clearing one's head...

Yesterday it was great to get out for a walk after some rainy grey old days. A friend and I met at Brisbane Powerhouse for the walk along the riverside pathway. Once the supplier of power to the tramway network of the city as well as suburban power it has been converted more recently and opened 10 years ago as Arts precinct.... hence the sign below which is one of 4 by artist Richard Tipping (see at end of post).

Great walking around this area....love how the Brisbane river curves around....snake-like for miles!

The Powerhouse building is well worth a visit... Saturdays twice a month it hosts a growers market on the grounds.

Today was just as sunny and on route to the studio I stopped for coffee not far from the studio... love the city views in this area. Whoever lives in this house has a great view.

Across the road from the house above is the surprisingly ramshackle one below which incidently is one of the grooviest cafes in Brisbane. I used to stop there last year on route to the Botanic Gardens for a coffee and chat... but this year have been so busy that today was the fist visit in a long time. There's no signage out the front. I once asked what it was called and have completely forgotten because I named it 'the cafe with no name' and like to keep it as a secret destination.
Inside the walls are painted black and the seating is very relaxed ...plenty of good magazines to read and THE best coffee. There is about 3 things on the menu...all of them toast... but the best - I like the  excellent sourdough rubbed with garlic and smooshed with ripe tomato and and a splash of olive oil!
And when this town turns on the heat I can tell you sitting in this dark cave of a place is perfection...
It is seriously the most refreshing place to visit ...it rewrites all the rules...but gets the most important things really right.(and its not far from my new studio.)

OK... so what have I been painting for the last 3 days? last week I added more pages to my 'homage to the seed' journal and revisited work from a few years ago... then worked with ink on paper and reworked some older work. Basically just feeling my way into the work after a break and the relocation.

Then 3 days ago I picked up a 60 x 90 cm painting on canvas I decided I was unhappy with and completely went off in a different direction. If change is as good as a holiday... then this is the holiday I meant to take but have as yet put off. For 3 days I have listened non-stop to radio national...a lot of election reporting which has now become tedious, although I must say this election has me fascinated.

I have caught some brilliant programs - losing myself in the world of Radio National and this altogether mysterious painting below. Why I say mysterious is because it has a life of its own... I'm coming along for the ride... its dictating to me and I just shut up and follow. As I have been working on it I feel my head clearing. After 5 hugely busy months where it seemed all go, go, go.... this has been like doing a very large puzzle... the brain activity of deciding ...ok... this colour here...that line there.... its enveloped me in a way that has had the effect of clearing my head. After chaos ...the re-ordering. Probably I need to do a fair bit of this re-ordering in my home office and such...but starting here is a very enervating place to 

apply that energy.

I have no name for this yet. I know its not finished either ...but Im wondering if the finished work is as important as the process in this case. Below is a close up of a section of the work...

Whatever will be next?

Anway...back to the artist who's signage art works were shown above.... Richard Tipping. If you click on the word editorial below it will take you to the text he wrote for this Australian Art Journal. See Google images for further visuals.

Editorial

Artist: Mr Richard Tipping, editorial

Richard Tipping looks at the role of text and language from an historical and contemporary context, covering areas of interest such as recent technological advancements, graffiti culture and going as far back as 46,000 years to briefly discuss some of the oldest found examples of Indigenous cave art in the south of Australia. Along the way he looks to medieval and ancient Phoenician developments, Clement Greenberg's promotion of painting as a purely optical experience, one in which text has no place except as another kind of surface, the role of Dada in claiming the relationship between word and image and discusses other important figures such as Duchamp, Brancusi, Stephane Mallarme, Christopher Brennan, Picasso, Braque, Kurt Schwitters, Charles Olson, Alex Selenitsch, Allan Riddell, Rosalie Gascoigne and many others.