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textile soft model

2024-08-25

4 minute read

Going to another town as a joke. A dunedin artist set up an exhibition in the town of Wodonga, a 3.5 hour train ride from Melbourne. I looked it up out of curiousity and saw it was only $7.20 return. Why not? I've talked about wanting to visit rural victoria, this is as good a reason as any. Also, I need to get out. I need the distance, to think about things. I have a lot of travel coming up this summer, and I need to start planning as soon as possible.

I find it hard to plan things like this. It stresses me out a lot, and I struggle to see the picture as a whole. Fly to where, when, how. I have one stop I want to make, and my final destination is a little out of the way. I worry I'm going to be desperately, embarassingly disorganised. This is how my life is a lot of time anyway. It's a miracle I've done anything at all.

We saw an exhibition by Wesley John Fourie - I Used to be a Great Lake. A scale model of the Murray River, made of finger knit chains. On the walls he's done embroidered pieces. As much as I appreciate the time and effort of embroidery, I think the textile soft model takes the cake. Making an appeal to the senses, our ability to compare our world to itself.

anything at all

I'm also emb,arassed at how long it's taken me to do anything relevant, anything interesting with Bloom. Why does it take me so long to finish things? I know, emergent complexity, the invisibility of software etc. I'm rambling, but theres a seed of frustration I'm trying to water into coherence. I've found a fix, to some degree, in my lessons. Having a teacher expecting me to be ready has improved to no end my plodding progress. External structure is a humbling gift.

humbling gift

a bit of a non sequitur but I want to put it in before I forget.

Conventionally art takes up a discernable medium and takes creative distance from ordinary communication or banal functionality, making an appeal to the senses that reroutes common sense

This is a quote of a quote, from "Passing Through, Looking Through" by Pollyanna Rhee, in Tank Mag Spring 2024, Volume 10 issue 19, quoting Anna Kornbluh from "Immediacy, or The Style of Too Late Capitalism".

I've been reading Tank mag, a subscription I requested for my birthday from some friends. It's a combination of high end glamour photoshoots, and texts exploring the contemporary in art and culture.

Last Day in Dreamlad, and that period in general, is an early example of the growing recognition of dilapidation within the UK's fairs, festivals, attractions and amusements - a society in miniature gone wrong.

This is from another article examining works that use the fairground as a point of departure - Last day in dreamlandby Christabel Stewart (same title as the referenced piece, name after the primary text for analysis)

The actual article starts talking about theatre in the 50's, but if there's nothing else I've learned from reading Real Review it's that the contemporary has always been here, and where we are now has echos through history that we can and must recognise For the first quote I like the description of art "making an appeal to the senses". I've been struggling to think about what it is that I enjoy about art and contemporary art lately. I misremembered this quote as something like "recruits the senses with creative distance from the everyday". I like that art might make novel use of our facilities, intelectual senses just as much as our eyes and ears.

For the second quote I just really like "recognition of dilapidation". I wonder if this will be necessary again, as our money runs out and we can't maintain the short sighted investments of commercial property speculation. Idk though, I have no idea how money ebbs and flows through those industries. I don't really know how it works in general.

I'm getting slowly better at Drums

I have a lot of practice to do this week. It will be hard, but I think it will be worth it to make the progress. Make hay while the sun shines. I'm keen to double down on the gym this week too, I'd like to make 4 classes.

12:30 - 1:30 monday - squats
6:30 - 7:30 tuesday - bench press
6:30 - 7:30 thursday - deadlift
6:30 - 7:30 friday - shoulder press

too ambitious? I missed two of the classes last week, and I've been pretty happy with my progress lately.

progress lately

I made a Donut Foccacia recipe recently. The idea is you make a focaccia, then you pipe jam inside it and you glaze it. I nailed the focaccia, but IMO the jam in the bread is a bad idea. The bread soaks up the jam really fast, and gets quite wet. It's just as easy to spread jam on as and when you need it. People at work seemed to love it. Kind words were said.

listening to

The Garden by Unknown Mortal Orchestra

questions