 Well 2020 was not the favourite year for many folks around the world. In fact it was one rather shitty year on so many levels but now we slip into 2021 and there are hopes that things go smoother. Many hope that the complications of 2020 have perhaps pushed home some lessons and high-lighted problems that are so large and in our face that all bickering short-term minded governments across the planet must change their tunes, their tracks, their policies and their bizarre belief in hard core capitalism as well as the illogical belief that constant rabid growth of human consumption is good. Climate change, population, inequality and a lack of education are the enemies to us all and we are all in this together whatever language we speak or which silly little flag we happen to fly.
In the studio I work on a large painting and for a period I indulged in the creation of a pile of unique hand painted T-shirts. Utilising titles and imagery from personal art journals I have created some shirts to add to my limited wardrobe as well as the wardrobes of a few other discerning fashionistas located across the planet. It is all very low fashion or as one might say in the fashion world - “Basse couture fait dans un atelier tropical” The festive period begins about now so Hip hip hoorah and hoopppppllla!!!!! and stay safe. It seems that the wet season is about to return as the humidity is now climbing slowly. Things begin to get moist once the water vapour in the air reaches above 82.11% and other bits become very sloppy especially the grey matter inside my cranium. I often imagine my brain as a natural quagmire of stimulus, memories, views, experiences and hopes and if one dives deeper there will be a zone full of shape-less, incomprehensible and unnamable stuff bobbing about in the dank goo colliding into each other. Miraculously my brain seems to have worked fairly well given its obvious limitations. I currently drip sweat onto a new series of mixed media works. I must remember to list human sweat as one of the mediums I use often here in the tropics. Drip, drip, drop, drop, drip, drip…. I try to concentrate on combining all forms of liquid colour as well as shapes, lines and conceptual lumps into little works of art. Art truely is a ridiculous from of behaviour but it really does work sometimes. It wanders off into silliness at times but with the potential of genius if one is lucky so it keeps me investigating the breadth of its utilisation.  It is my experience that in climates close to the equator things once easy to comprehend or navigate become vague, sticky and maze-like. It is difficult for me to play chess in the tropics, to perform complicated mathematical equations and occasionally to talk proper like yahknow… ppphh…eewww pingooo… I actually find mathematical activity impossible anywhere anytime. Of course chess and mathematics do happen under intense sun and coconut palm trees but when I find puddles of sweat below me that grow to the size of small lakes I can almost see my neurones diving into the deep end and drowning in my own personal salty body of water. When did I start making art I wonder? At what age? I recently found a drawing scribbled by myself in a tiny notebook. It was from 1963 or 1964 which puts me at 3 or 4 years of age. This pencil squiggle looks half house-like and half walking person. Was I confused even back then about stability and mobility? Stationary things should not move normally. Perhaps it was a depiction of a caravan or a house on stilts but I don’t think there were any homes constructed that way in Nunawading where I grew up. Did I see a caravan in the street cruise by? Did a large person the size of a house come to visit? Who knows? Here is the image which I shall call - MOBILE-HOME. 1963/4. (90 mm x 65 mm. HB pencil on paper.)  Mobility has been made very difficult or impossible and even illegal in a huge number of places across the planet. Many friends are limited in terms of travel these days. Some unable to visit the next suburb and others contemplating international travel have had to shelve such plans. Passenger planes flapping through the air have dropped by half and half of all those planes have been grounded. Some major airports have zero passengers these days and I just read that passenger traffic across the world is down by 95% ! Quite astounding figures. My passport will not be used for awhile is my guess. Borders have become more hard core and problematic for the average traveller these days. Borders were bound to get more strict in the coming years as the population climbs up to 9 billion, inequality climbs upwards to horrid levels and resources dwindle to horrid levels the other way. Higher fences shall appear on many frontiers and bureaucratic paperwork to enable legal border crossings will become just as high as those fences. Borders will get so much more boring, bamboozling and militarised. Globalisation makes no sense with borders but I am just a romantic artist that has a little hope in the totally mad experiment called humanity. All those belonging to the Humanity club have always and still do today waiver between crazy and logical. What an adventure for us all on this speck of dust spinning about a slightly larger speck of sparkling dust. Speaking of the sun. Its 41 C in the studio now so it is time to watch a waterfall cascade down my chest and onto some new works on paper. A series titled - BORDERING ON LANDSCAPE.
