Togart Contemporary Art Awards 2013

25 September 2013

Yesterday I went to theTogart Contemporary Art Awards 2013, a regional prize for an area which has the highest per capita  number of artists in Australia. The artists must have some connection to the Northern Territory either as a resident or ex resident. The exhibition is a celebration of the diversity of the Northern Territory.

 Penny Rose Wiggins

 ’Landings’ Oil on a found object.

A New Zealander whose great grandfather was presented with a sacred paddle when he returned home wounded from Gallipoli. The paddle represents her own journey to northern Australia and reminds her of her past.

 Trevor Jenkins

‘Art Isn’t Art Isn’t’ Multi-media, video, found objects, sizes various.

‘Trevor is a homeless Christian activist who at times creates disturbances around Darwin by being poor and making no excuses.’

p44 Togart Contemporary Art Awards Catalogue 2013.

Trevor collects rubbish, man after my own heart and turns it into temporary works of public art. Classified as a Darwin character he is known as the Rubbish Warrior.

Mike Gillam
‘Before the Firestorm’ Digital image

An Alice Springs resident he captures the departure of a flock of budgerigars from a dead tree fleeing the oncoming fire which will burn fiercely because of the introduction of buffel grass, originally a native of Asia and Africa, now changing the landscape of the north.

Nancy McDinny

‘Story of Mayawagu’ Acrylic on linen.Nancy was born in the Gulf of Carpentaria and painted the story of her great grandfather, Mayawagu, who actively resisted the invasion of pastoralists. The painting shows an incident when he escaped wounded from police and trackers who wanted to arrest him. Paul Foelsche, an inspector of police, 1870-1904, who masterminded the massacres of hundreds of Aboriginal men, women and children is honoured by having a river named after him. Nancy McDinny would like to see that river re-named Mayawagu River.

Sonia Kurarra

‘Martuwarra’ Acrylic on linen

Sonia paints the sandy billabong country which runs behind Nookanbah where she now lives and used to help at the kindergarten teaching children art. This painting shows swimming and fishing in the Fitzroy River.  She has depicted parlka (barramundi), nganku, (shark), wirritunany (swordfish) sting-ray, wakiri (pandanus) and kalputu (water snakes). 

this morning

22 September 2013

In the rainforest this morning, clouds have dismissed the sun and among the trunks, leaves and tangled undergrowth there is a greenish gloom. We are not alone. More of our species are represented. Morning walkers cling to their coffee cups as if they are life preservers in a the green ocean. A stick falls close to me and leaves as small as a staple plit! plit! plit! onto the page. Black pipe as thick as your arm pythons its way through the undergrowth into places only reptiles would go. 

Other writers have been here. Writing accounts of friendships, love lost and found, incest, relationship status and  Kiara B was here.

Someone has turned on the waterfall God or a gardener?

I want it to be God, it’s Sunday after all. The water begins to drip, leak, trickle, then fall over the rocky ledge as it will all day until sunset. A botanic garden miracle.

The water falls onto itself. Rocks will be worn away. The ferns have died en masse.

monsteria deliciosa grow wild

Kaye Aldenhoven

eat or be swallowed

21 September 2013

This morning was the third of four en plein air writing sessions, in the George Brown Darwin Botanic Gardens. We are meeting under the George Brown Eco House which is in the Snakebean Community Gardens near the Orientation Centre, Geranium Street entrance. We start at 7.30am walk to a writing space, tomorrow maybe the sensory garden or the rainforest, maybe there will be a choice. Write for half an hour then share writing with the group. Bring a light chair for real comfort. Afterwards there is a possibility of tea or coffee.

• ·         It is free.
• ·         Everyone welcome.
• ·         Ring or text me if you have any questions 0439 990 862.

Today we went into the rainforest and you are grabbed by growth, rot, eat or be swallowed. Everything is giant, over, super-sized. Layers of leaves drink the sunlight and if any thin fingers of light reach the forest floor they are quickly sucked up by a shadow into the green medley.

It rains in the rain forest, this is the season it rains leaves, blossoms, fruit, nuts, seeds sticks, and branches. I am in the forest and I hear them. 

growth rot, eat or be swallowed

the green medley

layers of leaves drink the sun

a poet captures the rainforest

Was that you crocodile?

