meandering

While walking this day, Saturday 27 July 2013, out in the world near a place they call Aotea Square, past the swivvling clown heads and merry-go-round a large crowd had gathered. I knew for why. (Yes, I can say, "for why." This is my blog and I have poetic license). Donated dosh to the film-maker who's soon to create a movie about these days of murk and testing. I shall add his name and details to this blog shortly, someone is getting those for me.

So we crowded about after step-waiting and flowing across the main street where traffic stopped by the enormous throng, was diverted away. People, o thousands stood to listen.

Various and glorious friends of the family or friends of the family once-removed, or some who I believe would be friends if we met them, spoke well and long and quite clearly.  They work in law, at media, in education, one had fled and escaped Pinochet, some are so well known to even say their name makes the sky tremble or the air shimmer. No need to say names and really, now with this bill about to become law perhaps we all need new names? There's a thought. Changing into someone else, for the purposes of retaining privacy.

Aha then, so no name-clanging, well except for one, because her quote is so great. 

My notes say this - the extraordinarily prominent lawyer told us that sharing information taken from citizens from wherever a government pleases, is really dangerous. They also asked, "How much surveillance do we want to live with?" There is also the situation, they pointed out, where we're being robbed of the opportunity for debate.  They called the, "...possible one vote majority..." "...a Dunne Deal." An amusing pun but it is however far from that in fact, so I remind readers now, write to your MP and the PM. Tell them you do not want this bill passed. We can change their stance. We have changed their minds on a number of issues already. Politicians do need to hear what you think and say, they're somewhat isolated, get the message to them. http://www.nzcpr.com/EmailMPs.htm 

The MC reminded us that it is extremely rare for a person with the mana, the reputation, the nous of such a wonderful, highly placed lawyer to speak out this way in public. The MC also said every MP voting for this bill should be ashamed of themselves. Correct. They must all drink far too much to have so little conscience, I say, or be on something, surely?

The woman who had escaped the dire regime Pinochet ran said, [Are they] "...threatened by our knowledge? Or our determination to stand up for what is rightfully ours." The crowd roared.

A bystander who it turned out had also been to an exhibition of mine, and knows a relative, said to me that our gov't is "...ever more embarrassing by the day. The Prime Minister is acting in direct violation of every New Zealanders' human rights." 

"1984 is not an instruction manual," Jane Kelsey said, when she took the mic at the protest. She sounded unusually shrill, and I think it must've been from the disbelief and stress of this terrible situation. 

The bystander chatted on occasionally, "My son's told me not to use certain words in emails and things, for years. For ten years." She petted her dog and mused on, " The difference between left and right supporters, I think, well, a lot in life is to do with luck." [The right tend to think luck is nothing to do with their good fortune]. She also pointed out some people have a closed mind.

Open and open and open o minds closed by fear and ignorance, open sesame, (like a cave in a fairy story packed with gems, gold and precious materials), the treasure of knowledge shall be yours.
 

Write to your MP, I state again, for the purpose of their caring for the people who elected them, who they vowed to serve. We may ask them to vote the way we wish, that's their job. http://www.nzcpr.com/EmailMPs.htm 

If only a few more MPs vote against this bill, we could keep our democratic rights. What are they? They're our arms and legs, they're our body and soul, they're our head and talking freely, they're thoughts, heart, love and keep our democratic rights. Without them what's left?  It's a bleak old future then. Who wants to live in a novel by Frownie Gloom?  Don't google, I made them up, there is no book by such an author and I do not want my life to  turn into such a tale, do you?

No excuse for writing childish, except the entire jagged scary took me back to smaller days. A girl playing in the park and making up stories about goblins. The screepies and jeeblies, they turn into people sometimes. Poor things, these Empees in gummit do they even know they're inhabited by dark supernatural awfulness which could destroy the worldness?

 Ah now though, yes, we've found a way freedom sits. You know and I know people, yes? Not sheeples, but people? Aha. In our ways we'll find good to do, and make it. You watch, and make and talk good now fine, love, yes.  Small is good and kind is best, wherever we may and also, forgiveness of each other because mistakes could be made as usual, ever more so with the stress.