 Sammy the dragon was awoken once again for the Shinju Matsuri festival in Broome. That critter really shakes it. A colourful beast that loves drums and gongs. A creature made of many parts and revered for centuries due to the idea that dragons can swim, fly, walk and dance! Impressive I must say and the Broome mob just love Sammy. We saw an unusual musical gig - Five very different musicians playing together in the remote town of Broome. Aboriginal singer Olive Knight / Kankawa Nagarra from Wangkatjungka, local broome legend Stephen Pigram, (guitar and vocals) Esfandiar Shahmir from Iran, (percussion mostly on the Daf drum) Tristen Parr,(cello) and Tos Mahoney (flute) A musical and cultural globalization jam floating about the charming historical open air sun pictures cinema. Then I went back into the studio. Two large national works on paper exhibitions are soon to be held and lucky me to be included in both shows. The Mornington Peninsula Regional Gallery national works on paper prize and the Paul Guest drawing show at the Bendigo Gallery in Victoria will soon be displaying in total over 100 contemporary works by Australian artists. I sadly wont be able to get to either show but that may be the case for everyone due to COVID19. The world is still very busy attempting to control this virus and it seems like it wont just lie down and die in a hurry. It is a global battle so will not be easy. Two other art events have lured me to participate in. The Broome Shinju Art awards here in West Australia and the Sydney Contemporary Art Fair (online edition) via Tim Klingender Fine Art. A little background on each piece.  My Shinju entry - which landed me the prize of best mixed media work. www.shortstgallery.com.au/artists/75-stephen-eastaugh/works/ CLOSELY REMOTE REGION WITH BLACK HOLES 2020 85 cm x 180 cm Acrylic, cotton, wool, assorted fabric and threads, Belgian linen. Created in a tin shed over five humid months this over-heated landscape hints at assorted Kimberley terrains and much further afield. Broome is referred to as a remote region but it is close to me even if I almost melted into a multi-coloured, multi-cultural puddle in my 40C studio.  Sydney Contemporary Art Fair - www.timklingender.com LOST AIRFARER SIGHTSEEING 2020. 70 x 93. Cm. Approx. Acrylic, cotton, wool, canvas, assorted fabric and threads, Belgian linen. It is possible to get lost wherever you are. To be lost physically or lost mentally is usually a bad feeling but not always. Sometimes things are surprisingly discovered when one is out of their normal terrain. I have been personally out of my terrain for decades. Seafarers are those who work or travel by the sea so an Airfarer must be somebody who works or travels by air. Air travel has been rather easy and normal for a large number of lucky people for some time now but this has recently changed. When one did jump on a plane it was normally all about the destination and the transport mode used was simply a long metal tube that zoomed through the sky and rapidly took you from A to B. Those little digital maps displaying what lands or seas you were flying above were informative but really you had no idea about your exact location except that outside you could see some pretty cumulus clouds looking like marshmallows. Such views meant that you were about ten kilometres high and moving very fast. You often nibbled on salty nuts as you watched a classic romantic, action, sci-fi, musical, horror, thriller movie which screened directly in front of you. You continued your sightseeing out the tiny porthole. You were an Airfarer pleasantly lost but on your way.
