http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=188255&id=550432954&l=4712bbe2c9
as always, facebook is NOT NEEDED to see these photos.
Saturday, August 28, 2010
origami emu
the women from the art centre were supposed to be away this last week at a law and culture conference in docker river. these events are strictly women only and it is a pretty big deal for them and quite intense. i managed to score a week off by default because the art centre would have been closed while they were away. i booked myself a campervan and had planned a week out around the territory. turns out the women decided against going, was too far for some of them to travel and because of the weather, the roads and camping situation wasnt looking promising. i had already booked and paid deposits so i left anyway. met up with some mates from sydney in Alice for a few nights then off on my own for the week.
the henley on todd regatta, is about as australian as you can get. 2010 was its 49th year. its a boat regatta held on the todd river in alice springs, based on the henley on thames regatta in london which is fought out between cambridge and oxford universities. only difference being that the henley of todd is held 1500 km's from the nearest large body of water, on the dry todd river bed! the days events culminate in three 4wd battle ships - manned by vikings, pirates, and the navy - fighting it out with high pressure water cannons, flour/water/smoke bombs. the crowd then votes and chooses a winner. this was the harder of the 2 votes required on august 21, but in the end the winner was clear, and the pirates took out the title.
i brought michael out to titjikala on sunday, then we conitnued out to chambers pillar. he didnt make much comment on the community, but i was the same when i first arrived and didnt know how to react and take it all in.
monday morning i collected my van and headed off to uluru. just me and 475kms of outback highway. driving out there was one of the best days ive had so far. fantastic weather, long stretches of road, music up loud and heaps of roadkill to keep things interesting. when i arrived in yulara, the weather closed in and it rained non stop for the next 48hrs. seeing the rock in wet conditions is apparently a rare privilege. i did the 11km base walk in the rain - which meant crossing ankle deep red mud and knee deep creeks in parts, but was worth every bit. all the waterfalls and creeks were flowing, and kept a lot of the tourists in their cars and off the tracks. carried my camera around my neck with a plastic bag over it...
the weather began to clear on wednesday, i headed out to kata tjuta and did the 3km gorge walk and the 7 km valley of the winds walk that takes you up through the middle of the formations. the campground and resort area were full but there was hardly any tourists around out there. i think the rain had kept them away the day before and they'd all gone to uluru as soon as the sun came out, suited me perfectly.
drove back to Alice thursday, found a net cafe and reconnected with the world. jane had emailed me during the week to see how i was getting on. here's an excerpt to show the madness im living next to :
"I went over to your house on Wednesday night and did a few things. Prunella and Tju Tju were so happy to go there they jumped up on the bed and went sleep. Prunella refused to move so I left her there all night . Of course faithful TJu Tju followed me back next door. Last night I gave a pigs foot it to Tju Tju. He loves them so much....Anyway he ran off with it , I didn’t see where he went. I suspect he has buried it. (In your bed) At least its a dried foot ...not fresh."
went out friday exploring the east macdonnell ranges. drove out to ross river homestead then worked my way back into alice through trephina gorge, corroboree rock, jessie gap and emily gap. climbed up and across trephina gorge, it is truly amazing. high rock walls that look like they are made of tetris bricks. i went for a drive and found my old preschool. hasn't changed in 20 odd yrs. i pulled the car over and took a photo, untill i realised i was a dodgy looking guy with a beard in a van taking photos outside a preschool. i left pretty quickly... tammie (other NAS intern) and her mob from ikunji art centre was in town also so met up with them finally and shared war stories.
quick trip saturday morning to standley chasm out on the west side, mainly to use up the remaining fuel before i took my car back. complete rip-off, its the only privately 'owned' formation and they charge an $8 entry fee to walk the 20 minute track. back in the community now, spent most of the day making an origami coat of arms out of my alice springs - uluru road maps.
christabella's woodblock prints arrived back from basil hall editions in darwin, really beautiful - glad i could be a part of it. now just to get her to sit still for long enough to sign them all.....
few weeks back i had photographed 4 of the paintings in the gallery and ordered postcards prints of them, jane wanted to develop a few ways of bringing in a more regular flow of income, i thought the postcards would be an easy sell, more tourists travelling through are likely to buy a $2 postcard than a $2000 painting, at least they are buying something, and we are making about a 300% profit on each one. they arrived while i was away, im pretty impressed.