Gather together and speak of what matters. Talk of families, of true friends, of fine plans, concerned and engaged with life, with people around and what they care for, what we hold dear. Let us carry and protect each other well.

The feet, the steps, the walking, standing up for what's best, talking out. A man spoke all the way along. His observations, his rejection of being a part of a machine he said, a huge machine that makes w a r. True, talk and thought and getting together helps undo hard wire fences of platitudes and certainties around. No one knows it all, of course. Nay. Uh o, old-fashioned, must be going back in time for pleasant memories. There's some, o yes, pick a fine one. Keep morale of course. Think on beauty about and within us, or flowers, naturally. Nothing trite you unnerstan'? Seriously, foliage and freshness, petals, sepals, oxygen, the lovely greenaliciousness.

 Now then, where was I?  

Aha, o trekking along Queen Street with a few thousand, and many more at home saying they agreed too. Surprising, a woman told me, her whole book club voted this gov't in but they are against this law being made. She also led a lovely dog, brown and white. Reminded me of ours years ago. Angus, grumpy old thing but he loved me and I him. Sometimes it seems as if beloved animals revisit one, to tell of things good such as warmth and petting. Such a dream, life.

 None of this making any money. I cannot have the ads they want to put on my blog, 'cos they're for dire dreck. But here I am typing with my fingers rather numb, writing for reasons, not moola. I've spent all this time writing this blog because this matters, please spend some of your time also working against this wicked plan. Write to your MP, and the PM.  http://www.nzcpr.com/EmailMPs.htm

Reason and decency and sticking together, kids. Let's all be that.

      If you do not know who these are, ask someone, discuss it, then write to them and ask them        not to go this way.

Painting in the Third Dimension

Bright orange painted, disposable cup, (the ridged variety) topped with a roughly orange-painted rectangle of card or a box perhaps, on the invitation.  Painters in the Third Dimension out in Manurewa. www.eventfinder.co.nz/2013/painters-in-the-third-dimension/auckland/manurewa 

What a drive at rush-hour that was from the city, and yes, I did get lost once. I usually find myself in that state a few more times, driving somewhere new, but in my latter years I seem to be learning a better sense of direction. The dense, laden dark of mid-winter New Zealand too, so much gorgeously rich with darkness, the car-park dimly lit, (not an issue it's fine), then yes, someone was walking into the building. The drama of the evening added a certain extra something, yes perhaps, je ne sais quoi.

darkness including a house with its lights on - this in fact last new years eve 2012-13 out west

www.eventfinder.co.nz/venue/nathan-homestead-manurewa-arts-centre-auckland-south

An old, beautifully-kept house in the grand manner, Nathan Homestead Arts Centre. So I hauled my arthritic knee up the stairs and decided the massive bannister really could take my calisthenics. (No lift is available, I did ask). It had been a pleasant surprise to see writer Michael Onslow-Osbourne and writer Janet McAlister in the foyer. Michael did offer to assist me, but I decided to go for the stretch, grab and haul manoeuver, being the independent En Zedder that I truly am, I suppose. I'm mentioning this, because in some ways this show is also fiercely independent. 

The first piece of art I registered in this exhibition, (after some delicious bread, cheese, a few olives and a glass of orange juice), made me laugh. A welcome reaction, believe me. Any laughs I can get at the moment are like the most valuable treasure imaginable. Good humour and merriment we could cherish, nurture, encourage and celebrate far more. 

So, I'd walked into the first well-appointed exhibition room at Nathan Homestead, drew to eye level with one of Carolyn Gilbert's photographs, (all single edition, framed archival digital prints), and there it was. Instantly recognisable, a disposable ridged cup, sitting inside a gold box with Van Clef & Arpels upon it in their distinctive, expensive-looking logo script. Bright paint splashed over it, as if colour and human movement easily obliterates these things and becomes far more important.  The truth of that idea and my delight in seeing this fresh, cheeky approach, albeit intelligent and well-considered, made me laugh. Brilliant.  The other prints also have this amusing element to my eye, while offering then something more. Delight is the gateway to understanding them, I found. Everyday, discarded objects transformed.

