Monday, April 14, 2008

Exhibition Openings

I have my show coming up VERY SOON (scary!) So lately I have been paying as much attention to how people are presenting the show as I am to the artwork involved in the show.

Most openings are pretty standard, you have drinks, occasionally there is food as well, people stand around and drink and talk and if it is a really successful night you don't really look at the artwork at all because there are too many people blocking your view! There are price lists on a table somewhere, sometimes a blurb about the artist and the work as well... and if they can afford it a glossy brochure with coloured pics. People can organize speeches, but not everyone worries about this...

Occasionally people do things differently, incorporate elements of performance or audience participation. For example Marco Luccio recently had an opening at Steps Gallery on Lygon St and he had an opera singer perform! It was wonderful; an extra element of entertainment never goes astray. But it must be admitted that by and large they are just that – entertainment, creating atmosphere or ambience, but not significantly value adding to the work or my experience of the work.

A good friend of mine, Jenny Mitchell, recently had an exhibition. She did the whole lot food, drinks, performance… and somehow managed to create a whole other level of meaning for me.

I have been friends with her since doing the diploma together, so I have been privy to a certain extent to the thought process she went through in planning the show, getting the works ready and organizing the opening night. We have sat at Lentil As Anything at the Abbottsford Convent sipping tea as she ran ideas by me, though I can't say I contributed much except to say 'Wow, that sounds great Jenny!’

In the last few weeks before the show I was snowed under with concerns of my own so I wasn't able to help her in the final stages. When I went to the opening night I thought I knew what was coming and what to expect... and I did, as the plan hadn't changed much, it was the way it came together that blew me away. And, as so often happens, I think I actually found more/different meaning in it than Jenny had consciously chosen to communicate.

This is what I knew:
Jenny has been learning the cello in the last year or so and she wanted to play it on the opening night. She would play it while a digital slideshow was projected onto a wall next to her, a collage of quotes and images and an exploration of her thoughts about life, art and the journey she has taken over the last year in recovering from a severe breakdown. After that she would pull back a wall of fabric that had been hiding the room that actually held her paintings and people would be able to enter and see the works.

This is what I experienced:
The slide show gently drifted between images of her artwork, as yet unveiled, shown in abstract fragments, overlaid with snippets of poetry and her own words... elegant, restrained and yet so generous. She managed to talk about the darkest times she has had in the last year, she did not hide it, but neither did she fall into an indulgence of self-revelation. For me she hit a perfect balance. The music she had chosen was a most beautiful and haunting piece. These two alone (if the music had been played by someone else or on a CD player) would have been moving enough - but what really resonated and created for me a much more profound experience was all of this in combination with the physical reality of a person I hold dear to me, who I know has gone through hell in the last year, creating that music as we watched.

As she sat in front of us moving the bow and creating those resonances in sound, I became intimately aware of the other levels of movement and lived experience that it took to create the artwork, and write the words. I could see her in her studio moving the brush, mixing the paint. I could imagine what it must have been like to live the everyday (and every night) experience of a breakdown. The struggle to keep moving at all.

As the music progressed it moved into a more hopeful and gentle passage as Jenny neared the end of slideshow with words of hope and recovery. What the music and moving images did was not just move me to a deeper connection to the lived experience of creation, but it also tied in with a theme Jenny had been exploring in her words, which was the perception of and experience of time.

I have pondered the nature of music, art and time prior to this show. It has fascinated me how music is so linked to time. A painting or work of visual art is still; traditionally it is complete when presented to the public. You look at it and even if you spend time with it, and your thoughts move and shift in response to it, it in itself remains still, the same as when you first started looking at it. Music, on the other hand, is dependant on time. You cannot experience it without time, one moment follows another and one note follows another. The preceding notes set us up to experience the next. A gentle progression or a dramatic divergence from what went before helps create the mood. The way it takes some time to digest the stimulus of sound and our capacity to remember what went before allows the music to take us on a journey and tell a story. This experience is much closer to the reality of living life than the absolute stillness of a painting.

I think this is perhaps something to do with why I often enjoy creating paintings and going on that journey through time and colour to the finished product, more than I do looking at the finished work in a gallery. I suppose also that when my own works are finished they still resonate with that story that was told in the creation, something that the viewer does not have access to. I think, also, this is one reason how it can be that I love one painting so much and not another – yet people looking at them often have a very different connection.

So I think what happened for me was a wonderful fusion of all of those thoughts and feelings. It powerfully brought home the physical reality of her life. What we were reading was a lived experience for this person in front of us. The actions and movements of her mind, soul and body physically created the artwork we would soon be seeing. In exactly the same way as the cello was being played, in that moment and the next... and the next. And so too would her life go on, this show was just one in a long progression of lived moments. They would all slide into and onto each other like the notes of the music. It is a testament to her skill as an artist that she could take the experiences and memories of her life last year, I’m pretty sure many of which were not at all pretty or graceful, and shape them into something so poetic and beautiful.

The most poignant part, that which opened the door even wider to all of these thoughts and feelings, was that she did not play it perfectly. She played it astonishingly well, considering she had only been learning for a year. But every now and then a note was a little frail, or a little wobbly or a little short. That imperfection spoke volumes about the fragility of human ambitions. It spoke of the nature of learning (another journey; a thing that can only happen over time) and it described so perfectly the difference between what we aspire to and what, in our humanity, we achieve. I felt so much tenderness for humanity in that moment, for our attempts, our dreams, our limitations, our little and our big failings… and our courage in the attempts we make.

Sunday, April 13, 2008

Wednesday, April 9, 2008

Daphne Sheldrick on Elephants

The following is an excerpt from an article I found in my various searchings of the net. It is written by a woman called Daphne Sheldrick, an incredible woman - the first person in the world to successfully hand rear newborn fully milk dependent African Elephant orphan.