the whole accomodation thing seems to be just sitting in the background at the moment. im still in jane's place and she is in the other house. from what i can work out it seems that the council does in fact own the actual structure, but it is on crown land that they have no right to have a building on which just complicates the whole issue. but it also means that they had no right to build the two new houses opposite us where the youth worker and maintenance guy live, turns out they never had the required clearance from the central land council to build there. not sure what happens from here, im just staying out of it, sitting back and watching out of interest.
before i left i went through the screenprint inks that jane had told me where fine to use still. they were over 10yrs old, and had been sitting in a storeroom that gets well about 50 degrees over summer, so were far from usable and had turned to a jelly like consistency. they were good quality hydrotech inks from sydney but were that old that the phone number didnt have the '9' added to the front yet. we took them across to the tip with the hope that kids will get into them and spread it far and wide. i bought new inks yesterday, pays to be a 'nice guy', you get your 4lt print paste for $60 rather than $110. just got to get the young guys to turn up for work and we might get around to printing the screens. cant wait to print my eviction poster, i'll send a signed copy to the council office.
as i write this, there's a bunch of kids with slingshots knocking zebra finches straight out of the tree in front. remarkably good aim for a 5 yr old.
and i still havent found the pigs foot...
the henley on todd regatta, is about as australian as you can get. 2010 was its 49th year. its a boat regatta held on the todd river in alice springs, based on the henley on thames regatta in london which is fought out between cambridge and oxford universities. only difference being that the henley of todd is held 1500 km's from the nearest large body of water, on the dry todd river bed! the days events culminate in three 4wd battle ships - manned by vikings, pirates, and the navy - fighting it out with high pressure water cannons, flour/water/smoke bombs. the crowd then votes and chooses a winner. this was the harder of the 2 votes required on august 21, but in the end the winner was clear, and the pirates took out the title.
i brought michael out to titjikala on sunday, then we conitnued out to chambers pillar. he didnt make much comment on the community, but i was the same when i first arrived and didnt know how to react and take it all in.
monday morning i collected my van and headed off to uluru. just me and 475kms of outback highway. driving out there was one of the best days ive had so far. fantastic weather, long stretches of road, music up loud and heaps of roadkill to keep things interesting. when i arrived in yulara, the weather closed in and it rained non stop for the next 48hrs. seeing the rock in wet conditions is apparently a rare privilege. i did the 11km base walk in the rain - which meant crossing ankle deep red mud and knee deep creeks in parts, but was worth every bit. all the waterfalls and creeks were flowing, and kept a lot of the tourists in their cars and off the tracks. carried my camera around my neck with a plastic bag over it...
the weather began to clear on wednesday, i headed out to kata tjuta and did the 3km gorge walk and the 7 km valley of the winds walk that takes you up through the middle of the formations. the campground and resort area were full but there was hardly any tourists around out there. i think the rain had kept them away the day before and they'd all gone to uluru as soon as the sun came out, suited me perfectly.
drove back to Alice thursday, found a net cafe and reconnected with the world. jane had emailed me during the week to see how i was getting on. here's an excerpt to show the madness im living next to :
"I went over to your house on Wednesday night and did a few things. Prunella and Tju Tju were so happy to go there they jumped up on the bed and went sleep. Prunella refused to move so I left her there all night . Of course faithful TJu Tju followed me back next door. Last night I gave a pigs foot it to Tju Tju. He loves them so much....Anyway he ran off with it , I didn’t see where he went. I suspect he has buried it. (In your bed) At least its a dried foot ...not fresh."
went out friday exploring the east macdonnell ranges. drove out to ross river homestead then worked my way back into alice through trephina gorge, corroboree rock, jessie gap and emily gap. climbed up and across trephina gorge, it is truly amazing. high rock walls that look like they are made of tetris bricks. i went for a drive and found my old preschool. hasn't changed in 20 odd yrs. i pulled the car over and took a photo, untill i realised i was a dodgy looking guy with a beard in a van taking photos outside a preschool. i left pretty quickly... tammie (other NAS intern) and her mob from ikunji art centre was in town also so met up with them finally and shared war stories.
