What is wrong with people?

I'm into my second week of vacation from my day job, on more week of bliss left.
This morning I laid in bed watching TV until midday. I'm not used to watching daytime television, but over the last few days I've seen a bit. What strikes me the most about this time slot is it's almost all about celebrities. Nearly all of it and it's about the same three or four celebrities too. I can't understand how people can really be so interested in this, to me these celebrities seem to be no more than untalented attention seekers. Are people that bored?

Ok, TVs not the most meaningful medium but is fucking needs to raise it's standards above what they are! My god, they are really scraping their arses along the ground. It's total crap. I read a theory not long ago which suggested the cult of the celebrity was a powerful capitalist tool and I agree. It sells. It's like being invited to an exculsive party but one you can never attend. People must feel part of this bullshit world when they watch this crap.

Still, I can't understand how they can be so unimaginative and pay so much heed to this pap. So I'm not watching TV in the day time again. Ever. I like my brain cells intact. The more I watched the more brain cells died off, I could feel them suiciding.

Back to the studio tomorrow, I'm really looking forward to it. Plenty to do...Plenty to do...And hopefully new collage pieces up on flickr/red bubble. I'm also starting work on a new assemblage piece which is going to further the artist style of this series and seriously explore the subject of my creative muse in much more depth and detail.

Landscapes

I'm in the mood to draw some landscapes with oil pastels. Landscapes are something I like to draw about once or twice a year. I'll go up to the old cemetery in town it's got great gardens and the mix of stone textures is great. It's such a beautiful day. I'm starting to feel so relaxed I should take more time off my day job...wish I could but I need to eat and keep a roof over my families heads

Manallack St

I'm so tired, I finished working for 5 days in the studio. It was very productive. I've worked ut new directions for the Repetitions and Assemblages. I realised my recently created pieces have significantly improved because my styles has matured but the important thing was they had such intense subject matter. These things are both very necessary to keep my work moving up levels.
But for now's it's time to relax...

It's Finished

I am wreckage hear me roar No 5

New blank piece of paper in the studio for no 6 100 x 100 cm , I'm staring at it right now...

Manallack St

A day at the studio...From the top... I am wreckage No 5 (Childhood) Almost finished. I'm hanging it so I can study it before I do the final paint. Because these pieces are spontaneously created I need to take some time with it before I do the last paint. Below it, I am wreckage hear me roar no 4 (Muse) which is finished but on the wall for reference oint. I have packed away No's 1.2.3 in this series as No's 4 & 5 have really taken a huge developmental step forward and, although I still like these early pieces, they now seem immature and lacking.

To the left and on the floor and three new collage pieces, the words for I am wreckage hear me roar No 6 (not started yet). along with three new repetitions.

I'm glad this art sorted iteslf out over the last day or two. I'm finding my creativity very hard to handle sometimes. It overwhelms me. The more my art develops, the more pain and pressure it causes me. I've pretty much been emotionally all over the place for the last two days. I feel better now becuse I got it out of my system. But fucki t's getting hard to deal with sometimes. I feel bad about locking myself up in a studio for two days, ignoring everyone. I am very happy with the creative results but I cant help but wonder what this will lead onto.

I read a book the other day on Classic & Romantic art, it was mainly about all he significant artists on the romantic/gothic art movement. I see my own habits, attitudes, and creative obseesions in these guys. At least I don't feel so on my own. If they survived so will I.

So time to sleep. I'm sleeping in the studio tonight, I'm too lazy to go home. I love my studio. I've had enough.

Train Journeys

On my way to the studio in Melbourne. I got the station in Ballarat and I realised I'd left my purse behind so I had to turn around and walk back home to get it. It could have been worse, I could have to all the way to Melbourne before I realised it was on the kitchen table. Still, I knew if I hurried back I'd still make it in time to catch the train. So I rushed back ony to find the train wasn't running now. Melbourne trains are a fucking joke. Really! As soon at it either rains, which it was this morning, or it gets too hot, the whole system grinds to a holt. I'm glad I'm on holidays from my day job, I'm not too stressed about. I'm sitting in a cafe drinking coffee and eating toast instead. I'll give them an hour to sort themselves out and try again. I miss my studio and Im really want to finish my lastest painting.

Prose I wrote in May 2005 and reworked over the past two day

Ghost Man Hiding.

The path winds past tombstones and onto the house. Old house, heavy with dust. Parts of the interior had never seen the light. Long forgotten. He lived in this house in spirit only. He was hiding.

When he was younger he would sit inside an old wooden box in the corner of the first floor room. He would sit for hours, still and quiet, his hand on its lid that leant against the wall. This was before the house was forgotten and before the darkness engulfed it’s rooms. From inside this box he felt his dark self could live, his light self could die peacefully.

Many years later he lay down amongst the musty old newspapers that lined the bottom of the box. Face turned upwards he would stare without seeing.


When he hears the footsteps coming he is soaked in a delicious feeling of danger and enticed by the courage of the approaching steps. He feels a sharp uptake of power owing to his clandestine position. Deep inside his box he wishes he could experience these lost feelings forever. But he can’t, the footsteps will eventually turn away and walk back. He will be still barren and still dead.

The path winds past tombstones and onto the house. Old house heavy with dust. I wander down this path never knowing where I’m really going. Or what I am heading towards. You lie safe inside your box with nothing to confess. Silent. You’ve nothing to hope for. Yet inside this dark death you have begun to feel. And if you lift the lid it would no longer be death, it would be life. The whites of your eyes would flicker and their black centers would see again.



I step through the front door into the dark. It’s not at all like I had once imagined it would be. There is no life in here, there is only death. But death is different here. It can move and it can see and it feels.
Unrestricted.

A dream is a ghost in your life.

So many of these. Ghosts, you could call them, but they have never been dead.

I ran through the unexplored house. I ran through the apprehension, and through the fear. 
Lurking, he was always lurking. I stopped in a small room at the top of the staircase. It had a large, wide window with dusty cotton curtains. I flung them open and stood blinking. The window blackened almost to the top; moldy gnarled branches and rotting leaves blocked nearly all of the sunlight. Only at the top did it shine through, bleaching the ceiling but leaving the bottom of the room cold and dank. Nature was smothering his house in green. From this side of the glass it seeming so black and dirty but from outside it would have pure beauty.

Room now all unused. I walked past he dirty furniture, past the apprehension, and past the fear. He was still lurking

I see your coffin. I know where you’re hiding. I can lift up the lid and make you come out. Do you want me to?

Word and art...Virtue Fern. Reworked 1-2 april 2009