Art, UFOs, Truth?

Today I came across an online art magazine http://painters-table.com/.

I haven’t had the chance to have a good look at it yet but I did read Budd Hopkins’ obituary http://painters-table.com/blog/budd-hopkins-obituary-1932-2011 and a 2010 interview with Hopkins linked in the obituary.

He was a major UFO abduction investigator and author. I’d forgotten he was also an artist.

I can credit Hopkins for waking me up to the truth about UFOs and alien abductions. His book “Witness” was about a UFO abduction witnessed by a high ranking United Nations official. I found the whole story was beyond ridiculous.

It was clear to me that Hopkins was so caught up with the story that he had lost any sense of objectivity. For me that book was the final confirmation that so many UFO claims are media creations, or at least media driven. The majority of what we “know” about them is filtered through the subjective, often highly biased reporting of UFO “investigators”. The reported “truth” is usually far different to the objective truth of what actually happened. Somewhere between an actual experience and the end product of the published report there is a great deal of embellishment.

That embellishment may not be added to intentionally deceive; it could be that the reporter is driven more by the need to believe than by a desire for truth

Broken News

They’ve recently discovered that Ned Kelly had a skeleton but he kept it buried at Pentridge prison in Melbourne instead of in his closet.
DNA tests proved this – but I don’t think they’ve been able to prove he had a skull of his own. Someone else’s may have been substituted.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/ned-kellys-remains-found-20110901-1jmqi.html

Ned could have turned to art instead of crime but there were no government art grants at the time so he couldn’t exchange a $20,000 grant for uncirculated notes to be displayed under Perspex and given a price tag of up to $25,000.

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/arts/cash-artwork-sells-for-21350/story-fn9d3avm-1226126777761

More paintings

Here are two more of my paintings. Gloria has now joined me in this new creative outlet. Two of her paintings follow mine. The blue one at the end is a work in progress.

Mine:






And Gloria's:

Painting the Bible

I’ve taken up a new artistic pursuit: PAINTING.

I was encouraged to do this by a friend who has been painting for years. He paints Bible text on canvas with acrylic paint.

He also introduced me to a NZ artist Colin McCahon who painted many art works based on bible texts. One of his most significant works being Victory Over Death 2, a gift to the National Gallery Australia from the New Zealand Government.

I saw the painting almost by accident on a recent trip to the NGA and it was the most powerful artwork I’ve seen. Since that first viewing I’ve made a second visit to the gallery solely to see that one painting.

My own work is still in the practice stage, with many frustrations and disappointments. I’m trying to come to terms with both paint and canvas and at times I struggle. It should be easy to write text with paint – but its not. Here are some of my paintings so far – remember it is early days yet. Hopefully with practice I’ll improve.

Broken Body Shed Blood



In the Beginning


Way Truth Life.


Word of God



See here for details and images relating to Victory Over Death 2.

http://nga.gov.au/McCahon/1.cfm

http://www.mccahon.co.nz/cm001502

A Break in Beechworth

I may have done things differently if I’d visited Beechworth several years ago. Would I have chosen THAT town for my tree-change instead of the town I now call home?

Gloria and I recently stayed in Beechworth for a few days, living in a cottage that was over 150 years old. We both loved the town. It had historical character, with many of its old buildings in the main street retained. And it had natural beauty, set alongside stunning bushland with waterfalls and exposed rock visible from parts of the town.

Our first day started with some disappointment. We set out to explore and found most of the town was closed – the majority of businesses didn’t open until 10.00am. And one of the cafes we had hoped to try was on the market, and not currently trading. The weather was also unpredictable. It rained, the sun came out, and it rained again, making us change our plans to try a couple of guided walks run by the tourist information office.

It took us a few hours to get our bearings but the more we saw of the town, the more we started to enjoy the place. Highlights of our short holiday include visits to the Beechworth Honey Experience and The Potters Beechworth .

We made a few visits to each. The honey shop not only sold Beechworth Honey products, it had a very interesting video tour about their business, bee keeping, honey and the importance of bees. The series of short videos was very well presented and has made me want to find out more about the role bees play in maintaining the security of food supplies.

