a guilty pleasure

I have just signed up for a 2 year (4 years part-time) on-line Diploma of Graphic Design. It will add another $20000 to my HECS debt but what the HEC? Am I waking in fright at the thought of another round of study? Not yet - I'm still in the honeymoon phase and I haven't started the work yet.

I am having an identity crisis of sorts - who I thought I was, who I am now, who I might be. Me and images - the complex relationship goes on. At the end of my PhD I had come to the conclusion that images were not an 'end in themselves' as I thought they were. I still respect the images that emerge from my unconscious but they have lost some of their hold on me. They used to possess me completely but now......maybe I am just tired and it's too soon to say. But my relationship with them has certainly changed because I have changed irrevocably.

That in itself is a good thing, except I am wandering in a new land without the co-ordinates that served me in the past. It's good to question identity, in the end it is not who we really are anyway. Except life goes on and I can't walk naked through the landscape as my 'avatar' does here. I need to find my place, and find some clothes so other people know who I am and what I am about, and they want to know.

A conversation I had yesterday rattled me a bit. This person had just finished reading my thesis and gave me some very positive feedback, asking questions like: 'well, what's next? Are you going to try and publish, deliver papers at conferences?' This person thought I had written well, and liked my journal entries the best of all. My plan had been to keep writing, try and get a paper published, but somewhere in the gruelling struggle to the finish line that idea got sidelined and all but thrown out of the box. 

I have fallen into another kind of void, but this one is brightly coloured and seductive, shimmering with the formal aspects of image-making - colour, shape and design. I admit there is a guilty pleasure in playing around with software and its chicanery. The guilt comes from an unnecessary but well entrenched attachment to traditional forms of art and a lifelong habit of making images out of suffering rather than joy. But there was this dream, right at the end of my study, where I am surfing in crystal light-filled waters, diving under to find a white shrine with nothing inside it. That should have told me something, but what?

The doll in the image above is me of course, walking through a strange new world. It occurred to me yesterday, when this person asked if I was still recording my numinous dream images, that I had forgotten about them. But when I think about it - maybe I am still recording them in different ways - like this image above.

After 8 years of study, with a grinding agenda unsympathetically driving me on, I feel I still need a framework. And maybe that's why I signed up for the graphic design course. This will be different, in that the focus will be on certain types of images and certain ways of conveying a message, but it doesn't mean I have abandoned who I am. My unique sensibility will prevail as it does for everyone, so maybe there is no need to fear losing my identity at all. We are always in a state of flux. As the retirement age moves further into the distance, the other practical reality is that my new skills just may allow me to work into old age if other streams of income dry up.

All I can think of to sort this out is to go back to the core of what I do - keep drawing, and keep writing. And that is what I am doing here.

image: Frantom, original digital image compiled from a traditional drawing and a manipulated, collaged landscape.

inertia

For months I have been having epic surfing dreams in which I am unafraid, in harmony with the sea. Sometimes I am even jubilant and triumphant, hurtling down the face of a large wave. I have been meditating for 25 minutes, every day for 7 weeks now, and it seems to help me remember my dreams more clearly.

But in my waking life I am in a 'no-woman's' land. It is to be expected I guess. I am officially a 'Doctor', my thesis is being bound and the digital version is online at Curtin and on my website - there is nothing more to do. I have loaned out a couple of hard copies to interested readers but there has been no flurry of activity and I didn't expect one. In my work-life things are unstable as usual - I have picked up an extra copyright class and may teach PhotoShop in term 4 - things continue to limp along. 

But there is a split, a disjuncture. Once my art and my spiritual life were aligned. Now that I want to study graphic design, I wonder if I can reconcile it with future spiritual study. Or even if I need to. In meditation recently a voice said to me: you are that which you seek. I know this is true. So I am wondering what is next. Is anything at all next? After encountering the Void - is there anything else? Or am I just marking time? Is there still a role for images in the spiritual journey of my life? Apart from their more commercial application that is. Is that going to be enough? Or should I instead devote all of my attentions to psychic evolution? If I do that, how do I make a living? Or is just living my life mindfully enough, no matter what sort of images I produce?

I don't know the answers to any of these questions right now. It is probably not a good time to be making any decisions. I am not comfortable with this state of inertia - but I know how this goes. I will just have to wait for knowing to come.

image: my © - digital drawing of a wound added to a digitally enhanced photo.

the burden of memory

Last year I took a couple of copies of a book about the Carrolup artists into the prison to give to one of my university students. As a Noongar Elder I figured it would be appropriate to entrust him with their care so he could loan them out to others, which is what Charlie (not his real name) dutifully did by locking them in his cupboard. Prisoners in maximum security aren't usually allowed locked cupboards because they can hide contraband, but Charlie was a 'lifer' and after many years of good behaviour, had been granted some privileges.

