Boatique-ing: In the Ponderings - Episode 1

What with his busy farm life, Bart is something of a stranger to relaxation, and has taken to saying he lives a 365/24/7 life.   A while ago Bart heard about the benefits of mediatation and floatation tanks. Working on a theory that any investment in mediation would be good for farm productivity, his thoughts turned to rigging up a Floatation/Mediatation Event in the farm pond. As Bart can neither swim, or even float due to his peculiar PVC physiology, he borrowed a dinghy from Frank Winkler as floatation aid to what he calls 'his pathway to enlightenment' and got Frank to push him out into the pond.  The question is now, how will Bart, who has been out in thepond pondering for a whole day, get back to shore?

Grate Minds - Floored Wonders

So, I arrived today in the world of stylish grates, this one in Hibaya Gardens, with its garnish of stray leaves and cherry blossom motifs is glorious. There is a real sense of discovery in finding these and there must be a street hardware fan club or guild of metal workers dedicated to this art?

Pudding on the Mix - A Trap for New Players

Never shy of loitering around the kitchen, Frank Winkler has set out to make his fortune in the Christmas cake business. Frank is fond of the grand gesture, and has found a crop of what he describes as  extra large fancy raisins. On the maxim of the proof of the pudding, while he seems to be turning them over while they macerate in his own poteen, it's likely that the hoe gesture may be in the 'not waving drowning' category, as he has now been three days in this mix.
Photo Credit: Ms Ingrid Periz

Reflective Agregations on Agapanthus

In a variation of 'my favourite things' it's agapanthus, not roses, with raindrops. The surface tension , waters' fondness for itself, seen here suggests the dropping part of the rain might well be done and what the buds don't drink in will evaporate, like a top note play by a soprano sax, when the time's ripe. Of course the note should come from Side One of Coltrane's sublime take on Rogers and Hammerstein's My Favourite Things.

An Everlasting Corsage

This is school Formal season, where spry young things board harbour boats for twinkly harbour parties. For girls, Must Have Accessorries include a teeter-totter pair of shoes - preferably with carry handles, a Partner ina smart striped jacket and bow tie and a Corsage, or two.   Given the rigours of boating life I concocted this After Party EverLasting Wristlet Corsage, with little chance of wilting.

Barn Wrangling

It is a delicate problem but due to his anatomical shortcomings,  Bart's stereoscopic vision is a little underpowered. Readers may have noticed that from time to time Farmer Brassica is a bit out in his estimation of how big things, or in this case, how small things, really are.  This is a state which Mavis Eggwhistle has tsked tsked over more than once.
Bart purchased this barn from a garage sale in Flemington,  thinking it was some ways off , when in fact a moment later he banged his funny bone on the roof.  Bart has decided the barn will make cheerful accommodation for farm animals, and maintains he knew all along it didn't come past the buckle on his overalls.

PS If you're wondering about that fancy wall  behind the barn , it  is Bart's prize winning tromp l'eol.

Doubling Up on Double Peonies

Can a flower be too gorgeous, too exuberantly pettaline? No, No, No, Non a vera! Here the double luxury of pink peonies multiplies lavishly in the mirror. Right now my house is something of floral fiat, gardenias in sugar bowls, peonies in pewter jugs, a posey of pansies in the wobbling-base composite vase which is the lid of the ginger jar with a round beaker in it, that spins -just like earth a bit skew on its axis, which I could pretend is phototaxis.

A Room with a View - Phoenix Canariensis

The Phoenix palm - Fibonnacci-ist of the garden - somehow always manages to be centre stage, even when it's leaning North-North-East. It will be no surprise this is done in prussian blue, and a calligraphy brush, a great lesson in the difference between the beginning and the end.

Cross Purposes - Shocking Hazard in Suburbs

At first glance I thought this pole with its red tape, yellow tape (repeat, repeat), was a new species of street art, but no, it's a warning that this Pole is not to be crossed. It does suggest some a joke of the What-Do-You-Get- When- You-Cross-a Pole kind. Pondering possible answers, I think they might involve Poland, The Rubicon and Sticky Tap, and perhaps Vorgon poetry ?

Old Shades for Sale - Bart Brassica and the Door to Door Salesman

Now, it seems a door-to-door salesman has materialised, in a sudden kind of way, on Bart  Brassica's front porch selling Shadows. Bart's regular shadow upped and left due to certain, let's say, less than sensitive remarks by Bart who was in a pickle from drinking fermented beat pickle liquor. Granny Egg took this photo of the salesman talking to Bart with her telephoto 'Paperrarzzi' camera, and has been ringing everyone she knows telling them to avoid Bart's place like the plague. The question is will Bart, a notorious cheapskate, pay for anything he doesn't absolutely need?

