While I'm back in 2005 (a prodigious year) I'd like to share the background to this seemingly boring seascape drawing.
It's October and I'm living in Port Fairy. I was drawing daily, one in the morn and another in the arvo. Its getting late and I'm racing the light. I'm perched upon one of the 'Mounds of Joy', entertained by a coupla toe-in surfers tearing-up 'Green Island', when suddenly there arrived a handful of Mutton Birds or Shearwaters from nowhere all whorling about me. Steadily their numbers increased. It was the arrival of their annual migration. Now I'm surrounded by thousands with many zipping only inches away from my nose. I didn't know if they were happy/cheeky or aggressive/threatened, but i just kept drawing anyway in a rather rapturous state. My camera was broken at the time and the only way to capture the experience in a non-abstract manner was to piece together a single bird as night fell (I had this thing about only drawing realistically from life at the time).
At a later date I was showing my drawings to a gallery owner who ridiculed my art suggesting that there wasn't much to them. That bloody wanker devoed me saying, "what's this? who cares about a stupid bird". But I suppose I did really need to have gone into a studio and executed a large abstract oil to express the wow factor (had no room or money to do so anyway). Otherwise you really just had to be there.
Hey Macca,
ReplyDeleteI really liked this one. It reminded me of watching the muttonbirds come in on dusk at Mutton Bird Island when I was a kid. I've always been fascinated with birds and flight. Your description of the moment was well written (with no tautological errors) and captured my imagination immediately, I think that's why that memory was awoken. Thanks for that, I had completely forgotten about that moment, all the birds around me and the warmth of my father standing beside me. I think most gallery owners forget the benevolence (I think that's the right word)of artwork in this sense and fail to see the priceless importance some art can have. Anyway aren't gallery owners just in it for the bucks? You can't put monetary value on what I just mentioned. Sorry I'm returning to that argument about the exploitation of art by the 'free market' again.