Stillness in flight

2010-06-15T15:34:00.000+10:00

Love had taken away my practices
and filled me with poetry.

I tried to keep quietly repeating,
No strength but yours,
but I couldn't.

I had to clap and sing.
I used to be respectable and chaste and stable,
but who can stand in this strong wind
and remember those things?

A mountain keeps an echo deep inside itself.
That's how I hold your voice.

I am scrap wood thrown in your fire,
and quickly reduced to smoke.

I saw you and became empty.
This emptiness, more beautiful than existence,
it obliterates existence, and yet when it comes,
existence thrives and creates more existence!

The sky is blue. The world is a blind man
squatting on the road.

But whomever sees your emptiness
sees beyond blue and beyond the blind man.

A great soul hides, like Muhammad, or Jesus,
moving through a crowd in a city
where no one knows him.

To praise is to praise
how one surrenders
to the emptiness.

To praise the sun is to praise your own eyes.
Praise, the ocean. What we say, a little ship.

So the sea-journey goes on, and who knows where?
Just to be held by the ocean is the best luck
we could have. It's a total waking up!

Why should we grieve that we've been sleeping?
It doesn't matter how long we've been unconscious.

We're groggy, but let the guilt go.
Feel the motions of tenderness
around you, the buoyancy.

~ RUMI

2010-06-15T15:23:00.001+10:00

Awake, my dear. Be kind to your sleeping heart. Take it out into the vast fields of Light
And let it breathe.
Hafiz

2010-05-05T14:31:00.001+10:00

(spinal) innervation - (innovation)
(mucous) expectoration - (expectation)

innervate |iˈnərˌvāt; ˈinər-|
verb [ trans. ] Anatomy & Zoology
supply (an organ or other body part) with nerves.

innovation |ˌinəˈvā sh ən|
noun
the action or process of innovating.
• a new method, idea, product, etc. : technological innovations designed to save energy.

expectorate |ikˈspektəˌrāt|
verb [ intrans. ]
cough or spit out phlegm from the throat or lungs.
• [ trans. ] spit out (phlegm) in this way.

expectation |ˌekspekˈtā sh ən|
noun
a strong belief that something will happen or be the case in the future :
• a belief that someone will or should achieve something :

2010-05-05T13:45:00.001+10:00

i am going to start blogging again soon. i can feel it in my bones.

manifest income so i can afford to buy my own internet supply>
library dependence doesnt allow ease of upload>

also NEW EXCITING MURAL PROJECT COMING SOON at the
North Fitzroy Library, May 2010

Gelengu du Gelenguwurru

2010-03-15T14:24:00.002+11:00

its an honour to be apart of this exhibition. looks amazing! wish everyone involved the bestest of best.

Gelengu du Gelenguwurru, Old and New, Young and Old

A FUNDRAISING ART EXHIBITION
Supporting Cultural Education in Warmun Community, East Kimberley

SHEFFER GALLERY
38 Lander Street, Darlington, Sydney

24 March to 1 April, 2010

Opening NIGHT 7-9pm, 25 March

To be opened by the Governor of NSW Professor Marie Bashir and video-journalist Allan Clarke

The rich cultural traditions of Warmun community in the East Kimberley of WA have become known all over the world through the striking paintings of Warmun community elders. Yet the culture of Warmun’s Gija people is now under threat.

To overcome this the elders of the community have begun a program to intensively educate young people in Gija language and culture. Young people are being taken out to experience the songs, dance, art and language in the sacred places of the land where they were traditionally taught. They are learning to both participate in their cultural traditions and to record them using media technology, so that future generations will have access to them. This exhibition will raise funds to make this vital program sustainable.

Featuring work from Indigenous and non-Indigenous artists: Churchill Cann, Betty Carrington, Phyllis Thomas, Madigan Thomas, Shirley Purdie, Beerbee Mungnari, Gordon Barney, Joan Ross, Elizabeth Frith, Arlene TextaQueen, Deborah Kelly, Keg de Souza, Ghostpatrol, Miso, Stephan Walker, Chay-ya Clancy, Michael Fikaris, Jane Yalunga, Richard Goodwin, Janet Laurence, Matt Ferns, Ned Sevil, Tom Sevil, Tony Sevil, Peter Rushforth, Simon Reece, Gerry Wedd, Donna Green, Julie Green, Nick Hollo, Nick Bleasel, Neil Evans, Vivienne Ferguson, Catherine Hearse, Rena Shein, Jason Wing, Lucia Scurrah, Julian Greer, Richard BB, Vexta, Ann Thomson, Reg Mombassa and Bruce Petty.

