Achievement Unlocked: Mural Installed

Oh, just in case you thought the blog was just a bunch of boring travelogues and pretty pictures, here's... um... a bunch of pretty pictures!

I've been meaning to post this for a while; way back when I started the blog, I mentioned that I was helping finish off a couple of murals started by the mural painting group I used to work for. Well, one of the murals found an installation site (after the original site was no longer available) and is now ready for the world to see!

Okay, so it's not perfectly flat, in fact they had to fold it over the corner of a building to make it fit. But hey, everybody's doing 3D these days, why not a mural?
And there's a tree in the way, but it's not completely obstructed...
And there's a fence around it too... and hardly anyone goes around that side of the building -

Oh, never mind. It's UP, it's FINISHED, and it LOOKS GREAT dammit!

This mural, if you remember, was the one commissioned by the local Lions Club, to illustrate the history of the Moe-Newborough region. It's meant to look like a big wall full of historical photographs and memorabilia. (On one of the panels, you can actually see a picture of people looking at the actual wall!)



Depicted in front of the photo wall are a number of antique items, such as oil-burning lamps, clocks, photo frames and radios.



The images depict various parts of the region's history and important local landmarks, many of which no longer exist. There are also antique portraits and vintage advertisements among the displayed items.



The mural also pays tribute to the many social clubs and community groups who have lent aid to the region over the years.



The mural went through many changes and alterations during its creation, including the addition of an extra panel on one end! It was originally to be installed at a totally different site, but the deal fell through, and the mural's fate was in limbo until the current site owner agreed to accept it for permanent display.

Oh, if you want to see it in person, it's located within the Gippsland Heritage Park (formerly Old Gippstown), on the westermost point of Moe, Victoria. Oddly enough, the heritage park is itself represented in the mural; the Gippsland Motor Garage shown in the picture above can also be found inside the park!

To view the rest of the album, click here, and enjoy!

So Long, November

And so, another month runs away from us all. Only 25 days to Christmas, and 31 before the year leaves us for good. It really does feel like time moves so much faster now!

So, here's a quick-ish recap of what I got up to in the last month:

---

I slowly got the hang of my new job. The manager said that I was the fastest person they'd ever seen at adapting to the registers, which made them happy (they are essentially the same register system that they had at the last place). However, I only wish I could have translated that same success to the rest of the tasklist; it's been so damn difficult trying to work out which knowledge I need to keep, and which skills I'm better off forgetting. The good news is that I have been improving and getting more stuff done over the month, which makes me happy.

---

I went and visited my friend in Warragul twice - the first time I had to leave early so I could cover someone's "sickie" at short notice. (That in itself was kinda weird, since I was still in the middle of training at that stage and felt totally out of my depth, but it was only a short shift and I managed fine.)
...The second visit to my friends was much better. We spent most of the day fooling around like friends do; we had a go at making soft drinks with a Soda Stream system, which I'd never seen in action and was very curious (long story short - it's just fizzed up water with sugary syrup added to it).
Then we tried to figure out what kind of animal was making these small holes in the backyard:

We assumed that they were yabbies (small freshwater crayfish-type animals) except that these holes were too far away from a watersource for that to make sense; didn't stop my friend from trying to coax one out by ramming a big stick into the hole.

Needless to say, it didn't really work. Maybe they were yabbies on holiday, or something. Or maybe there are bits of crustacean mashed two-foot deep into the ground... who can tell?

---

I was supposed to go up and visit my Dad in Queensland near the end of the month, but had to defer it until January thanks to the new job - which I was happy with. I figured I'd have to put it off even before I'd had the job interview! (I hated putting my Dad out like that, but he didn't seem to mind so much; so long as I still go up and visit him... eventually.)

---

I'm still having some issues adjusting to the new hours I'm keeping. I'm meant to be working from 11pm to 7am, four days a week. That basically means I sleep through the better part of the day - unless something wakes me up, like the bloody phone ringing >:{ - so when my "weekend" comes up, I have the option of either keeping my nighttime schedule, or trying to break the cycle and get at least something out of the natural daytime. So far, I've been keeping the latter, mostly to fulfill the obligations I've been making to others, but also because it's damn annoying only doing stuff at night!
Also, I've been noticing a residual tiredness, which has been affecting my sense of judgement slightly.

---

I also caught up with my friends from the days of the mural project. It had been several months since we'd last gathered, and I wasn't sure how much longer I would be available now that I had a job again - as it turned out, no major problem on my part, but have you ever tried to synchronise the schedules of more than three people?
Anyway, I'd been meaning to ask the art director of the project if I could buy one of her works of art - specifically one of her ink-brush pictures, of which she'd done an entire series a few years ago - and so, after perusing her collection, she surprised me by giving me this:

I naturally went straight to the picture framing place and had it professionally mounted. It's now on the wall above my computer desk, and I'm looking at it right now!

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I went to the Gem, Bottle and Collectibles Expo last week. It's basically a big room full of people showing off their wares, which happen to be items of a sought-after nature (gemstones, collectible books, vintage bottles, stamps, swapcards, etc.) and for some reason I felt it necessary to spend quite a bit of money in there. I came out with some old Coca-Cola glass bottles, of the kind I barely even remember (this is going back about thirty years, before soft drinks started being sold in plastic bottles); my uncle collects Coca-Cola stuff, so he will be very pleased when he gets those.
The rest of the stuff I got was basically ROCKS, but at least they were attractive rocks. If I'd been interested at the time, I could have asked what some of them were, but that takes away from the challenge of discovery, of course! What's the value of saying "Here's a nice piece of chalcopyrite" without having the research to back it up, anyway?

