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Close up photographs, front (upper) back (lower)  Audio file - first 3 lines of Burnt NortonAudio file, with visual if anyone wants to follow. - .. -- . / .--. .-. . ... . -. - / .- -. -.. / - .. -- . / .--. .- ... - / .- .-. . / -... --- - .... / .--. . .-. .... .- .--. ... / .--. .-. . ... . -. - / .. -. / - .. -- . / ..-. ..- - ..- .-. . / .- -. -.. / - .. -- . / ..-. ..- - ..- .-. . / -.-. --- -. - .- .. -. . -.. / .. -. / - .. -- . / .--. .- ... - Video - Process
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 I want to present these images one behind the other, not side by side, but I have no means of swivelling the images.  This is more like it, but my clothes line has only four lines :-( Hopefully it will show what I mean for presentation
This catalogue from MoMA's 1970 exhibition,Photography into Sculpture, is the first example I have seen of an exhibition which explores photography and sculpture working together. My work this year focusses on how the two can combine. My specific interest is in how, through photography, time can be visualised in a sculptural installation. I found this catalogue very interesting, as it describes photography as "flat work" and as such would not normally be considered sculptural. "To stress this new dimensionality in no way diminishes the nature of the inherent photographic image. In fact, to appreciate these sculptural artifacts, one must recognize how distinctly the artist adheres to the underlying photo-optical basis of his work, and indeed how he exploits the properties unique to photography itself. The maker of a photograph takes subjects — things — as he finds them and, with the selectivity necessary to determine their significance, manipulates them into an expression of his sensibilities so that they may constitute a revelation. It is not what is nominally said that counts in a work of art, it is what the artist makes with such intensity of perception that it lives with an intrinsic truth of its own." Peter C. Bunnell, director of the exhibition and Curator of the Museum's Department of Photography (1970) https://www.moma.org/momaorg/shared/pdfs/docs/press_archives/4438/releases/MOMA_1970_Jan- June_0035_36.pdf accessed February 2020 
After processing the first two sets of images, which really tested my photoshop skills, I then made a template on Adobe Illustrator, dragged the images into the template and hoped like mad. Each subject had to be on a transparent background. The files went to CQ Print to be printed onto transparent film so that the progression of the sun across our deck and a line of clouds would show through, rather than print onto paper which would obscure the layers below. It was a nervous wait overnight but it WORKED - yay! The transparent film requires careful handing, but it is quite tough. There are a few finger marks, and static attracts dust, so I might have to wear gloves to cut and layer them in future, but these photos show the first two. Up until now I didn't know if it was going to work. The idea is to show time through movement. I can now see that the clouds work better than the more structured shadows, but until I was able to put these two sets together I didn't know if it was going to work at all. The Adobe Illustrator did my head in, but by some fluke I must have done it correctly. The shadow images were taken one every 10 minutes. The clouds were moving really quickly, 2 minutes apart. There was some trial and error at the start but what works and what doesn't soon becomes obvious.  I’ve been mostly working on photography. Last Sunday, 3 May, I spent the day at Shag Rock. Got there just after 6am, too dark to focus, so it was good to have Ron with me. He thought he was only coming to help me lug the gear, but he took my head torch down onto the beach to light up the rock so I could get a decent focus. He didn’t stay! I was hoping for a sunrise, but there wasn’t one, nor a sunset either, but the tide and the time worked out perfectly, with high tide about midday. I’ve sent twelve to CQ Print which should be ready tomorrow. Printing them is a trial to see if the idea of hanging them, as large prints, works. FYI - Uni has an arrangement with CQ while the uni print shop is closed. It is a bit cheaper than CQ’s normal rate. Today I’ve also been making images of leaves and sand (left over from last year’s Hurunui River work) for the slide work. They’ll be processed in time for class. Sent a couple of earlier ones to CQ Print today too. They will be on A4 transparent film and I’ll cut them up and layer them into the slide mounts. Making a template on Illustrator did my head in – I miss you guys, especially when it comes to stuff like that – and I won’t know until tomorrow if I got there in the end. It looks ok, but I want the background to be transparent – fingers crossed. The embroidery is growing. I’m getting a little bit faster, but the slowness is quite meditative and I like that. For me it is the lines and texture of the Morse code translation of TS Eliot’s poem that is attracting me, and the black and white of the fabric and thread, which also references early photography when there was only B&W. I’ve ben thinking about how the embroidery might develop into a larger acrylic work. Questions:
