desert mob

finally scored a day off after a full on few weeks. early last tuesday jane announced to me that the exhibition we were supposed to be hanging in town on wednesday, was in my control. she wanted me to curate, and hang the work, and she'd be on hand to assist. we spent all day tuesday choosing what work to take and cataloguing it, and wrapping everything. there is so much to take into consideration in this environment, and paintings and wire sculptures do not travel well for a few hours in the back of a dusty troop carrier on dirt roads. by about 6pm tuesday, the biggest painting we were taking for the show, was still being worked on, and i hadnt catalogued or photographed it. we had no choice but to pack it up, and bring Marie with us into town to finish her painting in the gallery while we set up around her.

i threw a group of 5 small paintings up, mainly to get them off the ground and out of the way, they were unevenly spaced and not level. the gallery is through a door off to the side of a shop. a woman came in and was looking, came back with the gallery owner, and bought 2 of them. the gallery manager then carefully put red dots under them, as if thats how they were staying! not bad... i got everything else hung, re-arranged it all 20 times. Marie finally finished her painting at about 6 and we got it up, still wet.

as we were leaving town we stopped at the supermarket, walked from the carpark into the complex and were stopped immediatly by a security guard, who blocked marie from entering. he said she was hassling us for money. this is something that is a problem, but we both said she wasnt, she was with us. he didnt beleive us and claimed he saw her in there all the time asking for money. marie is in her 70's, and at best would get to town once ever 4 months, and spends most of the time in the community looking after her blind sister and grandson. the guard was really aggressive, the guy working with him was trying to get him to back down. he apologised to jane, but refused to look at marie. pure blatant racism. he follwed jane and marie and waited outside the supermarket and waited till they came out. he apologised more formally then, but mainly because he realised jane was going to take it futher. when jane complained to centre management the next day, they offered marie a $20 gift card for the centre. it was all pretty insulting, so in true jane style, she's getting a lawyer involved.

we were back in town friday for the opening of Desert Mob 2010 at Araluen art centre. its a huge exhibition, showcasing all the art centres across central australia. basil hall (custom printmaker) was there to also launch the woodblock panel project which he had organised to mark the 20th anniversary of the Desert Mob exhibition, got to meet him on the night, told me to get in touch if i wanted to work in darwin down the track! had the market day on saturday, where all the participating art centres had stalls in the car park and sold works, up to $300. we sold a lot, and the postcards i had ordered sold well. had a pretty good weekend, few familiar NAS faces, seeing gina, tammie and sia over the weekend. saw Dan Sultan live on sunday night outdoors at anzac oval, highlight of the trip. bloody amazing. headed back out to titjikala on monday, the road was pretty bad after the weekends rain. i was sitting in the back of the troopy, it was sliding everywhere over the road, was great fun. we got bogged once, someone drove past not long after and got us out thankfully.

after a few weeks of 30 degree days, the next week is supposed to be 13-15 degrees and raining non stop, changes so quickly....

only one week left now...