---

And... now it's December, and I turned 32 this year. When did this happen?!? insert sound of premature mid-life crisis
But seriously, though... this year my birthday was good.
I went out for lunch with my family, and then I helped my Ma out with her Christmas shopping, which basically involved following her around and acting as a sounding board for gift ideas - "Do you think your sister would like these pearl earrings? How about we get her a hot tub?" and so on and no, those were not actual ideas.
It was rather weird, though. While we were out and about, we kept running into people who remembered me from my previous job, and they were so friendly and asked me how I was doing [fine, thanks] and if I'd scored a new job yet [yes, actually] and about how those dreadful [people from country I won't name] weren't running the old shops very well, and so on...
And my Ma thought it was so funny that it kept happening wherever we went, it became a kind of running joke, to the point where people were just saying "Oh, hello Ben!" to me on the street!
Who knows, maybe it was some Birthday Mojo thing... Anyway, once we'd got back off the street and away from my audience, we cleaned up and went out for dinner at a bistro-type place, which was also nice. And then, we went home and had cake! And then tried our hands at Beatles RockBand! (once we figured out how to make it work in two-player, that is)
And then... well, I came online and posted about it all here! And so... goodnight!

Neb's Big Day in the Big City, Part Five

Skip to Part One of this topic by clicking here.
Otherwise you'll be reading this all back to front and that would be silly, now, wouldn't it?

We had spent so long waiting to get inside the exhibition that a minor problem came up - none of us had eaten a solid meal for nearly five hours. We had brought snacks and nibbles, but we had expected to go somewhere for lunch afterwards; we hadn't anticipated the long waiting time to get into the Gallery.

One of my friends has trouble with her metabolism; she needed to eat something immediately, or else she would likely faint. I did not want to leave her on her own, so I gave her a muesli bar that I had in my pocket, told her to eat it and wait outside for me, and I would try to find my other two friends in the exhibition to tell them we were going to wait outside for them.

Sounds like a good plan, right? Er... didn't quite work out that way.

First, I had to find either one of my friends. Simple enough in theory, but I had to:
a) find at least one of them in a huge crowd of people, most of whom were walking in the opposite direction
b) do it quickly, since I had someone waiting outside for me
c) try to have a good last look at the art, while I still could, and
d) try not to look suspiciously like an art thief. Silly, I know, but remember, there were several small and valuable pieces of jewellery in this exhibition as well, and I happened to be wearing a jumper with a big pocket in the front!

I have no idea how I managed to get around without getting arrested. I managed to walk back and forth across the entire exhibition space, several times, all the while looking agitated and distracted. I caught the eye of several of the security staff, and tried to look apologetic - I'm sure many of them paid close attention to me... or was it my imagination?
Anyway, I finally found one of my friends, who had no idea where the other person was - big surprise. I passed on the message, told them not to worry and take their time looking at the art, and promptly said my goodbyes to Dalí. Until next time...

Out in the foyer, my friend had wolfed down the nut-bar, but still needed something substantial to eat. She didn't really want to buy something from the Gallery cafe, as it was kinda pricey, but I'd promised my friends inside the show that we would wait for them inside (since I still had their train tickets).
In the meantime, I went to the Gallery shop to try and hunt down some posters and stuff, and bought the Liquid Desire program. At least that way, I could appreciate the art in my own time, and preferably without a bunch of people standing in front of it. ;)

After waiting about fifteen minutes, we decided, bugger it, let's eat something here. We sat and ate, with a view of the exhibition's exit so that we could catch our friends on the way out.
After another few minutes went by, with no sign of our art-bound friends, I tried calling their mobile phones to check their progress - no reply. Instead, I received a message from my sister, who had spent the afternoon with her partner enjoying the view from Southbank. They were at Federation Square; what were we doing now?
I replied: "We just came out of the show, and are waiting for X and Y to come out. Did you want to come over to the Gallery and wait with us?"
Their response: "Yep! See you soon!"

Ha ha ha. Nice and simple, right? Not quite. You see, the Gallery had thoughtfully extended their opening hours to allow all the extra people who showed up a chance to actually see the art. Unfortunately, they had sold the last tickets at about 3.30pm, and after 5pm, they locked the entrance doors to the public. We could get out, but no-one could get in.
I had not realised this. And soon, I saw my sister through the water-wall, but there was very little I could do to actually get to her.
She: "Are you coming out? It's freezing out here!"

Oops.

So now, we had to:
a) wait for our friends to come out of the show (who were expecting us to be waiting for them inside the foyer, and were not answering their phones), and
b) get out to our friends waiting outside. Oh, and let's not forget
c) get to Flinders Street Station in time for our train home!

Hahaha!!! Remember, back in Part One, how I said I could start to relax? Well, I stopped relaxing right about now. {=(

I checked the timetable, and realised that our train would not leave until well after the Gallery had closed, so all we had to do was wait out the front, and eventually the last two stragglers would get the hint. At this point, I regretted telling them to "take their time".
And it was getting cold outside.

Naturally, it all worked out in the end.
The last two members of our party were among the last people to leave the exhibition - trust them to get their money's worth! It turned out, both of them had brought their mobile phones with them, but they were in their bags, which were in the baggage claim room... X|
But they finally came out and joined the rest of the world, and we all made it to the station on time.
I managed to take a few quick photos of the city on the way to the station:

The rest are in my Nature Photos Album (which I'll admit is stretching the definition of Nature a bit, but I'll fix it up later, okay?).

On the way back home, we stopped by our friend's place for a bowl of Post-Dalí Soup and Banana Bran Muffins (with Compulsory Tea. My friend is British, you know).

And, that's it!

I would like to thank the following for their help in making this trip of a lifetime possible. Is so a trip of a lifetime! Well, it bloody well felt like it.

• Salvador Dalí and his wife Gala, for producing the art, and giving us a reason to go and see it.
• The National Gallery of Victoria, for hosting the Liquid Desire exhibition. Also, for staying open the extra time to allow all the other late patrons a chance to see this beautiful art.
  