Artistotle identified four elements, earth, fire, water and air, as the basis of all matter. I am using these elements as the subjects for four series of photographs depicting time. Birthdays - an annual event - are important celebrations in our small family. The birthday flag is raised a week before the day and is lowered a week after. Air - wind. Thanks to Jamie Hanton
Burnt Norton Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation. So far, I have embroidered the first two lines of eight. Luckily white fabric and black thread provides my not so young eyes with enough contrast to see what I'm doing. I can now recognise most of the commonly used Morse code letters, making the work easier and a little bit quicker, but it is still slow-time work. The slowness gives me time to focus on the words, and I find it quite meditative and calming, which I'm enjoying.  Burnt Norton
Time present and time past Are both perhaps present in time future And time future contained in time past. If all time is eternally present All time is unredeemable. What might have been is an abstraction Remaining a perpetual possibility Only in a world of speculation. What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. Footfalls echo in the memory Down the passage which we did not take Towards the door we never opened Into the rose-garden. My words echo Thus, in your mind. But to what purpose Disturbing the dust on a bowl of rose-leaves I do not know. Other echoes Inhabit the garden. Shall we follow? Quick, said the bird, find them, find them, Round the corner. Through the first gate, Into our first world, shall we follow The deception of the thrush? Into our first world. There they were, dignified, invisible, Moving without pressure, over the dead leaves, In the autumn heat, through the vibrant air, And the bird called, in response to The unheard music hidden in the shrubbery, And the unseen eyebeam crossed, for the roses Had the look of flowers that are looked at. There they were as our guests, accepted and accepting. So we moved, and they, in a formal pattern, Along the empty alley, into the box circle, To look down into the drained pool. Dry the pool, dry concrete, brown edged, And the pool was filled with water out of sunlight, And the lotos rose, quietly, quietly, The surface glittered out of heart of light, And they were behind us, reflected in the pool. Then a cloud passed, and the pool was empty. Go, said the bird, for the leaves were full of children, Hidden excitedly, containing laughter. Go, go, go, said the bird: human kind Cannot bear very much reality. Time past and time future What might have been and what has been Point to one end, which is always present. II Garlic and sapphires in the mud Clot the bedded axle-tree. The trilling wire in the blood Sings below inveterate scars Appeasing long forgotten wars. The dance along the artery The circulation of the lymph Are figured in the drift of stars Ascend to summer in the tree We move above the moving tree In light upon the figured leaf And hear upon the sodden floor Below, the boarhound and the boar Pursue their pattern as before But reconciled among the stars. At the still point of the turning world. Neither flesh nor fleshless; Neither from nor towards; at the still point, there the dance is, But neither arrest nor movement. And do not call it fixity, Where past and future are gathered. Neither movement from nor towards, Neither ascent nor decline. Except for the point, the still point, There would be no dance, and there is only the dance. I can only say, there we have been: but I cannot say where. And I cannot say, how long, for that is to place it in time. The inner freedom from the practical desire, The release from action and suffering, release from the inner And the outer compulsion, yet surrounded By a grace of sense, a white light still and moving, Erhebung without motion, concentration Without elimination, both a new world And the old made explicit, understood In the completion of its partial ecstasy, The resolution of its partial horror. Yet the enchainment of past and future Woven in the weakness of the changing body, Protects mankind from heaven and damnation Which flesh cannot endure. Time past and time future Allow but a little consciousness. To be conscious