Golgotha Reworked

A major local exhibition is approaching, but I’ve done very little painting over the last year or two.  I missed the same event in 2016, but want to participate this year.

My hope of completing one or two new works has been undermined by the weather. It’s been too hot to work in my garage studio. This month we’ve only had one day below 30 degrees C, and throughout January it was the same. Most days we’ve been in the high 30s, with a few over 40 degrees C. Not the best conditions for painting in an uncooled garage.

As a compromise I’ve looked back at some of my earlier paintings and have decided to rework one of the larger canvases. What started out as this:

 

Now looks more like this:

 

 

The difference in the crucifixion image is an illusion caused by different lighting conditions when the two photos were taken.

No change was made to that part of the painting.

More work needs to be done, but at this stage I’m considering two or three different ideas. Entries for the exhibition need to be in by 3rd March, so I have a little over two weeks to finish my changes.

 

to the angel of the church in Smyrna

The words of the first and the last, who died and came to life.

Do not fear any of those things which you are about to suffer. Indeed, the devil is about to throw some of you into prison, that you may be tested, and you will have tribulation ten days. Be faithful until death, and I will give you the crown of life.

“He who has an ear, let him hear what the Spirit says to the churches. He who overcomes shall not be hurt by the second death.”’

Revelation 2

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See also: Isaiah 44:6 and Revelation 12:13;

Ambition

I can only remember having two ambitions when I was growing up. The first was to become a Beatle.
The group’s early hit “She Loves You” was a big favourite of mine as a six year old.

The second was to be a script writer.
In the latter years of primary school I regularly wrote short scripts to be acted in class, most of which were rewritings of TV shows or films I’d recently seen. Thanks to a visiting student teacher, some of them even made it the “stage” in front of the class.

Neither of those career ambitions was fulfilled.

Sadly John, Paul George and Ringo split up before they could add me as a fifth member of their group, and my writing ambition got lost somewhere on the road of practicality.
I suppose my upbringing didn’t prepare me to take the risks that would have been needed to become a writer. I could only see a similar path as the one taken by my parents: get a secure job, get married, have a family. A writing career wouldn’t easily fit into that scenario, and more importantly, I was never disciplined enough to make it fit.

From my early 20s onwards, another complication came into my life: committed church involvement.
I even gave up a Personnel Management course at college because it clashed with mid-week church meetings
That effectively killed a career direction I could have had, but sparked a desire to be a professional minister.

While I knew I didn’t have the temperament to be a pastor, the idea of being a “professional” preacher was very appealing. Despite a long standing fear of public speaking, I loved having occasional opportunities to preach and for the first time I felt comfortable speaking to a large group.

Thankfully God pulled the rug from under my misplaced feet, with the resulting shakeup eventually leading me to recognise the gulf between my experience within the church system and a biblically compatible life of discipleship.

Now isn’t THAT is an ambition we should all have?
To live a biblically compatible life of discipleship!

When I look at what that REALLY means, it seems like the Beatles and scriptwriter paths might have been easier options – but then I need to remind myself that it’s not an ambition I, or any of us, need to face alone.
HE works WITH us.

“…work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfil his good purpose.”

(We work out and He will work in).

Ben Quilty and Andrew Ford.

There are some fascinating insights into the creative process in these discussions between painter Ben Quilty and composer Andrew Ford.

Quilty is one of my favourite artists, and I recall Ford giving a talk to my Arts Journalism class at university in the early 90s.

So far I’ve listened to the first two recordings in the series and particularly liked the second – very moving: looking at the way an artist struggles to address difficult human experiences.

http://www.abc.net.au/radionational/programs/earshot/features/three-front-doors-and-a-paddock/

Blokes’ Exhibition 2016

It’s been over a year since I’ve entered my work into an exhibition, but yesterday I dropped four paintings into the local gallery to be included in their annual “Blokes’ Exhibition”.

2015 was a lazy year during which I did little painting. The only thing I started remains unfinished, but this year I have at last picked up my brushes again. While I have very little new output I wanted to give my support to the “Blokes” in the hope that it continues as a regular event in the gallery. I sorted out some of my older work and added the only painting I’ve done this year.

When I look at what I’ve submitted, I find two of them are appropriately relevant to the feast of Passover. The one in the illustration is called Passover and was the first of my paintings that I was really happy with, it gave me confidence that I wasn’t wasting time (and paint) in trying to be an artist.

The following painting is another old one I’ve entered, called Redemption.
Not illustrated in the photo is the basic frame that I made for it that I think has improved it considerably.

With this one I won first prize in the mixed media category at the agricultural show a few years ago. [Shhh! Don’t tell anyone, but it was the only entry in that category].

At the time of posting this I don’t have photos of the other two paintings. I might get the chance to take some at the gallery on the weekend.

“New” National Gallery of Australia

On the weekend I went to the National Gallery in Canberra. I think it was my first time this year, after making multiple visits each year since 2011 when I first started painting.

Every time I went to Canberra, the gallery would be one place I’d regularly visit. On one occasion I spent a whole day there, apart from an hour when I walked down the road to the nearby National Portrait Gallery.

