I have been wondering why I draw. I have been wondering why anyone draws or writes poetry or performs and tells stories. Or is a comedian. Or writes books and makes massive sculptures, chooses to be an opera singer, gets a garage band going and graffiti’s the side skin of a train.
This is a can of worms kind of question. For me, artists, arts funding and the arts consuming public have layers and side roads and dark alleys. There are shouting artists, silent artists, annoying artists and huge ego artists. Emerging artists [ I think everyone is] and mid-career artists – what does that mean? – and so probably end of career artists. It’s pretty good that the arts are a bit more “around” while the ABC has subsumed the art show into another “Creative” site. Blame the internet and instagram I guess.
But I am working to be an artist that makes art that I love and do the hard yards of making to improve the message from brain to hand. I read and look at Kentridge’s work almost daily – I collect his books, can’t afford his art- and read up on Ai Wei Wei and have discovered a new guru in Andrey Tarkovsky. What a film maker poet! And graffiti writers – concept, risk, mark making, ephemerality. All these are my teachers.
I am learning from life and focussed on life givers. It is a journey with no end.
[The above photo I took while the Lord Mayor of Brisbane was opening a skate park mural I coordinated with Jugglers and BCC in 2014. A moment in time that would never be repeated again when my name slid past the opening event.]
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