ETERNAL SWEET TIMES

eternal sweet times!

2012-01-30T18:37:00.002+11:00

'Fuck it, I'm still an Aquarius'

2012-01-20T00:40:00.000+11:00

http://thelinknewspaper.ca/article/877

there's something about riding with your friends....

2012-01-17T23:51:00.000+11:00

we sail through endless skies

2012-01-16T09:57:00.000+11:00

life is pretty radiant when you have your mates nearby!

2012-01-13T01:39:00.000+11:00

*eternal new day***

2012-01-02T02:48:00.000+11:00

happy new beer

gone fishin...

2011-12-28T12:09:00.002+11:00

2011-12-23T02:36:00.001+11:00

2011-12-20T01:40:00.001+11:00

head full of snakes

2011-12-02T23:42:00.001+11:00

Max interviewed me for Head Full of Snakes a new motorcycle magazine made by a couple of dudes from Melbourne and New Zealand- The launch is tomorrow (details above) Come down, I reckon it should be a sweet time!

g'day mate

2011-11-25T14:43:00.001+11:00

This is Clinkers the joey- my friend Louise who looks after injured wildlife sent me this pic today. Clinkers was plucked from his Mum's pouch on the side of the road after she was hit by a car some time back- what a ripper!

we have a laugh!

2011-11-19T00:18:00.001+11:00

2011-11-13T22:09:00.001+11:00

2011-11-08T22:56:00.000+11:00

Dark Gully/Sex Drawings

New works by Amber Wallis

Opening this Thurs at Utopian Slumps

it's gonna be a corker!

2011-11-01T13:04:00.004+11:00

Jan Billycan, Kiriwirri, 2008

2011-10-26T00:51:00.000+11:00

wear your hair like heaven

2011-10-18T23:25:00.003+11:00

Your HAIR is your “COSMIC ROOTS” . . . when YOU wash it, let it dry OUTSIDE in the SUN

september happens!

2011-10-17T19:42:00.001+11:00

a sweet philosophy

2011-10-16T21:45:00.000+11:00

my brother went fishin' again....

2011-10-13T13:07:00.001+11:00

what a ripper!

2011-10-10T21:39:00.003+11:00

a master in the art of living draws no sharp distinction between his work and his play, his labor and his leisure, his mind and his body, his education and his recreation

2011-10-09T10:09:00.000+11:00

Left a good job in the city,
Workin' for the man ev'ry night and day,
And I never lost one minute of sleepin',
Worryin' 'bout the way things might have been.

Big wheel keep on turnin',
Proud Mary keep on burnin',
Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river.

Cleaned a lot of plates in Memphis,
Pumped a lot of pain down in New Orleans,
But I never saw the good side of the city,
'Til I hitched a ride on a river boat queen.

Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river.

If you come down to the river,
Bet you gonna find some people who live.
You don't have to worry 'cause you have no money,
People on the river are happy to give.

Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river.
Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river.
Rollin', rollin', rollin' on the river.

2011-10-06T22:28:00.001+11:00

Forever – is composed of Nows –

By Emily Dickinson

Forever – is composed of Nows –

‘Tis not a different time –

Except for Infiniteness –

And Latitude of Home –

From this – experienced Here –

Remove the Dates – to These –

Let Months dissolve in further Months –

And Years – exhale in Years –

Without Debate – or Pause –

Or Celebrated Days –

No different Our Years would be

From Anno Dominies –

for ramona

2011-10-05T11:13:00.000+11:00

i see lines
undulating
mountainous clouds
i think of mountains
i see you wandering
i see lines
undulating
within the landscape
familiar lines
intermingling
within your own landscape
your own lines
do you see lines?

What is the color of wind?

2011-10-04T23:11:00.000+11:00

amber haze eternal!

2011-09-29T13:04:00.000+10:00

Amber and her sweet, sweet Valiant ute

are on the COVER of Australian Art Collector

out next week aaaoooooooowwwwwwwwwwwwwww!

first of the season...

2011-09-27T11:32:00.001+10:00

Tim and Charlotte harvested some of the most delicious potatoes from their garden on Sunday.... Sunday was particularly sunny and almost all of my friends independently decided to visit Ceres and pick up some seedlings and get stuck into the garden. Yay spring!