quick trip saturday morning to standley chasm out on the west side, mainly to use up the remaining fuel before i took my car back. complete rip-off, its the only privately 'owned' formation and they charge an $8 entry fee to walk the 20 minute track. back in the community now, spent most of the day making an origami coat of arms out of my alice springs - uluru road maps.
christabella's woodblock prints arrived back from basil hall editions in darwin, really beautiful - glad i could be a part of it. now just to get her to sit still for long enough to sign them all.....
few weeks back i had photographed 4 of the paintings in the gallery and ordered postcards prints of them, jane wanted to develop a few ways of bringing in a more regular flow of income, i thought the postcards would be an easy sell, more tourists travelling through are likely to buy a $2 postcard than a $2000 painting, at least they are buying something, and we are making about a 300% profit on each one. they arrived while i was away, im pretty impressed.
the whole accomodation thing seems to be just sitting in the background at the moment. im still in jane's place and she is in the other house. from what i can work out it seems that the council does in fact own the actual structure, but it is on crown land that they have no right to have a building on which just complicates the whole issue. but it also means that they had no right to build the two new houses opposite us where the youth worker and maintenance guy live, turns out they never had the required clearance from the central land council to build there. not sure what happens from here, im just staying out of it, sitting back and watching out of interest.
before i left i went through the screenprint inks that jane had told me where fine to use still. they were over 10yrs old, and had been sitting in a storeroom that gets well about 50 degrees over summer, so were far from usable and had turned to a jelly like consistency. they were good quality hydrotech inks from sydney but were that old that the phone number didnt have the '9' added to the front yet. we took them across to the tip with the hope that kids will get into them and spread it far and wide. i bought new inks yesterday, pays to be a 'nice guy', you get your 4lt print paste for $60 rather than $110. just got to get the young guys to turn up for work and we might get around to printing the screens. cant wait to print my eviction poster, i'll send a signed copy to the council office.
as i write this, there's a bunch of kids with slingshots knocking zebra finches straight out of the tree in front. remarkably good aim for a 5 yr old.
and i still havent found the pigs foot...
Sunday, August 15, 2010
new and improved photos.
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=188255&id=550432954&l=4712bbe2c9
updated photos. facebook is not needed to use the link.
updated photos. facebook is not needed to use the link.
Friday, August 13, 2010
get out while you can.
Alice Springs is the strange middle ground of this whole trip. Its like the excessive elements of Sydney and the extreme remote stripped back nature of Titjikala moulded into one place, that doesnt quite sit comfortably. just back from being in town for a few days, enjoying real coffee, fresh milk, and of course a well earnt beer or 2. went to the movies. inception is incredible, by the way.
walked around yesterday looking in all the tacky, overpriced, innappropriate and politically incorrect souvenir tourist shops, and of course bought up some of the best. plastic aboriginal action figures with huge cartoon eyes are my favourite. genuine kangaroo scrotum on a key chain are extremely overspriced in my opinion, but an essential souvenir for certain people, you'll know who you are when i get home.
just to clear up a few things ive been asked:
- aboriginal people dont walk around the streets in town or in the community wearing only loin cloths
- they also dont carry spears 24/7.
- kangaroos do not roam the streets in town.
- ayer's rock is not in the centre of town, its 5hrs away.
4 different people have walked towards me in the last 24hrs and said 'hey phil' then as they walked closer, said, no - not phil. i wonder who this phil is?
back to titjikala today, then back into Alice Springs next friday. seem a couple of my most dedicated and loyal fans are travelling half way across the country to visit. henley on todd regatta on saturday; thats where people race 'boats' down a waterless river bed on foot, flintstones style. cant wait. being in town lost its appeal fairly quickly, i was limited without a car, all i wanted after a while was to leave and get back out to nothingness. couldnt sleep with all the noise, too used to the silence. who knows how i'll go coming back to sydney if i already cant handle a few days in alice springs. taking the following week off - jane is away with a group of women to a law and culture conference, so the art centre wouldnt be open anyway. just going to be me, a 4wd and 465km's of open road to ayer's rock for a few nights.
oh and election day! really dont care about policies, but election day is possibly one of the top 5 most exciting days that only comes around ever 4 years . i blame my mother, she loves it too. playlist ready - electioneering, take us to your leader, drunk on election night.... will have a beer for tony and a ginger beer for julia. may the best man or best lady win.
to be continued...
walked around yesterday looking in all the tacky, overpriced, innappropriate and politically incorrect souvenir tourist shops, and of course bought up some of the best. plastic aboriginal action figures with huge cartoon eyes are my favourite. genuine kangaroo scrotum on a key chain are extremely overspriced in my opinion, but an essential souvenir for certain people, you'll know who you are when i get home.
just to clear up a few things ive been asked:
- aboriginal people dont walk around the streets in town or in the community wearing only loin cloths
- they also dont carry spears 24/7.