My interest in Beechworth Pottery started weeks ago when I bought two “One Tree Hill Pottery” vases from an antique shop. I wanted to find out more about the makers and an internet search introduced me to The Potters Beechworth which is run by the makers of One Tree Hill pottery. We spent a lot of time in their shop admiring their work and added some pieces to our small collection.

Another highlight of the town was its Farmer’s market. We were driving out of town on the way home when Gloria remembered we’d earlier seen the market being advertised. We turned around and drove back to the church where the market was being held. It left our local market for dead.

There was a good number and variety of stalls selling fruit and veggies, organic meat, preserves, olive oil, wines, art work and plants and attracted a lot of shoppers, contrasting significantly with our local farmers market which now has few stalls and few shoppers.

The atmosphere of the Beechworth market was enhanced by its location in the church grounds (ours is held in a public car park) and the ringing of the church bells definitely added to the experience.

Our holiday was not limited to time in Beechworth. We spent one day driving to neighbouring towns. My main plan was to visit Glenrowan, site of Ned Kelly’s failed stand against the authorities, but we managed to also fit in the antique shops of Chiltern, Rutherglen, and Benalla.

Glenrowan was a disappointment being mostly tourist shops exploiting the story of Ned Kelly. Two of them had their own museums dedicated to Kelly, but after seeing what was on offer I wasn’t prepared to pay the few dollars admission. Maybe it would have been worth the price, but I’ll never know.

We had been to the town about 20 years ago and had fond memories of being welcomed by a bearded man shouting “Howdy peoples!” while he handed out pikelets with cream and jam to arrivals parking in front of his café. That generosity led to us entering to have pumpkin soup and damper for lunch. Of course, after all this time the man was no longer there.

A couple of doors down the road is an animatronics show about Ned Kelly’s shootout with the police. Said to have cost millions to create, this is perhaps the most worthwhile attraction the town has on offer. It is a partly interactive experience using the same kind of technology of several Disneyland rides. We tried it during our earlier visit to the town and Gloria found it quite frightening, so we didn’t go in this time.

For me the highlight of Glenrowan was finally seeing the actual site where Kelly and his gang met their end. The location of Ann Jones’ Glenrowan Inn, where the gang were cornered by police, is now an empty block. It is signposted and has some naive sculptures of the Kelly gang beside it, but not much more to see: not even signs of a recent archaeological dig featured on an ABC TV documentary hosted by Tony Robinson of Time Team fame.

Around the area of the siege site are sign-posts and more naïve sculptures, giving details of various incidents associated with the Kelly shootout: including the police position and where Kelly was captured. Without these I would have found the visit to the town a waste of time.

It’s not a place I’m planning to visit again, having already seen the best of what the town has to offer (the animatronics show and the siege site). For someone who has never been to the town, a short detour from the Hume Freeway may be worth it for those experiences, but for myself, I’ve now seen enough.

There is still a lot of Beechworth and the surrounding area that we haven’t seen. We didn’t get to take the guided walks to find out about places of historical significance associated with the gold rush and the Kelly story. Those are things we’d like to try next time.

Until we have the opportunity to return, I’m sure we’ll continue to wonder whether Beechworth would have been a better choice when we moved from Sydney. But I suppose the differences between a short term holiday and a lifetime home are significant. At least we have discovered a very pleasant town suitable for an occasional escape from reality whenever we can take a break away from home.

Australian Art Glass Collection

A few days ago a visitor to one of my earlier posts expressed interest in Gloria's art glass collection. I found the following photos which may be of interest. I'll look at adding to these later (after I've taken more).


An overview of most of Gloria's collection of Art Glass. Mostly Australian but with a few pieces from the M'Dina and Isle of Wight Studios, established by Michael Harris.



Colin Heaney, Cape Byron Hot Glass.

This is the first piece of Australian art glass in Gloria's collection. It was bought from an Antique centre at Camperdown several years ago. Gloria was hoping to find a piece of John Ditchfield glass (British)after seeing a few pieces on the TV show Bargain Hunt. Instead she was shown this and loved it.









Two pieces by Sean O'Donohue purchased from Bellingen.









Another Colin Heaney. This oil burner was found at the Wagga Wagga Antique fair in 2009. We also saw an exceptional large Heaney vase, but the $2,000 price was way beyond our means - not to mention our willingness - to pay. We have since seen a Heaney vase selling for $7,000.

