Sunday, December 19, 2010

"match-box songs & gypsy hymns"...third wall and floor



The sun-bird etchings was one of the first plates I made on my arrival in Brisbane...a visit to the natural history museum collection enabled me access to every Australian bird species...perhaps I chose the sun-birds to keep something of  North Queensland with me...these exquisite creatures often build their delicate bulb-shaped nest anchored by a thin plat of grass on verandas or the over-hang of house roofs...they are very trusting, which enables you to observe them at close range...their colouring is a lemon yellow and light-olive green, with the male displaying a deep violet breast...it's like seeing an illuminated page from a 'book of hours' take flight...of course seeing them aligned in their hundreds in thin wooden draws tagged and numbered awakens one to the contradictory nature of European sensibility...it seems we begin collecting at an early age...something that is encouraged and viewed as a mature, self-imposed discipline in a child...at least to the adult mind...perhaps it's simply about being lost in something...in my childhood years it began with inanimate objects...stamps,comics, cards,sea shells,bottle tops,milk tops,toy soldiers...that same tactility is never lost... then there comes a time when living things replace the inanimate...insects, butterflies, moths,birds...at some stage every child a scientist as every child an artist... I was a fickle collector as a child... the desire lasting no more than a week or two at best...at times simply a weekend...the impressionable nature of childhood remains with me as an artist...perhaps to my detriment...(to be continued)...sp

1 comment:

  1. wonderful wonderful work .... your blog is just soooo inspiring !!

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