The whole exhibition offers room after room of things to wonder about and look further into, if you dare. 

The titles really do matter for many of the pieces and also, some of the peculiarities take a person over, after spending time with the art. In Catherine Fookes' room, a few of us enjoyed a lengthy discussion with much banter, laughter and invention for about an hour, for instance. Artist John Radford, actor and writer Genevieve McClean, two others and myself, exclaimed, pontificated, dashed here and there, laughed and transported ourselves so much I wanted to take all the work and people home to entertain me further. If only I had a gallery space attached to the house.

Excited, I determined instead that I could package some of Fookes' pieces up and send them to certain politicians. Peanut Butter and Jelly, (mixed media on canvas) a purple and brown ooze with curling cardboard triangles rather golden, including a daubed plastic frame, (zig-zags)! I would send to our prime minister.  He eats appalling food I've noticed, so surely he could appreciate this piece? (Imagine my innocent-look here). The work alludes to the fact, I believe, that peanut butter and jelly nowadays in some places, is as toxic as drinking poison. That fact could possibly escape him of course, but I just kept imagining filming him opening this gift. What could he say faced in this manner with the ugly truth? Is this finally a way to discover that?

And yes, peanut butter packed with GMO, salt and corn syrup, along with jelly jam also packed with corn syrup and possibly also GMO on white bread which is almost the same as eating cardboard, but possibly worse, is toxic. Some peanut butter and jelly jam made in other countries is toxic too, because their food standards are not as high as ours. It is easy to make your own peanut butter and jam, or buy organic. We also need to buy local food, in NZ.

I decided the Fookes' work that looks like pretty murder needs to go to that Bennett woman, in office dealing out de ath and destruction to families near you. It's called, Back to Front and Inside Out, (mixed media). The Rena (Bay of Plenty), (mixed media/oil on canvas) I'd naturally send to the Tauranga City Council. The awful crushed polystyrene, (it releases deadly gasses when broken) and disgusting brown paint, (a wrong-tint that would've been otherwise thrown away, given to Fookes by the artist Andy Leleisi'uao), with a kiddy-style wavy dirty blue sea beneath made me feel ill, yes, but the actual event was truly a horror. 

We need to remember these are diabolical days and stand against such behaviour. It was deregulating ports and the rush to get ever more money which in part caused that terrible event, the Rena wreck and oil spill. 

Standing against wrong-doing is not enough however, we must always also rejoice in life and reach out to each other in kindness, with love and generosity, wherever possible. This exhibition does both of those things, it stands against injustice, pretense, pat answers, wrong-doing and superficiality. Painters in the Third Dimension also encourages discussion, risk-taking in the best possible ways, outrage and therefore questioning, while creating a sense of fun and light-heartedness somehow too.

I may visit the exhibition again to see where I'd send the rest of Fookes' wild works. They all inspired me to think of focussed, decent errant behaviour, (yes, quite possible) as a good way to find solutions, to fix up the dire trouble we are in. The work is so apparently crazy, exciting and puzzling and yet also, deliberate, careful and purposefully hung. I discovered a sense of wanting to make more of the pieces, they inspired me to find a place for them in my life or actions, and I can see that placement in a certain manner, even in my imaginary world, could radically change the course of history, save us from almost complete disaster. Our thoughts and dreams and plans do affect our behaviour. We then change our actions and the world changes, too.

Creativity is truly what we all need now, to survive, more than ever before. The uncertain future needs creative thinkers and creative work. Support artists and others of this ilk, nurture your own creativity too.

I did suggest the Fookes' pieces needed the titles on the works themselves, and 3-D painted deliberately awful, awkward or just simple objects which accompany the wall paintings needed to be closer to whichever piece they relate to. I decided. I'd also be pleased to see the stories behind each work displayed in writing, with the exhibition. (Great stories, I heard many of them). BUT without those changes the work is still startling and effective. My suggestions simply show how Fookes demands we try to make sense of what she's done, even if the art seems as peculiar as strange and eccentric can safely get, rather. 

