Tag: Art

Working Wharves

by Ebb Then Flood

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‘Working Wharves’

Pictured, a scene of Auckland’s main port facility on the scenic Waitemata Harbour.

The port has been feature of Auckland since the modern city’s birth.The city was built on trade and commerce .

Politicos  and lobby groups now want the port to be shifted out of town; out of sight and out of mind.

It seems some people just do not want to have working wharves on their doorstep.

Dirty commerce!

There are plenty of lovely and enjoyable beaches, vantage points and eateries in the vicinity.

Equally though, I love the sight of freight ships from Panama, Liberia Singapore, or wherever, sweeping over the harbour after loading or disgorging their cargo.

I like to think the ‘nice to have’ and beautiful bits can co- exist with the functional hum, grind and sheer energy of a working port.

 

Pond In Autumn: Impressions

by Ebb Then Flood

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‘Pond In Autumn: Impressions’

The idyllic autumnal scene in the previous post Pond In Autumn gets the faux-Impressionist treatment, all muted pastels and gauzy light.

Just because.

Because my first memories of proper art as a child were of colourful Impressionist paintings in coffee table books and I still like them!

Or perhaps to soften the blows of the quickening winter which are starting to land in earnest now…

Angst

by Ebb Then Flood

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‘Angst’

” If you ask me what the most grotesque thing about alcoholism was I’d have said, indeed I did so over and over to anyone who asked – and plenty who didn’t – it wasn’t the physical stuff, it wasn’t the humiliating death stuff… it was the sadness. I called it my angst. A suitable august, Germanic word for a basement depression that was fathomless and occasionally erupted in gasping panic. And even when locked away it would seep out and sour every other emotion, like bitters in milk. Alcoholic despair is a thing apart, created by the drink that is a depressant, but also the architect of all the  pratfall calamities that fuel it. Alcohol is the only medication the drunk knows and trusts, a perfectly hopeless circle of angst, and it is powered by a self-loathing that is obsessively stoked and fed. And it’s that – the personally awarded, vainly accepted disgust – that  makes it so hard to sympathise with drunks. Nothing you can say or do comes close to the wreaths of guilt we lay at our own cenotaph.”

–  A.A .Gill, from “Pour Me: A Life.” (highlights mine, as were the lowlights…)

Pandemic Triptych

by Ebb Then Flood

 

 

Pictures from the last three posts presented as a triptych – three separate panels but meant to be taken as an entirety.

Sort of like the coronavirus pandemic itself – separated, isolated events which, in the end, affect the whole.

Anyway, I hope there is something in the images to interest or inspire you; I am grateful if it does.

Most of all, people – stay safe, have courage and be kind!

 

 

Papering Over The Cracks

by Ebb Then Flood

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Vintage embossed wallpaper in a country pub just south of Auckland, spotted last weekend.

Complicated!

Sumptuous and symmetrical.

It is art in its own very repetitive and expansive way.

Wallpaper performs a decorative function, but of course hides what lies behind it.

God knows, I have papered over my own cracks at times, working feverishly like “a one-armed paper hanger”, to borrow a phrase.

Most of the time the people in the room had no earthly idea of the unsightly mess beneath…