Lopping, Shopping, Birthdays and Bargains.

Our local council announced it would be conducting a pickup of green waste over the next week. It is the perfect opportunity to deal with some of those bigger pruning jobs and dispose of the waste unsuitable for the compost bin.
The announcement seems to have mobilised most of the town into gardening mode. I’ve never seen so many people in their gardens with secateurs, loppers and pruning saws, and roadsides are piled with prunings. In our street it looks like someone has been planting mature kerbside shrubs and gives an idea of what it could be like if the grass nature strips were replaced with verge-side plantings like those created by Josh Byrne on Gardening Australia.

To take advantage of the council pick up we decided to deal with a few things we’ve been putting off for a while. Between our place and next door we’ve had some kind of native tree with a collection of long skinny trunks topped with fine foliage and occasional creamy coloured brush-like flowers. There were two significant problems with the tree. Firstly it was planted on top of the water and gas pipes supplying the house. Secondly, parts of it were leaning over the neighbour’s place. The latter problem has been the reason it was left alone for so long. I didn’t want to hack away at it and have it fall through their roof.

After work on Friday I made a token attempt to cut some of it back, tackling some of the lower, untidy branches leaning over my neighbour’s property. On Saturday we went out for the day and on our return found that our neighbour had continued what I had started and had removed those parts hanging precariously over his house, leaving the remaining tree looking very untidy. Sunday therefore turned into a day of tree lopping and armed with a handsaw I spent a couple of hours cutting the tree back until I was left with five, two and a half metre high stumps. It took me 45 minutes to cut the first one down as low as I could and every muscle and joint was aching. I wasn’t looking forward to the other four stumps.
At that point the neighbour across the road started up a chain saw to attack his own garden and offered to come over and finish my job. Two minutes later and it was all done and all that remained was a stump barely 30 centimetres high.

All of this was much more work than we had intended to do, but at least a major job has been completed with a lot less effort than I’d expected.

Our day out on Saturday that allowed next door to make an assault on our tree was a trip to Canberra. We did a circuit of antiques shops and galleries hoping to find a bargain or two, and since it was Gloria’s birthday we had lunch in a café at Beaver Galleries opposite the Australian Mint. We’ve been to the gallery before to look at the art glass on display but we’d never been to the café.
We both ordered Vegetable Lasagne and were amazed at how good it was. At first the serving seemed a bit stingy, with a solitary rectangle of lasagne in the middle of the plate, but the value was in the tasting and the serving size was more than adequate to satisfy our appetite (which unfortunately led us to miss following up with a serving of one of the tempting cakes on offer).
Each layer of the lasagne contained a different type of veggie; with eggplant, yellow and red capsicum and zucchini being accompanied by a subtle but tasty tomato sauce. Additional flavour was provided by a spoon of green pesto on top. It was the kind of meal that makes you want to take your time and enjoy the different flavours in every mouthful.

Our shopping trip wasn’t quite as successful as the lunch, but for the second time we unexpectedly stumbled across a piece of Helmut Hiebl glass. Until recently Hiebl was a renowned and respected glassmaker with some of his work being held in Royal Collections. I have heard that poor health has caused him to stop practising his craft. The two pieces of his work we have found recently would probably be classed as paperweights. The first shaped like an apple was purchased without realising it was his work. It was signed but we didn’t recognise the signature until we got home and compared it to a piece we already owned. On Saturday we found another signed paperweight in the form of a mushroom, however this time I recognised the signature as soon as I saw it.
In the last couple of months we’ve had quite a bit of luck with finds of art glass. Gloria found a signed piece by Peter Crisp for a few dollars in a local antique shop; we found the two signed Helmut Heibl paperweights and also, the find that most excited me was an early signed piece by Setsuko Ogishi, made in 1984 while working at the Jam Factory Craft Centre in Adelaide prior to the 1987 opening of her own Hunter valley studio and gallery.
Awareness of an artist’s work and recognition of their signatures has allowed us to find pieces priced well below their real value, although (while appreciating the lower price) the real joy is in finding and recognising the piece in the first place.

---

photos:
1) roadside prunings
2) the remains of our heavily pruned tree.
3) the Palette Cafe
4) Maureen Williams glass from her exhibition at Beaver Galleries.