• The staff of NGV, for being incredibly patient and putting up with hundreds - no, thousands of people over the last few days of the show. I heard from many sources who went to see the art that it wasn't merely the last day that was so busy. There had been a huge crowd of people as far back as the Tuesday before! Eeep. No wonder they all looked a little frayed at the edges! Credit plus to all of you.
• V/Line, for getting us to Melbourne and back on time. Beats driving there and back, that's for sure.
  
• My co-workers at the shop; thank you very much for covering my absence, though you probably didn't realise why I'd taken the day off. I didn't want to have to drop a Sunday shift, because I know how hard it is working a weekend with the limited staff we have at the moment, but it seems that everyone else I know has the notion of the weekend being free time! Who comes up with these crazy ideas?!
  
• My friends Katie, Trish and Andrew, for experiencing the art with me. I know not all of you thought it was worth the trip, but trust me - you would have regretted not coming to see it. Next time, we'll not leave it to the last minute, okay? ;)
  
• Krissy and Drew - sorry you didn't stick around! You missed some awesome stuff. But I knew you couldn't stand around in a queue all afternoon (not entirely sure how we managed it ourselves), so I'm glad you guys made the most of your day. Also, sympathy for those who wanted to come, but had to pull out at the last minute.
  
• Ma and Ray, for minding my nephew for us, so Krissy and Drew could come up and see Dalí with us. Well, you know how that turned out. ;D Next time, I'll honour my promise to steal a Renoir for you. And by steal, I mean "buy a print of".
  
• Everyone else in the queue, who would probably have to be the most well-behaved and patient crowd of people I've ever seen, and indeed been part of. It proves to me that Art really does civilise people!

So much for art, hey? But, I still have to see this painting, so...

Someday...

Neb's Big Day in the Big City, Part Four

...or, What I Thought Of The Dalí Exhibition.

I remember that the first thing we saw was video screens depicting the countryside where Dalí grew up. The strange, weather-eroded stone grouping that clustered around the fishing village were the inspiration for many of Dalí's landscapes. It was nice, but I wanted to see some art, not some rocks! Get a move on, people!!!

And then we realised: we had spent the entire afternoon queueing up for the show, so we'd got stuck into the "single file" mentality. Naturally, once we were in the show, we could wander around at our leisure. So, we did!

The gallery was full of people, so I had to peek over everyone's shoulders and admire the artwork from a distance. Most of the art in the first room was from Dalí's early period, which I recognised, but wasn't really interested in - until I saw Self-Portrait with Raphaelesque Neck.

And then it hit me - I was finally looking at an actual Dalí. Wow.

I went onward, and saw paintings and works that I'd only ever seen in glossy picture books, but now, they were real. They were beautiful. They were... absolutely tiny!

Seriously, though. This one!: Portrait of Gala with Two Lamb Chops in Equilibrium on Her Shoulder. In a book, it looks like it would be at least the size of an A3 piece of paper, right? It's been painted on a block of wood smaller than a postcard.
But jeezus, the detail. You had to peer very closely to make out all the texture he's bothered to put into it. You would have to wonder why? but then realise that that was how he worked - he would not be satisfied with anything less.

I got to see so many other artworks that I knew. It was like running into old friends.
Hey, there's Memory of the Child-Woman - long time no see! Glad to hear you've been allowed back after all that trouble that came up the last time you were here.
Oh, did you get to see The First Days of Spring? And look, there's Three Young Surrealist Women Holding in Their Arms The Skins of an Orchestra! And - hey! - welcome, Slave Market with Apparition of the Invisible Bust of Voltaire! We're so glad you could come...
Yes, I know - the titles of the paintings are, well, surreal. That's kind of the point, though, isn't it?

Even though it wasn't the complete collection of Dalí works (and how that would be possible to assemble I could never imagine), there was so much to see within the exhibition. The layout curved and twirled around, as it progressed through Dalí's styles and trends. One section had his earlier works, the next would have sketches and sculptures, and the next would have screens showing film projects for which Dalí had scripted scenes. Dalí's vision extended over many different media - he wasn't just a painter or sculptor, he was an artist.

Here's some more of the stuff that I liked:

• Lobster Telephone - hello? :D
  
• Destino, a movie collaboration between Dalí and Walt Disney! It was originally conceived way back in 1945, but was only completed in 2003 due to technical and financial reasons. (It was almost part of a Fantasia movie, but was instead released as a cinematic short.)
  Click here to watch it. I won't embed it directly, because I don't know whether the link will still be there later on - copyright reasons, and all that.
• There were also a selection of Dalí's jewellery designs on show. They had a display of his animated jewel piece The Royal Heart, which was a ruby-encrusted mechanism that would beat much like an actual heart. They only showed that as a video, because the original is so fantastically fragile that it would probably break if they'd brought it over.
• They also had some footage of 3-Dimensional holograms of Dalí and Gala that he had created. The other one they had was of Alice Cooper with a snake(!). Oh, and they had also set up a display of one of his stereoscopic paintings, which turned into a 3-D image when looked at in the correct way (much like the Magic Eye pictures from about ten years ago). I didn't get time to see that one, because there was a queue for the viewing apparatus, and I'd had enough of that lining-up rubbish for the day!
  
• The Disintegration of the Persistence of Memory was there. In fact, it would probably be the most recognisable of Dalí's artworks, next to the original work it was based on. I know one of my friends really wanted to see the "soft watches" for some reason. Actually, so did I - but I really wanted to see the first one, too. Well, I guess I'll have to take a trip to New York to check that one out!
• Near the exit was The Ecumenical Council, which was HUGE. It was as large as you would expect a painting with that much detail to be - it was practically a mural. But a highly-detailed, labour-of-love, probably-took-years-off-his-life mural.
  
