A Poem

I was rummaging though my things looking for something today and in side an old choclate box (how clichéd!) I came upon a yellowed bit of note paper with a poem on it given to me by an American friend probably 15 years ago. I did not find what I set out to, but I found what I was looking for.

Like You

Like you I
love love, life, the sweet smell
of things, the sky-blue
landscape of January days.

And my blood boils up
and I laugh through eyes
that have known the buds of tears.

I believe the world is beautiful
and that poetry, like bread, is for everyone.

And that my veins don’t end in me
but in the unanimous blood
of those who struggle for life,
love,
little things,
landscape and bread,
the poetry of everyone.

- Roque Dalton

El Salvadoran poet, murdered 1975

I believe this is a photograph of Neruda and Dalton (correct me if I am wrong)

Solution to the quiz

I forgot to post the answer to my little photo quiz. The prize was to have been a real crystal set

Crystal radio kitset.

But the answer was…The site of Rita Angus’s parent’s home at Waikanae.  Angus completed several major works here including “Rutu” (which was begun much earlier though). Many beautiful  and detailed botanical watercolours came from her time here. A major Angus exhibition opens at Te Papa July 5th and runs through until October and shows over 200 works.

Today’s word is…resonance

The first real job I had was as a Radio Technician at the Post Office (later Telecom). In my training I learned a lot about resonance in a technical sense mainly to do with LC tuned circuits. What fascinated me though was the resonant properties of quartz crystals as in the old crystal radio sets (if you’ve never made one, I’d recommend trying it). If you’ve seen resonance physically in action, in a crystal oscillating for example, I think it makes so much more sense of the phrase “that resonates for me” when speaking of art or writing etc.

So when an artwork or grouping of words resonates, it is a physical response for me. Like the sensation when you stand very close to a concert speaker system. This week (and this year) has been one of resonances. I am constantly finding writing and art that truly resonates. And extending this further, people that I resonate with, brought fully home when chatting to an old friend from radio days this week. Ah yes the old resonance is still there too.

So what art resonates for me? Well read this blog long enough and it becomes pretty clear. But as an example, photography often goes straight to my heart. This photo for many, many reasons.

Trinity- Peter Peryer

To end another quote sent to me from Lis (thanks again) from Drusilla Modjeska’s ‘Stravinsky’s Lunch’. In it Modjeska quotes the artist, Grace Cossington Smith. 

‘ “A continual try”, she [Cossington Smith] said. It’s true of painting, it’s true of writing and it’s true of life. The process of staying with that continual try can produce long low loops and sudden illuminations, which we see in retrospect as springing open and banging closed. But in the tug and pull of time it is another day lived, another piece of board on the easel, another squeeze from the tube.’
 

We must stop meeting like this…

Really we must…

Anyway, I haven’t exactly been tagged, but cool-person Deborah of In a Strange Land posted her meme of fives yesterday and I thought I may be able to adapt it to an art theme - here goes.

What was I doing 10 years ago?
Well I would have been in Wellington and I would have been hanging about The Dowse in Lower Hutt. Unfortunately they don’t have an exhibitions archive on their website, so who knows what I was looking at.

Five things I would do if I were a billionaire:
Buy art…So what 5 things would I buy?
Well to be boring a Clairmont, a Fomison and a Maddox, because I like trinities and I like Clairmont and Fomison a great deal and it would be weird to have only 2 out of three of the Militant Artists Union.
A McCahon - an I AM one or a landscape of the Otago Hills type.
The 5th is HARD. Keeping NZ…??? Ah - a miniature by Ronnie Van Hout.
Of course all that wouldn’t put much of a dent in the billions but its what I’d like.

Five jobs that I have had:
None to do with art unfortunately. Radio engineer, PA, cidermaker, IT geek, midwife.

Three of my habits:
Coffee, coffee, coffee

Five places I have lived:
Invercargill, Roxburgh, Christchurch, Wellington, Palmerston North - not very cosmopolitan.

Five people I want to get to know better:
Hmm - For a start I am going to name bloggers because well this blog has introduced me to some very interesting and cool people. None of which I’ve me in person and I’ll try and keep it arts focussed. Also some bloggers I already know reasonably well as e-friends so I’ve left them off. I hate this actually - its like ‘playing favourites’.

Jacky at Passages
Poet Helen a Stripy Sock Studio
Dave from Pointless and Absurd
Ali Bramwell
Cheryl

I am still working on updating my blog roll. You can take it that anyone there has met with my approval (haha).

And to finish - a small quiz. Where is this and how is this site (and its former occupants) relevant to NZ art? (excuse the bad photo - I took it)