My Extravagant Imagination

It would be wonderful to have a lifestyle in which I no longer need to work full time in a job I don’t enjoy. Part of the (romanticised) appeal of self-sufficiency and frugality is to have more freedom to explore the things that interest me, providing an avenue to do something creative. But straight away I hit a problem – my imagination and its creative urges are not exactly frugal in nature.

What do I mean? Well let me point out some of the creative (and other) pursuits in which I’d love to indulge.

Music. For years I’ve wanted to play the fiddle. I have a large collection of recorded fiddle/violin music, mainly folk and traditional but including a little classical. I love the sound of the instrument and the variety of sounds and styles that it can create. A cheap “students” fiddle seems to cost a couple of hundred dollars but on top of that I would need lessons; but would it be worth it when I wouldn’t have anywhere to use those newly learned skills on a regular basis? I’m also not so sure I’d be satisfied with a student’s instrument. I’d want something a little classier that could double as a decorative item at home when not at use.

Astronomy. I’d love to have a decent telescope and a very dark place to use it. Unfortunately my house is exposed to a lot of artificial lighting from a nearby hospital car park so finding a good clear unpolluted spot isn’t easy. Also those decent telescopes can be very expensive. I still kick myself for not taking advantage of a very good discount being offered by Australian Geographic several years ago when I could have got a very good telescope for around half price. It even had an inbuilt computer to make the finding of stars and planets much easier. It was still expensive, but far more affordable than at full price.

Glass. Gloria has been collecting pieces of art glass for a while now and I’ve been trying to find out more about Australian Glass artists. We’ve visited the studios of some local glass artists and the creative process is fascinating and varied. From slumped glass, utilising a kiln and moulds to hot glass in which molten glass is blown or rolled into required shapes the results can be stunning.
It’s the kind of artwork I’d love to try for myself, but I’m sure the costs of setting up would be enormous. Not the kind of thing you could start on a whim.
Some glass artists offer short classes and the Glass Works in Canberra gives the beginner the opportunity to make their own paperweight or glass beads.
But returning to my extravagant imagination, I would not be satisfied with the short term solution of using someone else’s equipment. My dream would be to have my own studio and creating masterpieces that can be sold for a fortune. Definitely not practical – but that’s why I’ve been writing about an extravagant imagination instead of an extravagant reality.

Eventful Weekend.

Often weekends merely provide us with a welcome interruption to our weekly work schedule – replacing our days at the office with household chores; but some are more memorable than others.

Last Saturday and Sunday threw us a lot of surprises.

We drove to Wollongong to visit my parents. For most of Saturday nothing was out of the ordinary until a power cut interrupted our TV viewing. This would normally be a minor inconvenience, but my semi-invalid dad found himself stuck in his reclining chair. Stuck because it is operated electrically and he couldn’t lower the chair to allow himself to get out. It does have a battery back-up for such occasions but he had never bothered to install the battery.
Three of us had to wrestle with him (and the chair) to help him out.

Even though the power returned less than an hour later, we all decided to go to bed anyway. Gloria and I found it hard to settle because of a strange noise that repeated at regular intervals. We were staying in a room usually used by my young niece who has several talking toys in the room so we though one of them may have been playing up. Every 13 minutes we heard something/someone saying “Aha!!!”

After about an hour of puzzling over this our attention was drawn elsewhere by a series of loud explosions. Gloria opened the blinds and for the next 15-20 minutes we were entertained by a spectacular firework display courtesy of the nearby Buddhist temple as part of their Chinese New Year celebrations.

The next morning the mysterious “Aha!!!” was back and after another hour of investigation we discovered the culprit. There was an automatic insecticide spray on top of a book case and every 13 minutes it would attempt to expel a dose of its poison. However it seems to have been empty and could only emit a dry gasp.

We drove home later that day and ran into the kind of downpour that causes nightmares on the road. And it was a nightmare for some. We saw two separate accidents where cars had aquaplaned from the road and into the ditch between the northbound and southbound lanes of the Hume Highway. One the cars had rolled onto its roof and was being attended by an ambulance crew. We saw the Police Rescue racing to the scene a few minutes later.
Despite the obvious dangers due to wet roads and very poor visibility we still had trucks racing past us at high speeds.