• And right near the exit was Dalí's final painting, The Swallow's Tail. An understated work, but beautiful nonetheless. He survived until 1989, but after his beloved Gala died in '83, he lost his passion for life. This painting was made in the year after her death.
  

I spent less time inside the exhibition than I spent waiting to get in, but I would have done it all over again in a heartbeat. Actually, no, I would have organised my time a little better and gone and seen it all a lot earlier... but, you have to learn about these things. ;)

Anyway, one more post to go!

________
By the way, most of these links are courtesy of Olga's Gallery and Virtual Dalí. The rest are random links and Wikipedia entries, but feel free to explore those if you wish.

Click for Part Five

Neb's Big Day in the Big City, Part Three

While we were waiting, we overheard that the Gallery was going to keep the exhibition open until 7.00pm, instead of closing it at 5.00. I thought that was very generous; it would have been very difficult to keep the people who had bought their tickets from rioting when they suddenly closed up!

So, we were now in the entry line. It moved a lot quicker, and curved politely around the ticket line - which we could see slowly disappearing as the last customers were let in. I would have liked to have been the very last person in that queue; how lucky they would have felt!

Eventually, we turned round a corner, and saw this:

"Not long to go now!" we all cooed. (Waiting in a line made us a little coocoo by this stage.)

We turned another corner, and there was the entrance to the exhibit. And looking at it now, it resembles more a nightclub or restaurant than a gallery - "Hey! Let's meet up at Dalí's, I heard they do a great fried egg and bacon!"

After three exhausting hours... we were finally inside the exhibition!

Aaand... I have no photos to show you of the inside.
Well, of course not. The Gallery had strict rules against that sort of thing, what with copyright issues, licensing agreements, flash photography damaging the artwork, and so on. My friend got busted trying to take a snap of something with her camera phone, though - naughty girl!

I can, however, seek out links to the paintings and exhibits that I loved, and I shall do that in the next post.
Suffice to say, for now, that it was amazing. And well worth the wait and expense.

Click for Part Four

Neb's Big Day in the Big City, Part Two

So, where were we? Oh, yes. Still in this fugging queue.

I should point out that this second queue wasn't even the entry line; it's only the line for paying admission. If we'd expected this, we would have sorted something out a lot earlier, but... what could we do?

Wait. That's what we could do. Apparently, that's what 15,000 other art patrons did over the same weekend, and I suspect half of those were in the queue with us...

Luckily, we'd brought our cameras into the gallery. I snapped a few shots of the gallery interior, just because it was a nice place to be (and we would be there for a few hours anyway):

This stained-glass cathedral roof inside the gallery was designed by Leonard French, and is apparently one of the largest stained-glass ceilings in the world. It's really stunning to stand beneath it, and I suspect it helped calm the mood of everyone in the line - we hardly heard any complaint from the people around us. (except for one guy who had medical problems and was very unhappy about being forced to stand for such a long time)

This was one of the central courtyards that was redesigned when the entire NGV had a facelift a few years ago. Doesn't look like much, but you can see a lot more catwalks and passageways across the third level. Perhaps not in this photo, but from other angles you could see them, and you never used to be able to reach the third floor. Anyway, it looks nicer now.

After the first hour or so, we started to question this whole "looking at priceless art" idea. We knew that the gallery had advertised the close of ticket sales at 3pm, and it was slowly dawning on us that we were unlikely to get to the ticket counter by that time.

My sister and her partner were with us - oh, did you forget? My sister wanted to come along with us, because she couldn't get to see it on her own terms (due to my mysterious illness) - and they were pretty sick of queueing by this stage. Given the choice of sticking around and waiting, or leaving the queue and enjoying what else Melbourne had to offer, they made the choice to bail.

I felt bad about that, because I knew they were very keen on seeing the Dalí artworks. But I understood their decision to leave and enjoy themselves, as they normally don't get the free time to do what they want - what with looking after my nephew, work, theatre stuff, and so on, it would have been foolish to spend a rare day off waiting in a line...

Meanwhile, the rest of us made the choice to stay. I had set my mind to it - I was GOING IN, even if I had to go all Clark Griswold on the Gallery and DEMAND they unpack the fricking works of art from their carry cases and HOLD IT UP until I'd had my fill... I. WAS. GOING. IN.

After TWO HOURS, we finally managed to grab our tickets (and guarantee access to the show)! And we were so relieved.

Until we remembered, of course, that there was a whole 'nother queue to wait in... sigh
I realise that this is a thoroughly boring post, but I promise you, we do eventually get to the good stuff. Stick around...

________
(btw, just for giggles, here's what happened to someone else who decided to go and check out some Dalí in the company of the harshest critics. I mean, WTF? Who brings babies and infants to an art gallery?! Needless to say, our visit had nothing like this happen.)

Click for Part Three

Neb's Big Day in the Big City, Part One

Heh heh! I could start this post with an apology about not blogging often enough, but it seems just about everyone who has a blog says that at the start of each post, so... Nyah.

I really should have told you both about my trip to the National Gallery of Victoria to see the Salvador Dalí: Liquid Desire exhibition, since it happened at least a week ago. ;/
I've gone as far as to load up the photos I took, but actually writing about it? Not so much.

Well, time to address that. Since it was so important, and all...

After I'd established the day we were all going to head up to Melbourne, our trip had attracted other interested people. What was originally going to be a smallish party of three threatened to turn into a bulky crowd of eight - and this was before I'd even sorted out the costs of travel and admission. O_O;
I spent a few good hours on the two or three days leading up to the trip frantically texting and calling everyone else to establish who wanted tickets, who had concession cards, which train to catch, where we should go for lunch, etc. etc. stress stress stress

The day arrived. I managed to get up early enough to collect my friends and meet up at the train station. Everyone had their ticket, we were on the train, ready, on time and on schedule! FINALLY, I could start to relax. We'd DONE it!