When I went back 2 weeks later, Charlie was very excited because he had found an old sepia photograph of his parents in the book. He didn't have a photo of his mum and dad so he asked me if I would scan and print one out for him, which of course I did - on my best glossy photographic paper. It was a wedding photo - husband and wife were dressed in wadjela clothes and made a very handsome couple.

In my job as Aboriginal art lecturer a few years ago I was keen to give my students information about their past - many knew little of their Aboriginal culture so I took every opportunity to educate them. I felt uncomfortable doing it, because a white woman shouldn't really be giving these people back their heritage - but so much had been lost already and I thought it was really important. I tried not to be patronising but maybe it seemed that way to them - I really don't know.

Just recently I passed on some information about an exhibition of the Carrolup artists that Curtin University has curated for the Town Hall. There were some photos from those days at the old Marribank Mission and the Curtin staff were trying to identify the kids. Some had already been identified and I recognised many familiar names. One of the curators was quite excited about this yet although I know her intentions were honourable, like mine had been when I tried to reconnect these people with their past, I saw myself reflected in her and it got me thinking. Was I just perpetuating the same patriarchal culture where the 'whites' tell the 'blacks' what's good for them? It occurred to me that maybe Aboriginal people are just plain tired of being reminded. When I talk to my Aboriginal colleagues at work I get the feeling they don't want to keep dragging up the past, they want to talk about their pets or how one of their kids has just completed a degree in anthropology. It seems many of us wadjelas have only just caught up with what's been happening for the past 200 years and it's we who need to talk about it. But Aboriginal people have been dealing with it for generations and maybe they just want to move on.

This stuff happens in families - at least in mine. It wasn't that long ago my aunties were reminding me of my 'bad' behaviour as a teenager - this was when I was in my forties. For f***k's sake - aren't people allowed to change and move on? My guess is that it's easier to file people away in boxes and tape them up - in that context memory is just a convenient way to keep everything neat and tidy. 

Recently something else got me thinking about memory. For the past 7 weeks I have been a participant in a research study into the emotional benefits of spending 25 minutes a day in 'mindfulness meditation'. Many memories have surfaced during my meditation sessions - random things I had completely forgotten about. Some have been good memories, but there are some unpleasant things I now have to deal with dammit - things I had unknowingly shoved into the darkest recesses of my psyche. It's got me wondering - when is too much remembering a burden?

image: Randy Mora/YCN, http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2012/jan/15/memory-test-membryo-memperor

off 'out-the-back'

I’m reading through the printed hard copy of my thesis but I’ve fallen out of love with it. I know I can be a fickle lover but to be fair, this is not the story I fell in love with. In the prolonged struggle to get it to the finish line I didn’t notice how much I compromised. I acknowledge a degree of compromise was a necessary means to an end. But so much has been taken out or made more academically palatable - this is definitely not the passionate and personal tale I wanted to tell. In truth I think I have finally realised that despite the enormous amount of work involved, a thesis is a very short chapter in a life. It may sound disrespectful, and although I have had little opportunity to enjoy any accolades that might be coming my way, it is kind of ‘yeah, well I’ve done this thing - so what – what now?’ I’m pretty unimpressed with myself and that’s probably a good thing.

Since finishing the amendments and submitting the final product I have been ‘playing’  - making images about nothing in particular while I make money and develop my digital skills. It’s been fun but inevitably I have become dissatisfied playing in the shallows. I long to plunge head first into the depths again. After going through the trauma of being afraid of even small waves (in the ‘real’ world), I am well and truly back ‘out-the-back’ surfing again, so this paddling around in the shore break will simply not do.

Yesterday I was looking for reference images for a group exhibition in 2015. In case you hadn’t noticed Australia has gone mad discussing and planning the 100^th anniversary of WW 1 and because the fleet left for Gallipoli from Albany, this town will take centre stage. The theme of every damned exhibition or community workshop is – you guessed it – ANZAC. I hate the rhetoric around ANZAC, I hate ANZAC day – I think war is a load of apha-male bullshit. (Ok, I know it’s more complex than that). I do think I am justified in being disgusted that the Australian national identity is predominantly based on the WW 1 & 2 ‘diggers’ and an outlaw named Ned Kelly. For a start, women only have bit parts in these ‘heroic’ cultural myths, not to mention indigenous Australians. The local city council supports the group of artists I belong to with in-kind donations like free gallery space, so we queried whether we were going to be shackled to a particular ideology, that is – would we still get assistance if we made anti-war art? Apparently we have been given a free rein, but we’ll see what happens when the show is finally curated.

