Ocean

I am back in the studio now after a recent 8 month stint overseas, living and working for the most part in Greece. 2 out of every 12 days, on average, I would find myself on the party island of Ios. Deprived of forests and trees on the islands, I had little wilderness to get lost in during my free time.

The Aegean is not quite the wilderness of the southern Oceans, having been fished for centuries and the local communities consuming much of the marine inhabitants for lunch. (I must admit, I too am guilty of this). However, when I did have a few hours to spare, I indulged my time to join in the local Ios Dive Centre and explore the world underwater.

3 months since I flew out of Greece and 2 weeks being back in the studio and the work I have begun to create, is mostly inspired by the ocean. Whilst I am trying to shy away from being literal in my representation, you cannot deny the source of my textures are based from coral and urchins. Both of which I collected on the beaches of Tasmania on my many beach combing expeditions.

It occurred to me to listen to one of my favourite John Butler songs whilst in the studio today. Ocean. A song it seems to get better with age. The link below is a recent studio recording which I found. ENJOY!

A Hippy Grinchy Christmas!

And the Grinch, with his Grinch-feet ice cold in the snow, stood puzzling and puzzling, how could it be so? It came without ribbons. It came without tags. It came without packages, boxes or bags. And he puzzled and puzzled 'till his puzzler was sore. Then the Grinch thought of something he hadn't before. What if Christmas, he thought, doesn't come from a store. What if Christmas, perhaps, means a little bit more. - Dr. Seuss

Gotta find my dance!

“An aboriginal man once came backstage after a show and said to me in a kindly voice, “Where’s your dance? I used to like your dance, you’ve lost your dance mate, you’ve gotta find your dance.” So, I set out in search of it, looking here, there and everywhere in all corners of the globe. Quite soon I realized that “finding my dance” is an inner search, and that whilst I may never truly find it, it matters not. What’s important is to keep searching, and in the process, refine and simplify the steps.”

Colin Hay

Jack London is King

To take a quote out of my current read ‘Jack London is King’ -Alexander Supertramp

This is what Chris McCandless carved into a piece of wood discovered at the site of where his body was found in 1992, along with that a pile of books and few other possessions. I wholeheartedly agree with this claim – the world London creates is a romantic emersion into the wilderness. (and yes, i am indulging in ‘INTO THE WILD’ by Jon Krakauer.)

What i am enjoying most about this read are the short excerpts taken from the books found with McCandless in that bus in Alaska. So many of these short snippets of literature put you in the head space of where someone who feels life is only pure when in the wild and all else is excessive. Whilst I appreciate these ideals, I don’t think i could fulfil the desire to walk into the wild as he did.

I just settle for the wilderness of Tasmania from the safety of Launceton.

This particular excerpt is such a visual and romantic idea of the wilderness, I thought I would share...

Dark spruce forest frowned on either side the frozen waterway. The trees had been stripped by a recent wind of their white covering of frost, and they seemed to lean toward each other, black and ominous, in the fading light. A vast silence reigned over the land. The land itself was a desolation, lifeless, without movement, so lone and cold that the spirit of it was not even that of sadness. There was a hint in it of laughter, but of a laughter more terrible than any sadness – a laughter that was mirthless as the smile of the Sphinx, a laughter cold as the frost and partaking of the grimness of infallibility. It was the masterful and incommunicable wisdom of eternity laughing at the futility of life and the effort of life. It was the Wild, the savage, frozen-hearted Northland Wild.

– Jack London ‘WHITE FANG’.