And then, we got to Flinders Street Station, walked across the St Kilda Bridge, and thought, "Hey, there seems to be an awful lot of people down this end of the city - "

Oh my god.
There was a queue of people waiting outside the gallery. Frig. I'd never even thought about this. None of us had. For some silly reason, we'd expected to be able to just walk in, buy tickets and enjoy some Surrealist art. Too bad we were NOT EVEN CLOSE.

The line into the gallery was very quick - compared to the line INSIDE the gallery:

Hahahahahahahahaaaaa...!

Click for Part Two

I feel better now

I managed to go and visit my friends last Tuesday! It's a bit hit and miss nowadays, since we all have such different schedules to keep. I'd hate to have missed them though, especially after all the bitching about it I did in my last post! ;P

The gathering was in aid of the trip to Melbourne I've been trying to organise for the better part of four months. I want to go and see the Salvador Dali: Liquid Desire exhibition at the National Gallery of Victoria, but I don't want to go all on my own; a lot of my friends are also interested in art, and especially in one of the greatest artists from the past century. The collection of Dali's work will not be on show (or indeed in the same place) for much longer, and to miss out on this would be a terrible shame.
I would be prepared to go to see it on my own if I had to... but I don't want to do that. This is the sort of thing you need to enjoy in the company of friends, so it was important that we managed to sort something out that was suitable for everybody. How am I supposed to speculate on the meaning of burning giraffes and lobster telephones without someone to laugh with?

Besides, the last time I went out to my friend's art studio was well over a year ago, and I fell asleep on her couch like the gracious guest that I am. Hey, I was coming down with a cold, I had no idea that was going to happen!

As I said, I've been trying to organise this for a while, but things (as always) have come in the way. Such as work, other people's plans, no free time, scheduling problems... etc. etc.

We have sorted out the day of departure: this Sunday, the 4th.
Travelling there and back should be no problem, as there is a train station literally out the front door of my friend's place, so all we need to do is get there; but I would have preferred a better margin for error than the very last day of the exhibition!!! O_O;; Nervous, much?
Never mind - all is sorted, and will work out on the day!

________
In other stuff, Geelong beat St Kilda in the AFL Grand Final. I guess the Cats managed to recoup their loss after last year's defeat to Hawthorn, but I feel really bad for the Saints; they haven't won a Premiership in 43 - sorry, 44 years, now. Never mind guys, try again next year!

Also, I have added a new item to the Friendly Blog list: Nerdgirl's Adventures, which is my sister trying to come to terms with the world of technology and all it entails. She's also been updating her Have Some Cake! blog recently. I think she's finally free of the evil thrall of facebook, but can we pull her back fully into the Real World? :|

Stay happy folks; this freezing cold weather can't last forever!

I need to get out more...

Hey constant readers! yeah, both of you

I finally went and collected the painting I bought last month, after about a week of missing contacts and plain forgetfulness. I'll post an image of the artwork once I get permission from the artist - copyright and IP protection, and all that. ;)

While I was there paying for art, we got to talking about how things have been for ourselves. My artist friend has been very busy trying to scratch together enough works of art for her art course and for another showing she's been signed up for... It's so damn hard to come up with good ideas for art, and doubly so when your under the pressure of a deadline. I wish her all the best.

But it also made me realise why I've been so unhappy with my output lately. I have been working quite a bit for the past few months, as my family and friends are sure to point out if you ask them. The problem is, work is ALL that I've been doing.

If you were to ask me how I've been, or what I've been doing, I'd probably say, "Oh, I've been busy working". But if you asked me what else I'd been up to, I'd probably draw a blank. And that is not good.

I think the problem lies in that I can only really focus on one particular project at a time. Multitasking seems totally beyond my powers. I can do it, but only if the tasks are related and I'm not literally doing them at the same time.
When I first started my job in retail, I was also doing a course of WFTD painting murals (a slightly different arrangement from the one I've been talking about earlier in the blog). And what I discovered was that it was a freaking nightmare.

Imagine doing something like painting, which is like meditation in a way - you are focused solely on the task before you, in a quiet and distraction-free environment (or at least it ought to be). Now, imagine that you have to step out of this environment, and suddenly find yourself in a chaotic, multi-directional place like, say, behind the register of a service station. At any given moment, you could find yourself worrying about four or five different tasks, and each of them could be interrupted by something else.

It's a bit like participating in a triathlon, or that sport where you have to do some cross-country skiing and then try to shoot at a target with a rifle. Oh, that's a biathlon, apparently. I was close.

After a few months of trying to keep all the threads together (and learn a new job in the process), I eventually decided to stick with just the retail thing since it was the part that was actually paying me. I hated giving up on the art stuff, but at that point my job was too important to screw up, since I hated being unemployed.
Since then, I've done some painting stuff in the meantime, but only the parts for the mural that I've already described in this blog and that was only incidental; I originally only went to the studio for a social visit and got roped in to helping out - damn, she's persuasive. Aside from that, not much else has happened with my art.

And that's the problem.
By investing my time mostly with work, I've been neglecting all the other stuff that makes live endurable. I've become slack in my free time, and instead of visiting friends, doing fun things and generally having a life, I spend my days off mucking around at home, and sleeping.

I think I need to alter my priorities a little. Just a bit.

Of course, the other thing is that my employers have recently altered my working situation. I am now working a guaranteed five days a week, ensuring I have 30~ hours spread over two sites, with casual rates. Everyone who's heard about this seems to be happy for me. But. I'm not entirely sure I think this is good news.

I don't know why I'm reluctant about this, since it's mostly work that I'm familiar with, and there are a lot of people who would really enjoy being in a position like mine. I know for sure that the job environment is not going to be any better anywhere else.