SPACE 2010

2010-03-15T14:21:00.001+11:00

I am showing some of my drawings and a new large format print in this exhibition at George Paton Gallery (at melbourne uni) opening this wednesday. I will also be performing in the 'site specific performance' preluding the exhibition opening at 5.30pm with Ben and Bram. Hope you can come.

Antonia Green, Igloo, event-based project, 2009. Reclaimed timber, wire, PVC and fabric (installation detail)

SPACE 2010

Sustainability: Crisis or Opportunity

Chay-ya Clancy, Antonia Green, Mike Hornblower, Paul Kalemba,

Jill Orr and Rohan Schwartz

Ben Dynan

17/27 March

Opening night:

Presentation by Jill Orr:

Before the Opening:

Public lecture: Art and Sustainability

Wednesday 17 March, 4.30–5.30pm

Turner Theatre, Botany Building,

Parkville Campus, University of Melbourne

George Paton Gallery Second floor, Union House, University of Melbourne 3010. Melways Map Reference 75A E7 Parking: Tin Alley (Gate 1) after 5pm Exhibition open 12-6pm Tuesday to Friday and 12-5pm Saturday until 27 March 2010 Enquiries 8344 5418 or 8344 4809 BH gpg@union.unimelb.edu.au

union.unimelb.edu.au/georgepaton

2010-02-05T23:26:00.000+11:00

i feel like it is a time of great retrospective and full fast forward catapulting. im flung too high and fast, my heart is crazy and bruised and just learning to really pump on its own..

2009-12-24T22:53:00.000+11:00

My little brother Llewellyn took this photograph of my mini brother Noah with his new underwater camera. Pretty amazing photo.

2009-12-24T22:51:00.001+11:00

so much to catch up on, have been away and will probably continuing being away from the internet for awhile.

2009-12-24T21:58:00.001+11:00

2009-11-15T19:18:00.001+11:00

The exhibition is nearing from the far. One week away now.
Check out the 100ono blog for more!

2009-11-04T13:28:00.005+11:00

100ono / 1ooONO

Antonia Green and I are having a ONE NIGHT ONLY exhibition of photographs, prints and paintings on Monday 23rd of November 6-9pm at Per Square Metre Gallery on Johnston Street in Collingwood. We hope you can come! The whole exhibition only goes for 3 hours! Everything is for sale. Much love.

2009-11-04T11:46:00.004+11:00

There is a feature article about me and the project I did with the Melbourne Writers Festival
up on the spanish online magazine MY BUFFER GUEST, check it out, its exciting!
Ive posted up the orginal version of the text here (in english!)

Moving Letters Moving Minds
by Ingrid Baring

Australian artist, Chay-Ya Clancy combines her fascination with language, colour and design to make public interactive art. Her installation of the Moving Letters Project at the Melbourne Writers Festival this year furthers her intention to make ‘work which intervenes, challenges, celebrates and connects community.’ It resulted from negotiations with the Festival’s co-director and attracted wide attention outside the two week event where local and international writers along with large numbers of visitors come each year.
Chay-Ya’s giant freestanding boards and orange tiles with white lower case script created an ever changing mirage of letters, punctuation, words and phrases, both enhancing the celebration of language and braking it down into geometric lines and curves. The public wrote freely on the ‘Scrabble Boards’, things like, ‘listen quiet children dream aloud’, ‘melbourne audio rocks’ and ‘bs & rs e & e sh? Menus from local cafes appeared, school groups wrote their names and the act of making language became a satisfying yet transitory experience.
For some time Chay-Ya has wanted to find ‘other ways to do things in the tangle of possibilities.’ After doing ten shows in two years, she headed to Berlin, where she was surrounded by a community making mess and noise and ‘changing the world one art project at a time.’ Back in Australia, Chay-Ya began chronicling the Moving Letters Project on Facebook and on her blog, stillness in flight.
In developing the project Chay-Ya selected then changed fonts, case, and colour, looking at serif and sans serif font options. She put a short list on Facebook for feedback. ‘Of course everyone liked a different one,’ she says and made her own decisions. Her favourite part of the process was the application of the stickers which, to make 200 letters, became a physical dance, Zen-like in its repetition.
To further document the Moving Letters Project, Chay-Ya assembled a group of performers to interact with the installation and photographed the happening. On a windy spring day the letters blew about the square and found a shape with both a deliberate and fluid forming and reforming of transient poetics. Letters were reversed, flipped and rotated; words spelt phonetically or misspelt sat along side repeated punctuation. From letters laid out in the foreground random words emerged and relationships with open ended meanings began to build. Goat/feed/toy/muse,/dead/ dented/through/aunt all appeared and then ‘through dented wey? mi ghostly aunt did swim’ came into being. As is with transience once these words found their voice they were packed up, and put away. New ideas arrived.
Chay-Ya’s interest in language and art lies in the spaces between letters, the aesthetics of punctuation and seeing the collective unconscious appear and disappear. The all weather installation stood for two weeks coming in from the cold each night. Chay-Ya hopes that it will reappear and be used again. This quirky Moving Letters Project has the potential of ongoing life and each time it’s born will be an event linking language, meaning, art and people.

