For some reason I've been wandering around Parnell for whatever reason the past few days and then yesterday found the reason and was even speaking to a landlord this morning but during that wandering about I decided to check out the high end furniture outlets down on the Strand.
I love well made stuff and ever find the high end proprietors and servers just as interesting as their pretence fights somehow to be welcoming and almost apologetic at my obviously woe-begotten carcase of meat.
I would hope that the above isn't something I carry as a burden but a fairly honest depiction of what my own welcoming attitude might bounce off then be pushed off into a corner where the dust of in-consequence lies frightened until picked up by the yawning mouth of a European assembled vacuum cleaner.
Anyways I was in Matisse and upstairs at that when I duly decided that after three attempts to define whether I needed help to bear forth with a question which simply put was how do people who make this kind of stuff in New Zealand get it onto this floor.
What followed, and while I knew I was to feel appreciative that such was given alike the dole to the unwashed, I couldn't help but be somewhat aghast at the sheer ridiculousness of it all, that such serious an undertaking was at best complete bosh and tosh, but was held in such esteem that to disbelieve the seriousness of it all was tantamount to a high treason... of which then I am entirely guilty. It was insane!
First I was told such is as made to be design must be enrolled at a show in Italy and taken there to be schmoozed over, I kind you not, she used schmoozed like it was a technical tool that only the elites can sharpen with clarity of purpose, then after having schmoozed themselves into a reliability worth embracing these bits of wood and metal and whatever else might be fashionable at the time would be taken up as worthy of production by Italian factories with defined pedigree and standing as to make them worthy yet again of the ticks in boxes that amount to being in favour.
But that's just the start. Then comes bit's having been made by Italians flown back to New Zealand and put on the floor at Matisse to then be picked out by interior designers and architects, for God knows no actual individual without proper training has taste, working alongside the proprietors who, incidentally, are all properly trained, the best having the regard of being taught by overseas institutions - hopefully in a foreign language, discuss and find merit in the long drawn out choices which though undoubtedly might last a lifetime because they are so well made but would more obviously be castaways when, heavy forbid, the next season see's them as pretentious, or more likely, just simply dated.
And that's insane! It's not even that Italians, or any other Europeans don't make fine and hard wearing furniture. I don't dispute that. What I find insane is that New Zealanders are led such a merry chase just to get something that could just as easily be made here but then it's not really about that is it? It's all about creating exclusivity and while the product may actually be better it's not because we can't do better here in New Zealand but that any money which might be used to support such an industry is divided between the creators of the exclusivity.
Before this particular set of beliefs, which incidentally is what they are - a belief system, seemed only slightly ridiculous to me as it really had no bearing on ever being able to serve me in some way but then when I think I might be able to serve that need in the market, mostly for my brother who has a factory working leather and is constantly telling me how crap most of these chairs actually are, then being told the only way in will cost multiple thousands of dollars and is basically a gamble irrespective of whether I have a good usable product then that's not only ridiculous but insane.
But this is what too much money in too few hands creates, I know that's a bit a leap but it does seem to be what is going on. But why is that? It can't really be the money it self as that's only money which is just a medium of exchange so it must be something to do with having more than is actually required and that that is more than others have then there must be some form of justification to make those who have more than they need feel they deserve that much and I suppose that's when it starts becoming insane.
Sunday, April 19, 2015
Sunday, April 5, 2015
Resistance in Art?
Two things are vying for my attention at the moment and in a real sense I'm neither here nor there as to uncovering them simply because if I leave stuff alone it'll find it's way to me eventually and usually in a worked out manner that makes the intellectual process obsolete. But this, while almost a perfect world, doesn't seem to be that way for many others and so a swaying, of this slow acceptance, to meet outside obligations is sometimes required to adjust myself to a world that may want things of me.
One comes by way of offering to do work then being asked where I might like to do this work. This immediately frees me to define myself in a way I don't enjoy so much as the opposite, this is where you will do the work, offers a resistance that I like to work from as in with well defined boundaries then as in laws, laws are made to be broken, and so boundaries are made to be pushed beyond... but you need the boundaries in the first place.