Paul Guest Drawing show - (details). www.bendigoregion.com.au/bendigo-art-gallery ID / SOMEWAYS SEARCHING SOMEWHERE TO SOMEHOW SEE SOMETHING OR SOMEONE FOR SOMETIME 2020. Work on paper series. 12.5 cm x 17.5 cm each. x 42 works Acrylic, ink, cotton, wool, fake earth, wax pencil, water colour on 84 used Australian passport pages. ID = Identification. Any official document with your name and photograph or other information on it that you use to prove who you are. ID = In psychoanalysis the ID is the deepest part of the unconscious mind that represents the most innate human needs and emotions such as hunger, joy, lust and anger. This collection of documents documents a portion of my physical and conceptual passage of mostly safe conduct between the years 1982 and 2016. Eighty-four pages of expired Australian passports have been torn from the history of my extensive wander-lusting across seven continents and many oceans. A stray psycho-geographical flavour is found in this ID series as it playfully meanders over imagined and administered landscapes both urban and extremely remote in order to locate new vantage points. I construct a visual travelogue with the visas, stamps, scribbles, dates and signatures of officialdom alongside my own organic vistas, marks, stitches, stains and attachments. A panoramic work connecting each scene via a single undulating horizon line which suggests a constant and steady drifting across longitudes and latitudes. Pages peppered with bureaucratic ink, topographical lumps, waves, clouds, pools, rocky terrains and a babble of foreign languages all paving the way to elsewhere. An elongated wondering title, textured hills, watermarks, miniature but expansive views, human scribbles, exotic symbols and decades of my registered global pilgrimage clearly display an unsettled and unrelenting desire for travel. Humans have a basic need to move and that fact I have passionately embraced. I am hard-wired with a lust for a journey. All I need is a passport. Passports are basically identification papers based on an ancient British document issued way back in 1414 so for over five hundred years fancy inscribed paper sheets have been in the luggage of lucky travellers. After the first world war the little blue, green or red passport booklet that we all recognise began to be used by anyone legally travelling internationally. I have managed to fill many passport pages with data and assorted official marks that have enabled me to cross hundreds of borders, to state where I have been and to prove that I am who I am. These sheets of formal abstracted paperwork combined with my own informal physical legwork has made searching somewhere someway somehow to see something or someone for sometime very real, often surprising and the views have always been somewhat worthwhile.  MPRG. National works on paper exhibition. www.mprg.mornpen.vic.gov.au/EXHIBITIONS/Future-exhibitions/2020-National-Works-on-Paper SKELLIG MICHAEL 2019. 26.5 cm x 36cm each. (Triptych) Acrylic, wax pencil, water colour. maritime charts. I spent time drawing in a remote artist’s retreat in Ireland during 2019 where I luckily managed to visit a strange rocky island off the coast called Skellig Michael. Between the 6th and 8th centuries a monastic settlement operated on the tiny Island which is now a UNESCO world heritage site. It was a wild, spooky and mesmerizing location rising abruptly from the North Atlantic Ocean that seemed to me like it was begging to be somehow depicted on the maritime charts I had collected from a recent voyage on a cargo container ship in the Indian Ocean. Who knows why. I am stimulated by landscape, travel and the human condition. I respond to the inseparable human experiences of existence and movement. Both I see as mysterious, fascinating and worthwhile investigating. In this triptych I use cartography, texture and dislocation to help myself navigate some of the tricky bits of life.  Now its time to make a large studio room inside the shed with a display wall from freezer panels and then stick an aircon unit to cool the working space down over the Wet season. We have engaged Mr Buddha to do the major parts of the renovation and upgrade job while we shall be involved in a great amount of moving stuff, sorting, discarding, cleaning, fixing, replacing and planning. We do need a bit of comfort and a bit of clean working space. Those bits I often forget about as I row through my life on an intense and messy mission that is really just too ridiculous to make much sense.
