of 2012.
Neil Gaiman's commencement speech titled “Make Good Art” hit the nail on the head when it came to inspiration. It's funny, pragmatic, wise and based on first-hand experience. And it's about keeping it real, and keeping focused on what being creative is about (no matter what your field is)—making good art.
Edges of Sanity
Edges of Sanity - A film by http://www.finisterreuk.com Director: Chris McClean Producer: Ernest Capbert
British surf company Finisterre (website) is passionate about cold water surfing. So much so, they made a short film about it. And while the footage alone has an eerie beauty, it’s the poem by Daniel Crockett, Edges of Sanity, narrated by Game of Thrones actor, Charles Dance, that takes this short film beyond mere surfing footage to something quite special.
Let the Day Begin
Black Rebel Motorcycle Club, 'Let the Day Begin'
Here’s to a better day…
And here's BRMC's cover version of The Call's Let the Day Begin from their album Specter at the Feast (2013)—a great song and a great video. Yeah—I've been listening to these guys a lot lately. Check it out.
A Yoshitomo Nara Day
It's been one of those days—stumbling through computer techie problems, wading through one admin issue after another...BLAH!