This brings me to the work of Tracey Emin who I've recently discovered, by way of a friend who admires her, but in finding her work this boundless art practise, or being without restriction, seems rather sad. While I find her spirit wholly commendable the art she seems to have done, in the public arena, seems more about spectacle and concepts far more than it might be about accepting a restrictive index and going beyond, as in a craft based procedural based art, which in turn seems entirely restricting to her ability to actually speak her art to an audience outside the pundits that parade its veracity.
And that's sad and woe to all those artists who's freedoms are so great they seemingly forget to be artists and become merely performers in some side show touted as a main event.
I suppose I secretly hope that she has a whole private world full of real things like brushes and scalpels and carving chisels where she tests the coordination of hand and eye in a real and sweating brow attempt towards a mastery which can never be got, that she hasn't forgotten her child that knows frustration must be battled by throwing ourselves against the insurmountable paradox of vision and dull ageing bodies. But though it seems there a little in her comments of how to work with bronze, this inner sense of creating resistance to get beyond, even that is played out in the public eye so my dream of her actually finding a self for only herself, played out against a public unwilling to read dull esoteric tracts to find merit, seems a perishable commodity alike all the other plastics and neo-neo's that pertain to commoditisations.
But I am spoiled more by my luck than I ever was an expert at anything, art included, so in that respect I can challenge myself ad infinitum with the resistance against being unfound knowing that keeping the finding of relevance is something I can always keep at a distance that it remain an obstacle I can choose to surmount or not knowing too the inherent folly of constantly fooling myself is a folly worth the effort.
And who have I to thank for this perplexing view? The cats of course. Those feline creatures who have races to be the slowest, or at least that's what it looks like might be happening, that when I call them for lunch it's not a run to the trough but a seemingly complex set of always changing reference points that measure some sort of higher dis-interest, so high in fact that when they remember it's food at the end, the surprise and reward, which seem to be at the heart of the enterprise, renews the whole venture, made it ad-venture. And I don't really try to figure it out as realise the subtlties of my parts in the process. They kind of let me know that they are the masters but that without my parts to play no such mastery would occur and so it's less an apology and more an acknowledgement.
So I am dull by comparison with their ease of just living but it still behoves me to spread what I might be learning, this coyness of possible intent, that far greater waves are awash than our obvious needs to be vital. So it seems resistance is not something to be pushed and prodded into submission but a necessary constraint we might eventually notice isn't even there, that it is more a tension between inner and outer that the stretching of creates resilience, where we've come from and where were going aren't absolutes to be attained but simple markers that keep us to the middles.
One comes by way of offering to do work then being asked where I might like to do this work. This immediately frees me to define myself in a way I don't enjoy so much as the opposite, this is where you will do the work, offers a resistance that I like to work from as in with well defined boundaries then as in laws, laws are made to be broken, and so boundaries are made to be pushed beyond... but you need the boundaries in the first place.
This brings me to the work of Tracey Emin who I've recently discovered, by way of a friend who admires her, but in finding her work this boundless art practise, or being without restriction, seems rather sad. While I find her spirit wholly commendable the art she seems to have done, in the public arena, seems more about spectacle and concepts far more than it might be about accepting a restrictive index and going beyond, as in a craft based procedural based art, which in turn seems entirely restricting to her ability to actually speak her art to an audience outside the pundits that parade its veracity.
And that's sad and woe to all those artists who's freedoms are so great they seemingly forget to be artists and become merely performers in some side show touted as a main event.
I suppose I secretly hope that she has a whole private world full of real things like brushes and scalpels and carving chisels where she tests the coordination of hand and eye in a real and sweating brow attempt towards a mastery which can never be got, that she hasn't forgotten her child that knows frustration must be battled by throwing ourselves against the insurmountable paradox of vision and dull ageing bodies. But though it seems there a little in her comments of how to work with bronze, this inner sense of creating resistance to get beyond, even that is played out in the public eye so my dream of her actually finding a self for only herself, played out against a public unwilling to read dull esoteric tracts to find merit, seems a perishable commodity alike all the other plastics and neo-neo's that pertain to commoditisations.
But I am spoiled more by my luck than I ever was an expert at anything, art included, so in that respect I can challenge myself ad infinitum with the resistance against being unfound knowing that keeping the finding of relevance is something I can always keep at a distance that it remain an obstacle I can choose to surmount or not knowing too the inherent folly of constantly fooling myself is a folly worth the effort.