2011-09-20T21:50:00.000+10:00

New Planes Public Press Issue Two

I interviewed Isis Aquarian from The Source Family for the latest issue of NPPP

You can find it here^

Thank you Isis and Lisa.

Utopia and Guitar Solo's

2011-09-15T21:40:00.001+10:00

Utopia to me is like an epic wailing guitar solo, for a moment you become the guitar you are transformed by the sound taken to a higher place a higher state of being — your entire existence is defined by this instrument and in this moment you are the music you are the sound – be your sound—higher and higher and even higher still.

And then bang the rest of the band kicks in — the guitar is, you are still wailing but you are in a crowded field — your sound is no longer the only sound your sound is epic but in a larger field your sound dances with other sounds. You are still wailing and wandering and you will carry that sweet, sweet moment you became the sound you and the guitar intertwined and wailed the loudest and the hardest, you will carry that moment with you for the rest of your life until the next time and the next time, each time will be different - building upon the time before and the time before that, renewing the last with an epic sense of the present moment —moving forward and being present in this moment and this moment and this moment.

An epic wailing guitar solo cannot spiral on into eternity — it’s a moment, a moment that is continuous and lasting and renewable within the context of the next moment. Utopia to me is like an epic wailing guitar solo... be your moment be your sound!

sun shines everyday... smiles, smiles!

2011-09-11T17:47:00.000+10:00

2011-09-09T15:37:00.002+10:00

Marilyne Blais, You Were Not There (still), 2011. Video, 2 min 44 seconds.

Marilyne's Grad Show Happy at The Morris and Helen Belkin if you are in Vancouver go check it out!

Amber's DIY studio renovation.... everyone's winning, my friends are happy, I'm happy... Ah life!

2011-08-30T09:48:00.006+10:00

Shared Space # 3 by Chris Kabel

Witte de With and TENT present Shared Space #3, a spatial intervention by designer Chris Kabel (1975, Haarlem, NL) for the communal area of both institutions. For this project, Kabel proposed a design that transforms Shared Space into a public meeting place, based on the idea of a village square.

For the shared space of spirit and ocean.

day after day the sun

2011-08-29T12:50:00.000+10:00

too easy mate!

2011-08-27T16:28:00.001+10:00

2011-08-23T22:11:00.001+10:00

i'm on a plain...

2011-08-21T23:39:00.000+10:00

2011-08-17T23:10:00.003+10:00

Smooth as glass the water was yesterday, and smooth as glass it is again today. Indian summer on the island, mild and warm - ah! But there is no sun.
- Opening sentence Wanderers by Knut Hamsun

My heart is weeping
I love this book already
my body is radiating warmth
it's an indian summer
in my soul

sea of stokin'

2011-08-08T23:46:00.001+10:00

Jay Nelson, Honda Spree Study in Temporary Autonomy, 2008

Paul deVree, Manifesto, 1962

Beno framed our poster!

Yes!!!

2011-08-04T20:27:00.002+10:00

live on the land...

2011-08-02T22:51:00.002+10:00

2011-08-01T16:41:00.000+10:00

moments

2011-07-29T22:37:00.002+10:00

2011-07-24T11:16:00.002+10:00

lines lines

lines

this line

this is a line

line line of lines

line composed of lines

this is a line

you are a line

many lines

a momentary line

intermingling landscape line

line

Out the back of Amber Wallis's place.

-Dark Gully, 4/7/11.

Broken Circle/Spiral Hill (1971-2011)

2011-07-22T15:19:00.001+10:00

Mono Lakes, Nancy Holt and Robert Smithson, 1968

Sun Tunnels, Nancy Holt, 16mm film- 1978

Spiral Hill/Broken Circle, Ink and pencil on paper, 1971
Video Breaking Ground: Broken Circle/Spiral Hill (1971-2011)

Forty years after the completion of the work Broken Circle/Spiral Hill, the film that Robert Smithson was never able to finish due to his untimely death is now to be completed in close collaboration between artist Nancy Holt and SKOR Foundation for Art and Public Domain... Land Art Contemporary 2011.^

2011-07-20T16:23:00.000+10:00

2011-07-20T01:06:00.000+10:00

The future is not caste in stone we are creating it with our words and thoughts. It takes courage to live one’s words, but without that there can be no integrity. But only in honest confrontation of the past can we move forward free of baggage.
-Cosmic Diaries by Priya Kale

concrete poetry lives

2011-07-19T23:34:00.005+10:00

Checked the new Callum Morton show at the Heidi today, took a couple of sneaky snaps.