I think my problem is that I'm treating this job as an end in itself, when it really ought to be the means. After all, who of us can say that their job is their entire life and say that they are happy with it?
I need to make sure that I'm doing all of this for a reason, and not just a self-contained one (ie. I'm doing it because they need me to). I need to remember that all this money I'm earning doesn't just have to go to the bills and food and stuff. I need to remember that I do have other skills than knowing how to give correct change, and which brand of beans is canned or frozen.

Put simply, I need to get out more.

At any rate, this is something I need to work on (no pun intended). I need to organise something with my friends before the end of the month, so that ought to be a good starting point.

Stay tuned.

Catching Up

Ugh, I've realised that I'm really bad at catching up with people. I've spent the past few months virtually living in a cave, as far as my social life is concerned. I used to have the excuse of being too busy, long distance, illness etc. etc. but all that does is separate me from my friends even more. Not good.

I've made amends so far this month. I've been good and sociable three times so far:

1. I went and saw my ex-US friends at their new house in Warragul. They had only lived in the house for a couple of weeks, and apologised for the mess. HA HA HAAAH!!! My standards for "mess" are WAAAY higher than yours, guys... You need to come see MY house. Especially MY room. (...btw, any luck naming the kitten yet?)
2. I finally got around to visiting my ex-housemates who now live in Boolarra. They'd moved towns, and I was so far out of the loop I didn't hear about it until about four months after it had happened. #0_0# Their new place is beautiful and spacious, and is perfect for raising their two kids - once they get all of their electrical problems sorted out. And it's so nice and quiet out in the country. Only thing was, I also got to see how close to the town the bushfires came. VERY close indeed.
3. Aaand... I got to meet up with friends at the GippsTAFE Vis. Art Dept's art show! It was good to (briefly) chat with some familiar faces, even though it was so noisy and crowded inside the gallery you could hardly make out what people were saying; and my voice doesn't travel well in the best circumstances! I also bought a painting by one of my friends, but I haven't collected it yet...

So, I've been a good young man so far - but it's not over yet. I still need to deliver some very late Easter stuff to some other friends of mine, and also go to the Salvador Dali exhibition with some other interested pals. Don't worry - I'm gonna do it, already, just gotta get organised...

Neb's Sole Post For June

I have no real idea why I haven't posted anything for this month. It's not as if I didn't do anything exciting! Just being lazy I suppose.

The family went to our cousin's engagement party last week. The theme for the event was "Op Shop" clothing, the idea being that you had to come in the least appropriate outfit conceivable.

You can only imagine what some of the other guests wore.

As for me, I went dressed in a fetching white jacket and pants, which looked like they had been in storage since 1976 - lovely white mottled Crimplene or some synthetic material - good lord, that means they're probably going to look like that forever.
It was teamed up with a summer-type shirt and a lurid tie. We actually found uglier ties in a department store, and those were brand new. They also cost $10, which was a bit much for a tie I'd likely never wear again.

I also went to Lakes Entrance with my Ma, which is a two-hour drive from our place. Ma was driving, but was reluctant to make the trip on her own ever since she buggered up her arms - that was why I was going with her, to drive the car in case she got too tired.
Fortunately, we stopped the car a few times on the way up and back, so she was able to make it on her own after all. Well done, Ma!

We had to go to Lakes to collect Nanna for the previously mentioned engagement. The weather up there was surprisingly good, after driving through fog and clouds on the way up. It made me wish we were staying for a lot longer than two or three hours, especially since I hadn't been up to her place for at least five years. Meh, we didn't even get time to hit the Esplanade, but oh well, I'll get to go up there some other time.

Work is still work. I am still getting on average five days a week, so at least I get two days free to do other stuff. Illness is running through the staff - again! - and some of the staff who were assigned to relieve other people had to go home sick as well...

There's been lots of talk about the dreaded Swine Influenza, and a lot of people are worried about getting it and spreading it around. Our state has been marked as one of the worst hit areas outside of the Americas - in fact they think it might have been well-established here before they even raised the alarm in Mexico!

The only thing is, so far it's turned out to be no worse than the regular 'flu that runs around the country every year. There have only been two deaths attributed to the virus so far in Victoria; most other people who have contracted the virus have only suffered from mild symptoms and recovered. In other words, it hasn't been the End Of The World scenario that the doomsayers would have expected.

Also... Liquid Desire has opened up at the National Gallery of Victoria, and I will do what I can to go and see some Surrealist art before it finishes up in October sometime. I want to go up with my friends, whom I haven't been with for a long time I haven't seen them at all this year! My bad and a trip to the city would be an excellent way of catching up.

That's all. See you in July!

Who Goes Bare?

I forgot to tell you - I went to see my sister and her man semi-naked in a play yesterday.
Well, not her so much as him. o_o;;

Oh, relax.
It was all well and good.
They both got parts bad choice of words, I know in another British farce called "Who Goes Bare". It was quite funny, actually, and last night's performance went really well.
Apparently, it was the best one so far, because the previous two performances were kinda oopsy. The second show saw a glass shattering across the stage and into the audience, because someone threw a hat at it! My sister was playing the role of a chambermaid, and had to quickly run out and clean it up before someone injured themselves and make it look like a natural part of the play!

Yeesh. It's not an easy job...
Anyway, even though i got to seem more of the cast than I ever really needed to and btw, glad I didn't get front row seats for this particular show I had a really good night.
Thankyou folks!

Word Up!

Hey! I just found this new Java-applet-site called Wordle. It lets you create works of art using typography and word frequency. All you need to do is provide a block of text, let the program generate the pattern of words, and tweak according to taste.

This being totally relevant to my interests, I naturally had to have a go. I cut and pasted a paragraph from Alice in Wonderland (courtesy of the Gutenberg Project). Click the picture to see it bigger at the actual site.

If you want to have a go, remember this: Anything you post on the site will stay there permanently, so don't go posting anything personal or obscene.
Have fun, and let me know if you create anything nice!

