Neccessity being the Mother of Invention.

I have a job at the moment to build a structure that will allow a four footed gazebo to spin on a stage which I can't fix to. I quite enjoy challenges like this especially when they are required to be built with regard to keeping costs minimal. Not having access to an excess of funds makes one disregard the obvious solutions and dig deeper to find answers that make use of a minimum of resources for a maximum return in usefulness.

So I suppose firstly I have to illustrate what I'm trying to achieve and what I have to achieve it with. The structure is a gazebo with four legs that holds up a circular "roof" and it is made of light gauge painted mild steel tubing. The four legs are about 400mm wide and about 15mm deep, the width of the tubing, and stand at 90 degrees to each other along a circumference of about 2.06 metres. This structure then needs to rotate around a fixed centre as the stage it is on is of a limited size and to make things difficult I can't affix anything to the stage.

The person I'm working for has a person qualified as a stage designer who has offered a solution but this solution though somewhat workable requires what I define as excessive materials and is somewhat problematic to use as required. The solution is to build a circular platform and put fixed wheels on it. What this means is that the circular platform needs to be built in one piece and hold up any weight applied to the stage only at it's outside edges as the wheels would be fixed at the edges. This means that to remain as thin as is possible the structure would either have a frame made in steel tubing with a thin plywood top or a thicker plywood of about 30mm so that any weight on its centre area wouldn't have the whole thing sagging. Also if four, five or six wheels (or even eight) are fixed on the outer perimeter then it would seem that it would rotate and each wheel follow the next in an orderly fashion but chances are that, with the impetus to spin applied from the outside, it would skitter somewhat and slowly move other than required... it would crawl unless the applied force to spin were exact and given that the nature of it's use requires that it spins  when force is applied from within then the solution begs modification.

My own solution will work because when I was out getting my gas bottles I found a place that makes cast concrete garden slabs and found four rings of concrete, for putting around plants, in the refuse bin and was allowed to take them home. Initially I grabbed them as pieces to put in a wall but once I was building the stage I realised they where, well one of them was, exactly what I needed as a weighted centre. So what I'm saying is that serendipity played a part in supporting my solution so therefore it needs to happen.

Basically I use the concrete ring as a fixed centre, I'm going to add more concrete to the inside of the ring, and a stage of sorts goes around this and provides, at its outer edge, a bearing race for wheels on an outer ring, which the gazebo is affixed to and also has wheels that allow it to move ( so two sets of wheels on the ring; one set horizontal and the other set vertical) around the perimeter. Fairly complicated to explain but the gist of it is that the centre fixed stage can be made light weight, the wooden part, as it sits on the stage and is held by the weighted concrete ring, and the performer can stand on this and apply even force to the gazebo to make it rotate. The ring that holds the gazebo in place has one set of wheels, one under each gazebo legs so no weight offsets, vertically orientated that ride on the floor that allow it to rotate and another set of wheels, horizontally set, that ride around the perimeter of the circular fixed stage. By isolating the functions of load bearing and rotating then the ring and stage can be made light weight.

T his has to work basically because I've materials on hand that I found which packing crate plywood at about 10mm thick and a load of pine boards at 12 mm thick and 200mm wide as well as some 100mm x 35mm Baltic pine... all actually sourced from packing crates... plus a scavenged concrete ring. So these materials are actually more than suitable for the "stage" has to be light and loads distributed effectively to ensure the least amount of stresses on individual requirements. Isn't that a good plan for life as well.. walk and move lightly and only press as hard as the task requires... so stresses are minimised for all.

In ending I'd just like to say that this is about the idea of being resoureful. Not just buying new materials but taking the time to review whats availablethat would otherwise be burnt or tipped because the materials use is defined not only by what they have already been used for but also that idea of defining it's no longer useful renders them useless. It's called looking outside the square but over time that square has become a pinhead, things being as narrowly defined as they are now, so it's now "get off the pinhead"

How things change

Today I went out to get some more gas bottles, oxygen and acetylene, but I couldn't get them as I need to pay cash up front now. I've already paid 140 bucks up front to Air Liquide for the rental of cylinders for a year, which is quite good (and about 1/3 of what BOC charges) but now I have to pay cash up front for whats in the bottles to the agent... because Air Liquide doesn't do bottles on account from it's yard anymore.