I thought of:

Time Wave Zero from Ramona Lola Angelico on Vimeo.

Talking to Strangers, Noel Skrzypczak, Synthetic polymer paint, soap, glass, silicon, 2011

I really dig this exhibit in Heidi II:

Born to Concrete: Concrete Poetry from Australia mid 1960's- nowish

monoton eeeeeee, Alex Selenitsch, 1969

It's such a thin line between clever and stupid, Aleks Danko, 2008-9

~
I remembered:

If you can't see my mirrors I can't see you, Jenipher Hur, 2008

SO LONG MARIAN/ NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO WORRIES

2011-07-15T22:38:00.003+10:00

a sensible wardrobe shorts/singlets/no funny business

the free ballin' guru- the suveran

pretty much winning

livin'

...livin'

aaoowwwww

loungin'

livin'

Recent Stokal

2011-07-10T00:48:00.004+10:00

the crying room mural project

2011-07-09T23:59:00.004+10:00

^ Marilyne Blais and I collaborated on this weeks mural for The Crying Room- Writing on The Wall project: 157 East Cordova St, Vancouver. Thanks Matt Shane!

2011-07-01T09:00:00.000+10:00

be
your
sound

let us sing and let us dance and ring in the new!

2011-06-27T23:16:00.000+10:00

2011-06-17T12:41:00.001+10:00

"Without words, without writing and without books there would be no history, there could be no concept of humanity." Hermann Hesse

2011-06-17T01:04:00.002+10:00

YOU ARE ALL FORM, YOU ARE THE BREATH, YOU ARE THE VOID, YOU ARE THE RIVER,

Alex Morrison, 2007
Acrylic paint on cotton.Every Letter of the Alphabet, Vancouver

2011-06-15T23:23:00.001+10:00

2011-06-14T23:46:00.002+10:00

Back in January, Georgia and I volunteered at The Frankston Arts Centre running art workshops for kids. It's coming up to school holidays again and they are calling for volunteers in July. It's great fun- last time we made a geodesic dome out of newspaper. I'll be going back for sure- you can volunteer here ^ Amber Foot runs the program and sent me these pic's.

new records/new fortune/new day

2011-06-11T18:05:00.004+10:00

sweet, sweet times

2011-06-06T20:46:00.013+10:00

neighbours at last!

i see victory on the footy field ahead!

radiant 7" in the making

.....yeah gougers! another victory on the field!!!!

2011-06-01T00:17:00.001+10:00

Performance organized by Philippe Parreno in 1991 — No more Reality (Demonstration).

Poem for the co-founder of USCO, a media art collective founded in New York in 1962. Gerd Stern

3 Figures on beach, Collection of the Morris and Helen Belkin Art Gallery Archives, Vancouver, Canada

naked.peace.protest- type c print, bulldog clip, xerox copy, (a studio assemblage from 2008)

2011-05-26T22:02:00.002+10:00

infinite lines

landscape horizon blurr

into sea and sky undefined

terracotta tiles norfolk pines

infinite horizon

sky line

2011-05-23T01:03:00.000+10:00

..............there is nowhere to go but everywhere

2011-05-17T21:47:00.003+10:00

Vera Frenkel, rehearsals for String Games: Improvisations for Inter-City Video, 1974

Considering a multiplicity of appearances in light of a particular aspect of relevance. Or: Can art be concrete?, 2007 Olaf Nicolai. Installation, 16 sheets, 400 books. Exhibition view.

my brother went fishin' on the weekend....

2011-05-16T23:06:00.002+10:00

an old favourite

2011-05-15T23:19:00.001+10:00

opening tonight...

2011-05-11T23:38:00.006+10:00

Riley Payne & John Kleckner

Tristian Koenig Gallery

May 11th - June 18th, 2011

Level 1, 18 Ellis Street,

South Yarra,

Melbourne

Australia

www.tristiankoenig.com.au

Wednesday - Saturday, 12 - 6pm

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Sponge towers

Lochen Lempert

1997

Silver gelatine prints

2011-05-10T22:01:00.003+10:00

collective energy eternal!

CURTAIN opens at Seventh tonight!