  Time does keep making that “tick tock, tick tock” noise and here we all are in mid 2020. One very messy year all considered. My arrival way back in mid 1960 is all a bit fuzzy but most people say the same thing about their birth. If they say otherwise and refer of details about the event I think they are just being silly. For myself the difference between way back then and now is not too much I guess but I am now larger and I now have a fluffy white beard. As a tiny person I was fond of messing about with coloured mud (paint) attempting to create worth-while pictures of what I saw and what I thought. I still do the same thing but now it is a rather complex profession. Over these years I have collected a great many experiences with the help of many people and many passports. Tick tock, tick tock… I thank all those who have helped to shape me along this little adventure. For amusement here are some passport mug-shots. 1981 = 21 yrs. 1986 = 26 yrs. 1994 = 34 yrs. 2000 = 40 yrs. 2007 = 47 yrs. 2016 = 56 yrs. A very fun party occurred in the shed/studio to celebrate and celebrations did occur I am told. Even a flock of black cockatoos came to screech a chorus of happy birthday squawks for my pleasure. I managed to sip on Polish Zabrovka Vodka and sucked on clove cigarettes while performing a few tropical moves. A sort of sloppy, jolly sailor jig with occasional drunk convulsions including a type of capoeira waltz… Not easy to describe or to watch such moves. I have been on the planet now for over 21,900 days. A fair amount of time really and a lot of geography has been covered. A long way to here and now. Luckily most of those days have been pretty good except that day I lost my favourite Micky Mouse doll for some hours and that other day I recall in Ouagadougou the capital of Burkina Fasso when I was rapidly and annoyingly emitting blood, pus and avocado simultaneously from my mouth and my arse. On a more positive note I recall a very worthwhile day when I stepped into an elevator in Paris and met a wild Mexican woman. I eventually discovered that Carolina was from Argentina but she still does look a bit like FrIda Kalo and surprisingly she still seems to find me amusing after all these years together. Otherwise its all go, go, go as usual but in the new slow, hesitant and strange Covid-19 world. In our immediate world art is being made and Boab pods are being eaten while I ponder texture and wonder when it will be easy to travel further than to the local shop and back. Don’t get me wrong I love the local shop but I know there is more to see and I do have a few people to catch up with here and there. I patiently wait and hope to see many folk in the future. This pandemic has made me consider all the bits of the world that I cannot see which is I must point out …most of it. In particular I ponder the minuscule micro world full of bugs and amoebas and viruses which are all very difficult to see. It is a “small small world.” I think that was the title of a book or a song from my youth when I was a slightly smaller myself. 
X2 WORKS ON PAPER - SMALL SMALL WORLD. (2020)
LONG WAYS. Link below to a short film about some recent wide vistas. https://vimeo.com/439849105  Mr Cheeky the frill necked lizard lives in our garden and it is a delight to see him scampering about doing all sorts of lizard business. At night fruit bats squabble and during the day cockatoos screech above us while I patienty wait for paw paw (papaya) fruit to grow larger. Finally the un-humid dry season has arrived in Broome. That means superb weather for the next five months. Yippee! is the correct response right here especially after six months of BIG heat and BIG humidity. The town is very quiet now due to travel restrictions nationally and internationally so no tourists in a tourist town. This will be a very complicated year for many.
I continue my normal business of making art even if all my exhibitions are cancelled, galleries are closed, art lovers busy with complicated lives, social events shut down and strict social distancing behaviour now all make physical proximity to tactile art not possible. Artists are rather adaptable and most are very familiar with an income graph that looks like a roller-coaster or often sadly a dead flat-lined horizon line but we all keep at it for a thousand assorted reasons. Most of those reasons for making art are very positive so in the studio I be. Being positive… most of the time. INSECT SKYSCRAPERS, 4000 YEAR OLD TREES AND A MINI BAR … is an online exhibition presenting new mixed media works, works on paper and a few pearl shells from my tropical studio in semi lockdown. Please visit this link for a peek. vimeo.com/414615464  2020 has so far gone in a manner that has been a little unexpected but the possibility of a pandemic sweeping the planet was actually always on the cards and certainly those in the medical world were very much expecting such an event. Covid19 has caused total havoc and death for some and for all it has caused pain or fear or stress. Some nations have fared and/or prepared better than others and I must say that the concept of nations in itself has not really helped this battle against the virus. In a world that operates on so many trans-national ways utilising massive and interconnected global networks and connections it seems simply old fashioned to wave any emotive national flags that represent a chunk of land recently and artificially constructed due to wars, royal marriages, colonisation events, drunk cartographers, business deals or religious fables. Humanity plods along and our success at certain things is indeed astronomical but these gains are balanced out sadly by a whole mess of horrid and insane dumb-fuckery.