Non Persona Non Grata

In a moment of implicit intergenerational evolutionary discontinuity, the author of this sign at Macquarie University playing fields has decided that a child is not a person.  Then there is that ominous claim of a removal right, and the disproportionate burden of 'all' children on 'an' adult.

While this discontinuity from Darwin's thesis is strange, the Author of Signs goes on to make a severe connection between the BBQ and the tennis court lights, demanding an embargo, which makes one imagine a history of a preciptious descent into blackness ( though maybe it was the marauding cliff face that  roams the playing fields) and points, players, balls and racquets lost, while the snags sizzle on.  Also I wonder about the see-saw effect in the supply of volts here. 

Three Scenes from Tanpopo

It seems that even the same smallish restaurant,Tanpopo, which I've now sketched quite a few times, always has some new aspect to try and catch, the way the fluoro light shines down on the chef at the back , the slight movement of the paper lanterns in the breeze from the door or the cerise cushions that miraculously stay in place.

In addition to our standard order of gyoza and ramen we added in the grilled cuttle fish, a generous garlicky mix of tender grilled pieces with lots of fresh greens. Delicious.

Lagoon-Wise - Keirle Park's Framed View

November is a sticky month in Sydney, and this week the fold up chair came into its own [- though surely there was a Mr Hulot moment when I stood up and the chair stuck to my derrier] so I sat under a Norfolk Pine and looked back across the carpark, the road - which obligingly reduced its presence to a thinline of ink, and took in the afternoon shimmer on the lagoon - which you will have to imagine as the shimmer shimmied off on its way to paper via paint.

PS This is a new method, paint first, pen later, and reminds me of things I painted in primary school that were folded up when wet.

Mysterious Mr Brassica shaped space found

 

As constant readers will know, Bart Brassica has a peculiar colourised shadow (see the Colourised Shadow post ). A recently discovered snap taken from the Marlborough Hotel outside of Cooma, NSW, shows a dark  Bart Brassica shaped space has taken up residence on the verandah that looks out over the nearby hills and telegraph poles. There is a theory doing the rounds in Lambertville that Bart got entirely  pie-eyed on fermented beet pickle one night and had such an argument with his shadow, it being the only thing would ordinarily hang around once Bart got started on fermented beet pickle, that the shadow upped and left him. Rumours are the shadow stowed away in a box of vintage farm animals that were purchased on Ebay and subsequently shipped to Australia, where the shadow has stayed ever since, preferring his more definite self that the stronger light allows.

In Fine Mettle - Hatching a Good Understory

In the last year, since visiting Japan and being impressed, while pressing my  light weight boot on the finer points of street art, that is the well-designed hatches for the various sub-plots of services which are to be found in every city, I've had my eye out for similar local  designs of fine mettle in metal but have little to report. In both wistful contemplation of the last visit and anticipation of my next, I am offering up this image as a graphic reminder of possibilities.

Torch Songs - Melusine Moments of Illumination

In May I sketched my dolphin torch, an ode, of sorts, in black and yellow to its stalwart aid, on black trips at night to the meter box, more often of late, late night walking back from my writing shed, when all the world is seemingly asleep to it shines my way back down the stairs, across the damp lawn to reconnect with the back door light.

Sidelining Tuesday at Keirle Park

There is might be a survey of popular stances for men watching sport, the classic folded-arms-with- a-tilt to-one-side-, for the knowledgable aside, and the ever reliable, hand-in-pocket-leaving-the-other- to-point. After the empty nest of Wednesday afternoon at Keirle Park, a one-off switch to Tuesday finds a field of under 8's playing tag footie with a contingent of sideliners, the most elegant  productive of which was the small girl in the tutu who left with a daisy chain of clover flowers, gleaned from steadfast attention to the field rather than the players.

Tea Tree Blossom Season at Keirle Park

 

Is there something more introspective about  Wednesday's that drew my attention to the flowering tea trees that edge the carpark of Keirle Park? Perhaps one should rightly attend to the significant floral events like these as well as the busyness of people. You can't see them in the background but there were people skating, tennis players ambling over and back from the courts, dogs with dog walkers and the odd waiting parent, like me.

Fastest Moving Geologic Formation

Macquarie University playing fields are not for the faint hearted,  and the prospect of being engulfed by on oncoming cliff  is surely creepy.  The fields, at least at the moment, are home to what must qualify as the fastest geological mover ever, the mobile cliff.  This gives an altogether different  insight into the term 'cliff hanger'.