2011-04-28T16:01:00.001+10:00

I'm in a group exhibition curated by Andie Tham and Johann Rashid that open's at seventh gallery tonight.
The sun's out, come and have a beer!

28 April – 14 May 2011

Opens Thursday 28th April 6-8 pm
“Curtin”

Curated by Andie Tham and Johann Rashid.

Featuring Artists Dan Moynihan, James Eisen, Martin Bell, Andie Tham, Beci Orpin, Kate Moss, Rowan McNaught, Jarrah De Kuijer, Stephanie Hughes and Johann Rashid.

Curtin is a recent survey of ten emerging artists, who all site sourced and found material as the starting point of image making and technical process. Linking themes and joining narratives through juxtaposition of high and low brow imagery, this exhibition aims to be a fun exploration of different modes in contemporary culture. Curtin is a group of friends, who’s work directly addresses their surroundings. Inspired by found and sourced imagery from the internet, magazines, old books, and film, these processes involve conscientious cropping, collaging, and re-appropriation.
* James Eisen image.

Stoned Stones Stone Rock Rocks

2011-04-27T22:32:00.003+10:00

Campsite Stones Richard Long

Sierra Nevada, Spain 1985

Generation by division or separation 1 Ane Graff

Wooden Shelf, Acrylic Paint, Slate Rocks 2007

2011-04-21T16:28:00.004+10:00

if you are wandering

the streets of Karlsruhe

you may see this lady:

A Different Person opens at Badischer-Kunstverein today Wednesday April 20th

Staging and testing oneself in artistic practice is also evident in Michele Di Menna’s work in perfect consistency. Performances, texts, collages, costumes, objects, videos and sound revolve in a single project and form the processual space, in which the artist acts with other performers. She frequently focuses her interest on materials that she removes from their original context and assigns new purposes to. Currently she is devoting her attention to fluid substances and forms in a constant process of transformation, such as water or mud, which she performatively combines with new images and narratives.

MICHELE DI MENNA ETERNAL!!!!!

MICHELLE DI MENNA ETERNAL!!!!

2011-04-17T11:08:00.012+10:00

making is thinking

Eva Berendes

(Background) Untitled (Silk hangings), 2009

(Foreground) Untitled (Counter), 2009

Edgar Leciejewski

(From left to right) Wand 25.03.2008
Wand 30.07.2008 (Studie II), 2008

Making is Thinking at Witte de With in Rotterdam
Until May 1st.

Making is Thinking explores distinct artistic practices engaged with notions of conceptual craft and intuitive industry. It seeks to collapse the persistent dichotomy between the practical and the intellectual, and presents a range of works that refuse the binary of concept and form

Wilfrid Almendra, Eva Berendes, Alexandre da Cunha, Julia Dault, Dewar & Gicquel, Ane Hjort Guttu, Hedwig Houben, Teppei Kaneuji, Edgar Leciejewski, Rita McBride, William J. O'Brien, Eva Rothschild, Hans Schabus, Koki Tanaka.

Curated by Zoë Gray, assisted by Amira Gad.

^

The closest thing to moving is the closest thing to being free

2011-04-16T22:45:00.000+10:00

Zen Photography workshop at Apeiron, ca. 1979

I would give N.E thing to go see this show!

2011-04-06T22:47:00.001+10:00

Sitely Premises
April 9 to June 12
Surrey Art Gallery
BC, Canada

Inspired by the “unsightly premises” by-laws that are spreading across many of Canada’s municipalities, the exhibition Sitely Premises reveals how the exterior spaces of the single family detached home have become important sites for art production and exhibition for artists on Canada’s West Coast. The exhibition includes Kara Uzelman’s archeological backyard dig, Reece Terris’s property-spanning foot bridge, N.E. Thing Co.’s yard-as-studio installations, Andrew Dadson’s monochrome property paintings, Julia Feyrer’s Poodle Dog Ornamental Bar, Al Neil and Carole Itter’s found object assemblages, and Heidi Nagtegaal’s Hammock Residencies, among others. The dozen artworks on display challenge notions of landscaping, neighbourliness, outdoor art, and domestic architecture.

current stokes

2011-04-06T00:14:00.000+10:00

Nikki de Saint- Phalle

Anna Parkina Apple Spa's -II,

2009, Photocopy, coloured paper and newspaper

Tiziana LaMelia H-man,

2008, Ink and gouache on paper.

