OCTOBER

Moving south from Broome to Perth was fast and simple. I locked-up the tropical green shed studio, jumped on a plane and then in a few short hours I walked into the Old Customs House studio in Fremantle. After another few hours the “Freo” studio was set up and I was ready to work. (www.artsource.net.au) I highly recommend this large and very well located studio to any artists heading to Perth. Western Australia.
On the way to the Artsource residential studio I dropped into Turner Gallery in Northbridge (www.turnergalleries.com.au) where my final Australian show for the year is up on the wall. A GOOD DAY TONIGHT displays a large selection of the Wintertime work produced at Mawson station during 2009.

The Artist in Residence program run by Turner Gallery enables foreign or interstate artist to spend time in Perth, create work and to hold an exhibition all during a period of four to six weeks. In this studio I shall ensconce myself in new work that floats somewhere between Mawson station, Broome, Mendoza, Fremantle and the back blocks of my mindscape.  I will definitely need a detailed map to locate such an ethereal location. I will also do an artists floor talk during my exhibition and probably jog about the dock area of Fremantle to use the body in a good way for a change.

Before I flew across the Pacific one more time I dropped into Melbourne to say hi-bye to family and friends. One function that brought together many old mates together for some form of celebration dinner was held in St Kilda. A group of fresh fifty-year old gentlemen ran amuck as they got nostalgic and blurry attempting to recall or forget many passions and pastimes from the recent past, plans for the future were also thrown about. It was a long night and sadly the next morning I smelt and felt like an old and unwell hyena that had accidentally fallen into a vat of single malt whiskey. Luckily the pleasure of our shenanigans outweighed that evil day after.

Weary from the six solo exhibitions presented over the past five months, it is time to head eastwards as Carolina waits for her lost husband. There is also a hammock under the Andes at La Consulta that has been reserved for my pleasure. 

The busy buzz of reunions and farewells, plus the trepidation and excitement of airport life wafted around me. Security, alerts, warnings, delays, lines of queues and paranoia all placed me in a ponderous mood even with the noisy never ending construction so normal to most large airports these days. What did I ponder as I watched large jets take off and land? Just the usual cerebral goo like -  I wonder where my wife is now? when do I die? should I buy more single malt whiskey? will I allocate some time to learn Spanish? what is the weather like in Albania in October and how shall I neatly plonk all these words together?

Then all of a sudden there were pink flamingos, red wine flowed and kooky roadside shrines decorated by the faithful with plastic water bottles were seen.  I must be in Argentina now.  I am not too sure about faith but I do believe that we are all made of liquid and to that I will toast!