And who have I to thank for this perplexing view? The cats of course. Those feline creatures who have races to be the slowest, or at least that's what it looks like might be happening, that when I call them for lunch it's not a run to the trough but a seemingly complex set of always changing reference points that measure some sort of higher dis-interest, so high in fact that when they remember it's food at the end, the surprise and reward, which seem to be at the heart of the enterprise, renews the whole venture, made it ad-venture. And I don't really try to figure it out as realise the subtlties of my parts in the process. They kind of let me know that they are the masters but that without my parts to play no such mastery would occur and so it's less an apology and more an acknowledgement.
So I am dull by comparison with their ease of just living but it still behoves me to spread what I might be learning, this coyness of possible intent, that far greater waves are awash than our obvious needs to be vital. So it seems resistance is not something to be pushed and prodded into submission but a necessary constraint we might eventually notice isn't even there, that it is more a tension between inner and outer that the stretching of creates resilience, where we've come from and where were going aren't absolutes to be attained but simple markers that keep us to the middles.
Thursday, March 26, 2015
We're all working through shit.
I've kinda had enough critisism of myself over the years that when I do criticise others I pretty much know I'm talking about myself, that in seeing what's problematic in others is really just a reflection of what I'm not able to recognise in myself so by putting it out there as critisism of others there's a fairly good likelihood that it'll come home to roost as a critisism of myself.
Hopefully I'm self aware enough to see this, not always of course because I'm like most others humans and capable of mistakes and blunders, but in the end I usually see that whatever I think others are guilty of I have a responsibility to own whatever I'm seeing in others as it is actually in myself.
But what's really problematic is when I forget that my ability to take responsibility for my wrongs isn't always the same for others especially in close knit relationships. The thing is I'm really quite forgiving of myself but hopefully not to the extent that even before I do blunder, and become aware that I will, that I would carry on regardless just for the fun of it... let the venting occur in some hilltop hideaway of infinite forgiveness... as that's where responsibility comes in, as in why end up responsible for something when not doing it in the first place means there isn't anything to be responsible for?
Because it needs to come out. Simple as that.
Something or someone becomes a metaphor for our own internal chaos and it's just too damned complicated to see in ourselves so we need to project out onto the world what it is we're actually dealing with and if we're lucky we can see quite early on that this is what we're actually doing but if we're unlucky.... well, along comes the blame game.
And of course the reason for this posting is that I've got caught up in my own stupidity. That while trolling through my own mess I've reflected/projected it out into the world and the shit has stuck. Bummer.
Now (as in it's later than the above was written and saved as a draft) it seems I wasn't even caught out but simply misread something but in taking it all as far as I did, in reflecting back at myself, I've hopefully learnt a lesson without actually causing the grief I thought I might have. But still the thought was there, the guilt I felt makes that obvious and even while the airing in public hasn't happened it still kinda did happen anyways... underneath everything that lies under the surface of life.
Hopefully I'm self aware enough to see this, not always of course because I'm like most others humans and capable of mistakes and blunders, but in the end I usually see that whatever I think others are guilty of I have a responsibility to own whatever I'm seeing in others as it is actually in myself.
But what's really problematic is when I forget that my ability to take responsibility for my wrongs isn't always the same for others especially in close knit relationships. The thing is I'm really quite forgiving of myself but hopefully not to the extent that even before I do blunder, and become aware that I will, that I would carry on regardless just for the fun of it... let the venting occur in some hilltop hideaway of infinite forgiveness... as that's where responsibility comes in, as in why end up responsible for something when not doing it in the first place means there isn't anything to be responsible for?
Because it needs to come out. Simple as that.
Something or someone becomes a metaphor for our own internal chaos and it's just too damned complicated to see in ourselves so we need to project out onto the world what it is we're actually dealing with and if we're lucky we can see quite early on that this is what we're actually doing but if we're unlucky.... well, along comes the blame game.
And of course the reason for this posting is that I've got caught up in my own stupidity. That while trolling through my own mess I've reflected/projected it out into the world and the shit has stuck. Bummer.