Ingrid Baring is a Melbourne writer and performer

2009-11-02T18:09:00.002+11:00

hello! exciting! from sohi x

2009-10-29T20:40:00.000+11:00

If you are thinking of investing in a new venture: opening a shop or starting a harmonica orchestra or building a skyscraper, this would be the right time to start. All the stars are lined up for beginnings for Rats now. You health is better. You needed to de-stress.
chinese horoscope on facebook

2009-10-29T11:33:00.001+11:00

festivals need resting places.

dimly lit caves - opportunities to sit / RESONATE with experiences.

different.interchangeable. self devised levels of engagement + interaction.

2009-10-29T10:41:00.005+11:00

Sunshine breakfast on a day without sun.
Super broken rice cooked with quinoa.
Organic butter and himalayan crystal salt.
A poached egg. Finely sliced yellow paprika.
Lemon juice. Chopped almonds.
Made on 16th of October.

2009-10-29T00:28:00.002+11:00

Tuesday, 27 October 2009
That is the length, the hope, the number. We have forgotten Moebius, we have given up on the Standard. Chandler speaks to us through three hundred and seventy two divisions, and we reply, all of us in monotonous tones, one after another, each voice getting quieter and quieter, the consonants unclear, all of us lost in pronuntiatio. We are the star speakers slowly murmuring out, slowly out to fade and to nothing.
Writing by Adam Thomas (also known as Preslav Literary School) post copied directly from his Dichterische Fragmente blog

2009-10-28T00:32:00.001+11:00

I saw an incredible performance about a year ago in Berlin that I still think about, it revolutionised my world. It was a vocal dance/ sound body/ singing physicality improvisation between Gabriele Reuter and Barnaby Tree

"The weight of a melody contains the weight
of the arm and bone and muscle, the weight of the wooden bow, and Barnaby
notices this and plays with it." Sten Rudstrom

Ive been listening to to Barnaby's music in raptures.

2009-10-24T10:04:00.002+11:00

These are photographs of the wonderful improv performer Dani Cresp.
I did an early morning photoshoot in Alexandria Gardens a couple of
weeks ago with the [as yet unnamed] physical theatre group she is working with.
Dani is performing at the next Explode - a night of improvised theatre on 14 November 8pm
at Small Block Cafe. Also featuring Al Wunder, Alice Cummins, Penny Baron, Lindesay Dresdon, Ian David, and Kim McClelland. Contact explodetheatre@gmail.com to book tickets.

2009-10-23T13:45:00.004+11:00

"momentum and speed is critical to the way we experience sound." Anthony Magen
I went on a sound walk with Anthony as part of the recent project Interventionist's Guide

(thoughts from my notebook)
into spaces and backspaces of the city I had never gone into and hence enlivened my view, and raised possibilities of new and interesting interactions with this/my city (made me more interested in being here in melbourne).
thinking about public performance
dancing/movement/presence as
intervention - bring awareness to another way of being, a sensing-feeling- present-now-way of being.
alliances - more than one person is particularly powerful/noticeable.
walking in silence with other people who are
committed to being silent and aware, is very different to the silent (Lone) nomadic traverse.