Across The Universe

We just finished watching Across The Universe, the movie (musical?) that uses Beatles songs to create a fictional story set in the late 1960s. My sister hadn't seen it before, and she rented it along with a bunch of others - not realising that I already owned the DVD!

If you haven't seen the film yet, and are at all interested in the Beatles' music, watch it as soon as you can, as it is totally made of win!. The film doesn't actually feature the Beatles at all, though - it's a fictional tale similar to but NOT in the same realm as Mamma Mia.
It helps to know a bit about the Beatles' history, as there are a lot of in-jokes and references to the band; most of the characters in the film have names that reference the Beatles' back catalogue - the six main characters are called Jude, Lucy, Maxwell, JoJo, Prudence, and Sadie!

As in most musicals, every now and then a song starts up out of nowhere, but it's interesting to see how the director has used the songs in a way that changes the original meaning - Oh! Darling becomes a duel between two band members; Dear Prudence is a "coming out" song of a more literal kind; and the turbulent struggles of two men dealing with their demons is the backdrop of Strawberry Fields Forever, one of the best sequences in the movie:

The movie has been presented extremely well, and features some striking imagery and fantastic choreography. And the actors have been well cast - they have done a sensational job of this, and I hope they all go on to other good projects soon!
We've all been singing songs from the movie since we watched it. But what's weird is that my sister didn't even know half of the songs from the movie! Like, where has she been?
So... I guess I'll be loaning some of my CD collection to her in the next few months!

Did the Earth move for you too?

Okay, stuff has happened since the last post.
Well, that's a bit bloody obvious, isn't it? It's not as if stuff stops happening when no-one bothers to update their blog!

• Krissy has spent the past fortnight attending classes at Tafe, and freaking out about the work she has to do. It seems that there is a tutor there whose method involves throwing the students into the deep end, ie. giving them instructions on what they need to do, and then basically telling them to do it without explicitly telling them how. Which I think is reasonable, but it can be disorienting for new students, especially those who have come into art with all the pre-conceived ideas on "What Art Is Supposed To Be". His aim is to get the students to learn these methods through exploration, rather than through rote learning, but it can be very stressful and confusing for the novice. Oh, and to those of you who have already been through GippsTafe's Art Department, you all should know exactly who I am {p.b.} talking about. :D
  
• We had an earth tremor here last Friday. At about 9pm, we experienced about ten seconds of the earth wobbling about us. It was a reasonably big tremor, too. The epicentre was in the Korumburra/Warragul area, but it was felt across most of the state, including Melbourne. It was all perfectly normal, and nothing got seriously damaged, but a lot of people were worried. It freaked the hell out of my sister; she was saying, "God, my chair moved across the room!!!" Yes, because that's never happened during an earthquake before.
• Also, Krys found two big spiders in her son's bedroom last week, though not at the same time. One of them was a huntsman (which is big and icky but not dangerous), the other a largish white-tail (which may or may not be dangerous, as I mentioned here). Both of these spiders are frequently found inside houses, especially when the weather changes from warm to cool, so we're trying to keep our windows closed as much as possible now!
  
• There's also a tropical cyclone threatening the Queensland coastline, not far from where my Dad and other family members live. Cyclone Hamish is presently heading south-east, away from where they are, and it seems to be weakening now, but there are still a lot of communities worring about this, and preparing to bunker down. I haven't called up my Dad yet, but I'll do that tonight, if I'm able to.
• Krys' man Andrew scored the part of Gaston in the local production of Beauty and the Beast - awesomeness! He's been practicing his singing in preparation like a good actor should. Also, they've been rehearsing for the other play that they're both in - more details as they come. I'll actually be able to post pictures of them this time, since I only had Dinkycam with me for the last one, may it rest in peace.
  
• It's been the Labour Day long weekend, which means two things: one, work at the service station/s has been really frickin' busy (doesn't help that we're short-staffed again) and two, we had a problem with the EFTPOS facility. Okay, get this, when I went in to work on Saturday, I discovered that we had a *new* temporary EFT console/pinpad thingy, which wasn't integrated with the register like the regular one was (and which, hopefully, will be fixed soon). Luckily, it didn't require a major in electronics to figure out how it worked - it just required a few extra steps, and I was able to cope with the day's trade.
  But, when I opened the shop the next day, I discovered that the *new* EFT console wasn't working, because something had tripped off the fuse on that particular circuit. Long story short, the AC adaptor some black box thingy that the power supply goes through had burnt out during the night, and I mean that literally - it had scorch marks on it. So... we spent the next two days of the long weekend filling out dozens of manual paper vouchers. At least the shop didn't burn down.
  
• Oh, and Krys wants me to mention this - A few nights ago, I spent two hours gagging on a piece of tuna. All that happened was that I ate some canned tuna, and it didn't go down well. I don't know, I guess it got stuck on the way down, though I wasn't choking or suffocating. This seems to happen sometimes when I eat something starchy, like bread or rice, and usually if I have a drink of water it goes away - but this time it seems the water didn't help.
  Anyway, I must have sounded really bad from the bathroom, because my sister could hear me from her room, and she asked me if I was okay. I said yeah, I just had something to bring up. She spent the next hour or so freaking out about me, thinking I'd got food poisoning or something, wondering if I needed to go to hospital, and then she promptly fell asleep! Sympathy fail?
  So, I spent an hour in the bathroom, sipping water and gagging into the sink - and then I spent the next hour in my room with a bucket, because standing in the bathroom was boring and I wanted to finish playing Twilight Princess.

My god, that sounds really sad. "I threw up tuna while playing Zelda." I have to get a hobby or something, I don't think the blogosphere was designed for such lame-ass postings.

Well, so much for my update. How was your week?

I really should be asleep by now...

but instead I am up at 4am updating my blog for some reason.

Just shuffling a few things around...

and letting everyone who knows us that my sister has enrolled in the Visual Arts course at TAFE! Along with one of my friends from the mural project! Yay for both of them!