When I started this welding lark way back in the early 80's, after learning how to do so on a course set up by the Dole office, it was just a matter of going to NZIG and signing up for an account then walking away with the bottles.Now everythings up front and in advance which makes me think of the gradual changes in society since I started off as a young man with dreams of being a valid part of the whole thing.

Way back then the feeling was, and the reality, that those who were already setup could help those who weren't setup yet. The biggies didn't get further ahead by changing up front all the starters but were willing to hang back slightly to allow the newbies to find their feet. That's all changed now.

Now if you want to do anything it's all cash up front, and sometimes far in advance (take the IRD who require you to pay tax in advance even before you've earned the money, for self employed people anyways), so this speaks to me of the changes whereby no longer do the big guys have a little leeway for the new generation but are so in hock themselves that they require those starting to help the powers that be balance the books.

If we advance this notion far enough along it'd most probably get to the stage where couples who decide to have kids are credit checked as too whether they'll have the earning power to support the kid. Sounds silly doesn't it but with prestigious schools overseas having waiting lists and parents putting them on them when the kids aren't even able to speak yet then the ramifications are somewhat obvious.

Imagine if you will a time where kids learn to speak and understand whats around them and the first thing they are told is that they are already mortgaged... It'll all happen eventually unless the greed that is so prevalent abates and people realise it just ain't practical to mortgage a world in advance when all money is is confidence in motion. I can see how this state of affairs has arisen but it makes absolutely no sense to keep it going to its inevitable conclusion.

I don't know what the answer is but I do know that mistakes, like the one I made recently, are getting riskier and riskier to make simply because you can afford to get back up again. This has happened to me a coupla other times in the past; first it was the stock market crash of '87 and I was a little over extended (took me about two years to pay off the debt I owed) and then in '97 when I freaked out when I was earning loads of money... for almost doing nothing. That also took about two years to get over and I hope this particular crash of mine isn't going to take two years to get going again.

Because I have crashed. Maybe not completely, there is a little more credit I can tap into, but it's definitely got to touch and go whereby if I get a little more credit but can't manage to sell what I make then I'll just have to fold up and bring it all back home again. At the moment I need about 3 and half hundred to get some big bottles of gas and with that I could generate several thousand dollars worth of sellable stuff. The thing that makes it a gamble, well more so than usually, is that people just don't seem to be spending as much as they used to... especially on big ticket items like extravagant hand made furniture and artworks. I've always got lots of options (you can't be an artist from the working class who's white without having lots) but the two main ones are carry on regardless and just pull in the risk factors so I don't leave myself too out on a limb and two; except that the worlds going completely stupid real fast and just get back home and just do a little here and there to keep myself in the essentials. I've got so much stuff stashed here at home I could easily keep myself occupied just being busy at home but, and this is the big butt, where the ass hits the pavement, I do believe that what I have to say, with my artworks, deserves to be heard... and seen, of course.

For an artist, I'm hoping, it always actually comes back to this. Art is not something I do because I can but is something that is done because I'm me! It's what I do and what I was made to do. The world can go round in circles trying to find the meaning of life, and using up all the resources to do so, but I already know what the meaning of life is... basically it's all about what gives it meaning... and that means doing what your meant to do!

panic'd grab at all to push back the tides that will wash away their castles made of sand.

Susan Sontag Quote

In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. Even  more. It is the revenge  of the intellect upon the world. To interpret is to impoverish, to deplete the world - in order to set up a shadow of "meanings." 

From an essay "against Interpretation" 

This small part of the essay is my favourite bit, I found the quote somewhere a while back without knowing the essay... or about Susan Sontag, but it raises many questions about the communication between the artist and the viewer.

I think that basically Susan is commenting on the part of the Critic and their place, which they have created for themselves, in interpreting the work of artists for consumption by people without formal training.