2009-10-23T13:34:00.007+11:00

I did a photoshoot with Ilan Abrahams from Sense of Place Projects a couple of days ago in the lead up to his CD launch at the Abbotsford Convent on Sunday 8th of November. Ilan will be performing at 10am and then again at 12.20pm with a chorus of children singing along with him. You can hear some of Ilan's music here

2009-10-14T15:35:00.003+11:00

the library is the perfect place to read the newspaper. they are free, there are comfortable chairs and it has a pleasant temperature. there is a good selection of papers and they get re-used and re-read by many people. i dont read the newspaper but instead observe other people reading them and think about how this library idea is very good. there are also a lot of people who fall asleep in the library or come just to be around people. i think i would like to be a librarian of the people if i had more time and less other things that i was interested in.

2009-10-08T16:35:00.001+11:00

todays breakfast on a green plate.

2009-10-08T16:26:00.002+11:00

I am writing another blog, its called the Space Project.
exploring a conceptual relationship between writing/typesetting and physical space/movement.

2009-10-07T17:02:00.002+11:00

i grew these portabello mushrooms. i am so excited about growing mushrooms. i want to find some oyster compost/spores and grow them too.

2009-10-06T18:14:00.002+11:00

to question is the absolute duty of the soul

someone said this to me today, they couldnt remember the source of the quote but the words rang strong for me and so i write it here words loud, source unquoted .

2009-09-27T16:50:00.000+10:00

sometimes you make something delicious after a particular occasion or a magical experience of collecting ingredients, such as walking into a really nice shop and there being incredible walnuts in shells (the nuts being this deep mahogany colour) and fresh broad beans in their pods and homegrown organic lettuce. and then pure deliciousness seems to happen. its a combination of good ingredients, the magic of acquiring them, and the feeling of really wanting to cook in your body.
this is dutch cream mash with butter, fried broad beans with garlic and walnuts, and salad with a thyme lemon yogurt sauce.

2009-09-17T16:40:00.000+10:00

2009-09-17T15:37:00.002+10:00

Why should we grieve that we've been sleeping?

It doesnt matter how long we've been unconscious.

We're groggy, but let the guilt go.

Feel the motions of tenderness

around you, the buoyancy.

from buoyancy by Rumi

love opens my chest,

and thought returns to its confines,

Patience and rational considerations leave.

Only passion stays, whimpering and feverish.

Some men fall down in the road like dregs thrown out.

Then, totally reckless, the next morning

they gallop out with new purposes. Love

is the reality, and poetry is the drum

that calls us to that. Dont keep complaining

about loneliness! Let the fear-language of that theme

crack open and float away. Let the preist come down

from his tower, and not go back up!

from granite and wineglass by Rumi

When ink joins with a pen, then the blank paper

can say something. Rushes and reeds must be woven

to be useful as a mat. If they werent interlaced,

the wind would blow them away.

Like that, God paired up

creatures, and gave them friendship.

from Of being woven by Rumi

Today, like every other day, we wake up empty

and frightened. Dont open the door to the study and begin reading.

Take down a musical instrument.

Let the beauty we love be what we do.

There are hundreds of ways to kneel and kiss the ground.

Out beyond ideas of wrong doing and rightdoing,

there is a field. I'll meet you there,

When the soul lies down in that grass,

the world is too full to talk about.

Ideas, language, even the phrase each other

doesnt make any sense.

The breeze at dawn has secrets to tell you.

Dont go back to sleep.

You must ask for what you really want.

Dont go back to sleep.

People are going back and forth across the doorsill

where the two worlds touch.

The door is round and open.

Dont go back to sleep.

from A great wagon by Rumi

2009-09-15T16:37:00.003+10:00

tamaras birthday breakfast of banana buckwheat pancakes with a million exciting things on top.

2009-09-14T12:10:00.002+10:00

corporeality, the reality of having a body. the quality of being physical; consisting of matter.

2009-09-14T12:02:00.002+10:00

My friend Bo told me he has been writing, he's not sure what it is, but i think it will be exciting...
Set in an age when time was measured in moons and tides and intrepid chronicles signified the worth of an explorer's existence. Letters to Isaac

2009-09-09T13:01:00.000+10:00

confusion is a state of learning

2009-08-30T16:45:00.000+10:00

2009-08-29T19:51:00.002+10:00

Tomorrow, being Sunday the 30th of August is the last day of the Melbourne Writers Festival and so the last day of my installation being up in federation square. i will be there from 12.30pm, come and have lunch with me and we can re-arrange letters into words and sentences until we cant think of any more possible combinations and it is dark and everything is packed away.