All of us are making it up as we go forward and it is all work in progress. I can only hope for progress but when I observe some individuals who proudly display greed, stupidity and zero empathy then I am not too concerned if a large asteroid one day erases all our species from existence. “So it goes” as Kurt Vonnegut said. Back to the drawing board Universe and perhaps evolve a better life form. A friendly life-form with good survival skills that is not scared of others, one with extra portions of empathy, intelligence and ample humour which is of course a favourite and highly under-rated human trait. I can imagine two aliens closely observing Earth while sitting at a bar many light years from here drinking some flouro-red toxic liquid while laughing and screaming to each other silly crude interstellar xenophobic jokes – “knock knock? who there? 9 billion humans… !” “what’s the difference between a human and a …” “how many humans does it take to change a light bulb ?…” “why did the human cross the road ?...” “two humans walk into a bar…” Cheers to all !  I shall start with something positive. We are growing Thai basil, tomatoes, aubergines and paw paw (papaya) here in Broome. Very soon the fruit will be ready for consumption. Fresh ripe paw paw with lime juice is probably the best breakfast in the universe with coffee of course. Life in Broome-time has been hot and toasty due to the five months of constant humidity and high temperatures but we sweat thought it somehow. We also survived a few attempted house invasions. Luckily the little rascals did not gain access to the inside of the house nor were they able to steal the two bicycles that are our only form of transportation. They did steal our ashtray full of cigarette butts which puts this mess somehow in perspective. Desperation, poverty, drugs, family mess, cultural collapse and lack of education all chewed together and spat out. Unfortunately this mixture of gooey mess can land on anyone and it is tiresome to wipe off and very difficult to mend. Another bit of chaos happened over the dry Wet season but this time inside the house in the kitchen. I was cooking up a big pot of dumplings for dinner and accidentally dropped many litres of boiling water on my right hand. This was not a great idea at all. 2nd degree burns, blisters, swelling, loss of dexterity and the pain was right up there on #10. Note to self - “Do not spill boiling water on body ever.” Things subsequently slowed down the past months and that included physical movement, social galavanting, studio production, communications, cooking and a considerable chunk of brain activity all shrank in size and quality. This is the typical slow pace of the Wet season in the tropics. A bit like winter in the cold climes. People just hibernate due to the weather as it is either too cold or here it is too hot. The dry season should invite a broad range of activities back into the list of things to do and one hopes that the list will grow. New chores added to the sloppily scribbled To-do list, stuff done then the list is updated. Well that was the plan but then things went very bizarre and dangerous on a global level. This Covid19 virus is one nasty beastie. Extremely small but what a punch is packs. Everyone on the planet must prepare, scrub and somehow stay away from this bug. We can hide in the studio and work which is basically the same as the self-isolation required to combat this virus. 2020 is looking very messy indeed. The fatality numbers will be shocking. This year will be navigated slowly and only one week at a time. Plans must be aborted and everyone has added a number of problems to their normal list of problems. Massive adaption will be required. We can only hope that everyone can be safe and smart. If you are lucky to have a home - Stay at home. This will be a rough period without a doubt. SELF ISOLATION - A micro film for amusement - https://vimeo.com/401530807  Here is an article looking at the wonderful world of creating art within studios which on occasion does seem a bit like working way down in a mine.
OFF COLOURED CANARIES I have been out of sight way down below diligently digging with a sharp palette knife and a selection of pointy brushes looking for nuggets of stimulating raw art. I scratch away through coloured earth for months on end with my little instruments. I can only nudge forward bit by bit. In fact I have been toiling underground for years as this task is a passion which I cannot stop. I try as an individual to cultivate with technicolour muddy goo or any other resources that take my fancy. Chipping away with questions shaped like sickles, explosive thoughts, bright designs and a bag full of abrasive abstractions. It is all about the exploration as that form of intoxication never wears down. “Exciting career prospects in the seeking of slippery scenic stuff in strange places sector.” could be the job description along-side “Applicants must display a strong calling, ample life experiences, technical skills and an interest in instability." I often wonder if such behaviour is actually a proper job? ‘Primary production’ is one economic term used to describe my excavation practice which makes it clear that I am up against the elements and everything is tricky for so-called “special professionals”. Fossicking at a