Later some things made more sense. The work stayed with me in mind. The fact, for instance, that there are pieces in this exhibition which go together is not always clear, but then this is also true in life, isn't it? If people are a 'couple' for instance, does it have to be obvious they 'match'? Then too, if these works are a puzzle, and drive someone to find out more, to read the catalogue, well then, that person has stepped out of their usual easy reference frame, has had to make an effort to understand. The exercise itself in doing this is another dimension co-incidentally, is the third and fourth dimension, and may relate to many others.
 
I also loved the Emma Smith room of black and white objects, especially the burnt little mannikin on the wall with the big head and red eyes, I just wanted to own that so much I had to turn away. The piece is made from, as the artist said, "...a charred remnant from the vast fire that scorched the site across the road from my friend's house." A compelling object, awful and beautiful at the same time. It reminds me of myself and so many people whom I know and care for, burnt so many times by disasters but still fierce with love, with energy and a will to live. Her whole selection in this group exhibition is called, Vesuvius and You Part 2 (The Restructure). My typing cannot do the name justice, by the way, type used for the exhibition catalogue is far lovelier.  

Other more smooth and finished, Smith pieces are placed on the floor. Each is formed from clay dug up from the nearest volcano to where she lives. A diagram in the room shows what individual works are named, as if in a museum and the diagram on the wall is part of that display. 

Each piece could be an artifact from some kind of melted and then reformed civilisation, in their simplicity then becoming whatever the viewer wishes them to be. After a disaster, as the title of Smith's work overall suggests, we do make new meanings for things we once knew. We do reform and regroup. Things after a shock may appear to be just black and white. I imagine the two-way colour range mainly, (with only the red eyes of the burnt mannikin another colour if I recall correctly), also may refer to chess games and so on. Smith also points out we may see suggestions of many other shapes in her sculptures, "...missiles, menhirs, ice bergs, broken boats...."

Kenneth Merrick showed the most varied collection, "...a broad range of source material." Two are bottles repainted and re-contextualised. One startling bottle has pinkish paint over it, almost like little caterpillars, and it stands in a window. I'd love to own Resist, (acrylic on glass) and use it for my more volatile performances. The bottle is presented a little like a Molotov cocktail with a rag spouting out the neck, (these are dangerous objects used as missiles by people usually having few resources for retaliation), but it is also painted in a jewel-like way, as if it is an Italian perfume bottle made large, or some kind of religious symbol. The many ways to read the title in reference to the piece, really impressed me. Is Merrick saying to resist throwing such a missile, full stop? Or is he saying resistance may be a last resort, but when it is done, then we'd better make sure it is with the idea that resistance is a valuable action, and does waste our treasures in some ways?  Also, the actual painting is a kind of resist, it is resisting the light getting into the bottle. It may also be used as a resist to etch the bottle. Then there are more ways to read it, people could have fun with the word for hours. 

Another Merrick is a large red dye painting on loose fabric, but 'man on a horse' hardly does it justice as a description. People would be best to see this large, powerful piece, in fact. Then, a molten lump of blackness on a perspex stand is NFS, (Not For Sale) and it's named, Some Shit from Space, which of course it is in various ways in fact, while it may also be part of a comet or somesuch. In the centre of the room this lump, black and shiny, pock-marked, radiates a powerful atmosphere simply with its mystery and the canny way it's displayed.

This is me sometimes, so much to care for here and now, but best get on - ha - Pony Book 1982

I could say far more but this is only my blog, not writing I get paid for, so practically I need to wind this up. 

It was such an intriguing, intelligent, relaxed evening, the opening night, that's all. I do know two of the artists somewhat, Catherine Fookes curated my show at Cosset, and Kenneth Merrick did the window paintings there for promotions, but I truly did enjoy seeing their work too. It was the most fun I've had looking at art, since I saw the AKL Home exhibtion at the Auckland City Art Gallery with poet Serie Barford, and o yes we also saw poet and academic Robert Sullivan there. It was after Courtenay Sina Meredith's first poetry book launch, what a day that was.... Anyway, what a delight and a joy, so in-your-face and daring too. Good on them all, painters in the third, fourth and other dimensions, bless us artists every one and the rest.