2009-08-28T16:54:00.002+10:00

2009-08-24T17:16:00.002+10:00

This Friday the 28th of August at 12pm midday there will be a spontaneous happening of word improvising / interacting with my installation in federation square. you are welcome. hope you can come. its up until sunday.

2009-08-21T21:23:00.007+10:00

the installation is finished (my part anyway). i delivered it to federation square yesterday. seen here in this photo back stage. From today it will be full centre, out in the open air of the fed sq plaza - ready to play (with you!).
The installation is part of Melbourne Writers Festival 21- 30 August. Im aiming to spend a bit of time down there documenting the words, sentences, and poetic things people write up. Hope to see you! Maybe we can have a picnic.

2009-08-21T19:10:00.005+10:00

2009-08-21T11:31:00.002+10:00

I’d be happy if I had a nice shopfront studio like the ones I see sometimes here in Berlin, surrounded by a good community of committed creative people making mess and noise and changing the world one art project at a time. Interspersed with plenty of travel I hope...
My friend Oliver was recently interviewed and this was his response to 'what would you like the future to look like?' and i real loved his answer being surrounded by mess and noise.

2009-08-20T21:33:00.003+10:00

2009-08-17T16:45:00.001+10:00

2009-08-17T09:53:00.001+10:00

coreflute, coreflute, coreflute. such a funny character you are.

2009-08-17T08:27:00.000+10:00

unhinged french braces

2009-08-16T20:07:00.001+10:00

a king parrot kamikazied into the window of our house today.
it died from the impact.
mum buried it in the paddock.
im not sure if it was an omen.
it was very beautiful and direct.

2009-08-15T21:39:00.002+10:00

Merce Cunningham, a very renowned choreographer recently passed away at 90 years old. He was the romantic and collaborative partner of John Cage a very interesting sound artist and musician. I have seen some of Merce's work performed and must admit I wasnt that into the physical movement component even though the music, visuals and concepts of chance are really interesting. And both the music scores that were apart of the pieces I saw at MIAF a few years ago were incredible. Anyway I just came across this video and loved it, so perhaps I will look into his work again or just draw inspiration from this video.

2009-08-08T21:35:00.001+10:00

workings of the installation im making for MWF. to be unveiled in entirety this coming week.

2009-08-01T13:17:00.002+10:00

Cells emit bright presence.

2009-07-31T21:31:00.000+10:00

delicious homemade muesli with biodynamic dried apples, hazelnuts and quinoa puffs.
i had the idea to stew a little rhubarb with an apple and pour it on the muesli hot with all its juices and then add a little extra rice milk. it was good. hot muesli is better than porridge.

2009-07-31T21:25:00.001+10:00

infamous rice cake moments: hommous, harrissa,
smoked tofu, fried mushrooms and spanish onions.

2009-07-31T21:20:00.000+10:00

black quinoa and butternut pumpkin mash

2009-07-29T22:34:00.003+10:00

this guy has greatly tattooed arms and some very interesting things to say,
dont be put off by his quirk of annunciation

2009-07-29T21:20:00.001+10:00

Soil isnt vegan.
dirt is heaps important.
im learning new things.
and old ones.
and ones ever evolving.

2009-07-29T20:54:00.004+10:00

Uni & her ukelele in the laneway
Duduá is in
in Barcelona
i just watched it and it made me happy.

2009-07-29T15:20:00.006+10:00

over the weekend i did a course in making vibrational essences from australian wildflowers.
it was profound and neat, and has given me lots of new inspiration and energy to keep playing
and exploring and researching things. I took this photo of a banksia in my walking just outside the royal
botanic gardens in sydney with my phone camera.
ABFE

2009-07-29T14:41:00.001+10:00

doodling on the paper tablecloth in restaurant in glebe.

2009-07-27T15:29:00.001+10:00

walked past this painted building in newtown and thought
that exciting paintings make brick walls much more exciting
and i wanted to paint some.

2009-07-27T15:01:00.002+10:00

and it must be said that if we are choosing there must be - an opposite
a point of departure
something that the choice is chosen from

and i choose to deviate from the paved path
and walk on the tendered mown grass in an act of anarchy,
honouring this direction.

2009-07-24T15:13:00.002+10:00

walking and looking out from look outs with lena and alex in the mountains.

2009-07-21T20:15:00.001+10:00

lady grey
+
sunshine porridge

un-co-ordination
+
salty sweat in my eyes.