And yet, for some reason I feel a bit sad about that.
Partly because they are both younger than me and still have some leverage with their lives, which makes me wish I still had the same freedom...
okay, I'm only THIRTY for crying out loud, but still, it feels like I forgot to do something along the way

but also because of something that came up while my sister was talking with one of the Art Department faculty (who instructed me while I was doing the graphic-arty Diploma thing about ten years ago).
Basically, he spent a good portion of the induction telling the new students about the amazing career opportunities that would come up upon completion of their course, and how most of the graduates went on to get jobs in the industry almost immediately.
What he didn't realise at the time was that he already knew my sister - in fact, she and I had both attended the Photography courses he conducted a few years back, and she knew him quite well! Of course, this was about six years ago, and she looked rather different then. People who have known my younger sister for anything longer than six months will understand how he could have missed her. She's a frickin chameleon.

When he worked out who she was, he immediately remembered her, and who she was related to, and asked about what I was doing with myself (probably expecting me to be involved with something remotely arty).
My sister politely refrained from telling him that I'm currently a casual worker in a service station... but I think he got the point anyway. sigh
Then again, I never did manage to complete all of my subjects, thus falling a little short of getting the Diploma. So therefore the Art Dept's track record remains... relatively untarnished.

Boy, this post has depressed me all of a sudden. I really should have gone to bed straight away.

Oh, never mind.
Krissy, Andrew, I hope you both have an excellent couple of years getting your Diplomas of Art. I look forward to seeing your finished works at the end-of-year exhibition, and if I have cash at the time I'll be sure to buy some of your stuff! Promise!

PS. I just thought I'd let all the ex-residents of the Yallourn TAFE Art Department know that Peter Biram has shaved off his moustache. :P

Dimboola - *****!

Well, the play was excellent! Though, not all went to plan...

I managed to get the night off (yay!) and I managed to organise three of my friends to accompany me (yay!!) and I even managed to find my way to the hall on time (YAAY!!!).

But... two of my friends didn't make it. Regrettably, their car got a flat tyre on the way. (Noooo!!!) Which meant that I'd lost out on the price of their tickets... Hey, it happens.

Still, we had an excellent time.
I got to meet Andrew's¹ family, whom I've heard about but never seen. They were nice, and his Mum had a lovely chat with my friend Trish² regarding the murals already installed in Moe.

My sister played the bridesmaid, in a very fetching green dress -_-; and some lovely cork platform heels (also in green). I thought they were an op-shop find, but it turns out they were brand new from Target - reduced to $4, I wonder why?!?

The presentation was interesting... as the play takes place at a wedding banquet, the audience played the role of party guests, which meant we were also provided a three-course meal along with the cast! (The meal I had wasn't quite as nice as I'd expected for the price of the ticket, but I did appreciate the caterers accomodating for my vegan friend - who was one of the two people who didn't show up, unfortunately!)

Of course, the actors were also drinking lots of (non-alcoholic) beer, and were playing their roles very convincingly! In fact, Krissy was doing some drunken dancing during one of the "meal" periods, and actually fell over! It was an accident, but it just made it more real...
In fact, I mentioned to Andrew's family that I'd seen her do that before - which did NOT go down well with Krys afterwards. ;P

It was a wonderful performance. I'm glad I went to see it, because everyone did such a smashing job. If you're going to see it, you will enjoy yourself!

NB:
At about this point, I'd be including some Dinkycam photos because I took the little bugger along with me. But, even though it worked perfectly on the night, something went horribly wrong when I tried to upload the pictures onto my PC and they all got deleted. Oh well, it's not as if they would have worked out anyway... sigh I think I'd better fork out for a proper digital camera someday.

___________
¹My sister's partner, btw.
²The same Trish who is the co-ordinator for the mural project I may have mentioned in passing. See my next post re: that topic.

Tomorrow, The Play

I'm looking forward to tomorrow.
I'll be going to see my sister in the Moartz play Dimboola, and I'll be using the opportunity to catch up with my mural painting friends as well (assuming we all make it on time). I've been so busy with work of late, it will be good to get together with people and actually have some fun for a change!

Ah, things look like they're clearing up a bit now. Hopefully I get a few weeks of peace before the horror of eXcemas hits us all with its tinsel-trimmed poison! Oh, dear, I promised I wouldn't get all like this...

Sketches, Part 1

As most of my friends know, I have a collection of sketch-book type journals - about twelve of them, at last count. They're not diaries as you would think of them, ie. written prose about daily life (like, say, a blog), but they are still an historical record of my life. They're more of a scrapbook/collage/memento collection than anything else; if I see something that I like and think is worth keeping, I stick it in one of my books for future reference.
Or, rather, I used to. Sadly, I haven't been filling them out so much these days.
It seems that the energy that I used to put into maintaining them has now been sublimated into my Paid Occupation, which depresses me. Unfortunately, I only seem to be able to focus on one major element of my life at a time, and all else gets delegated to a lower rung. [sigh]

Anyway, I recently started scanning in some of my sketches for use with one of the Antix games (yes, they're coming), and I thought that today, I would share some of them with you.
These following sketches were drawn freehand with a black fineliner. I was experimenting with line and form here, coming up with figures that are more basic and geometric, yet are still recognisable and have unique character. I tried to produce some more figures in the same style later on, but I guess they were a "one time thing".



Clicking them makes them bigger, you know.
You can also check out the rest of the images in my Picasa album if you want.
EDIT: These links now actually work! I have no idea why they didn't before...

Comments are appreciated... ;)

4'33"

4'33" - Composition by John Cage, 1952
Performed at the Barbican Centre by the BBC Symphony Orchestra

If you want to find out more about this piece of music, click here. I guarantee that this song will get stuck in your head for the rest of the day!