An Artist's Lunch

Art is the heart and soul of Ben Quilty's life. It's beauty extending like a vine into the gorgeous friends and family that surround him, the lush paintings that bejewel the walls of his studio, the bubbling hot soup on the stove and the notes of music that chase sticks of charcoal that scribble on a page.

Welcomed by Ben into his Robertson studio I enjoyed a delicious day of drawing, eating, conversation and camaraderie. In the fickle world of the arts in Australia it was heartening to share such a stimulating day amongst accomplished artists, who had made their art the drive of their life. A drive which was not not self indulgent, or insular or unsuccessful, but welcomed the love and appreciation of many a great thing in life.

As Renee posed for a session of life drawing, Luka, Marcel's son, crawled playfully between her legs before returning to his fathers side to help him draw. Later that day, Marcel took me to his studio, a giant warehouse filled with the faces of his family, painted all over his canvases. The people that inform every part of his life and art practice. A beautiful celebration of love and life.

As a young artist, I reluctantly admit to feeling intimidated by the life before me, one I fear to be lonely and exclusive. I struggle with the dichotomy of living for ones art and living with others, why do I feel there is an inevitable choice to be made between the two. I seek solace, and love and understanding just as much as any other, but it is hard to find when it seems an artist's life, an artists identity has many a pre conceived impression in the eyes of others, one that is impossible to shake.

But this day warmed my heart. Artists have a lot to give, not just to a painting. The light that they shine also attracts other stars. The artists on this day, with their friends and family, their creations, their food, their ideas, made a glistening constellation.

Van Gogh

Wheat Field with cypresses

There is pleasure sure
In being mad, which none but madmen know.

Dryden, The spanish Friar.

Where the road took me

I wanted a car that would match my emotions - that would accelerate and send me racing through time. But I had a cautious metallic diahatsu, that was neither silver nor gold and took its time. I found a narrow winding road, that I clung to the edges of, in ensured a steady pace and let my eyes wander through the landscape. Lush green hills unfolded over every rise, like a bed sheet being shook. Cows barely lifted their munching heads to acknowledge me, safe in their fenced homes.

The coastal vegetation contains dramatic contrast, it shifts with your mood - at one moment green and consistently smooth, then open and harshly brittle. Down the pass birds emerge from the density of the foliage, playing tag with the traffic. In the valley, grand cliffs impose on your thoughts - there, you succumb to the sublime. But at the end, all roads lead to the ocean. It absorbs the space, it entices you in, it quenches your thirst. The sea is made up of many oceans, there are different currents, waves that break and some that don't. Today, the sea rolls like a giant body, it is travelling somewhere, it is itself.

I had a dream: The sea had a silicone skin, every dive beneath the surface was a failure. My face masked in a plastic glue so that I couldn't breath.

Standing before the sea pool, my legs cowering inward against the salt spay of the crashing waves, I am exposed. I Plunge in, enveloped, I am numb ! My hands find themselves gliding over the carpeted floor of the pool. I have made it. The sea lichen is warm and feels like velvet. It has trapped the sunlight in its emerald fronds and gives heat to hands and feet that dare touch it. What is often a mysterious unknown that harbors fears, is the life of the pool.

Floating up from the floor, I welcome my glazed vision of the layers of sea, salt and colour. A saturation of emerald to jade, from cobalt to aqua, to white bubbles - To air, to sky.

I have shed a skin. My body cleansed. I welcome the hands of my sister that wrap me in towels. Nurturing the heat of experience.

'Why, sometimes I've believed as many as six impossible things before breakfast.'