Picnic without lightning

A brilliant Saturday morning in the Hunter Valley, stopped at Oakvale Winery - a fretwork of shadows on the grass and a picnic table with not much more than ants and dappled sunlight. Not a trace of thunder to be seen, the susshhh of traffic on tarmac, and from over my shoulder an amplified guitar - sharp and melodic repeats a bar.

Late Additions of Figures to the Keirle-scape

Something Alice-like happened in last Wednesday's Keirle Park sketch. Firstly there was no-one there,  and then nearly at the end I looked up and there were people and their dogs. I have attempted to convey  the ratio of people to park,  allowing that any perspective had not so much as left me but been a no-show, eg.  that large sign looming out of all proportion. The black pen additions also give some idea of dog per person,  but what I like about them is their feel of scribble. What are people after all but DNA scribbled in 3D?

Infra Dig - Two's Company, Four's Annoying

So, while all the folks in Lambertville have been speculating that Bart might have caught Mavis having a very casual coffee with Mr Farmhand, Mavis is mightily miffed that, in actual fact, Bart had asked Mr Farmhand along because he finds his perputual preparedness to dig, even to dig laminex, reassuring.  Now I have to tell you that Mavis's bland and cheery smile in this photo was a complete fake for the photographic purposes only. She was percolatingly peeved at Bart, so much so that she slapped him so hard her arm snapped off completely! This is quite serious for Mavis as she is made of baked Fimo. The question now is will she take the Sticky Tape Cure?

PS If you are wondering about that animal on the right, it it Mr Farmhand's new pet penguin, which he adopted from the Animal Shelter

Dust Jacketed - A Great Catch Up In Blue

Anthologization is an interesting business, poetry is one of the few genres, being economically contained so that 'representative' or thematic anthologies are feasible. So, it follows that any reader would be crazy not to avail themselves of the benefits. The interesting thing is that they divide poets sharply into those who are In the Book and those that are not.  I can report that I did get five poems in Australian Poetry Since 1788, which I am pleased about. All of the poems were from my first book Fishing in the Devonian, which has sadly sold out.  My smaller chap book Night Croquet the #93 Wagtail  is still available and  you can buy it online from link to Picaro Press.

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The Art of Reading & All Good Things Must End

When do you stop? That is in the context of when do you stop an exercise that had become something between a habit, an indulgence and a compulsion.  Here is the last  drawing on the last page of the 40 page notebook, which I started on the penultimate day in May with a drawing of Bart Brassica, and then shortly after took up the Robert Capa Prussian Blue Project. Not all the drawings have been blogged - some are too busy, the odd landscape orientation by and large fails, there are some ring ins, Brussels sprouts, beagles  and a tap. I am still not tired of Capa.  This fellow here, with his close study of the page, his angled foot exuding enjoyment, his shadow impastoed to the page might well be any diligent reader, such as oneself.

Wednesday is the New Monday - Back to Keirle Park

A term away from my weekly survey of Keirle Park and things are both same and different. Firstly, in that classic Australian rethink,  the goal posts have been moved. Where To is the next question 
The clover has had a chance to flower, there were four smallish black school shoes in different spots, some strange new signs, one admonishing people not to sleep in motor vehicles,  a little pointed in its citation of the Combi Van and strange markings in the fields. If one were looking to make a short story with these three things, it might involve Druids, late night meetings, sommiferous drugs and legislative  change - or at least a new by-law.

Great Thoughts Aloft - The Industrialisation of the Mind

As you can see another Prussian Blue Capa Derivative. If Wall Street catch  what's going on here,  some wily Financier - and I am not meaning that small confection of buttery pastry and japonaisery -  will list these on the Dow and ASX , perhaps even the Footsie, as Industrial Derivatives. And why not if one can trade Futures, ghost mortgages and currencies that drop like fermented fruit from abandoned trees? But somehow I dont think that it what our fellow here is thinking, how could there be room for such abstractions when you have a ton of metal to contend with?

Grey is the New Black - Lunch Scene at Tan Popo

Saturday lunch we beetled over to Tan Popo for Chai-Su Ramen and a Bento Box. The place was a-bustle with lunchers, except for one small member of the party - partly sketched in here - who had fallen asleep, Thomas the Tank Engine trainers little blue and red confections on his small feet. All the adults were wearing grey, black, or gray-green.Thank goodness for coloured hair elastics I say.  The perspective and allocation of space here has gone badly astray, I must work on ratios ( repeat x 20) . On the other hand lunch was entirely successful, the sashimi sparklingly fresh and the pork belly managing to be both crisp and tender, though it might be churlish to single them out as even the small piece of pickled radish, with its fine cross cut of near-floral filaments was delicious.