I believe the exhibition does reference various other artists. My practise also uses found objects and mixed media, so I take a keen interest in others who use this medium. I could see Judy Darragh's influence. Also, some Futurist http://snipurl.com/27hch8t echoes and a definite likeness and progression from much work with found objects/mixed media in the last thirty years, globally.

The Futurists for your information said that we would in the future, (now), find being called crazy a compliment, and we would also improve as human beings, on and on. Some Futurists also loathed anything old, and really, what could be newer than the fresh rubbish we create and art made from it?  
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Futurism

That these four local global artists Merrick, Fookes, Gilbert and Smith, (we're countless of us on the world stage now), went to this much trouble. They're bringing us out of the twisted, difficult and punishing age of money-love, which we are surely many struggling with, (if we have a mind, body and soul or heart), to a place where we could delight in simple human behaviour that pleases us in benign and fanciful ways, along with encouraging complex thinking patterns to develop our minds.  This has to be applauded. I'm effusive with good reason. 

The entire exhibition, Painters in the Third Dimension offers this chance, these openings, the cracks letting in light, (to paraphrase Leonard Cohen) and genuine interaction with vital materials. Some works display far more finesse and polish than others, a few are so idiosyncratically put together you may be tempted to ignore them. Don't. 

Overall, each artist provides much to wonder at, marvel over and consider, allowing people to make up their own minds, and to yes, be disgusted, repelled and annoyed if we so wish. Good. Freedom does still exist.

Four rooms, four artists, some have presented painted or coloured 3-D objects, others have flattish wall pieces too. This art is none of it particularly predictable, nor exactly understandable, at first glance.  It's for a long time and a good time, to rewrite a crass old saying into something far more friendly, (yes with sensual overtones, this work is human, it holds clues to happiness, takes us to good places). Take yourself out there to Manurewa, do. The location was chosen because it is out-of-the way.  The journey itself is a preparation and a change.

Painting is of course arguably in more than three dimensions anyway, paint builds up a surface, then channels and swirls exist within the paint, it's not flat. Also, a record of time passing exists in brush-strokes and layers, a pattern from the hours, days, weeks or more that any painting took to be created. Time's progress or the concept of time being spent is also evident in this medium. Usually, painting is considered two-dimensional, if we're prosaic, but then there are also other realities. Thoughts and feelings upon seeing a piece of art are another dimension, too. We may be offered more than one reality possible at any given time. 

People do reality-shift in any case, ordinarily, when we consider people each have their own existence, we could say. We all have a different point of view. A group show amply illustrates this.

Quantum physics theory exists re that there may be infinite alternative realities to this moment. Each decision we make for instance, takes us into one of those infinite possible futures to a present time, which then could go almost anywhere. We do not have a linear path ahead, but an infinite variety of choices to make of the future. Probabilities and possibilities are our indicators of what's likely, we may also then change those. This is the kind of arena this exhibition took me to, inside myself, into my mind and my feelings, (which are always linked even if we hide the fact).

In this uncertain world now unfolding like various versions of tablecloth, and forming like clay vessels upon a potter's wheel and emerging like conversations between equals or not, (you see how confusing life may appear)? yes, here now in 2013, art needs to serve us with indicating peculiarities and mystery, more possibilities than the obvious, we could say. Art also needs to be obviously human, and encouraging creative thinking, while still maintaining subtlty, depth and more than is obvious straight-away. Art must NOT be wasteful. In my opinion, this exhibition at Nathan Homestead, Manurewa, Tamaki Makaurau Auckland, Aotearoa New Zealand, covers all that territory and more, with real pizazz, skill and courage. 

The show was dedicated to the memory of Ian Scott.

I wonder what you will think of it? Do let me know. 

Comments are welcome here.  Thanks for reading my blog, well over 8,200 hits so far and growing daily. Great to be in touch with the global community, ever-changing and growing, adapting, reaching for better days.

http://snipurl.com/27hcdma   info there re Kenneth Merrick

http://www.linkedin.com/pub/catherine-fookes/2a/904/172
Catherine Fookes info is there

Emma Smith info is here http://snipurl.com/27hce5e

Carolyn Gilbert info here http://snipurl.com/27hcebb

appearing soon - get ready

There is an exhibition at Nathan Homestead I recommend you get along to. Take your sense of humour and be prepared to step into a peculiar sense of...what, I wonder? It'll be up to you.