For more information about this amazing woman go to: http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/html/about_daphne_sheldrick.html)


ELEPHANT EMOTION
By Daphne Sheldrick D.B.E.: 1992 UNEP Global 500 Laureate.

For the full text please go to:
http://www.sheldrickwildlifetrust.org/html/elephant_emotion.html


“Why is it that most people feel such empathy for Elephants, even if they have never had close contact with them?

Is it because of their size, their quaint characteristics, or the the fact that they are so incredibly endearing as babies, tripping over little wobbly trunks that seem to serve no useful purpose other than get in the way? Or is it, perhaps, because Elephants are "human" animals, encompassed by an invisible aura that reaches deep into the human soul in a mysterious and mystifying way.

Of course, Elephants share with us humans many traits - the same span of life, (three score years and ten, all being well) and they develop at a parallel pace so that at any given age a baby elephant duplicates its human counterpart, reaching adulthood at the age of twenty. Elephants also display many of the attributes of humans as well as some of the failings. They share with us a strong sense of family and death and they feel many of the same emotions. Each one is, of course, like us, a unique individual with its own unique personality. They can be happy or sad, volatile or placid. They display envy, jealousy, throw tantrums and are fiercely competitive, and they can develop hang-ups which are reflected in behaviour. They also have many additional attributes we humans lack; incredible long range infrasound, communicating in voices we never hear, such sophisticated hearing that even a footfall is heard far away, and, of course they have a memory that far surpasses ours and spans a lifetime. They grieve deeply for lost loved ones, even shedding tears and suffering depression. They have a sense of compassion that projects beyond their own kind and sometimes extends to others in distress. They help one another in adversity, miss an absent loved one, and when you know them really well, you can see that they even smile when having fun and are happy.

I have been privileged to live amongst elephants (and other animals too) all my life, observing them in a wild situation for over 30 years, and hand-rearing their orphaned young for just as long. But it has been the rearing of the infant milk dependent babies that has given me an in-depth insight into the elephant psyche…

… The saga of our orphans is an ongoing story that will undoubtedly outlive most of us, God willing. I like the words of Henry Beston, from "The Outmost House," and especially so since they were written in 1928, a period when all most people knew about animals, was how to kill them.

"We need another and wiser and perhaps a more mystical concept of animals .... In a world older and more complete than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are not brethren, they are not underlings, they are other Nations, caught with ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and travail of the earth"

Wednesday, April 2, 2008

Blind Men and Elephants

I think most people will be familiar with the ancient tale of the blind men and the elephant. I found this humorous variation online and thought I would share it...


Five Blind Men and an Elephant*

being by
Reverend Loveshade

Episkopos of the Discordian Division of the Ek-sen-triks CluborGuild who ripped it off from the Hindus/Jainists


* From the
non-existent Apocrypha Discordia,
unauthorized companion to the
Principia Discordia

(We realize that, in the era of the very late 20th Century as this is being written, the title and content of this story are politically incorrect. We apologize for any discomfort, but ask you to remember that the original story was created long before political correctness, and is not intended in any way to be offensive to elephants.)


One day five blind men, who knew nothing of elephants, went to examine one to find out what it was. Reaching out randomly, each touched it in a different spot. One man touched the side, one an ear, one a leg, one a tusk, and one the trunk. Each satisfied that he now knew the true nature of the beast, they all sat down to discuss it.

“We now know that the elephant is like a wall,” said the one who touched the side. “The evidence is conclusive.”

“I believe you are mistaken, sir," said the one who touched an ear. "The elephant is more like a large fan."

“You are both wrong,” said the leg man. “The creature is obviously like a tree.”

“A tree?” questioned the tusk toucher. “How can you mistake a spear for a tree?”

“What?” said the trunk feeler. “A spear is long and round, but anyone knows it doesn’t move. Couldn’t you feel the muscles? It’s definitely a type of snake! A blind man could see that!” said the fifth blind man.

The argument grew more heated, and finally escalated into a battle, for each of the five had followers. This became known as the Battle of the Five Armies (not to be mistaken for the one described by that Tolkien fellow).

However, before they could totally destroy themselves, a blind, self-declared Discordian oracle came along to see what all the fuss was about. While they were beating the crap out of each other, she examined the elephant. But instead of stopping after one feel, she touched the whole thing, including the tail, which felt like a rope. “It’s just a big animal with big sides, ears, feet, tusk teeth, nose and a skinny tail,” she thought. “What a bunch of fools these guys are.”

She then said “Stop! I have discovered the truth. I know who is right.”

She being an oracle and all, they stopped and listened and said “tell us!”

“I have examined the elephant with mine own two hands,” she said, “and I find that you are all right.”

“How can this be?” they asked. “Can an elephant be a wall and a fan and a tree and a spear and a snake?” And they were sorely confused.

She explained “the elephant is a great Tree, and on this tree grow leaves like great Fans to give most wondrous shade and fan the breeze. And the branches of this tree are like Spears to protect it. For this is the Tree of Creation and of Eternal Life, and the Great Serpent hangs still upon it.

“Unfortunately, it is hidden behind a great Wall, which is why it was not discovered until this very day. It cannot be reached by normal means.

“However I, in my wisdom, have discovered a Most Holy Rope, by which the wall may be climbed. And if one touches the tree in the proper manner which I alone know, you will gain Eternal Life.”

They all became highly interested in this, of course.

She then named an extremely high price for her services (Eternal Life doesn’t come cheap), and made quite a bundle.

Moral: Anyone can lead blind men to an elephant, but a Discordian can charge admission.