- kangaroos do not roam the streets in town.
- ayer's rock is not in the centre of town, its 5hrs away.
4 different people have walked towards me in the last 24hrs and said 'hey phil' then as they walked closer, said, no - not phil. i wonder who this phil is?
back to titjikala today, then back into Alice Springs next friday. seem a couple of my most dedicated and loyal fans are travelling half way across the country to visit. henley on todd regatta on saturday; thats where people race 'boats' down a waterless river bed on foot, flintstones style. cant wait. being in town lost its appeal fairly quickly, i was limited without a car, all i wanted after a while was to leave and get back out to nothingness. couldnt sleep with all the noise, too used to the silence. who knows how i'll go coming back to sydney if i already cant handle a few days in alice springs. taking the following week off - jane is away with a group of women to a law and culture conference, so the art centre wouldnt be open anyway. just going to be me, a 4wd and 465km's of open road to ayer's rock for a few nights.
oh and election day! really dont care about policies, but election day is possibly one of the top 5 most exciting days that only comes around ever 4 years . i blame my mother, she loves it too. playlist ready - electioneering, take us to your leader, drunk on election night.... will have a beer for tony and a ginger beer for julia. may the best man or best lady win.
to be continued...
Wednesday, August 11, 2010
it's been days now.
the last week can be summed up with; police, chains, padlocks, emails, calls, intense negotiations, offers, arguments, cut power and water, fires and a packet of tim tams all the way from sydney that truly saved the day. enough said? the police came, the police did nothing. so a new week with little resolution. jane and i swappped properties and she is in the house under question now, and can stay there as long as she wants, and the consequences etc fall onto her.
i attempted some drawing on the weekend, except left them out to dry only for them to be accidentally watered along with janes plants, may actually help them. been drawing really strange stuff, considering whats on offer. the ute across the road, the satelite dish on the roof, the empty council owned demountable buildings in front of the school etc.
decided to get on with starting to work on a screen printing project with the young guys out here at the art centre. looked through the screens that had been in storage since 2001, there were a few 2 x 1 m that were way to big to manage, or some smaller wooden frames and loose sheets of mesh. so forgetting my perfectly square aluminium frames and machine tensioned fine grade mesh and photographically exposed images back in sydney, i've somehow made some screens from scratch. getting enough tension by hand and abusing the staple gun all the way - its probably good the lack of english that they all understand.
the guys speak very little english, but were really interested to watch and learn (even though i was making a lot of it up as i went). they seemed to appreciate having their own process to work on that was seperate to anything the older dominating women were doing. it was pretty difficult to explain the process of painting out an image as a positive onto the mesh only to coat the negative image and then wash out the positive to be able to print it, but we got there. they now completely understand 'just trust me'. the screens i made up arent the best and we havent attempted to print them yet, thats for tomorrow... fingers crossed (havent looked at the inks yet, hate to think)....
as for whether i stay or go and the accomodation situation, ive been in negotiations with jane and the art school today and hopefully this trip will live to die another day. tomorrow should hold some answers, although we've been saying that for 2 weeks now....
if im staying, i'm heading to town friday overnight, enjoying a well needed beer. postcards will be in the mail. possibly back in town on tuesday when janes going to collect a body to be brought out to titjikala for its funeral.
the job description for a remote area aboriginal art centre manager must be a fascinating read...
untill next time...
i attempted some drawing on the weekend, except left them out to dry only for them to be accidentally watered along with janes plants, may actually help them. been drawing really strange stuff, considering whats on offer. the ute across the road, the satelite dish on the roof, the empty council owned demountable buildings in front of the school etc.