This year I’ve done very little painting, and as a result had less desire to go to the NGA.

A few weeks ago I caught a short news item on TV about recent changes to the Gallery’s exhibition spaces.
In the simplest terms, there had been a switching of the International and Australian galleries. What had been downstairs, (International paintings) had been swapped with those that had been upstairs (Australian paintings).
Another claimed change was the lighting of Pollock’s Blue Poles. New lights had been created specifically for the Pollock to give a truer view of the colours used, so the painting for the first time would look exactly as it should.

This was my first visit since the changes, and I was very disappointed with what had been done.

Firstly the place seemed over-lit. The brightness created a clinical sterility.
Secondly I felt there was no logical flow of ideas, styles or eras in the display of the art.
I could also see no difference with Blue Poles, despite the special lighting.

On the positive side, Colin McCahon’s Victory Over Death 2 had a much better location. It was once again hanging at a more favourable height after spending a couple of years of hung 4 metres above floor level over an enquiry counter.

Also, near VOD2 I saw Abendland [Twilight of the West] by Anslem Kiefer for the first time. A massive 4 metre x 4 metre heavily textured work that I loved.

It is now one of my three favourites in the gallery. The other two being McCahon’s VOD2 and Imants Tillers Terra Incognita, another massive artwork that is full of detail; a painting that could be viewed for hours to find all of the images and text it incorporates.

I’m Now a “Professional” Artist!

I’m now a “professional” artist.

Last week one of my paintings sold – my very first sale.

Gloria and I went into our favourite coffee shop, where some of my work has been displayed over the past two or three years, and the shop owner handed me an envelope containing money. I hadn’t even noticed that the painting was missing until she told me it had been sold.

For about a month now I’ve been saying I should change the painting for another one – but kept forgetting. I’m now thankful for my forgetfulness.

This is the painting, called “Overshadowed”.

The painting contains the following symbols and text.

1) The cup of wine representing the shed blood of Jesus.

2) A doorway with blood applied to the posts and lintel (think Passover)

3) The word RE ME MB ER spread around the corners

4) The letter “Y” – a symbol I use to represent the form of the crucified Jesus

5) The image of a parrot, that I use to represent tradition and the way teachings are so often “parroted” from generation to generation.

 

Stories What I Wrote III

I tried a few different genres of writing but found I was getting the best response with “horror” stories – or at least those that leaned towards horror. These were especially successful when I read them at monthly “poetry readings”. I still recall the squirming, uncomfortable laughter of one of my lecturers when he realised where the story was heading. Seeing that honest response in person was far more satisfying at the time than reading a few complimentary comments he’d written on some of my assignments.

I don’t want to go into the sordid details of the story. It’s not something I’d write today, but I will say something about the inspiration that led to it. It came from a Stephen King short story I’d been reading. I thought I could see where the story was heading but found I was wrong. His conclusion was totally different from the one I’d anticipated, so I took the ending that I’d assumed would happen and worked backwards to create a completely different story from the one King had written.

To conclude this little trilogy of articles I want to mention two of what I considered my best stories of that time. The first came out of a suggestion by a fellow student. He said when he was stumped for ideas he’d look to bible stories for a spark of inspiration. He’d do that with no more religious intent than anyone doing the same thing by referring to Shakespeare for an idea.

I thought of the story of David and Bathsheba, how David’s sight of her bathing led to all kinds of trouble. My story started with the protagonist seeing his new neighbour lying beside her swimming pool. I read the first draft to the class and found myself under attack from the group’s feminists who objected to a story beginning with a man’s lustful gaze. Maybe referring to the bible for story inspiration backfired.

After revisions and editing I had a story I was happy with – a kind of obsessive love story that included references to my interest in film-making and my experience with animation. It has no happy ending. The romance comes to a sudden end when the woman discovers her feelings for the man may have been manipulated through “supernatural means” and she turns the tables on him.

The other story came from a memory of my grandad. When I was a young child he was often very sick and spent a lot of time bedridden, sometimes becoming very confused about where he was and WHEN he was. At times he thought it was still the time of WWII.

During one of these confused episodes he held a conversation with the faces he could see in the rose pattern of the wallpaper. And that was the initial inspiration of my story of a bed-bound man being nursed by his wife. But his experience goes far beyond conversations with imagined faces. He finds himself taken into a world contained within the wallpaper pattern. There he meets a seductive but dangerous woman with thorn like claws. He wakes and realises it’s all a dream, until he finds some physical evidence that the woman might not be a mere product of his sleep induced imagination… or maybe something else is going on. Could his wife be tormenting him, fuelling his imagination with drugs? Is it really prescribed medication she is giving him or something else?

That’s the end of this little exploration of my past fictional writings. It might be something I come back to at another time. I could write about the plans I had to write stories (and even a novel) based on my experiences in church, but those ideas are something I am more likely to put to use in the future and I don’t want to give away too many of my ideas before I have the opportunity to write those stories.

The other things, those that I’ve written about in these three articles are well and truly in the past. The actual stories are dead and buried with no hope of resuscitation.