I say that because even as an artist I interpret my own work as this is the dialogue between the subconscious and the conscious. Often I'll do something with realising on a conscious level what it is I'm actually doing but by allowing myself to interpret what I've done I can see what my underlying motivations are and get a better grasp of not only what I'm trying to say but also what I'm saying without realising I'm saying it. 

The act of living is all about interpretation. Everything we see and do needs, to a certain degree, be evaluated and decisions made as to whether it can become something we hold on to or discarded as something we don't need or want. Some of this can become spontaneous, whereby our decision to act happens so fast as to be almost decisionless, or actively so, but a decision has been made after a lightning quick interpretation of the events.

So I'm thinking now that Susan Sontag is rallying against the industry of interpretation whereby a cadre of "experts" are working constantly to keep us in line and following their lead as to the validity, or otherwise, of specific or generic artworks.

I can agree with this, to a certain degree, but ask why should art be  that which is sidelined alone for non critical evaluation. Why not house building, accountancy procedures and Rugby games?

What I can agree with and maybe see as an underlying motivation in her writing is that we, as modern humans, have come to a place where the overall fitting in to society is a somewhat precarious venture and so we have come to rely on these interpreters to guide us when we don't have enough time or energy to evaluate things for ourselves.

And the danger ,in the above, and what I find funny is that I am interpreting, is that if our reliance on the opinions of others is too great then there is an obvious dulling down and whittling away of the ability to be an individual. 

What I find interesting is that I am interpreting something called "against Interpretation" and in doing so creating my own opinion about interpreting and this may very well be what Susan was attempting to have us do. 

But what drew me to the quote in the first place was the line " In a culture whose already classical dilemma is the hypertrophy of the intellect at the expense of energy and sensual capability, interpretation is the revenge of the intellect upon art. "and this  collection of words really does it for me. The word Hypertrophy is a doozy, hyper and trophy joined together, and it seems no small wonder that todays youth are beset with problems like ADHD and the like when essayists are having to create words like Hypertrophy to address the internal problem of societies from the word go to over emphasise the importance of rationalisation. Her underlying argument seems to be that we, as individuals, can only be individuals if we spend more time just enjoying things for what they are, as in being more right brain and creative, in an attempt to find a balance between the two temporal distinctions.

Funnily enough, the ability to have different temporal distinctions, as in left and right brain being uncommunicative, is a male thing. The male of the species "homo sapien" is physiologically at a disadvantage to the female in this department as females are born with far more interconnections between the two sides of the brain whereas males suffer from having two separate halves and are only able to make connections by following create pursuits. So it may be that Susan Sontag, who was a Lesbian, and had that famous photographer for Rolling Stone as a partner, was also arguing against the overall maleness of society; particularly the left brain rationality that is the default setting for maleness.

The trouble, though, is that it seems that the balancing of the spheres, rationality and irrationality ( funny even that its opposite isn't creative and uncreative), is about a war, of sorts, between the two distinctly different views. It seems that the creativity needs to oppose rationality to find it's feet. Then when the creative has found a strong standing then the emphasis is on melding with rationality to create a dialectic footing whereby the two spheres can become one and march forward in a balanced gestalt.

Too much creativity is not neccessarly a good thing. It needs the rationality to fend against, to give itself the power to be motivated and so, the underlying theme of Susan's discussion may be a feminine rag waved in the face of the bull of modern male society to get it to see the possible virtue of  being less critical of others and more endearing of the simple fact that they are doing.

So I, in my infinite ability to question, have decided, by interpreting, that Susan Sontag wrote one thing on the surface, the rational set of words, but underneath a whole other set of motivations was coming forth and, by interpreting, I have carried forth my own ability to find balance between creativity and rationality and been, yet again, made mindful of being creative, for its own sake, to let the sub conscious speak through that conduit... and allow rationality the ability to interpret those outpourings.

and heres the original essay. 

Here we go again!

I've gotten myself in trouble yet again... but it's been quite a few years since it last happened so maybe it's not a recurring theme... but just one of those things.

