Tag: Art
Ghost Jetty (Walk The Planks)
Courage In Strands
‘ Courage In Strands ‘
Dandelion
Dandelion Sculpture, Matakana NZ.
To brighten your day, I present an outrageously optimistic dandelion flower mainly comprised of canary yellow laundry buckets.
Is it art?
Bucket, who cares?
Trinity
Three,of course, is a prime number – only divisible by itself.
The sculpture piece pictured here, with its three conjoined hands, speaks of unity and that which only itself can divide.
A flesh triangle of simple form and strength, against a spiky palm backdrop.
“We are all in this together, come what may” it says to me.
Skull, Horns & Accordion
A staring skull, a pair of bull horns and an accordion player.
Yes, it’s art.
But logical too.
Logical, that is if you happened to die whilst riding a bull, which also died, and they played bouncing polka and mariachi songs at your funeral…
Sphere Of Silver Ferns
A magical sphere comprised of silver ferns hangs suspended in the Wellington sky.
Okay, not really magical in the conjuring sense, as the wires holding the sculpture aloft are clearly visible, but in the sense of fantastical art/sculpture.
That the silver fern is the national symbol of New Zealand/Aotearoa is an emblematic plus.
The whirl of symmetrical fern motifs reflects the sun.
And reflects our special place and the endless,unifying cycle of life here(well, to me it does but you might see something else…).
F**k, I didn’t plan to come over all patriotic at the start of writing this, but even if you’re not a Kiwi, I hope you enjoy this very cool lump of flying metal anyway!
Eight & Eight Is
Today’s mystery pic is a view upwards in a chamber in the Scottish National Gallery.
Eight segments in the skylight; eight Grecian-inspired plinths .
Symmetry of numbers.
It always gets me, to show that there is some sense of order in our crazy, supposedly random world.
(The title to this blog is an unashamed pilfering of the name of a 1966 song by psychedelic rock mavens Love, “Seven & Seven Is”. I love Love!)
Faces On The Fountain
One wild drinking fountain in Barcelona beckons, when time comes to slake your thirst.
Three human faces, appearing as if in a masquerade, frame the fountain’s taps .
Above them a supine lion crouches beneath an armoured crest -paws, claws and all.
The whole shebang elevates a utilitarian water dispensary into an artful world.
Sustenance for the imagination as well as the body.
And that lion sure looks like he could do with a drink…
Carmen!
A tile mosaic in Barcelona’s Rambla precinct shows the famous gypsy dancer Carmen in full flight. The operatic story by Bizet is brought to mind immediately.
Great street art is everywhere in Barcelona!
So too,unfortunately ,is graffiti such as the yellow tagging that besmirches the mosaic.
Demonstrating that not all forms of self- expression are equal…
Four Plants On A Wall
Yesterday’s post centred on the number three.
Another day ,and another number on.
Four.
Specifically , four potted plants in a mural by a street artist on a white concrete wall, behind a bar and a McDonald’s.
Four is usually synonymous with a square or rectangle – regularity.
And even though the painted pot plants are evenly spaced there is a sense of funky freedom in this four !
Wonderment At Animals
Crazy mural in Auckland’s Balmoral.
The night sky and Asian animals are depicted.
The woman is in state of wonderment.
I would be too, if I were her.
And, just quietly, wondering how the hell am I going to get out of here before I get trampled, snake bitten or devoured….
Humiliation vs Humility
Please have a peek at my last post Making Humiliation An Artform ! if you haven’t already.
There,the great British poet Auden postulated out that art is born of humiliation.
I guess we want to believe that art comes from some more pleasant emotional or spiritual experience ,but he had a point.
We all suffer crashing humiliation at some point -god knows I have – when we find out in no uncertain terms that we are not as good, morally upright, desirable, intelligent or indispensable or whatever we thought we were before the axe fell ,leaving us split into bits of the real truth ,laid bare for the world to see.
Art might come from there, or the resolve not to ever have that thing happen again,or maybe the urge to be “better”.
So, humiliation can be a catalyst for change.
But it is not the same as humility.
Humiliation might give us humility ,but equally might cause self-loathing or resentment.
You can’t sustain humiliation as a force for change in your life or to create something new and different, it is just a starting point.
Humility, however ,can give us those things. It is hard ,because subjugating our ego-driven selves to the uncontrollable is something we naturally are threatened by, and fight.
And the sharp blade of humiliation need not necessarily have to dissect us in order to find humility.
Getting back to art, and using the beautiful and shining copper sculpture in the above photo to illustrate – copper is a soft metal and can be beaten (humiliating moments again!) and shaped into almost anything. Infinitely malleable.
We have to be that way too – responsive,shaped and trained into transcendent form by outside forces.
The world will remember that self we became, long after our moments of personal disaster are forgotten.
Making Humiliation An Artform !
“Art is born of humiliation”
  – W.H.Auden
Art Ascending
 “Art, when inspired with love, leads to higher realms”
 – Baba Meher
Two community art gallery stairways, in NZ’s Nelson (left) and Taumaranui (right), echo the above quote.
You can feel the love and passion transforming humble carpentry.
Stairs inviting you upwards with rainbow colours to discover more artful wonder.
Which is what inspired art does, I suppose – takes you out of yourself and beyond.
I fumble around with this blog, and I don’t really know what qualifies as ‘good’ art ,but I have come to learn that the act of creating something that is real to me has actually taken me ‘beyond’. The creativity of others (bloggers like you included!) inspires that journey too.
Onwards and upwards!
Portrait: The Photographer
Barry is a top guy with a droll sense of humour .In his professional life he was a photographer.
I felt almost embarrassed asking if I could take a shot of him,and with a phone camera at that. I mean,he probably took thousands of portraits of individuals and groups in a myriad of poses and settings and lord knows whatever else, mostly in the old school analog way – actual film,actual developing.
He was pretty phlegmatic about the results of this shot . Probably not used to being on the other side of things…he looks skeptical!
I think my attempt passed muster ,but IÂ realised he knew so much more than I ever will about the art of photography,so it is a sort of privilege to capture a maven of the craft through my lens.
Twisting Branches (Meandering Life)
“Life meanders in this way. Art gives us all kinds of images of this living path that goes where it is going in a series of incomplete circles.There is the serpent of knowledge in the garden, the twisting pathway through the maze, the caduceus, or staff, of Mercury, and there are the twisting branches of the tree of life.Living is a meandering pathway across the void.”
William Bridges, excerpt from ‘The Way Of Transition’
Butterfly Piano Man
I visited the High Musuem of Art in Atlanta in 2017 while on vacation.The museum is full of stunning art but this gentleman at the community piano outside  gave me my lasting memory of the place. Playing skillfully, only for himself and before he was due to work , the simple,elegant  folk/classical melodies drew me in .I listened for a while and chatted briefly with the guy,thanking him for sharing his talent.I love the idea of the community piano that anyone can come and play on(saw another in Atlanta and then one back home in NZ) – music and art should be egalitarian and accessible but so often get commodified or placed on a pedestal,and then their essence is often diluted or lost altogther.That moment is an inpiration to this blog – I do it for myself first and foremost ,but am happy if my melodies are overheard and appreciated….
Kaitiaki(Guardians)
ebb then flood 