Silke Otto-Knapp Group (Afternoon),

2006, Watercolour and gouache on canvas.

Evelyn Roth Eternal!

2011-03-22T21:18:00.000+11:00

2011-03-20T14:47:00.000+11:00

She, her mother, Everett, Martha, the whole family gallery: they carried the same blood, come down through twelve generations of circuit riders, county sheriffs, Indian fighters, country lawyers, Bible readers, one obscure United States Senator from a frontier state a long time ago; two hundred years of clearings in Virginia and Kentucky and Tennessee and then the break, the void into which they gave their rosewood chests, their silver brushes; the cutting clean which was to have redeemed them all. They have been a particular kind of people, their particular virtues called up by a particular situation, their particular flaws waiting there through all those years, unperceived, unsuspected, glimpsed only cloudily by one or two in each generation, by a wife whose bewildered eyes wanted to look not upon Eldorado but upon her mother's dogwood, by a blue-eyed boy who was at sixteen the best shot in the county and who when there was nothing left to shoot rode out one day and shot his brother, an accident. It had been above all a history of accidents: of moving on and of accidents. What is it you want, she had asked Everett tonight. It was a question she might have asked them all.
-
Page 246, Run River by Joan Didion

WE BUILD UP

2011-03-07T21:23:00.000+11:00

DAY ONE BUILDING TODAY

IF YOU ARE IN MELBOURNE COME TO REARVIEW EVERYDAY THIS WEEK 12-6PM AND BUILD WITH US, HANG OUT OR JUST HAVE A CHAT.

YOU CAN FOLLOW OUR PROGRESS HERE ^

the landscape of possibilities

2011-02-24T12:00:00.010+11:00

My friends Cass and Mavie just returned from an epic two week adventure in New Zealand.

Last night Cass cooked a delicious dinner and gave us a slideshow of their journey- it was mind blowing! They bought a 1972? cb350 twin (aaaaoooooowwwwww) with a sidecar!!!!!! (aaaaoooooowwwwwww) from a dear old man in the South island and camped all the way up to Auckland in the North island.

Hot springs/mountain passes/magical hikes/epic swim spots- you name it, they lived it! Cass even took a photo of a menu for me which read:

soup of the now

I love it! Cass is an amazing writer, when I was writing here and now/now and then, she gave me some valuable feedback and general encouragement, which I needed at the time. Cass had never read Play it as it lays I leant her my copy of Joan Didion's novel- I was really excited by the prospect of the novel going on a New Zealand adventure- pages well travelled!

The book came back a little weathered, Cass apologised but I was stoked, every mark and line reveals a story. I imagine that the black marks on the cover are tyre marks- maybe the book flew out of Cass's hands as Mavie hit a shrub leaving a riverside camp spot, perhaps the red dots are from the sidecar or the petrol tank (their motorbike was red) and that even the rain wanted a piece of Didion's novel as they hiked up a mountain.

I like the idea that a novel can experience a journey as the journeyer experiences the novel- the landscapes of the novel intertwine with the physical landscapes surrounding the reader and the landscapes within the readers own mind.

Brad Phillips- Collection of the Artist, Type C print, 2010

2011-02-18T16:59:00.000+11:00

Summer
by John Ashbery

There is that sound like the wind
Forgetting in the branches that means something
Nobody can translate. And there is the sobering “later on,”
When you consider what a thing meant, and put it down.

For the time being the shadow is ample
And hardly seen, divided among the twigs of a tree,
The trees of a forest, just as life is divided up
Between you and me, and among all the others out there.

And the thinning-out phase follows
The period of reflection. And suddenly, to be dying
Is not a little or mean or cheap thing,
Only wearying, the heat unbearable,

And also the little mindless constructions put upon
Our fantasies of what we did: summer, the ball of pine needles,
The loose fates serving our acts, with token smiles,
Carrying out their instructions too accurately—

Too late to cancel them now—and winter, the twitter
Of cold stars at the pane, that describes with broad gestures
That state of being that is not so big after all.
Summer involves going down as a steep flight of steps

To a narrow ledge over the water. Is this it, then,
This iron comfort, these reasonable taboos,
Or did you mean it when you stopped? And the face
Resembles yours, the one reflected in the water.