is not to be in time But only in time can the moment in the rose-garden, The moment in the arbour where the rain beat, The moment in the draughty church at smokefall Be remembered; involved with past and future. Only through time time is conquered. III Here is a place of disaffection Time before and time after In a dim light: neither daylight Investing form with lucid stillness Turning shadow into transient beauty Wtih slow rotation suggesting permanence Nor darkness to purify the soul Emptying the sensual with deprivation Cleansing affection from the temporal. Neither plentitude nor vacancy. Only a flicker Over the strained time-ridden faces Distracted from distraction by distraction Filled with fancies and empty of meaning Tumid apathy with no concentration Men and bits of paper, whirled by the cold wind That blows before and after time, Wind in and out of unwholesome lungs Time before and time after. Eructation of unhealthy souls Into the faded air, the torpid Driven on the wind that sweeps the gloomy hills of London, Hampstead and Clerkenwell, Campden and Putney, Highgate, Primrose and Ludgate. Not here Not here the darkness, in this twittering world. Descend lower, descend only Into the world of perpetual solitude, World not world, but that which is not world, Internal darkness, deprivation And destitution of all property, Dessication of the world of sense, Evacuation of the world of fancy, Inoperancy of the world of spirit; This is the one way, and the other Is the same, not in movement But abstention from movememnt; while the world moves In appetency, on its metalled ways Of time past and time future. IV Time and the bell have buried the day, the black cloud carries the sun away. Will the sunflower turn to us, will the clematis Stray down, bend to us; tendril and spray Clutch and cling? Chill Fingers of yew be curled Down on us? After the kingfisher's wing Has answered light to light, and is silent, the light is still At the still point of the turning world. V Words move, music moves Only in time; but that which is only living Can only die. Words, after speech, reach Into the silence. Only by the form, the pattern, Can words or music reach The stillness, as a Chinese jar still Moves perpetually in its stillness. Not the stillness of the violin, while the note lasts, Not that only, but the co-existence, Or say that the end precedes the beginning, And the end and the beginning were always there Before the beginning and after the end. And all is always now. Words strain, Crack and sometimes break, under the burden, Under the tension, slip, slide, perish, Will not stay still. Shrieking voices Scolding, mocking, or merely chattering, Always assail them. The Word in the desert Is most attacked by voices of temptation, The crying shadow in the funeral dance, The loud lament of the disconsolate chimera. The detail of the pattern is movement, As in the figure of the ten stairs. Desire itself is movement Not in itself desirable; Love is itself unmoving, Only the cause and end of movement, Timeless, and undesiring Except in the aspect of time Caught in the form of limitation Between un-being and being. Sudden in a shaft of sunlight Even while the dust moves There rises the hidden laughter Of children in the foliage Quick now, here, now, always- Ridiculous the waste sad time Stretching before and after. I think it can.
Eat local and eat seasonal is my preference, but I'm not averse to tinned Black Doris plums with my muesli in winter, (or this morning). Ron's and my favourite lunch treat is a pizza at the The Mediterranean Food Company in Tuam Street. Their bases are really crispy and the toppings are generous. They have one called Quattro Stagione, or Four Seasons. For me the ingredients carry the concept of time through the four seasons. Spring - Artichokes Summer - Tomatoes/Basil Autumn - Mushrooms Winter - Ham/salami https://www.mediterraneanfoods.co.nz/menu/ (under Pizza Menu, Tomato Bases, right hand side...) When we were kids my mum preserved loads of fruit in summer. She stills says she had a jar of fruit in the pantry for every day of the year. It came in handy when she had to cook for shearers and musterers. I can smell the fruit cooking as I write this. My least favourite were the cherry plums, really tiny little yellow plums. I groaned when they came out. The only good thing about yellow cherry plums was counting the tiny stones around our pudding bowls when we had finished. She would lay a big tarp down and shake the branches to remove the fruit so the wasps didn't get them first. I cheered for the wasps. That we had them all winter was testament to her understanding of using what you have and not wasting anything, but for me - I'd still cheer for the wasps. |
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