2009-07-21T20:13:00.002+10:00

my legs looking somehow silverous in the wintery sunshine

2009-07-21T20:11:00.002+10:00

i finally held my breath watched the film adaption of love in the time of cholera, and though it is a good enough, film, it lacks Marquez's words and
the complexities and full of poetry are collapsed into a three lined love story.
and i dont see that i agree with that being a good thing.

2009-07-21T20:10:00.008+10:00

celeraic, black raddish, heirloom purple carrots, turnip, kipfler potatoes.

2009-07-17T22:56:00.006+10:00

At the moment im working on a commission for this years Melbourne Writers Festival
* im * building an exciting participatory sculpture that will be installed in Federation Square during the festival. Stay tuned for more developments.
* im is asterixed, because obviously im not working alone, and seen in these photos are the real workers being my carpenters apprentice brother Darcey, and the wild card apprentices' apprentice Noah.

2009-07-17T22:41:00.001+10:00

some cooking adventures of late...
you will notice themes
and reoccuring ingredients

2009-07-17T21:40:00.002+10:00

onion-carrot- brussel sprout-tomato and olive sauce
on amaranth and rice spiral pasta.
i blended the sauce to hide the vegetables
and used ume su, raw sugar, himalayan crystal salt and white pepper
to flavour and balance the tomatoes.
my small friend ate it all and thought it was incredibly delicious

2009-07-17T21:35:00.000+10:00

slow baked apples with mucavado sugar, biodynamic
sultanas and ginger.
this was before the crock had its lid on and spent its time
in the oven.
the lady at the fruit shop suggested these grannie greens
for baking but they exploded all over the place
and werent the ultimate.

2009-07-17T21:30:00.004+10:00

Organic italian risotto rice, fresh shitake mushrooms
from the huon valley in tasmania, kalamata olives
home made stock and garden grown herbs.
my smallest brother was in charge of cooking this risotto
and did a fine job, with my strategic assistance.

we fried strips of celeriac, parsnip and beetroot -
which became beautiful pink vegies for the top of
the risotto. the chef discovered a taste for mushrooms
and realised that there is more to life that white
button cup mushrooms that had him anti.

2009-07-17T21:20:00.000+10:00

hasty rice flour and cinnamon pancakes
with poached segments of orange in some
kind of not overly sweet but a bit sweet syrup

2009-07-17T21:11:00.000+10:00

my little brother, but not the smallest one,
made this beautiful pizza under my subtle
mentoring. a wonderful crisp-pita-bread-in-the
oven style affair with mushrooms, olives, freshly
cracked black pepper and rosemary plucked
neatly out of the garden near the back door.

2009-07-17T20:47:00.004+10:00

a shop bought organic spelt pizza base -
i made a sauce with fried crumbled tofu, organic
canned tomatoes, garlic, muscavado and ume su,
which somehow became overly delicious -
then slices of steamed pumpkin, mushrooms,
olives, sonnenblumenkern (sunflower seeds),
raw olive oil, cracked pepper and fresh
avocado when it came out of the oven.

* I had a photo of the pizza looking perfectly symmetrical
and neat before i cut it, but this picture was so much more
interesting, the chaos and perfect unprettiness of cutting.

2009-07-17T20:30:00.000+10:00

always looking for an excuse to make h'ordeuvres,
my just a bit younger than me brother was down
from queensland, and so these happened.
crispy corn thingos, with a borlotti bean and
almond dip, black russian type cherry tomatoes
that i dont know the name of and of course
olives. i really love trying to put together separate
flavours that work as a whole.

2009-07-15T23:10:00.006+10:00

recently i learned to knit again. i had for so long refused for lack of interest and slight prejudice. I dont have the kind of time that you need for knitting. anyway, i got over it and my mum taught me to knit. we were sitting in front of an open fire, with little blankets on our knees knitting late into the night. my mum was knitting my grandad a jumper but my knitting didnt really get anywhere, being pulled apart unstrung and then knitted together again. We used hand spun wool which is very lovely but of an inconsistent thickness which produces knitting of a very particular aesthetic. I was intrigued and pulled in by the addictiveness, and spent many many hours purl knit purling. Id probably still be knitting (and pulling it apart) right now but my wrist is rehabilitating from surgery, and im having to re-invent my daily creative life.