2011-02-17T00:21:00.003+11:00

2011-02-14T23:55:00.007+11:00

in eternity there is no time, only an instant long enough for a joke

2011-02-05T01:14:00.002+11:00

we live in conservative times

Jim Verburg takes beautiful photo's, he sent me these pic's of my studio from Open Studio Day at Banff, I was pretty nervous about the event, but it turned out to be an awesome afternoon.

I had fun chatting with the different people that came through. I remember having an amazing conversation with one of the librarians there. She was around in the sixties and we were talking about then in comparison to now- she said something that has been ringing through my head ever since:

WE LIVE IN CONSERVATIVE TIMES

She helped me out a lot during my time in Banff. I'd write out a request in pencil on a little slip of paper and she would go to the basement to sift out old Allan Kaprow exhibition catalogues and Liz Magor lecture tapes from the amazing archives there for me.

Jim Verburg is a busy man. He just had a show in Prague, you can see what he is getting up to here ^

2011-02-03T14:23:00.006+11:00

rocks water friends

Lake Catani, November 2010

Braid and orb (young woman), oil on panel. Tiziana La Melia 2010

Bow River, Banff June 2010

We built a bridge across the river- it was now. I remember convincing Jeremy to take his shoes off and get his feet wet- the water was freezing and glacial. As we were selecting and carting rocks across the water a dog appeared from the woods.

His owners threw a massive rock into the flowing river and he jumped in, after sifting through a couple of boulders he found his and carted it back to his owners- unperturbed by the rock's weight or the water's temperature.

We never built the bridge the whole way across, we wondered how it would affect the flow of the river and the wildlife around it. I remember feeling really alive- the air was fresh, we had hiked a small portion of the Hoodoo trail and I was in the company of new friends.

Friends/Caves I made in Banff 2010, Photographed in January 2011

2011-01-28T09:51:00.009+11:00

DONGORIE FARM- MY COUNTRY HOME

if we can't build on our land we'll build on our dreams- Install shots from our show at The West Wing last November- Ramona Lola Angelico, Elena Betros, Marian Scott, Kate Moss
^

2011-01-21T19:58:00.001+11:00

HERE AND NOW

NOW AND THEN

THEN

Mt Yamnuska, Alberta

Rolling horizon line grey green hills patches of yellow light green young birch clustered along landscape in kindergarten like scratchings dark green pines swaying in breeze stark grey rocks/stones littered with rummaging squirrels a figure lost in the depths of solitude.

THEN

My friend Malisa from Los Angeles told me she was going to be in an exhibition of Californian artists responding to Joan Didion’s 1970 novel Play it as it lays, a novel she thought I may find interesting and informative to my own art practice. The book is centred around a character called Maria Wyeth, an actress and former model, as she contemplates her life and the events leading up to her mental break down amidst the ruins of the late 1960s in L.A.

I grew up in a conservative and isolated city in Western Australia in the 1980s and ‘90s, but developed an interest in utopian idealism through reading accounts of events and documents of freedom expressed in North America and Europe from the 1960s and ‘70s.

I ran into a second hand copy of the novel that Malisa had recommended just as I was about to jump into my friend’s van and drive from Vancouver to Los Angeles. What a perfect journey to embark on with such a novel.

Somewhere between Oregon and the Californian Redwoods I paused, mesmerised by Maria’s narration:

I TRY TO LIVE IN THE NOW

AND KEEP MY

EYE ON THE HUMMINGBIRD

Gazing into the moving golden landscape I remembered The Source, another book that had been on my mind, and I realised that Maria’s philosophy was similar to that of Father Yod, who in the 1970s preached to his spiritual family from his monumental vegetarian restaurant The Source on Sunset Boulevard and at The Source family mansion in the Hollywood hills:

LIVE IN THE ETERNAL NOW

How does this sit today, should one be cynical or look upon this statement with P.M.A? (positive mental attitude) When things turn sour or when revelations that were once so concrete shift where do we go and where do we turn? These are some of the thoughts running through my head as I recline in the back of a 1979 Vandura van on a bed that folds down from a coffee table while driving along the 101 interstate.