In my search for reference material for this themed show, I brutalised myself looking at gory images of dismembered bodies and headless corpses. I have always been interested in this topic. I have seen many headless corpses and heads in large glass jars during my student days in the anatomy department at UWA but photographs of real people with real blood was a savage assault on my senses. I had intended to do a very bloody and ‘human’ Goya or George Gittoes inspired work about the brutality of war. However, as I looked at one disturbingly fascinating image after another I was reminded that dismemberment and decapitation are symbolic stages of spiritual evolution. Once again I am confronted with the paradoxes between the material and the psychic, the ephemeral and the eternal. I was kind of looking forward to rendering all that torn and bloody flesh. But the work will now take on a more abstract and symbolic form, which will at least stop me from making any readable contraversial statements that might get me chucked out of the group show.

Jung wrote a lot about ‘synchronicity’ and last night in ‘A Dangerous Method’ on SBS, there he was. It was pure joy watching a dramatisation of the man who has influenced me so much. I took it as a sign - it reminded me how badly I needed to get back to my core study into the evolution of consciousness. After all, although that was the central theme of my thesis, I was only allowed to wade in knee-deep. Thank God, I am off out-the-back again.

image: Cropped section of my oil painting 'The Minotaur and Me'.

just as well I look good in a hat

This is page 46 of my thesis, which includes a photograph of The Gap by Mike Lyons - Albany dentist and amateur photographer.

I am having 3 'unofficial' copies of my thesis printed next week locally to make them available for people to read. One will go immediately to my Wise Old Rosicrucian Friend. I suspect only a couple of others will actually put their hands up for the task. Can't say I blame them, you have to have a very good  reason to read something like that.

The official versions of the 153 page document and other appropriate notifications will probably take a couple of months. Graduation is in early September and this is the regalia (and that is what it is officially called) I have to wear or else I'm not allowed to graduate. I don't usually like these types of ceremonies, especially when I am in the thick of it, but I confess I am really looking forward to it. And the nosh up afterwards.

Just as well I look good in a hat.

(Btw, this isn't me)

life after a PhD

Today I chucked my amended thesis in the DropBox and e-mailed a link to my supervisor at Curtin. It has taken me more than 3 weeks of solid work to climb the last bit of the PhD mountain. I thought after 8 years of gruelling study I would be too exhausted to even think about art. Instead, I am chaffing at the bit.

I had a few things left to do in relation to the PhD in the last few months - one of them was an artist's talk just over a week ago for my friends and interested folk who live on the south coast. There were 28 people there and I knew the majority of them quite well. It was a joy to share a condensed version of my journey with them and I was very moved by the support. From the feedback I got most people really enjoyed it and some even found it inspiring. The other task of course was to dive back into the thesis and make the 'minor' amendments recommended by both examiners, who said they really liked it. I'm very relieved they were only minor adjustments, because dealing with them was hard enough. I struggled to get my head back into it because I felt it was done - I'd had enough when I packed it off 6 months ago - but the changes have meant the whole document is very readable now, rather than just some parts of it. I had wanted to unify it as a piece of writing, but ran out of time and energy last September and just had to get it in so I could exhibit in December. Robin has read the amended thesis and agrees it is now very palatable.

So what's next? I have registered a business name Void Art & Design, in honour of the profound insights the PhD has given me on a few levels. I intend on doing some study next semester to learn more about Illustrator, InDesign and PhotoShop. These are all programs I should be able to use professionally if I am serious about doing some graphic design work. I am in the middle of doing a digital drawing for a promotional banner at work and I have finished another small job as well.

But best of all, I am excited about being able to move around in my art practice - between different media as well as subject matter, because I am no longer shackled to one massive idea. I am feeling so much lighter, as though some huge weight has been lifted from me. I am pretty pleased with myself for persevering, in fact I am even a little surprised because there was a time in my life when I didn't get to the finish line on anything. It's nice to know people can change. 

This morning after sending off the thesis for the last time I went for a surf. There were some good sized waves coming through and I had a great time, partly because although I am not ready to leave the planet just yet, I didn't have to worry that I might drown or be eaten by a shark before I had completed my PhD.

image: Girl with Balloons is an unfinished digital version of a small goauche painting of mine.

so much to know

I've been really busy - too busy to blog. This is just some of what I have been doing. I've put in a lot of hours on this design job - I certainly won't get paid enough for the amount of work I've done, but I am building knowledge as well as my portfolio. 

I have the 'art' side of it figured and I have been using PhotoShop for ages - but there is so much more to know about the software, print specifications and making sure the image is high quality. I think I will be doing a lot of LYNDA tutorials to build on my sparse knowledge of Illustrator and learn InDesign as well. 

I have also been enrolled in a 'copyright' unit so I can teach it next term and in the process learnt a hell of a lot about copyright. It is a real minefield I'll bet most artists and designers don't even know they are treading in.

This image is a spinoff of the current job I am doing - a couple of happy accidents I rather like that resulted from playing around with filters.