Monday, April 02, 2007

Collaborative Journals





are very interesting and a real pleasure to work in. It's exciting to receive one in the mail and see what's been happening in it over the previous weeks. Yesterday I spent a couple of hours working in one. The owner of this journal had a hip replacement a while ago and her pages were about that with pieces from paperwork about what she may and may not do with her new hip collaged with imagery including a wonderful drawing of a woman stretching her body and hips in joyful freedom. I have a hip that was damaged in a car accident which is pretty good at the moment but has an unknown use by date, so I appreciated being able to see this work of Michele's. It reminded me of a Sam Hunt poem called Sara - he released a CD single "Your Body has no Flaw" where he recites the poem with funky music playing (click on the link and there is a 45 second soundbite from the CD there) - I love it. It's a good mantra. I have a lot of his poetry books - on our second date my husband and I went to a bar where The Warratahs were playing, and Sam was also there, reciting his poetry - including a favourite, Wavesong. There you go, quite a lot of personal information ... I don't usually impart that here!
I've collaged in some gestural drawings from a visual diary of mine, (these are 20-30 second life drawings), and then painted the page, and written the words of the poem around the figures. The figures look a bit like boiled lobsters! Couldn't stop myself adding my metallic paint, of course. There are seven artists in this group. Each artist completes a double page spread. There are several of these working their way around New Zealand and it's something of a long term project - it'll be a while before we each have a completely filled journal.

Sara
poem by Sam Hunt


Your body has no flaw.
That must be a lie!
Maude Gonne had sad hands,
Angela's temper never opened doors.

Your body has no flaw.
I look for one daily,
the darkness of the valley,
the climb to your jaw.

Your body has no flaw,
I part the earth and sky,
I witness birth,
I pray at a bleeding door.

Your body has no flaw,
buttocks breast and thigh
curved ankles where I lie
your calves...another shore.

Your body has no flaw.
The black shag neither,
nor the blue heron at prayer,
you live outside the law.
Your body has no flaw.


I've also photographed the other two contributions I made in the journal. The first entry was a compilation of ideas from the books I was reading at the time. There are many layers and pieces that fold back to reveal other images. The third image (music and houses) was an idea taken from the work of another artist, ("Union Road", by John Brack) and to be honest, I can't remember why. The wonderful thing about these journals is that they are a place to experiment!

2 comments:

denise said...

Like what you did with this one. I was just wondering about the diary the other day....

Anonymous said...

Thanks for that, and the poetry. I love poetry, and maybe that's a place to start in putting my busted up self back on the raod to doing something other than moping.