The rain eased and the sun came out about half an hour later when we pulled off the Highway to visit the town of Gunning. We’d noticed a sign advertising an antique shop so we decided to have a look. Next door to that shop was an old movie theatre now being used as a book shop and art gallery. I can never resist looking for treasures in old book shops so we went in and looked around. Just inside the door was the old ticket office that the shop owner was using as his office/counter. He didn’t look up when we walked in.
To the back of the room was a set of stairs going up to the old projection room and we followed the signs that told us there was more to see upstairs. I brought Gloria’s attention to a painting by someone famous, Max Cullen, a man perhaps better known over many years for his acting rather than painting. The name wasn’t familiar to her but I said she’s definitely know him if she saw him because he’d been in a lot of Australian films and TV series.

We went back downstairs, Margaret left the shop and I spent a few more minutes looking. On the way out I looked across again at the owner. This time he looked up at me with a big bearded, smile – and it was Max Cullen himself.

The final surprise came when we arrived home.
It wasn't unexpected considering the downpour we'd experienced on the road. There was 67.5mm in our rain gauge.

Autograph Collector

Several years ago I started collecting autographs. It is a hobby that probably had its roots in my childhood when my parents bought me an autograph book while we were on holiday. The first entry in the book was the signature of a well known British comedian of the time who was performing in the town where we were staying. He very patiently waited as my mum searched her handbag for a pen. I’m surprised the experience didn’t become part of his comedy routine as my mum pulled all manner of things from the bag as she tried to find the pen she knew was somewhere in there…

I’m not sure why I renewed my interest in recent years. Maybe it was because I’d accumulated several signed items and realised that I was the owner of a small collection. That realisation became the motivation to add to what I already owned.

Like many hobbies, collecting autographs can be a very expensive hobby to pursue. There’s always someone trying to get us to part with our money. It all depends on how extreme we are willing to be. At first I was a bit too extravagant and spent quite a lot obtaining signed photographs of Hollywood stars such as Arnold Schwarzenegger, Bruce Willis, Keanu Reeves, Sigourney Weaver, Winona Ryder and others. That initial obsessive burst came to an end when I realised I could not justify spending that kind of money on things that had no real value. I also became aware that there was a much more satisfying way to increase my collection.

I now want to share some of those ways.

Firstly my collection is more or less focussed. While I wouldn’t turn down the opportunity of obtaining a worthwhile signature I concentrate on areas that interest me and restrict my active pursuit of autographs to those areas of interest.

My collection consists mainly of authors and country singers/musicians. I also have several sporting autographs which came about mainly through working for a company that sponsored several Olympic swimmers like Grant Hackett.

Very rarely would we regularly stumble across celebrities in our daily lives, so we need some way of contacting those in whom we have an interest. The more high-profile the celebrity, the less likely it will be that attempted contact will succeed.
After turning from my earlier extravagance most of my autographs have been obtained through the following methods.

Meet and greet opportunities after concerts. Many of my country music autographs were obtained in this way. The most profitable single occasion was a music “expo” which featured several artists performing prior to spending time meeting fans. Keith Urban also made a brief appearance here in the very early days of his solo success in America. This event was not restricted to the country genre. My daughter was also able to meet the members of Killing Heidi, a band she liked at the time.
I have found that country artists tend to be very generous to their fans. Maybe it’s because their genre does not have the profile given to commercial “radio-friendly” music. Australian country artists have also been accessible through in store appearances. If you can’t personally attend, some stores will allow you to purchase signed merchandise through mail order. Similar opportunities arise quite regularly in the literary world. Major book stores and publishers will hold book signings to promote newly published books. When I worked in Sydney the major book stores would often host visiting authors at signing events. Again if you are unable to attend, the stores will often take mail orders of signed books.

Apart from these public commercial events, I have had success through writing directly to a celebrity of interest. With musicians and authors this is usually done via their record company or publisher. Some of these are more helpful than others. I have always found MacMillan to be a very helpful publisher who in the past has forwarded correspondence to the intended author.


AUTHORS

A valuable resource for finding addresses has been the local library's copy of Who’s Who. Included in its brief biographical details the book often provides a mailing address. Most of the times I used that resource resulted in a signed reply including one from the cricket great Don Bradman.