As the sun slipped beyond the horizon, I realised I had become addicted to the lines of landscape. I looked at the glass pyramid attached to the dashboard and wondered about the shells and the sand it contained- where had they come from? What adventures have they been on? I thought about the possibility that objects can experience what we experience; I thought about the passing mountains- how much do they know and how much have they seen?

I go back in time to a Geoffrey Farmer studio visit:

THEN

Life now is a bigger trip than any psychedelic drugs from the 60's- let your own artwork trip you out. Let it speak to you.

Believe in objects - living things seen and heard. Prove that the universe exists within the macramé wall hanging in your studio.

and I AM LIVING THE DREAM RIGHT

NOW AND THEN

My floating thoughts were suddenly jolted back to the present moment as the fumes from the leaking gas tank of the van intensified; I opened a window to seek temporary relief in the warm afternoon breeze.

We had just visited the One Log House, jumped from rocks into a mass of fresh flowing water, our feet burning as we ran back to the van in mutual summer bliss.

LIVE IN THE ETERNAL NOW

Was thinking like this valid, or was it just plain naïve? Should statements like these be embraced, or did they imply that we were slaves to ‘the now’? Were we holding ourselves back? Were those the words ringing through Father Yod’s head as he plummeted from a cliff in a hang gliding accident in Hawaii in 1975? Was he still chanting those words lying on the beach in extreme pain as he left his earthly body?

Am I living the dream right now? I wondered again. I thought so, but I realised that as well as living in the now I was contemplating the past – not my own past, but the pasts of others who had recorded their own experiences of ‘living in the now’.

I finished reading Play it as it Lays just before we arrived in L.A.

HERE AND NOW

Last night I wandered drunkenly along Sunset Boulevard looking for my misplaced camera. The moment was so sweet- the importance of tomorrow’s blog post dissolved as I carried on along the footpath. I suddenly thought of Maria speeding down the Los Angeles freeway on the brink of insanity with no destination in mind. Somehow I was no longer concerned about losing a device that monumentalises past events. I was not even sure where I was going, just as Maria was not sure where she was going.

IT’S THE IMMEDIATE.

A JOURNEY IN THE NOW

BEING 100% HERE

100%NOW

It’s the ultimate headspace. I am riding my bicycle drifting off into a daydream I’m turning from a street in Brunswick, Melbourne to a street in Strathcona, Vancouver and then I am back in LA, always at all times – free. Free of spatial limitations within the daydream.

I had been gone for quite some time, I found out later that my friend thought I had been mugged, murdered, or both. I know The Source restaurant was along here somewhere… I was thinking as I stumbled along. The streets seem so deserted; I imagined them to be so much more alive and filled with energy, I found my friend passed out on the sidewalk.

THEN

If it were 1972 would I be would I be preaching the words Live in the Eternal while Maria watches the Hummingbird?

I became completely lost in my thoughts. What links us today? I wondered. Could these sentiments hold? Were they still valid? I was relying solely on other people’s accounts and documents from this time, but had it been romanticised? Could a sense of nostalgia have gotten in the way of the truth?

HISTORY

IS A

CONSTRUCTION

WE ALL

CONSTRUCT A

HISTORY

Are we overfed on a diet of fear and worry, forgetting how to live simply, or am I just plain ignorant, refusing to accept the truth of society, putting my faith in the universe to guide me home and living in a dream world like Maria?

Joan Didion may deliver an honest and believable insight into the ruins of the late 1960’s in Los Angeles... but here I am, just wondering about the past, wandering in the now.

LIVE IN THE ETERNAL NOW…

g'day, g'day

2011-01-21T00:20:00.000+11:00

who am i to blow against the wind

2011-01-19T23:44:00.002+11:00

Over the weekend I went camping. We slept in a field next to Turpin Falls, about an hours drive from Melbourne. We woke up early, the sun was already stinkin’ hot, so after a delicious campfire breakfast and a quick dip in the river we hit the road.

A rough plan was formed to find a half decent coffee, check out the markets in Woodend and stumble upon another sweet spot to swim.

After coffee was located and I’d spent all my money on books, plants, home made relish and handcrafted bowls at the market, I got chatting to a beekeeper selling beeswax candles she made from her own and a few local beehives. She was also the president of the beekeepers guild of Victoria. I started to think how interesting the beekeepers guild meetings would be- a community of beekeepers whose interest was in the ultimate community….. bees.

