Sunday 22 July 2012

Where does creativity come from?

Sometimes the synchronicity of it all astounds me. Everywhere I turn this weekend, the theme of creativity has been rampant. From Luke George's reflections on his dance practice on Thursday afternoon to Dumbo Feather on Friday night to a discussion with strangers last night to this morning's art exhibition by 4 year old Raffi, the question, where does creativity come from, has been picked up, turned over, weighed and reflected upon. I don't have an answer. But the thinking is rich. 

Raffi invited us to his home-as-gallery with the white walled living space acting as installation and environment. We were able to witness the artist-in-residence working on his latest clay piece and, while the paintings were not for sale, the yarn jewellery was.

I asked Raffi where he got his ideas from, he just shrugged and said he just sits at his craft table and he just knows what to do.

The x-ray of Raffi's brain at 8 months is perhaps the missing link. If you stare hard enough at it, you may well discover where creativity comes from.








Best

It was a day of bests.

The best BLT ever. At Rowena Parade Milk Bar where they were playing New Zealand music (Trinity Roots and the Black Seeds) and where the staff were friendly and the coffee was good.

The best fish tacos ever. And as if that wasn't enough, the best Martini ever. Perfect balance of dry, olive, mixed wonder. At The Dining Haul on Ormond Road in Elwood.
French waiter, New Zealand barman and chef.
A conversation with some other people at the bar about where creativity comes from.
What more could you want?
Good.

Friday 20 July 2012

Now Now Now

Luke George is a dancer. I felt as though I was talking to Sonny, as in Sonny and Cher. Or Jesus.

We sat in the middle of a beautiful space, a high ceilinged hangar-like place, Arts House Meat Market.


Luke George is a thoughtful artist who constantly reflects on his practice and, despite not wanting his craft to be all about questions, he does ask himself a lot of them in pursuit of real and exploratory performance. He is about to tour in the Netherlands, Norway and New York. Apparently the alliteration of his itinerary is pure coincidence.

We talked about mind and body and space; being in the moment and how to achieve that without creating more of a divide between us and the now. Presence in a performance way. What is that and how do we know what that is? How do we know how to be present in the moment? Do we know when we have achieved it?

Luke George gave me a lot to think about.

Extraordinary

Tonight I went to the White House. St. Kilda. Dating back to 1856, this majestic building on Princes Street houses Small Giants. Small Giants is a family. Founded in 2007, their aim is to create, support, nurture and empower businesses that are shifting us to a more socially equitable and environmentally sustainable world. They're all for those who change the world. One of those world changers is Dumbo Feather, the magazine celebrating extraordinary people and extraordinary ideas. Since 2004, Dumbo Feather has been having conversations with people who are passionate about what they do. And tonight they celebrated their 32nd issue and their success in the kickstarter campaign to raise enough money to go digital and launch an ipad app. 

Approaching the White House, the strains of gypsy music could be heard. I entered the gate and there was magic in the air. Gypsy music, fairy lights, braziers, wine, licorice allsorts, the possibility of toasting marshmallows over the aforementioned braziers. And lots of creative, interesting, extraordinary people. I loved it. I danced a little. If only on the inside.


 







Wednesday 18 July 2012

A written kind of sigh

 From one day...
...to the next.

Sometimes it's lonely being a little fish in a big pond. It's terribly brave and awfully exciting and there are moments of exhilaration and moments of alignment and moments of pure glowing happiness. And then there are moments which feel very lonely.

Friday 13 July 2012

Permanent value

From the moment she entered the shop, she was seized by an excited feeling. A feeling that anything could happen. It was a shop like no other she had seen. For someone with a heightened sense of awareness, an appreciation of the beauty and possibility of life, this first step over the threshold was almost too much to bear. Where would she look first? What were the stories behind the objects, arranged and stacked and filled and illuminated from the inside? What were some of those objects?









Make hay while the sun shines


Saturday 7 July 2012

Lyttel Town

Looking good.


Je ne sais pas

I want to understand. I want to be enriched and have the penny drop and feel the flood of philosophical and existential wellbeing course through my veins. But no. I stood in front of it. I looked at it. I breathed in and out deeply and let the energy take hold of me. But non...rien.


Nice to meet you







We won't need legs to stand




 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zbz1xzstRME

"Fatefully tasked with an infinite clean up, an automated industrial cleaner continuously pushes its way through a thick grass obscuring the infinite track it is caught within. Day in and day out - fixed to a path of repetition, the worker proves we won't need legs to stand."

Smash Palace

There's plenty happening in Christchurch and I won't hear a word to the contrary! So there's no roof..there's great coffee, good music, hot water bottles and you can get your motor repaired while you have a pilsener. Good job. http://thesmashpalace.co.nz/








Friday 6 July 2012

Bull in a china shop


Artists will always find places to make and exhibit work, whatever the circumstances*. Christchurch is testament to this. Ruin and devastation seem to provide excellent backdrops or even springboards for art. To paraphrase Honors Sculpture student, Tim Middleton's wise words at the conclusion of his 183 Milton Street domestic art space last September, "the phoenix rising from the ashes needed to be invigorated" and, from what I can see, there are now new spaces and ways of exhibiting work which underline an invigorating renaissance.
Since the first earthquake rocked the city in the early hours of the 4th of September, 2010, the region has been shaken by around 10,000 aftershocks, a pattern which has defied normal earthquake behaviour. The most significant of these was the earthquake that struck at 12.51 p.m. on the 22nd of February 2011. This event saw the loss of 182 lives and over 900 buildings in the Christchurch central city.    Despite the fact that many of the city’s art spaces, dealer galleries, and artists’ studios were destroyed in the earthquakes, creativity is still flourishing and finding its place in the broken city. Even the main Christchurch Art gallery, which served as Civil Defence HQ throughout the weeks and months following the devastating quake, has now been closed. But this has not stopped the art community. The latest phoenix is Michael Parekowhai’s On First looking into Chapman’s Homer. Fresh from Paris, and more impressively, perhaps, the 54th Venice Biennale, the two bronze grand pianos, each supporting a life-sized bronze bull, seem perfectly placed on a vacant lot against the backdrop of a broken cityscape. The exhibition, which takes its name from a poem by English Romantic poet John Keats, celebrates the emotional power of a great work of art, and the possibility of great art to evoke an epiphany in those who see it.
On First Looking into Chapman's Homer
Much have I travell'd in the realms of gold,
 And many goodly states and kingdoms seen;
 Round many western islands have I been
 Which bards in fealty to Apollo hold.
 Oft of one wide expanse had I been told
 That deep-browed Homer ruled as his demesne;
 Yet did I never breathe its pure serene
 Till I heard Chapman speak out loud and bold:
 Then felt I like some watcher of the skies
 When a new planet swims into his ken;
 Or like stout Cortez when with eagle eyes
 He star'd at the Pacific — and all his men
 Look'd at each other with a wild surmise —
 Silent, upon a peak in Darien.
 








On the second storey of Ng Gallery and overlooking the bulls, are two more Parekowhai pianos. One, a beautifully carved red Steinway, He Kōrero Pūrākau mo Te Awanui o Te Motu: Story of a New Zealand river, and the other serves as a plinth of sorts for a stand of delicate bronze olive trees. The red piano echoes the collaboration going on outside the gallery in the greater city of Christchurch, as performance makes up an integral facet of its appeal. The music that comes from it is how it fills the space and creates or fills out its meaning.







*Warren Feeny, EyeContact, 22 September, 2011.