Painters in the Third Dimension.

I have a performance this evening, 19 July 2013, Friday at TAPAC and also tomorrow evening, 20 July 2013, Saturday. Along with two other writers, I won a nationwide competition. http://www.poetrysociety.org.nz/matarikipoems We are performing at Poems for Matariki at TAPAC.   http://www.tapac.org.nz/ So, I shall write the blog about my *screws up face trying to think* unbelievable experiences at Nathan Homestead, *laughs* hopefully by Sunday or Monday.

Meanwhile do get on out there and see the oddities for yourself.  Dare you.  http://www.thebigidea.co.nz/connect/events/2013/jul/132258-painters-in-the-third-dimension

Keep an eye on here too, please. I shall write something more soon, as I said by Sunday or Monday.  With the notes I have in front of me I am thinking acrobatics and mad-cap.

My nails painted in honour of the exhibition, at Nathan Homestead.

Planning to Travel

end-papers - coloured pencil - for books to be exhibited at Lopdell House end of 2013                'love rinses - know mercy - better yarns - dreams time travel'

Once again I need to get away, back to amrka and to see some of my friends there, I go. I'm entranced by the place. Fine people there have a great deal to do with my feelings, but also, the actual countryside, city-scapes and various cultures enthrall and inspire me, in countless ways. Yes, amrka has its difficulties, however there is much to celebrate too. Maybe however you believe I'm being unfashionable on purpose, (contrary for dramatic effect), or have in some way been tricked into saying complimentary remarks? No. Somewhere deep and profoundly vital I've simply been convinced I need to visit there again, for the good of my life and future, for my soul too I could admit.

Lately I understand what it is like to think you have been born in the wrong country. I know other friends also feel like this. One moved to Australia as soon as he could. The way things worked in New Zealand did not suit him at all. He's now a highly successful artist there with a fine family and really, the wondrous creations my friend makes would not have suited New Zealand. His happiness also increased the longer he lived over the ditch.

Some of us prefer a continent, rather than islands. I was surprised to discover I lived somewhere considered small when I was young. I'd more or less always felt like I lived on a place called the world, enormous. Travelling around the world as I have done, confirmed my idea I did indeed love to belong to Earth. Roaming, exploration and adventure feed me like great music and movies do.

My decision to do this, (leaving in the middle of next year), immediately made me feel happier. 

I shall be buying trees before I depart this time. I think the more people who plant trees when they travel, the better. Trees to cover the carbon cost of the trip will only be an extra $200- NZ or so. I find this also makes me feel good, giving to others. The trees will be planted in South Australia where they really need them. (I also grow trees here to give away throughout the year, to help cover my carbon cost from running a car and went vegetarian for the same reason).

Every person who travels on a return jet to Europe from NZ creates 200$ NZ trees-worth of carbon. If it is not soaked up by trees the extra carbon clogs up the atmosphere. More carbon to soak into the seas and make them acidic, too if there is nothing done to balance out the extra emissions. The world's seas are set to die by 2030, I gather, they're getting less able to support life the more carbon they soak up. 

We need to turn this around. 

Human beings can change and adapt, we've done this before. This carbon we're pumping out is partly responsible for climate change, for drastic weather patterns like floods, storms, droughts, and also, for polluting the air.

In New Zealand, this winter is so chilly. We've had drastic weather the last three years, more than usual. We all need to change our ways. Human beings do affect the environment.

Here is one of the companies that provides the service of planting trees where they are needed. http://www.treesforall.info/ 
Do your own research on this.  Trees are beautiful, they provide bark, fruit, leaves and shade, they're a habitat for many species. Trees also breathe in carbon which they use to grow and they give out oxygen.  Planting trees is one way to combat climate change.

Giving to others shall also make you feel good. Happiness is made up of various experiences which culminate in this feeling of well being, and joy. The pinnacle of happiness is generosity towards other people, towards where we live and also other creatures.