18 September 2013

Fogg Dam is a place once someone thought it was a good idea to grow rice. The magpie geese clapped their feathery wings, that was the best idea they had heard in eons. They flocked in their thousands to the free food thoughtfully provided by rice farmers. That was the beginning of war, Man v Geese. Men had the fire power but geese had the numbers and although men stood shoulder to shoulder shooting all day (so said the guide at Beatrice Hill) still the geese came wave after wave. It was the avian version of the Zulu war and it wasn’t long before the vanquished packed up their rifles and left the birds to it. This is Northern Territory history or maybe that should be birdstory….just sixty five years ago.

A sign marks the irrigation channel but I imagine that not that many wet seasons of geological time will see the scar dissolve into the landscape, some cross hatchings have already gone.

There is a crocodile in the dam a sort of reverse of the Antoine de Saint-Exupéry ‘Little Prince’, that somewhere in the desert hides a well…. somewhere in paradise hides a crocodile. There must surely be more than one ,oh yes of course, but this one is big, really big. It doesn’t pay to be big, really big. A trap is set. A cormorant dries its wings, a cruciform on the top of the trap making the trap some sort of holy place but the big croc won’t be lured and hasn’t been caught yet.

We spot all the ibises straw neck, sacred, and glossy, egrets — their necks go on and on, brolgas —a little shy, comb crested jacana —the lily leaf walker, a harrier probably swamp, mobs and mobs of pygmy geese, willy wag tail and mudlarks — speaking the same language right across Australia, cormorants large and small, kingfishers — looking out on power lines, corellas and always kites.

Before sunset the lotus provided bright spots to the landscape, fat buds the colour of young nipples looked as if they were going to burst into something substantial but when they bloomed they were soft and as light as spider’s webs and lifted in every breeze. When they fell they floated, became pink boats on pink water as the sunset.

The dead leaves of the lotus rattled. Was that you crocodile?

And my sky-porn from the night http://sky-porn.blogspot.com.au/ Visit to see more Territory sky-porn.

Thanks to Kaye Aldenhoven for giving so generously of her time and the divine evening watching birds and another Territory sunset.

Thanks to Amanda Joy for the cormorant and the cruciform. Check her poetry chapbook here http://mullamullapress.com/orchid-poems

Bad Karma

Monday 16 September

‘No stealing! No stealing! No stealing our vegetables!’ — a child’s voice in the community gardens.

In my stilted house 

woken by the spit-spit-spit of sprinklers

the wet drum of water 

on broad leaves 

I watch the visitors 

from behind slotted dark glass

in a house that should be empty 

I am a secret.

Thieves bold as daylight pluck 

eggplant

snakebeans

Brazilian spinach 

and make a getaway.

I see the thieves 

and become one.

I take tomatoes 

smooth skins explode under the crush of my teeth

my taste buds exclaim -  

this fruit is real.

Now I have two cherry tomatoes worth of bad karma.

I have an eye on a chilli 

I see it is hot for me!

  http://www.parksandwildlife.nt.gov.au/botanic/friends/snake-bean-garden#.UjZop8amhPI

My residence

The kitchen - last night I caught a glimpse of the resident mouse.

 Lounge with welcome vase of ginger flowers. My desk with NT News.

Bedroom -  where all night sounds are recorded by my hypersensitive hearing especially the bird which cries 'Halp! Halp! Haaaaaalp!!!' 

Bathroom. I am yet to get a pic of the tree frog in the toilet which gave me a 'You are in the Territory now' reminder on the first night.

Louvered view from my desk.

Community Gardens from the back stairs.

View in the other direction from the back stairs.

till it's gone

13 September 2013

‘You don’t know what you’ve got till it’s gone.’ 

Big Yellow Taxi’ Joni Mitchell

Spent yesterday writing answers to an interview. Question Number One — Over all, what purpose do you believe poetry serves in 2013? Is it speaking a language that finally will be heard?

‘Good grief,’ I mutter,’ Do the questions have to be so hard?! These are going to be questions I have to think about.‘ This might make my brain hurt.

So after much cross hatching and deleting, I think I said — in 2013 poetry holds actual conditions, the personal and political to the light for examination. Uses language to explore ideas, beliefs and experiences hoping to arouse the listener or the reader to a new level of understanding of themselves each other and the world we live in.