2009-07-15T15:44:00.000+10:00

Canvassing is so nineties.
I struggle with its validity as a form of communication.
But i am patient and stand quietly awake as I listen.
Then explain there are other ways to do things. And I am interested in finding them.

2009-07-14T22:47:00.001+10:00

I am very interested in documentation, and the documenting of process. The process of ideas, and of art and production making. The finer details that make up the whole completed picture. The beauty in construction, the tangle of possibles. The emerging threads that tie together to make the finished thing that everyone sees. I am intrigued by the stories, fictions and fairytales that form in the half light, the ones that disappear like the curls of grey smoke and the ones that are written down and held to the surfaces of paper, the memories of film, and inside our tingling bodies.

2009-07-14T22:21:00.004+10:00

I read this recipe on my friend Lena's beautiful food blog exploding wonder storm castle and it prompted me to make this cake. I made it with cooked millet, buckwheat and brown rice flour. And used muscavado brown sugar, and wattleseed, cardamom and ginger as my spices. I reckon that Lena's cake was probably much sweeter and more delicious than mine, though it did have its quirks of an incredibly spicey and moist cake.

2009-06-26T13:57:00.002+10:00

in the last five years ive been under general anesthetic four times
tonsilectomy and adenoidectomy, gastroscopy, serious wisdom teeth removal and wrist arthroscopy...
imagine if all these things were still in my life
in little jars of formaldehyde
teeth and tissue.

2009-06-24T11:28:00.001+10:00

its on, she is removing the hair with an electrical device, smearing yellow brown liquid over my skin,
and then he marks an arrow pointing that way with a thick black texta on my arm.

2009-06-15T21:39:00.001+10:00

today my friend made the most delicious cookies.

2009-06-13T20:06:00.002+10:00

Two things: with many inside them:
Next weekend is the Northern Exposure Visual Arts Festival in Northcote (Melbourne).
Opening night is Friday 19 June 6-9pm, quite a number of High Street Galleries and shops will be showing art. The show at Kick, looks attendance worthy (and it is rumoured that they are being forced out of their premises early next year... but as Forepaw was recently shut down, Northcote is already far less interesting to me). There is an Artisans market on saturday at the Town Hall from 10-4pm.

secondly, there is an sound and noise event on this wednesday put on by Found Sound: The Experimental Instrument Project, it is an open workshop and collaborative group ensemble, something er rather. it will no doubt be good. i hope to go.
june 17 7:30pm tape projects space, 1/81 bouverie st, carlton melbourne

2009-06-10T10:28:00.002+10:00

In the process you may experience a considerable amount of tension, and for a time you may be confused, not quite knowing whether to go backward or forward, to expand or cut back.
...Under this influence there is often a strong feeling of restlessness and uncertainty. You know clearly that something is wrong, but you are not sure what it is. The best way to deal with this is not to be in a hurry. Usually you will have all the time you need to make a decision based on careful observation of the facts, so don't rush.
...In general you should take any opportunity that comes along now to broaden your scope and release yourself from limitations that have held you back. The trick is to do this in a way that is not destructively disruptive.
everything is always in the stars huh?

2009-06-08T14:16:00.001+10:00

i need to lay it all out and to cut the pattern from the paper,
to sew together a plan, of actions.

2009-06-08T14:14:00.002+10:00

im interested in the remnants of performance in the body
and the documentation of momentary happenings (the transience of performance)

2009-06-07T23:24:00.003+10:00

2009-06-04T23:17:00.000+10:00

2009-06-04T14:44:00.003+10:00

i dissected the segments of an orange. and then i wanted to photograph them but only had my phone camera so decided to draw. its been a long time since i have drawn. i drew on the pages of my notebook with a fine texta, ten pages in a row.

2009-06-03T14:14:00.000+10:00

I am acutely aware of the photographs I am compelled to frame (in my mind). But I dont want to handle a camera; to deal with the physicality of picture taking.

2009-06-02T12:58:00.003+10:00

almond typography

2009-06-02T11:10:00.000+10:00

Memories of france
before they're all lost

2009-06-02T06:02:00.001+10:00

potato cake: mashed/blended cooked potatoes, garlic, ginger, olive oil, dijion mustard, korma curry paste, frozen peas, crushed almonds, salt, ground mustard seeds and fennel and salt. shaped into patties and topped with crushed almond and hazelnuts. fried in a skillet with oil.

millet: cooked and then salt, pepper, olive oil and umeboshi vinegar.

carrot relish: boiled organic carrots, with ginger, add in fried onion and garlic with crushed mustard seeds and salt, half a raw tomato (maybe better fried with onions?), dijion mustard, few almonds, little bit of umeboshi vinegar, olive oil, black cracked pepper. blended and tastes adjusted.

veg: fried strips of asparagus, lebanese eggplant and carrots with olive oil and organic garlic and salt and pepper.