The White Queen - Alice through the looking Glass

Figure in the Landscape

I love epiphany's. Particularly in this business of art where one can stumble around for weeks like a mad woman, trying to justify collecting scraps or 'arranging' things as some sort of legitamite art process. I have been sewing pieces of odd fabric shapes together for weeks. My sewing machine and I have been making a second skin, perhaps I'm subconsciously preparing for winter. I have no desire to stuff this 'thing' that I am making, unlike my other textile pieces. I'm rather liking the formlessness of it, and how it droops and sags. Whilst I'm not helping it grow, it sits on the floor like a curled up creature, a pile of folds, a snake skin. Then I reach down and pinch a section of it and pull it into the air, it is a languid body. I hold it from multiple points and it reminds me of a rugged landscape. I think about how I have been patch working it together, an accumulative process, gathering found materials and using instinct and desire to let it grow. To me, the colours, texture and pattern connotate memory of landscapes visited. I wonder if the piece is trying to become a landscape. When I hold it up, I realise there are sleeves, it can be worn like a cloak, draping the body. When Brian Tried it on I saw a figure in the landscape. My memory of a landscape represented through suede and silk textures, being felt by another. What is the effect of wearable art when the body is physicaally entanged with the work, is the experience immediete. But who's experience is it ? What happens when there is a potential protagonist in the work ?

Questions to ponder at least. Things to clarify. But never the less, interesting progress.

Crying over Creme Brulee

Crème brûlée French for "burnt cream".A dessert consisting of a rich custard base topped with a contrasting layer of hard caramel. Although often served cold in North America, traditionally it is to be served warm. The custard base is traditionally flavoured with vanilla, but is also sometimes flavored with lemon or orange (zest), rosemary, chocolate, coffee, liqueurs, fruits, and even spices such as ginger. The exact origins of this dish are unknown, though the earliest known reference to it is in François Massialot's 1691 cookbook.

Today in the work place, I was ordered to perform any artists worst nightmare (or should I add the gourmet, hungry artist). Crack the tops of millions of individual creme brulee deserts then shovel the contents into the bin ! Blasphemy ! It was purely torturous ! The experience of a creme brulee is supposed to be a deliciously sweet, acoustic and textured ritual, going something like this:
One takes the spoon and smashes the toffee ever so poignantly, so that the smooth hard surface cracks and teases one with the promise of something beneath.
Then, the spoon is inverted and in one strategic insertion and rotation of the wrist, a perfect proportion of custard and toffee is drawn. When in the mouth the toffee chatters on one's teeth yet is soothed by the melting of the cold custard.
It ultimately does go down a sweet treat.
But alas, here I stood, before the mouth of a giant otto bin, nearly in tears as I shovelled out the desert as if it were were yellow mucous. Utterly horrified by the waste, and carnage and the predicament of being 'paid' to do such a thing, the creme brulee became exactly that: nothing more than mucous, a substance, my experience of food irrefutably tarnished forever.

But, just when you think it can't get any worse, it does. When Creme Brulee basically consists of eggs and sugar, there can be some consolation in the loss of only basic ingredients. But when handed a platter of smoked salmon sandwiches, I simply could not be consoled by anything ! My pay packet can't even factor in one piece of salmon on the weekly grocery budget, yet here I was throwing it out ! With one ravenous swoop I took a sandwich in my bear hands and sunk my teeth in.... Heaven......
Unfortunately I had my eyes closed at this point, savouring the mouthful, and didn't observe the floor manager march right up to me and glare down at me disapprovingly.
"The food goes in the bin" I heard bellowed at me.
''This sandwich is too delicious not to see the walls of my mouth'' I replied.

Not sure why I still have a job.

Creme Brulee:

Ingredients
8 egg yolks
50g sugar
600ml cream
1 vanilla pod
caster sugar


method
Mix yolks and sugar together.

Bring cream and vanilla pod to the boil. Remove the pod and scrapes its insides into the cream. Now mix the cream into the yolks and sugar.

Transfer back into the saucepan and cook until the moisture coats the back of the spoon. Be careful not to curdle the mixture.

Divide the mixture into 6 (7.5cm) ramekins or moulds. Sit these in a roasting tin and add warm water until it comes three-quarters up the sides of the ramekins. Cook in a pre-heated oven (180C) for 12 minutes. Remove from the oven and allow to cool.

Refrigerate until ready.

To finish the brulees, sprinkle them liberally with caster sugar. If you have a blow torch, use that to brown the sugar. If not, brown the sugar under a pre-heated grill, having the ramekins as close as possible to the heat. The top should be hard and when cracked with the spoon will give a wonderful contrast to the creamy bottom.

Soundtrack to Blog

An after thought to tonight's blog was the inclusion of my music soundtrack whilst typing:
Phil Slater Quartet. The Thousands. (wonderful contemplative Jazz, slow and steady. I love the track titles too 'Burden of Corners' is one)