Now (as in it's later than the above was written and saved as a draft) it seems I wasn't even caught out but simply misread something but in taking it all as far as I did, in reflecting back at myself, I've hopefully learnt a lesson without actually causing the grief I thought I might have. But still the thought was there, the guilt I felt makes that obvious and even while the airing in public hasn't happened it still kinda did happen anyways... underneath everything that lies under the surface of life.
Art and the building of Monasteries.
11am. 27th March 2015.
It crossed my mind the other day that where I live would suit the final outcome of being a monastery and yet I really, outside of a public view of such, have no idea what a monastery is. Yet the idea seemed to be about creating a place of peace and quietness, two things which have come to be very valuable to me, and so the idea of it being called, this working towards and being something at the end, would suit the idea of what might be monastic.
My initial ideas were that I'd have all these little areas where artists could come and work at whatever it is that artists work at and that in return for this availability to do as they are want to do then they might spend some time on whatever else is in need of doing, as in gardens and maintenance and suchlike, to allow the thing that it is to go on.
So what is it I have and how is it that what I have could be whatever it is I choose it to be? Seems this background might actually need some description otherwise the ideas of what is might be are entirely like clouds just floating through the sky. Otherwise there is also the idea that I know what I have and can see the possibilities within and this, as a written thing on the internet, may or may not need such grounding in realities, as being the internet, is more about ideas than it ever is about realities as concrete as... actual concrete.
Either or doesn't even matter because meaninglessness, whatever that is, also has a place of distinctions worth favouring in my life and while that is also whatever it is the simple fact remains that this, the blog itself, is most easily found from the links I put in from facebook and within my own photos of what I supposedly am and do there are enough photos of where I am and what I do that a little research would answer sufficiently any questions that might arise of the where and the what this particular post may be alluding to.
But even getting as far as I have I know feel a need to go and meditate so that's what I'm going to do. This way whatever it is on the edge of my thinking will occupy those thoughts there to be let go of and as they disappear they'll possibly clarify themselves as to what words they might want to form into.
2.20pm 27th April 2015.
Though what it is in the end doesn't actually matter much and that is almost superfluous next to the simple fact I'm working towards something that when done with and finished I can leave... even if I don't leave bodily I'd be leaving it spiritually as regards the first ideas that brought this whole unfinished thing into being.
It all kinda took on a realness back in '97 when I left a built house within a warehouse which at the very end was completely empty and was beautiful. While I did want to somehow profit by that, to be able to gone somewhere else and do it again, it didn't really matter that much beside the simple fact I'd done it. It was an artwork in and of itself and the biggest one I'd ever achieved. Walking away from it and having done it, been almost allowed to do it, was enough.
Now I feel the same about this property in Otara. I see this eventual set of buildings with gardens and trees not with a mineness that can be measured and sold but as a task that when completed leads to another task and given I've always fallen on my feet no matter how much I might have forgone the normal collection of stuff as saleable commodity then it just plain feels natural to simply do what wants doing without the tediousness of making something pay.
And it is tedious. There seems such a flood of goods available to us all in western society that even having to compete within that is just plain tedious. So I've been lucky enough that I don't have to. And there's no great flood of money behind me either that allows this, no pool of left over extravagance to dip into. It's simply that I don't hardly need any money whatsoever and can wander about in my little car every now and then and quite simply just pick up the building materials from the side of the road that I might need... and that I've collected up enough relatively required items, by others, that I can sell the odd load of stuff here and there for any money that might be required.
All of this adds up to being able to give it away, not now of course because the whole things just a big mess, but eventually I could just walk away.
It might then be a Monastery or it might just be an Artists retreat but it won't really matter to me what it's called. It'll simply be something I did and enjoyed as much as possible that in the end would allow me to walk off and do something else.
It crossed my mind the other day that where I live would suit the final outcome of being a monastery and yet I really, outside of a public view of such, have no idea what a monastery is. Yet the idea seemed to be about creating a place of peace and quietness, two things which have come to be very valuable to me, and so the idea of it being called, this working towards and being something at the end, would suit the idea of what might be monastic.