high altitude, gouging on a flat white plain or scraping away below the horizon line is certainly risky business but a gem is a gem and “someones gotta do it.” Besides being a passion this activity is an addiction, a dance, an experiment and also rather difficult. Mega-tons of dumb dirt surrounds each elusive precious deposit so I find myself busy executing an exhausting and life-long craft offering no assurance nor insurance. Lashings of self discipline must be generated, truck loads of patience plus piles of planning are all required before any of the heavy delving begins. A direct help-line to all deities would be nice as support to hold up a few wonky beams in collapsing tunnels but that’s just silly. Sometimes I feel like I have been framed by myself especially when my head is in the clouds and I am suddenly mugged by down to earth reality. I seem to paint a dark picture of this artful under-world but the spoils can be fine and the freedom to get delightfully lost, self absorbed, grotty, wonderfully deranged and potentially, totally cuckoo are all oddly seductive. While mining for inspiring stuff I wear an old uniform that is not very stylish but it has functional pockets to secure all the tools I need. No embroidered multi-national logo depicting any cute mole-like creature is stamped upon my sweat saturated over-alls. Just stains, tiny burn marks, darned tears and a spectrum of splashes. Fashion cannot survive at the coal face which is no matter as fashion always arrives fashionably later. Not that many people see my well-worn costume, my equipment, my mining methods nor the finished products eventually displayed on show-room walls but some do. Visual performances and communication via exhibitions are pleasing but complex and surprising as the white show-rooms are light-years away from the dark mines. When down in the hole wearing protective earmuffs it is hard to hear feedback from the surface and impossible to notice what is yelled from those show-room galleries on mountain tops. One can only hope that some of the noises are positive and beneficial. It is pretty dark underground so I also occasionally wear a head-lamp in order to see where the hell each passage leads to. Without some light there’s much stumbling, bashing into walls and dead-ends are discovered. Darkness is not always bad as the ‘happy accident” lives there and these can be extraordinary at times, nevertheless it is smart to carry a torch as I know many who have become spooked or discombobulated or led astray down pitch black burrows. Some sadly ending up bitter, burnt-out or even buried. Subterranean environments are sketchy to navigate and they do smell dank but a trace of that thought-provoking musky aroma is always embedded there. It is the hint of life soon to be. Earthy, innate, unique and so bad that it is good or is it so good that it is bad? I am never sure which way to portray it but it does smell highly funky. No holidays are observed at all in this line of work so once again I crawl back under the surface to the textured underground. Into the pit with implements, my soft grey bucket and illumination. Back down in the mine I go to dredge up ideas and pump out a few contrasting themes. Safely lines are drawn, traced, erased and re-drawn. I plug in and tone the imagination while turning on the machinations. My feet firmly grounded below ground. I mark the fore-ground, pan the peripheral areas then plant my back in the background so all is set to drill a few concepts. Composition turns to dust as I compose, scan for proportion and chisel away. In this shadowy maze there are long periods of probing, travail and repetition with not much joy but sometimes special chunks of sparkle are suddenly visualised. More ploughing, a blast of picking and finally I hurl some elements of interest into my personal hungry grey vessel. Inside the brain-bucket I wash, sift and sort. What is it that I pine for as I pan? Something precious of course. Annoyingly scrawled somewhere within the brain-bucket in red ochre is my answer - “Everything is precious” “Shit”… I curse and go back to digging. What to do? More manoeuvring and more matter is collected. I hunt for more rare chunks of impulse down other dark shafts, spotting them, laboriously plucking them from bloody veins, mixing, adapting, tempering and lacquering in my messy organic bucket and finally gingerly cutting each piece individually into a plethora of exact but unknown desired shapes. Not an easy chore to continually exhibit gritty, absurd, optimism while using just a few fragile tools, surrounded by hot air and listening to off-coloured canaries warning me to escape but who knows what could be unearthed down in those unfathomable inky art mines. Extraction does occur from frequently visited pits or sometimes from brand new tunnels and if lucky I go to the next step of finding the ladder to take the goodies above ground where careful polishing can begin. Is it time to show this lump of hard earned creation to others or perhaps not? Up I climb out of the mine with my mind stuffed full. I frame my thoughts and scrub from my grubby hands shades of raw umber, jade, opal, canary yellow, sapphire blue, gold and charcoal. I watch a tainted rainbow swirl down the drain as I perform my ablutions and I try to imagine the big picture from different perspectives. Eventually something unusual floats to the surface and a glimmer of glitter can be seen in the brain-bucket. I probe then focus on my findings. A possible jewel? A warm and fuzzy cerebral feeling appears and it all somehow seems worthwhile. S.E.  