One of the most memorable signatures I obtained personally was actress Geena Davis. She competed in an exhibition archery event prior to the 2000 Sydney Olympics. I was fortunate enough to be working nearby at the time and was able to call in to see her compete during my lunch break and was more fortunate to meet her on two separate days. The illustration at the beginning of this blog entry is a compilation made up of media photos, her autograph and a photo I took of her competing.

TOP TEN BOOKS

Over the years I have compiled a list of my top ten books. So far I have only found three that made the grade.

To qualify, a book needs to appeal to certain unspecified criteria. Unspecified because I, myself, am not sure what they are. All I know is that a book has "IT" - or at least had "IT" at the time when it was read.

The thing about this top ten (three), is that a book doesn't necessarily have to appeal to me now. My tastes have probably changed and what once appealed may no longer interest me in the slightest.

Well, after that preamble - the books.

1)Dune by Frank Herbert.
I read this some time around 1976 and immediately after I'd finished it, I started reading it again. I was thrilled to find there were sequels and looked forward to continuing the story through the subsequent volumes. However, despite several attempts I never was able to get all the way through the second, Dune Messiah - despite it being the smallest of the series.

2) That Eye The Sky by Tim Winton.
I read this some time in the 80s. I enjoyed its Australianness and the use of Australianesque narrative voice. I've tried to read this again, but have never managed to stick with it. Maybe it's like that first cup of coffee. It's always better than the second.

3) Dracula by Bram Stoker.
A relatively late entry, read some time in the early 90s. I'm not sure whether I saw the Coppola film first and that led me to stick with the book after several failed attempts in earlier years. However, I finally succeeded and felt the book was worthy of addition to this list.

What do these three different novels have in common? The only thing I can see is a type of spiritual content. Each deals with spirituality in a different way, yet it's a dominant feature of all three. They don't necessarily contain spiritual ideals worthy of aspiration - but they spoke to a hunger for that "something more" that we all experience at some times in our lives. Even if they were fictionalised explorations - they at least gave that vicarious satisfaction that great fiction can give us during the time we immerse ourselves in it.

Maybe others don't see them as great fiction - that's fine. You can all compile your own top ten books, and maybe you'll be able to include more than the three that made my list.

Changing Tastes

What factors determine our sense of artistic taste?
Why do we prefer one style of music and not another? What makes an art work appealing to one person and not to someone else?

Why are some people more rigid than others in their appreciation (or not) of certain art forms?

I can see through my own life that tastes can change and develop significantly over the years. Musical styles that I once disliked have grown on me, and others that I once liked now make me cringe.

For example, I no longer consider that the Partridge Family are the pinnacle of musical excellence.

No matter how much my taste has changed, nostalgia remains. I still have some affection for 70s glam rock - but not for the same reason that attracted me to it back then. In fact I'm not sure WHY it appealed to me in my teens. I guess that brings things back to my original question - what determines what we like?

Are our tastes developed gradually? Do we progress along a particular route a small step at a time? Are they formed like stalagmites and stalactites in a limestone cave - where exposure to something, an addition to our experience, slowly builds up until it becomes a newly developed obsession?

Or is there a right place, a right time and a right mood - where several factors all swing together in alignment to make something become suddenly relevant and meaningful?

My own musical "progression" (as far as I can remember)

Pre-teens (60s pop)
The Beatles
The Dave Clark Five

Early Teens (the quantum leap)
The Partridge Family
Deep Purple

Mid - Late Teens (Glam Rock)
Suzi Quatro
The Sweet
Queen
Kate Bush

Late Teens - Late Twenties (First Christian era)
Larry Norman
Barry McGuire

Late Twenties -Late Thirties (The Irish and folk-punk, traditional period)
U2
Waterboys
The Pogues
Roaring Jack
The Men They Couldn't Hang
Capercaillie
The Levellers
Eliza Carthy
Kate Rusby
Nancy Kerr
Oysterband


Late Thirties to Late Forties (Country music)
Chely Wright
Lorrie Morgan
Suzi Bogguss
Lee Kernaghan
Adam Brand
Melinda Schneider
Sara Storer

Late Forties -part 2 (Second Christian era)
Matt Redman
Rebbeca St James
Delerious?
Soul Survivor