Is it speaking a language that finally will be heard?

‘Finally? Poetry is already heard’, I mutter.

At weddings, birthdays, funerals, in hospitals to facilitate healing, not to forget lovers to each other. Poems are written every day by ordinary people inspired by their niece’s 18^th birthday. It is the basic block of storytelling, the heart of a nursery rhyme, it was and still is one method to pass it on and on and on.

But there was more and I need to talk to someone I rang my friend and poet Zan Ross http://www.apinetwork.com/main/index.php?apply=reviews&webpage=api_reviews&flexedit=&flex_password=&menu_label=&menuID=homely&menubox=&Review=5352

‘Let’s just talk this one out’ I said, ‘What does language and expression, as a whole, represent to you?’

‘Freedom!’ she cried down the phone like a warrior, a foot soldier, a fighter.

‘Free to say what I want when I want however I want, free to express myself. Some poets don’t have that freedom some poets are jailed tortured and die seeking that freedom.’

I thought what it would be like to not be able to record how I thought or felt. What would my life be like if I could not express myself through my craft, if I couldn’t write this blog. Maybe those with freedom don’t think too often about such things. Maybe some things are taken for granted.

And then to add more drama to the day the twitterverse exploded with the breaking of the Australian poetry plagiarism scandal. Poets rang, texted, emailed, asking can this be true? Answer: Yes it is. 
http://www.smh.com.au/entertainment/books/plagiarism-the-word-that-cant-be-uttered-20130913-2tpha.html

Now my brain really did hurt.

What happened in the night?
I heard a voice saying: Can you find your way out? But it could have been a dream.

At first I was afraid...

10 September 2013

‘At first I was afraid. I was petrified ‘

 I Will Survive by Freddy Perren and Dino Fekaris

What a night in the George Brown Eco House. It was a night with life - it lived, not like my woollen blanket desert nights that fit flat over you, fillyour ears with wool, muffling any sound or movement - desert animals have padded paws and low voices. The tropical night is filled with sound. It rushes in as if the setting sun has created a vacuum. Everyone is screaming. All living things suddenly find themselves in the dark and react as if they has never seen it before. Alarmed, they blunder about in the undergrowth fall from perches, crash into water, blind, crazed  and screaming. Murder is being committed out there in the dark. Trees fall apart branches, bark, husks, fruit, smash and clatter down , chaos in the night. And my eyes like automatic doors open and shut with every unknown rustle and crash .

I arrived on the morning flight from Perth after being placed like a parcel in the Standby Passengers Only area until I was given the golden ticket to board flight QF792 to Darwin. The plane was full of men all going to work, they were clean and neat, oil and gas men. It was hard not to compare them to the plane load I had travelled with from the goldfields, a grubby lot, some still in hi viz with dirt on their boots, gold dust under their fingernails. Differing kinds of mining men.

I sat next to bloke who ordered beer after breakfast. Ah yes I am on my way to the Territory - gateway to the outback, place where some pack their addictions and go to hide from wives, relations, themselves, the law. All I had to worry about was my luggage and if it would arrive in Darwin with me or would I join those with lost luggage stories and have to whip off to Target for a fresh set of undies while my bag flew around Australia but the system worked and there was my bag on the carousel and Kaye Hall from the Northern Territory Writers Centre http://ntwriters.com.au/new-nt-writers-centre-website/waiting to greet me.

George Brown Eco House is in the George Brown Darwin Botanic Gardens http://www.parksandwildlife.nt.gov.au/botanic The botanic garden staff were welcoming and presented me with keys, tea, coffee sugar and phone numbers. The house is a typical pre Tracey louvered  house, on stilts light, airy and welcoming surrounded by community gardens filled with a variety of vegetables and pawpaw trees. Beyond these gardens is the botanic gardens, a collection of tropical orchids, bromeliads, a rainforest walk, Tiwi wet forest and a collection of African baobab species. I can’t wait to visit every feature of the gardens which were destroyed by Tracey (everyone knows Tracey don’t they? http://www.naa.gov.au/collection/fact-sheets/fs176.aspx) and resurrected by George Brown the botanic gardens curator and Lord Mayor of Darwin 1992 – 2002

sea breeze cools

brahminy kites wheel

smudged blue sky

burn off season

an end or a beginning