AUGUST

I head north now to Queensland where I shall recover from Melbourne’s winter festivities, which are usually a funky mixture of football and beer as well as coffee and culture. An exhibition in Brisbane lures me northwards but on the way I shall drop into Sydney and perhaps also stay in a small town on the east coast of Australia to break the journey. The fruitful chaos of my dislocated life seems to flow along as I weave here and there together to make elsewhere cosy.

This movement of mine often places me in the position of a voyeur or a witness. Making only enough contact to interact in a minimal way but somehow I do manage to befriend people as I travel. Juggling long periods of time alone with noisy social hoopla is tricky but necessary for balance.

In many circles I play a fuzzy social role which I do not see as a troublesome role but how fuzzy do I want to be and to whom besides myself do I wish to display clarity and depth? Meeting thousands of people around the world is fine but who are the close friends? Where are they? How often do they need me around and how often do I need them? If I stay still I presume I would not be asking this question so I plan to attempt to set up a studio in Australia in one place for longer than the usual three month time span I usually operate in. Lets hope I can manage it.

The idea that some artists are outsiders from the norms of society may explain this comfort that I find in wandering about the planet. Perhaps this is the easy way to describe my lifestyle. I am indeed, outside the home as I do not have a home and I always move. Strange locations are excellent studios to me and getting to these places is always an experience. My artworks could be the maps that get me pleasantly lost or does my artwork help to locate me in this inexplicable thing called the world? Where are the philosophical geographers when you need one?

To be always intransit or on the way to somewhere else can make life very soft and light. Too light and you just float away into the ether of otherness over there someplace or other which is really not such a bad feeling at all.

Where am I? Oh yes…in Sydney on my way to Brisbane and then Broome it seems. …I really must find a studio..