Marilyne and I agreed to write each other a brief bio for this blog (http://woodbutchers.tumblr.com), we thought it would be a fun challenge. I had been thinking about it all weekend and it wasn’t until I got chatting to the beekeeper that a little light bulb in the top paddock made a ‘click’ a ‘bing’…the noise when something suddenly makes sense.

Marilyne Blais reminds me of a bee on a mission- buzzing around from project to project always on her way to do something awesome. Whether it be hanging with friends at an amazing outdoor spot, having meetings with another collective she is involved in to organize an event or performance, or take part in workshops all involving, creating and constructing community interaction and engagement.

I met her in Vancouver this past Canadian summer, when my slogan for the season was ‘talk’s cheap’ swiftly I realised Marilyne puts these words to shame, it’s easy to just say them- Marilyne lives them! Her urgency to get stuck in and make things happen is inspiring..... TALK’S CHEAP! Make something, do something!

2011-01-15T02:36:00.004+11:00

TODAY IT RAINS/IT RAINS TODAY

2011-01-14T11:09:00.002+11:00

Sean Bailey, 2009

Amanda Ross-Ho, 2007

Claes Oldenberg, 1969-70

2011-01-13T01:27:00.003+11:00

2011-01-11T18:46:00.004+11:00

nobody trips over the mountains

The two, Anders Zorn

Forever is composed of nows.
- Emily Dickinson

THE PAST IS FOR REFERENCE NOT FOR RESIDENCE

2011-01-09T15:06:00.006+11:00

2011-01-07T17:43:00.000+11:00

community building

building community

Marilyne Blais and I are working on a project and have created a blog to document the process

shred for summer!

2011-01-06T22:29:00.001+11:00

2011-01-03T15:11:00.001+11:00

TIZIANA LA MELIA HAS A NEW WEBSITE ^

IT'S A NEW YEAR

HAPPY LIVIN'

today i surfed with the spirit of bodhi

2010-12-23T20:06:00.003+11:00

forever bodhi

HERE AND NOW

2010-12-17T18:11:00.001+11:00

^ NOW AND THEN

we hit the big time!

2010-12-09T22:44:00.005+11:00

Our friend Amanda writes for Apartamento!

and she wrote an article about us building the teepee

Check out issue 6 hitting the stands soon

aaaaoooowwwww

2010-12-08T12:09:00.000+11:00

yeah alex!!!!!!

2010-12-07T09:49:00.000+11:00

Riding The Long White Cloud - Trailer from friendlyfire on Vimeo.

2010-12-05T15:21:00.005+11:00

sometimes

all you have

to do

is get on your bike

and ride

ETERNAL SWEET TIMES

eternal sweet times!

'Fuck it, I'm still an Aquarius'

there's something about riding with your friends....

we sail through endless skies

life is pretty radiant when you have your mates nearby!

*******eternal new day*********

gone fishin...

head full of snakes

g'day mate

we have a laugh!

wear your hair like heaven

september happens!

a sweet philosophy

my brother went fishin' again....

Forever – is composed of Nows –

By Emily Dickinson

for ramona

What is the color of wind?

amber haze eternal!

first of the season...

Utopia and Guitar Solo's

sun shines everyday... smiles, smiles!

day after day the sun

too easy mate!

i'm on a plain...

sea of stokin'

live on the land...

moments

Broken Circle/Spiral Hill (1971-2011)

concrete poetry lives

SO LONG MARIAN/ NO SHIRT, NO SHOES, NO WORRIES

Recent Stokal

the crying room mural project

let us sing and let us dance and ring in the new!

new records/new fortune/new day

sweet, sweet times

..............there is nowhere to go but everywhere

my brother went fishin' on the weekend....

an old favourite

opening tonight...

CURTAIN opens at Seventh tonight!

Stoned Stones Stone Rock Rocks

The closest thing to moving is the closest thing to being free

I would give N.E thing to go see this show!

current stokes

Evelyn Roth Eternal!

WE BUILD UP

the landscape of possibilities

g'day, g'day

who am i to blow against the wind

TODAY IT RAINS/IT RAINS TODAY

THE PAST IS FOR REFERENCE NOT FOR RESIDENCE

shred for summer!

today i surfed with the spirit of bodhi

HERE AND NOW

we hit the big time!

yeah alex!!!!!!

*eternal new day***