My initial ideas were that I'd have all these little areas where artists could come and work at whatever it is that artists work at and that in return for this availability to do as they are want to do then they might spend some time on whatever else is in need of doing, as in gardens and maintenance and suchlike, to allow the thing that it is to go on.
So what is it I have and how is it that what I have could be whatever it is I choose it to be? Seems this background might actually need some description otherwise the ideas of what is might be are entirely like clouds just floating through the sky. Otherwise there is also the idea that I know what I have and can see the possibilities within and this, as a written thing on the internet, may or may not need such grounding in realities, as being the internet, is more about ideas than it ever is about realities as concrete as... actual concrete.
Either or doesn't even matter because meaninglessness, whatever that is, also has a place of distinctions worth favouring in my life and while that is also whatever it is the simple fact remains that this, the blog itself, is most easily found from the links I put in from facebook and within my own photos of what I supposedly am and do there are enough photos of where I am and what I do that a little research would answer sufficiently any questions that might arise of the where and the what this particular post may be alluding to.
But even getting as far as I have I know feel a need to go and meditate so that's what I'm going to do. This way whatever it is on the edge of my thinking will occupy those thoughts there to be let go of and as they disappear they'll possibly clarify themselves as to what words they might want to form into.
2.20pm 27th April 2015.
Though what it is in the end doesn't actually matter much and that is almost superfluous next to the simple fact I'm working towards something that when done with and finished I can leave... even if I don't leave bodily I'd be leaving it spiritually as regards the first ideas that brought this whole unfinished thing into being.
It all kinda took on a realness back in '97 when I left a built house within a warehouse which at the very end was completely empty and was beautiful. While I did want to somehow profit by that, to be able to gone somewhere else and do it again, it didn't really matter that much beside the simple fact I'd done it. It was an artwork in and of itself and the biggest one I'd ever achieved. Walking away from it and having done it, been almost allowed to do it, was enough.
Now I feel the same about this property in Otara. I see this eventual set of buildings with gardens and trees not with a mineness that can be measured and sold but as a task that when completed leads to another task and given I've always fallen on my feet no matter how much I might have forgone the normal collection of stuff as saleable commodity then it just plain feels natural to simply do what wants doing without the tediousness of making something pay.
And it is tedious. There seems such a flood of goods available to us all in western society that even having to compete within that is just plain tedious. So I've been lucky enough that I don't have to. And there's no great flood of money behind me either that allows this, no pool of left over extravagance to dip into. It's simply that I don't hardly need any money whatsoever and can wander about in my little car every now and then and quite simply just pick up the building materials from the side of the road that I might need... and that I've collected up enough relatively required items, by others, that I can sell the odd load of stuff here and there for any money that might be required.
All of this adds up to being able to give it away, not now of course because the whole things just a big mess, but eventually I could just walk away.
It might then be a Monastery or it might just be an Artists retreat but it won't really matter to me what it's called. It'll simply be something I did and enjoyed as much as possible that in the end would allow me to walk off and do something else.
Tuesday, March 10, 2015
The young men and the tree.
Theres this thing going on at the moment where one 500 year old Kauri tree in Titirangi somewhere is being battled over by the Conservative environmentalists and the Liberal progressives, or Greenies and Developers, and it is my considered opinion that they will win the battle, saving this old soldier, but they aren't doing themselves any good as far as the war is concerned.
And it seems to me is this is kinda what it comes down to. Not only are they at war, the Greens, but the greatest mistake they have made is not stating this in it's entirety and that entirety likely is the re-greening of New Zealand, that as much as is humanly possible of the land of New Zealand is forested and that the smallest amount possible be set aside for humans to survive within and about this land doing what land does.
For without this defined victory, this place to go to as an actual real idea people can believe in and share, then all strategies to acheive this unspoken victory cannot serve anything except the disjointed ideals of the people fighting the battles.
The thing is that if this goes to Parliament, which at this moment seems to be the case, then it's obvious the tree will remain standing simply because the Liberal progressives who are now in power are fighting a war and they will easily forgo one soldiers sacrifice at their hands for the public display of benevolence they can be seen to make... and make it look like a grand gesture in accordance with the beliefs of those seeking to save the tree... this is tactics to win the war and not a strategy to win a battle.