decided to get on with starting to work on a screen printing project with the young guys out here at the art centre. looked through the screens that had been in storage since 2001, there were a few 2 x 1 m that were way to big to manage, or some smaller wooden frames and loose sheets of mesh. so forgetting my perfectly square aluminium frames and machine tensioned fine grade mesh and photographically exposed images back in sydney, i've somehow made some screens from scratch. getting enough tension by hand and abusing the staple gun all the way - its probably good the lack of english that they all understand.
the guys speak very little english, but were really interested to watch and learn (even though i was making a lot of it up as i went). they seemed to appreciate having their own process to work on that was seperate to anything the older dominating women were doing. it was pretty difficult to explain the process of painting out an image as a positive onto the mesh only to coat the negative image and then wash out the positive to be able to print it, but we got there. they now completely understand 'just trust me'. the screens i made up arent the best and we havent attempted to print them yet, thats for tomorrow... fingers crossed (havent looked at the inks yet, hate to think)....
as for whether i stay or go and the accomodation situation, ive been in negotiations with jane and the art school today and hopefully this trip will live to die another day. tomorrow should hold some answers, although we've been saying that for 2 weeks now....
if im staying, i'm heading to town friday overnight, enjoying a well needed beer. postcards will be in the mail. possibly back in town on tuesday when janes going to collect a body to be brought out to titjikala for its funeral.
the job description for a remote area aboriginal art centre manager must be a fascinating read...
untill next time...
Wednesday, August 4, 2010
so on it goes...
nothing much has happened since the last update. which really isn't a good thing. we were given untill tuesday for me to leave, and were told tuesday evening that the police were being called to come wednesday morning. happy birthday!!
the police never came. it started really getting to me today. it was the 6th day i had basically sat with my things packed, waiting for someone to come and take the next step and act on their threats of a forced evacuation. jane had no choice but to leave for a while and go to the art centre, so i sat here waiting in case the police or someone came, with her dog guarding the front gate and myself inside with a phone to call her should someone arrive. i got to the point where the excitement wore off and it just was getting tedious being stuck in the middle of someone elses argument that i had no control over. there is only so long you can sit around reading and waiting. i wasnt doing anything that i had come here to do, everyones time was being wasted just waiting for a result.
our last ditch attempt before i come home early is extreme and im not sure i am entirely comfortable with it, is that jane and i swap houses. she moves enough stuff to live from into my place (the one under dispute), and i move my things into hers, so that the anxiety and consequences of living 'illegally' in the current property are placed onto her, considering it is her problem and battle to fight, not mine. this will at least allow me to do some work at the centre and try and make some use of the time here. then we give it a few more days to see if anything changes in our favour. if nothing does change or should the police turn up and still go ahead with an eviction and allow the council to take ownership of the property, then we re-asses from there. not ideal but its the last hope.
today wasnt all bad, kinda had fun going out and helping change 2 tires and then tow a car back into the community from 20 min up the road (with all my valuables stashed in the car, not home), came back and made a fire... certainly memorable.. hopefully will update with something more positive soon!
the police never came. it started really getting to me today. it was the 6th day i had basically sat with my things packed, waiting for someone to come and take the next step and act on their threats of a forced evacuation. jane had no choice but to leave for a while and go to the art centre, so i sat here waiting in case the police or someone came, with her dog guarding the front gate and myself inside with a phone to call her should someone arrive. i got to the point where the excitement wore off and it just was getting tedious being stuck in the middle of someone elses argument that i had no control over. there is only so long you can sit around reading and waiting. i wasnt doing anything that i had come here to do, everyones time was being wasted just waiting for a result.
our last ditch attempt before i come home early is extreme and im not sure i am entirely comfortable with it, is that jane and i swap houses. she moves enough stuff to live from into my place (the one under dispute), and i move my things into hers, so that the anxiety and consequences of living 'illegally' in the current property are placed onto her, considering it is her problem and battle to fight, not mine. this will at least allow me to do some work at the centre and try and make some use of the time here. then we give it a few more days to see if anything changes in our favour. if nothing does change or should the police turn up and still go ahead with an eviction and allow the council to take ownership of the property, then we re-asses from there. not ideal but its the last hope.
today wasnt all bad, kinda had fun going out and helping change 2 tires and then tow a car back into the community from 20 min up the road (with all my valuables stashed in the car, not home), came back and made a fire... certainly memorable.. hopefully will update with something more positive soon!
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