New, Next, Now - Unpacking Kaldor at the Art Gallery of NSW

Settling into a fold-out stool, in a cluster of art gallery visitors, the more flexible young fry folded up like pretzels on cushions  at the front, parents, grandparents and thy unaccompanied curious plumping out the crowd at the back, there is that "Ahhh" feeling as the the New, Next, Now show sets into motion.  Two whimsical dust-jacked workers from Art Storage? Meticulously measuring Curators? The silent characters - actors Russell Garbutt and Julia Cotton, founders of the now sadly retired Etcetera theatrical ensemble  - play with the ideas of collecting, stacking, wrapping and unwrapping in a whimsical homage to Christo- boxed and wrapped, Sol de Witt's units of construction, while Alek Danko's Log Dog is reprised in animated cardboard, and  Tony Cragg's 'bottle tree' and Ugo Rondinone's marvellous 'clockwork for oracles' are celebrated. While the links back to the art work might set up a satisfying sleuthing puzzle for the adults, the real delight was the celebration of wonder and transformation as we watch the characters find that it is these ordinary dust jacketed folk who are the artists.

Zeppelined Again or The Bang at The End of the World

Last Monday strolling over to the White Rabbit Gallery, we discovered the White Rabbit had checked his pocket watch, twitched his whiskers, saying 'Oh my, I'm late, I'm late' and bunny hopped backwards into the mirror.  The fall back position was a contemplation of the local street art.  While I would include the excellent fire hydrant ensemble below in this category, the ticket for the most profound use of the word "was" goes to the silently tick tocking bomb above.

Paper Moons & Menus : Sketchy Characters at Tan Popo

The three young women at the corner table in Tan Popo  look a little under impressed about the messy hair day I've given them, a little exacerbated by the slap happy lipstick. Still any dinner where not one but two paper moons shine down, pushing back the green inked-in night, is a fine thing.

Negativisation - The too much washing blues

So, it is the continuing study of Robert Capa, his photo of a boy watching a parade for the commenoration of the annexure of Belgium. Whatever is passing before him and the rest of the crowd in the original photo, including the woman next to him with a very elegant hat, it does not inspire joy. Here one small bit of wash got away from me, and in that mending way one proceeds in before I knew it the whole thing had taken on the aspect of a negative. That odd negative effect, of meeting another version of yourself, feels nostalgic, an intriguing state of being not at all yourself.

Pole Star - Knitter's Witty Art

How exciting a knitta pole piece on my own suburban street.  Of all street art forms, the knitted additions to poles and street furniture are perhaps the most endearing, taking the homely craft of knitting and subverting it into that oft threatening thing, Art-that-no-one-asked-for,  art-without-a-frame, the sinister, the oh-my-god- the-neighbourhood-is-getting-taken-over-by-hoods, and that-is-not-art Art This pole, an ugly leftover from some past council edict has, seemingly, spontaneously blossomed into what one might regard as a character, a purler with a crew neck and purple heart.

To Gild the Crumpet

 A rainy Sunday morning with the weather making a great racket on the roof and trees? Might as well stay in and gild a crumpet. This honey glazed one here did not last out the drawing.  In a mix media moment, I took up the offer of some acrylic gold to add the swirling detail to the bread and butter plate, and gave a Midas touch to the yeastie breakfast cake, or is crumpet correctly classifed as a bread?

Nested Nests & The Resting Interloper

These aggregate or nested nests, blow-ins from the bird world, went through an empty nest phase, prompting the question is a nest a nest if there is nothing in it? Is a house a house if it does not  house?
The bob-tailed snub-beaked white-breasted whistler, who wheezes something like an A, might be an interloper or a steadfast tenant, whose gravitas keeps the nests well -balanced.

Handy Hank & The Old School Skiis

While some men favour the old school tie, Hank Brassica, Bart's second cousin, has a penchant for what he calls his Old School Skiis. While it does snow quite some, and then a bit more, in Winters in Flemington and Lambertville, as there are no slopes to speak, no resorts or, well, really anything but fields and snow, most all of the Farmhand folks think Hank must have a permanent case of brain freeze. Still,  he does a reasonable job of fixing fences and repairing electric jugs, though most folks sensibly want let him into the house with that lumber glued to his shoes.