The Greens however will see it as a victory to keep one of their soldiers still standing but it is and will be a hollow victory at best because if they were indeed knowing they were fighting a war and that this was merely a battle they'd acually be better served going the way of Martyrdom, losing the tree in a gushing of great moral anguish which, if played well, could result in a ground swell of understanding for their overall cause.
But they don't see it like that. They only see themselves as a cause celebre where the winning of medals for bravery might one day vanquish this obviously evil foe but it's empty because there is no stated cause and only celebre.
Image if you will that the Greens made consessions. That they used this felling of one single tree to set precedents. That they knew it was a hopeless mission, as in the soldier making the mission must die, and so made it count for as much as that single life possibly could.
Let's say that the timber from the tree must be made into lumber and that the lumber must be made into artworks to hang on the walls of the children's section in libraries and be reminders to us all of the sacrifice each and every tree makes to our well being. But as well that for the age of the tree to be felled that as many seedlings are planted to replace it, that 100 5 year old trees be planted for every 500 year old tree taken down.
Because this is what the Greens are actually up against. They who they fight for each single tree are already looking at other forests. They are at war and each battle serves battles yet to come which they realise too are often lost as soon as they become battles because the intention at the beginning for most of any objective is for it to be won by covert action.
Meanwhile the Greens seem only like a rag tag bunch of Che Guevara's looking for the medals to be won and the t-shirts to be worn which is really sad because the real Che knew it was a war.
The Greens need to read the Art of War and see that strategies are developed to suit tactics which are there to win a war and not get lost, as they do, in using strategy to define tactics which might in some way allow them to declare, at some stage, that it may actually be a war.
Battles make heroes but survivors win wars.
And it seems to me is this is kinda what it comes down to. Not only are they at war, the Greens, but the greatest mistake they have made is not stating this in it's entirety and that entirety likely is the re-greening of New Zealand, that as much as is humanly possible of the land of New Zealand is forested and that the smallest amount possible be set aside for humans to survive within and about this land doing what land does.
For without this defined victory, this place to go to as an actual real idea people can believe in and share, then all strategies to acheive this unspoken victory cannot serve anything except the disjointed ideals of the people fighting the battles.
The thing is that if this goes to Parliament, which at this moment seems to be the case, then it's obvious the tree will remain standing simply because the Liberal progressives who are now in power are fighting a war and they will easily forgo one soldiers sacrifice at their hands for the public display of benevolence they can be seen to make... and make it look like a grand gesture in accordance with the beliefs of those seeking to save the tree... this is tactics to win the war and not a strategy to win a battle.
The Greens however will see it as a victory to keep one of their soldiers still standing but it is and will be a hollow victory at best because if they were indeed knowing they were fighting a war and that this was merely a battle they'd acually be better served going the way of Martyrdom, losing the tree in a gushing of great moral anguish which, if played well, could result in a ground swell of understanding for their overall cause.
But they don't see it like that. They only see themselves as a cause celebre where the winning of medals for bravery might one day vanquish this obviously evil foe but it's empty because there is no stated cause and only celebre.
Image if you will that the Greens made consessions. That they used this felling of one single tree to set precedents. That they knew it was a hopeless mission, as in the soldier making the mission must die, and so made it count for as much as that single life possibly could.
Let's say that the timber from the tree must be made into lumber and that the lumber must be made into artworks to hang on the walls of the children's section in libraries and be reminders to us all of the sacrifice each and every tree makes to our well being. But as well that for the age of the tree to be felled that as many seedlings are planted to replace it, that 100 5 year old trees be planted for every 500 year old tree taken down.
Because this is what the Greens are actually up against. They who they fight for each single tree are already looking at other forests. They are at war and each battle serves battles yet to come which they realise too are often lost as soon as they become battles because the intention at the beginning for most of any objective is for it to be won by covert action.
Meanwhile the Greens seem only like a rag tag bunch of Che Guevara's looking for the medals to be won and the t-shirts to be worn which is really sad because the real Che knew it was a war.
The Greens need to read the Art of War and see that strategies are developed to suit tactics which are there to win a war and not get lost, as they do, in using strategy to define tactics which might in some way allow them to declare, at some stage, that it may actually be a war.
Battles make heroes but survivors win wars.
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