It has rained as Cyclone Blake formed somewhere out there in the Timor sea and then kindly dumped a considerable amount of water on this dry part of Australia. Gusty winds from the storm made bicycle riding a bit interesting but we had to venture out and relocate Sonny the pet parrot belonging to a friend who was out of town. A safe spot during the blowy period made Sonny much more happy. The red Pindan dirt begins to turn green with vegetation about now as everyone talks about no rain, more rain, when it rains, how much rain, clouds and heat and cyclones.   I have survived this draining sticky hot time by nibbling on a Vietnamese treat I buy at the local “Fongs” corner store. They stock many treats from Asia and it is a store that I have used for years. I devour a lot of these cakes that are made from - mung bean, taro and durian. They all taste funny, smell funny and look a bit funny but I adore them. Carolina refuses to indulge which is great as that means more exotic cakes for me. Carolina keeps busy waiting for more rain…  The "Bristlecone" works are coming along in the studio as I have been sewing and painting these mixed media trees for some weeks now. This series began in USA where I first saw these ancient pine trees but I still have some ways to go before they are completed. On the other studio desk I have created a large series of 42 mixed media works on passport paper. Some kind of working title is scribbled on some paper somewhere somehow someday someplace but thats something else to mention some other time. Yes it is all a bit vague I know but it is difficult to be decisive once humidity levels climb over 70% and I must say that prancing about in the studio is not recommended either. Is it time to nibble on a durian cake?  It is the year of the metal rat in the Chinese Lunar Horoscope world so I do hope it is a cute, positive and friendly little robot rodent as opposed to a filthy rabid critter running about with a leaking toxic battery. We shall see. I do wish everyone a good 2020/Rat year. I am sure it will be as unpredictable and as tricky as ever no matter how many detailed and informative horoscopes are published. My recent horoscope mentioned something about - “… searching for money on Wednesday morning and also some romantic planet is soon to align with a star that will induce heated feelings in a foreign city where fruit grows creatively…” As an artist one gets used to adaptability, instability and especially a fluctuating wage but as the decades slink along it would be nice to have other sorts of feelings besides my ongoing optimistic fuzzy hopefulness. A bit less frustration and assorted woe would be just fine. “We all have our ups and downs as they say.” or “Thats life!” There is nothing much to do except to “keep on rowing the boat” as my Dutch father who spent most of his working life on ships tells me. Heave, ho, heave, ho, one, two, one, two, one, two…. I must of course be generally pleased as I am one very lucky fellow considering I have health and warm connections both near and far. I have also been able to see an enormous chunk of the planet so I cannot complain too much. A commitment to the creative life with abilities to focus, plan and visualise have all shaped my life and somehow helped me to make many things, see many lands and meet many people. A great deal of “rowing” has been necessary that is for sure. Over the years, on a variety of vessels I have performed all sorts of rowing. Through cold monstrous waves, over lukewarm sunlit ripples and sometimes I have been stuck in the doldrums for a bit longer than desired but I continued to paddle onwards. Knowing that the forecast always changes and nothing stays still, ever anywhere. On some days I have toiled and pumped those oars like a frantic maritime hoon going around in circles or a like a hyperactive rower in a drunken dragon-boat race. Other days it has been more like a mellow dinky paddle across a serene lake in a tiny pinky dingy made to look like a swan on holidays. Then there are the days when I embrace the doldrums and just drift about in the water. Putting the oars aside like now as it is really far too hot to expend any energy rowing or to even think about rowing. It is time to simply float. Slowly drifting, contemplating and sweating out a few zen or perhaps zombified flavoured thoughts. Is it durian cake snack time yet? In this slow motion suspended mind-set I can acknowledge all those fabulous little things all around everywhere that make up my world. A zephyr hits my elbow, the smell of seaweed, faint thunder rumblings, the colours on a birds tail feathers and the taste of sweat. They all make sense to my senses and that is all. As I suck up all those itsy-bitsy sensations like a blubbery whale sucking up a big krill breakfast I cannot totally forget the very BIG picture as well but that is far too gigantic for me to make much sense of. Especially in this heat. But the big picture is there and we are all in the middle of it. So “Stay cool!” I say and just paddle on.  |