2009-06-01T20:06:00.001+10:00

another barcelona picnic with Megs, here we had freshly harvested onionweed, broad beans and walnuts, very stylishly compiled into a perfect balance of flavours.

2009-06-01T19:58:00.003+10:00

these are some of megan's photos from our visit out to Vall de Can Masdeu
an incredible permaculture squat in the hills around barcelona. We went on a non-open day and by pure luck were invited inside where we helped prepare a dinner for the 25 people strong household of wonderful home grown vegies and then, amazingly we were invited to stay and eat it. it was very exciting to eat all these wonderful happy vegies from the garden, and brian's special 'apocalyptic' curry sauce.

Have a look at Megan Floris' Itinerant Moustache blog for more wonder and inspiration and bits and bobs.

2009-06-01T19:28:00.005+10:00

a picnic on the hill/mountainside of canyelles in barcelona. we packed a variety of things including buckwheat crepes (gallettes de sarrasin), and a umeboshi vinegar vinaigrette and little containers of leftovers.
Megsy (seen pictured) is a total inspiration and awesome dude, currently on her food activist and connoisseur world tour learning about permaculture communities and making the whole food, growing, preparation, eating thing as happy and direct and intergrated into life as possible. it was wonderful to spend a few days hanging out far away from our homelands. and it will be interesting and wonderful to see what will happen back at home.

2009-06-01T19:17:00.003+10:00

a few months ago i was h'ordeuvre inspired and luckily when it happened it was also my friend sarah's birthday so i had the excuse to make some very small and delicious things. I used a beautiful organic sourdough from a local barcelona bakery to make small toasted squares and then topped with a sweet potato and oat cream pate, slices of raddish, freshly cracked walnut segments and a tiny spring of italian parsley. im going to look for more excuses to make things like this.

2009-06-01T16:31:00.000+10:00

I have lost my origin
And I don't want to find it again
- lyric from bjork's wanderlust

2009-05-25T17:24:00.013+10:00

yesterday i performed at an event called Speakers Corner as part of the Emerging Writers Festival in Melbourne, it was curated by renowned poet Sean M Whelan and he took these photos. Actually in the beginning Sean was the only person standing in front of me while I was 'performing' and so made me, forced me, gave me space and attention to pursue the performance and find a way through it. I have not been thinking in words lately and so it was challenging but then i remembered that words are always there somewhere and they can be really really good to fill your mouth with and spit out. I enjoyed being a poet for a few minutes.

I think my heart is going to explode
im not sure if you’ll be able to see it

an imperceptible flutter, like a caffeine heart trip

a weight that pulls
moveable
possibility to stretch exists

unfinished. unrefined. loose strings that could be tied to the bottom of the kite you are flying today. and i hope that you are flying a kite today, some kind of coloured papery bird loosely held in the wind.

2009-05-22T11:35:00.002+10:00

So I was in the newspaper the other day, a free commuter paper given to the melbourne public with haste every day. It was to promote the Emerging Writers Festival that is currently on and I will be performing in and having a table at the independent press fair (31st may 12-5pm in the atrium at fed square).
Its quite interesting the text that surrounds me in this spread
Leaders shape their own future - Life Not travelling well - Home Works the Best - Its true - Charges over hit and Run - Casting Net Ever wider - The word on the Street is theres a New fest in Town....

2009-05-22T02:24:00.001+10:00

Find deep time street fish
I saw this written on a wall today

being completely in the moment has some impracticalities.
ive been noticing.

2009-05-20T22:11:00.001+10:00

Following the stars, European explorers found their southern land and subsequently mapped and renamed Indigenous countries. In contrast, the sky remained innocent of a colonial discourse. Above the contested lands of Australia, the night sky continues to offer the potential for universal projections of ancient beliefs, nationhood and personal reflection. In this way, many cultural interpretations of the sky can stand side by side without fear of displacement.
excerpt from exhibition synopsis 'Shared Sky' at NGV ian potter in melbourne at the moment.