Oh the 2D Life of Her...

This show was spectacular!
I was hooked by it's black and white grainy, wiggly aesthetic from the word go. As the artist Fleur Noble built and explored a world at once 2 D and 3D, we sat transfixed. Images of her and her life size puppets stepped in and out of the paper stage set - merging with paintings on easels, imprinting scribble drawings of themselves by banging their heads onto paper - and at one point talking to each other by speech bubble. She whitewashed them out only to have the puppets tear the paper and almost step off the page.
When the whole set burst into cracking and then roaring virtual flames - and the paper littered floor appeared to ignite and glow with embers we were at once in it and swallowing our instinctive reactions. Bravo for this multi media performance that explored the boundaries of film, drawing, performance and puppetry.

You can check out the interview with Fleur Elise Noble and Melody Nixon of Lumiere Reader here http://lumiere.net.nz/reader/arts.php/item/2016

Homily homily hommmmm

This morning I opened the fresh box of Hubbards cereal - and looked afresh at the little news sheet they tuck in beside the cereal... hey I thought - they're all homilies ! and it struck me, we get our little 'life prep' doses in cereal boxes these days, not just from our parents and elders (or church or where else...?). Hmmm... now there's a thought. Saving them too now. What a hoarder I'm becomming.

And one more .... This I've gotta see!

The Therepeutic Hour - Art and Art History Explained by Kristelle Plimmer... an illustrated lecture in rhyming verse. 12 -14th Feb

She may not remember morning train rides into town in the front carriage in 1973, (yeah I was in third form alright!) but I'll never forget. It'll be nice to see Kristelle in high voice and action again.

Later ... (16 Feb)

We did go to this Fringe show and it was good.
Very funny in fact. Kristelle managed in an hour of unbroken rhyme to deliver an erudite discourse on the various conflicting and confusing theorem of art historians (Kant et al), and how their approach to art and artists has shaped art history as we know it today. All presented from on high (on stilts) - very appropriate.
Accompanying slides and slide notes just added to the sense that you were sitting in an art history lecture, and at times I had to remind myself that it didn't actually matter if I didn't remember it all - the rhythm of the words was such a pleasure.

2-D Life of Her

I'm looking forward to three things this month ...

The Cuba St Carnival and being able to climb out my very own studio window and sit on my very own hot tin roof to watch the parade, and then to my birthday the next day.

To celebrate my day this year, I've booked some tickets to a Fringe show -
'2 - Dimensional Life of Her' by Fleur Elise Noble.
The show's brought to the Wellington Fringe Festival by the Govt of South Australia, and it sounds amazing. It's billed as 'A theatre production made of drawing, animation, puppetry, film, projection, performance and paper'...

I can't wait!

The pic I've included here is a still from her promotional movie for the show. You'll find the movie preview of the show on Fleur Elise Noble's website www.fleurelisenoble.com . She's done some pretty cool drawings and she plays with 2 -D projections onto 3- D objects in some very clever ways.

I LOVE the Fringe Festival.

Thinking about a comment By Hamish Keith

I'm reading Hamish Keith's autobiography at the moment 'Native Wit' (This is the HTML version of the PDF put out by Random House NZ Ltd). It's a great read (especially now I'm up to where he's working as a junior assistant at the Auckland City Art Gallery with Colin McCahon. I'm thinking on this small piece of commentary at the moment...

" saying you are an artist and believing you are an artist, with however much conviction and passion, will not make you one. There is an equation to being an artist which is beyond the power of an individual to complete however fragile or tenuous it might be, the artist and the work have to make a connection with the culture in which they come from - disconnected is disconnected. The New Zealand official cultural pendulum seems to have swung from denying arts value to a point completely the opposite, giving too much benefit to too many doubts. I sometimes feel that the complete lack of connection between what is claimed to be a work of art and the culture in which it exists is, in some perverse way, seen as a virtue. It must be good because nobody gets it. There is always a case for subsidy and subvention, but it ought not to be a permanent state of affairs"
Hamish Keith 'Native Wit' Random House 2008

I'm not sure I agree with his first opening sentence. I think we are what we want to be and we become what we want to be (whatever our bent) through focusing our passion and having the conviction to follow through and put in the hard work.

But what he says about an artists need to connect with the culture in which they come from is surely wise. His views on art are based on his experience of living and working daily with art; with a group of peers who were artists that shaped and contributed to our cultural identity and have continued to influence New Zealand artists enormously to date.

I'm mulling on what I identify with, where my connection is and (humbly) what I can offer to the culture I belong to with the emergent art that I make.