So over the last year and a half or so I've been linked with a gallery and we've been going from strength to strength. The man had sold a few of my bits and pieces, in and around other shows, and I'd set up a group show that went quite well earlier this year. Recently we'd done another show, which is on now, but I stuffed up monumentally by taking on fibreglassing and not being able to get the artworks ready for the show.

I did, though, do a few works on the side, a coupla paintings and an assemblage or two, so I was covered and we got a show together. But the Boss man wasn't happy about me not being able to pull off what I'd said I'd do so it was demotion time... back to square one. All  good I suppose, I can handle humility, but the way it was done left me somewhat put out and I made a decision to remove myself from the gallery but with the door still ajar if the gallery owner was willing to admit a little responsibility in the debacle that was my undoing.

The thing was that if the understanding we had going into the exhibition was purely commercial then I'm totally with his decision; it's a pragmatic choice that if someone doesn't come up with what they say they will then things need to happen, simple! But when friendships involved, and we'd become rather palsy in the build up to the exhibition and really enjoyed the construction of a vision for the gallery in the future, then one expects friends to come to the rescue when you stuff up. I think that that's what friendship is all about; sharing the load.

I was talking with a good friend last night, who's already well over my emoting over the issue at hand, but during the conversation she mentioned the difference between commercial and personal... and I just don't do that. My ethical base is such that I will no longer act purely commercially in any given situation. Its all personal!

So when a friend leaves me out in the cold, in a time of trouble for me, then I'm aware that I'd rather be somewhere warmer. I suppose what it comes down to with me is that the art itself is beside the point. The art matters but it doesn't matter as much as the interpersonal relationships. Art is merely the vehicle, the tool, to be in a place where people come first.
It's times like these where the ideal of being a socialist are put to the test. If I were a capitalist then the stuff would come first, being part of a gallery  would be more important than the short term backward slide that's been allotted to me but being I'm a socialist, social over capital, then  the  nature of our relationship, between me and the gallery owner, is  more important.

And it's not  a pride thing either, I can eat humble pie till the cows come home,  it's about self worth  and  defining the area you work in and making sure that the flow of respect is even between all the people present. If somebody decides to use position and power to define themselves as better than others, even when the excuse is commercial validity, then it's time for me to move on and seek a place where  the reality is more attuned to my beliefs.

And that belief is basically simple. I believe that holding  ideals and causes, and serving them with rationality and pragmatism, as uppermost and that they serve people first and these people are supported by stuff, capital serving social,... is the only way to achieve success... a lasting and solid success that can be used by others to rise up to the best that they can be. To me this is the only way to build an authenticism into any venture so that people coming to it as an enterprise can feel subconsciously that it is a valid and worthy enterprise.

This may seem irrational, and it basically is irrational, but does that matter?

In the arts, as in all other fields where progress is a given requirement, to do as has been done before is rational but it defeats the purpose of progress. The new, the untried; the stuff of progress, is always irrational except in the slightly twisted oxymoron whereby it is rational to be irrational if progressing is the required outcome. Rationality always comes afterwards. Something must be first done in an untried way for progress to occur and afterwards the measuring and allocating can occur that makes it rational but initially any movement forward is irrational.

All well and good  but I've left out the  idea of failure because as we all know that to attempt the untried means that failure is a very valid  possible outcome. It simply is this way. The amount of progress required is equal to the amount of failure that must be accepted.

So when my friend accepts the amount of progress I am attempting but denies me when the outcome is failure then that friend is unable to make progress, simply by denying the failure, and so I have to move on to a climate more attune to a reality I believe in. It's funny but only a few weeks ago I'd met a fellow socialist and when we were doing the get to know each other thing I'd said that one can only achieve progress by being entirely accepting of failure. I suppose now that I actually understand that in the sense that without accepting possible failure you can't progress.

I'd say that this personal success and progress is just that. A state whereby we are able to achieve progress,with our physical presence supporting our spiritual self, with a  realistic admixture of the rational, that which we've done, mixed with the irrational... which needs to be done.