Stories What I Wrote II

Acceptance into the Creative Writing course was the easy part. Presenting a portfolio of writing fragments (written over a long period) helped me get in – but from that point I needed to do something I’d not done since leaving High School more than a decade earlier. Write completed stories, regularly, to deadlines.

And something entirely new: write things of substantial length. No more one page essays and half page “short stories”. No more token, last minute scribbles to get homework in on time. I was doing the course out of choice, and living on a tiny income for at least three years, so I couldn’t afford to settle for the easy way through it all. What would be the point of doing that?

The first story I remember from the first semester is one I wrote about the birth of a young couple’s first child. Most of it was quickly handwritten between lectures, and then edited and polished as I typed it on my computer. It is still the only time I’ve handwritten a story since High School. For me making changes on a written page is a messy and confusing business. I wouldn’t get anywhere without the simplicity and neatness of cut and paste.

That story became the first in a very loose trilogy. The second part was written the following year and the couple’s relationship had taken a turn for the worst, the only thing holding the fragments together was their young child.
Neither of the above stories was anything special. I was trying to find my feet in a strange world struggling with books I wouldn’t normally read and writing essays full of ideas that wouldn’t have occurred to me in “real life”. But eventually I settled into this foreign routine, enjoying the exercise my flabby brain was now getting, and my story writing started to improve.

The third part of my “trilogy” came out of a writing exercise. The class had to compile a list of the characteristics of ghost stories. Creaking doors, rattling chains, sudden mists, deserted and ruined houses, bumps in the night – and all of the other clichés we could think of. After compiling the list we had to take several of those elements and incorporate them into a non-ghost story.

My story centred on the husband/father from the two stories mentioned above. His relationship has ended and he has taken off alone to stay in a friend’s isolated lakeside cottage, drowning his sorrows with Irish whiskey. His intended time alone is disrupted. He is woken from a drunken sleep by the unexpected appearance of a young mysterious woman whose presence has an unwanted effect on him and his attempt to escape his problems.

The end of the story took an unpleasant turn with an attempted rape and an act of arson and if I remember correctly the man’s (possible) suicide. Optimistically I submitted it to a literary magazine. They rejected it, saying it became too melodramatic after a promising start.

(coming later “Stories What I Wrote III)

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(I’m assuming that most won’t understand the reason for the bad grammar in the title of this series of posts. As a child one of my favourite TV shows was a comedy variety programme starring an English comedy duo Eric Morecambe and Ernie Wise. Each week in this series Ernie Wise presented his “play what I wrote”, in which respected guests starred – routinely becoming the butt of Eric and Ernie’s jokes in a mock drama. I recall at least one High School writing assignment in which I unashamedly ripped off and adapted a Morecambe and Wise routine. With this title I give a nostalgic nod to that teenage act of plagiarism.)

Stories What I Wrote.

The next few blog posts are articles I posted earlier, about two and a half years ago.
They are reminiscences related to my University days between 1990 and 1993.

Could more than 20 years have passed so quickly since then? And what happened to the ambitions that led me to leave the paid workforce (after 13 years) to risk three years of fulltime study?

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Stories What I Wrote.

Bachelor of Creative Arts. That’s the course I started mid-1990. But within a week I’d applied for a transfer to a plain, ordinary Bachelor of Arts degree.
My intended major was Creative Writing, but as a BCA student I was required to do other Arts related subjects that I wasn’t keen to study at that time. Things I thought were irrelevant to my reasons for being at University. So I added Literature to my major and increased my reading obligations by a ridiculous amount. By the time I graduated my love of reading had been undermined (but that’s another story).

To be accepted for the BCA I had to submit a portfolio of work to assess whether I was a suitable candidate for the school. Whatever I submitted must have shown potential because I was accepted. I no longer have any of those old pieces of writing. They were thrown out many years ago.

My memory of that portfolio is hazy, but I’m sure it contained a few fragmentary stories very loosely based on nostalgic memories of my teens. Actual experiences were spiced up and combined with a lot of “what ifs” – “What if I’d done this instead of that?”… I also had my characters doing some of the things my friends and I WOULD have done, if only we’d been less restrained by thoughts of consequences.

The only complete stories I recall from around that time were two fantasy/science fiction short stories.
One involved the crew of a space station who one by one were being killed, until the last man standing, realising he must be the killer (though he can’t recall any of the murders) is suddenly confronted by the truth. The story touched upon the subliminal effects of advertising. And considering no one will ever get to read the story which no longer exists – I’ll spoil the ending: the cat did it.

I’m not sure why a cat would be included in the crew of a space station. Maybe that’s a question the writers of Alien can answer.

In space no one can hear you meow!

The other story started off with the discovery of an unconscious woman on the beach. I no longer remember details, apart from the contrived “twist” at the end where she it is revealed she is a mermaid. Clearly her rescuer wasn’t the brightest “knight in shining armour”, not noticing that the woman he was carrying to safety had a tail instead of legs.
So my first fully formed stories weren’t works of literary art, but I had enough naïve hope at the time to keep discouragement at bay.

(to be continued…)