Farmer Brassica's Ethel Merman Moment

It will be a surprise to some folks but Farmer Bart's musical tastes run to musicals, albeit those with an agricultural or country flavour.  One of his favourite songs is 'Life is Just a Bowl of Cherries'. This large bowl of cherries is Bart's Spring Tribute to Ethel Merman, though he admits the grapes make it somewhat of a pastiche. Mavis  says she could swear she heard Bart whistling 'I heard it through the grapevine'  but Granny Eggwhistle declares Mavis must have tinnitus as the only thing that whistles at the Brassica Farm is the kettle. 

Green-grey leaves, white-green gumnuts - the compact architecture of vases

Mostly when I sketch a vase of something, at least a little of the vase gets in, but here the white glass wide-lipped vase is nowhere to be seen. One vase and its complex contents may demand a number of takes.

Black Board Singing in the Early Night

At our regular weekday or Sunday night dining spot, Billy Swings on Spit Road, Mosman, the blackboard is centre stage. Are blackboard menus more convivial than paper menus? Each has it's own particular pleasures and pitfalls but the idea that the whole list of foods can be dusted off may make it just that more appealing  with the get-it-while-you-can  sense of dailiness that a chalk board gives. That said I do hope they don't rub off the grilled scallops,with bouidin, pear puree and salty caramelized walnuts anytime soon, or  the silver dory, which feels nearly virtuous resting lightly on its jumble of fresh cauli florets, curls of tender squid and parsley, the lot infused with warm saffron flavours. The new thing which is not on the menu is a tiny cup of intense capsicum soup as a complimentary amuse-bouche. We are amused.

Water Under the Bridge - Keirle Park 's out and back walk.

With tennis lesson suspended this winter school term as Master T. has been skiing at Winter School, I've missed my weekly visits and subsequent postings from Keirle Park.  A reminder came in September, in the June 2011 issue of Antipodes, a USA  journal that features Australian literature, which published my poem 'Water Under the Bridge' - an observation of Manly Lagoon.

Water Under the Bridge

November, late afternoon, the lagoon

double-dinks its load of light and water

under Queenscliff Bridge, condensing

its tessellations where the current squeezes

round the pylons; it’s traveling under, out,

digging greener beds and purling

round a brown and upright stick, over

the filamental green superannuated shells.

Then radiating around the canter-

lopping, high-stepping setter that circles

in his feathered wet and prancing joy,

it slides east, past the shadow

of the bridge, nips out the inlet’s

quicker deeper breach into the surf,

laps the feet of the man who zips

himself into a Short Tom, kicks out

as salt spray across the face of waves,

it paves a gully ramp for the kite-boarder

who half sails, half flies; runs sweet

on its dispersing ways.

The Leaf Measure Axiom

 

To Observe Late Afternoon Snow

Take a pair of ski boots, skis and stocks that have been marinating, overday, two feet and two shins until they're tender. Remove skis and stocks, carefully set them aside for another use. Awkwardly measure out your ski-boot steps from the locker to the Village Bus Stop, Route 2.  Arrange that the mini-bus is late, so you have enough time to be properly waiting. Notice, a line of trees behind you, and  that each leaf of snow gum holds as much snow as physics will allow.  Pause to reflect upon the stacking ability of snow's fine crystalline matrixes, how each leaf holds its own measure. For some minutes you will be oblivious of macerated feet and lumpen shins, wind-chaffed skin, wet gloves, tiredness and waiting. You might also observe the axiom that each thing has its own measure of snow.

Three Views Towards Kosciusko

I've been away  listening to mountains, the silent fall of snow.Though it's early Spring, something like a winter front waltzed across Thredbo.  The myth that Eskimo-Aluet languages  have thirteen words for snow might be plausibly overtaken by one about an Australian Alpine dialect with fourteen words for slush. One might also coin a word, let's say snowslept, to describe a child so tired from skiing they fall asleep on the chairlift's descent, body softening so they might slip, snow coated parka and Milo bib, between the seat and bar.  Then the word for watching, brushing off the snow, an arm around them as a safety net, saying, quietly; wake up, this is not a good place to fall asleep.

Farmer Bart : Arch Fruit Arborist

While Farmer Bart Brassica's acreage is far from tropical,  leastwise not this decade, for some time he has aspired to a tropical paradise, with pineapples, bananas and papaya - papaya is something Bart declares must be the original cash crop on account of its name. By corollary Bart is adamant that growing pawpaw would be tantamount to a fiscal hex and says he would not consider planting it even if they shifted the equator line so it ran right through his farm. 

To give his place a tropical feel Bart has constructed the Fruit Arch from oversize fruit rock that was sent to him from an admirer in Brisbane. Mavis is not quite happy about this sweet art.