We need first of all an abundance of sensual pleasures, like good music, food, touch sensations, comfortable clothes, warmth and closeness, lovely aromas about us, fine sights, good art, decent exercise and so on. Whenever we think life is too much, we need to go back to those basics, in some way. Eat some good food, listen to music you love, cuddle a loved one, stroke a pet, laugh with a friend, take a long walk and breath the air deeply, absorb yourself in the wonders of nature, or whatever the idea of sensual pleasure suggests.

Next, we need to have aims and goals, intellectual pursuits and dreams we want to make reality, or just to entertain us.  These we need about half as much as we need sensual pleasures, to be happy.

Finally, (about half as much again) we need to give to others to achieve true happiness.  This can of course be time we give. People who give time and energy to others may be truly happy, they feel more fulfilled and see the difference their efforts have made to someone else's frame of mind, planning, lightened load or some other result. Generosity also may take the form of material goods or some activity like planting trees for travel. Caring for the environment and for creatures within it, we see the beautiful results, may breathe in fresh air, there is more reward than simply a feeling of well-being then, yes?

I could well have touched on this before in my blog. The information does bear repeating however and I'm excited about my trip next year, of course. The story has not ended, my visit to see friends who I've now known online for 13 years and only met face-to-face last year, continues. 

What I'd love, I imagine, is to get them all to move here. Childish and naive though that may sound, I would. Of course, then they'd be in a land so foreign they could be in awful culture shock. It's so different here even if it may look the same in some respects, and we do share one language, a version of English. But the idea of slicing away the part of amrka where they each live and transporting it here remains with me, in some peculiar fashion. It is like I think the world is an animation and I may redesign it.

Until such a tool exists I need to go and see them once more, a few of them anyway. This time also travelling south as far as New Orleans. I grew up listening to jazz on an adopted uncle's hi fi. My family while I was growing up tended to attract people from far and near. A couple from Scotland became some of our closest friends. They could buy music from overseas. (In those days you needed overseas funds to import luxuries like long playing records). Louis Armstrong's Moon River https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fd_JDrnBMMA about the mighty Mississippi remains one of my most favourite songs of all time. He really did dream of crossing it in style one day, too. 

When Louis Armstrong left the area of New Orleans where he was born, (I have read his autobiography), they told him to remember what the people there taught him about who to trust and how to behave. He did follow that advice and grew to be one of the most respected performers ever, world-wide. 

The awful floods in New Orleans some years ago made me cry as soon as I heard about them. The disaster was partly due to the clearing of wetlands which had created a buffer against floods, and also due to lack of care on the part of authorities who cared for the area. Those floods devastated many people's lives.

I believed I would never be able to go there, my heart would not be in it. But the people have rallied and so much restoration and so on has been done. The extraordinary spirit of New Orleans has triumphed in many ways. I look forward to visiting the place. 

Please also, do consider planting trees for travel when you fly especially, or take any long journey by car. It is better to use trains or boats, they have lower carbon emissions and are more likely to be pleasant to travel by, as well.

100 Days Project

 

Image from a vintage book, to illustrate Day 28 in my 100 Days Project

Lately, and for many days I'm taking part in this 100 Days Project. Making one creative piece every day and recording it in two places. One place they're available to see, is on this website here. This is my activity so far. What do you think?

http://100daysproject.co.nz/project/2013/101

I'm also making a file of the work and shall exhibit, with any luck, at the end of 100 Days. Most participants should have their work up too. 'It's going to be huge,' the organisers have said.

My works will be for sale.  They're simply computer print-outs and will be a gold coin or two each, I imagine. Each on an A4 page, in colour. They could be laminated for display or framed as you wish.

It's been a struggle and a joy, while quite a peculiar experience to be so regimented. I do create a great deal of creative work anyway, but I'm finding the more I concentrate on this one task daily, the more I explore its possibilities. The effort is rewarding.

From now on, for a while, I will feature trees in my posts, so I hope you enjoy seeing them. There are already some gorgeous plants featured, which you'll see if you click on that link above.  They're shots of the Auckland Wintergardens, where their glasshouses are a Victorian marvel.

Lovely to hear from you - please do comment and thanks for reading my blog.

One of the Wintergarden photos that illustrates my 100 Days project