Sunday, 7.41pm: I haven’t the energy to write any more today. But if you have thoughts, responses, reports on your experiences at the weekend, at the Friday night slideshow/bowling event, or at the exhibition/border walk on Saturday, feel free to chime in here! I’ll keep updating over the next days.
Hooroo!
-Lucas
Michael and I went on the Walk from Chrissie Cotter Gallery. We followed our map specifically past the trees and benches and the closed Portuguese
Ethnographic Museum – a highlight. We nearly walked past Johnson’s
Creek but we found it just in time. Michael took some photos. We crossed and investigated the Leichhardt side of J Creek. Quite poetic and as M Krygier says, in the US quite is an amplifier not a qualifier – so that reads Very Poetic.
We looked at the empty shops but didn’t discuss what we might do with them. We looked at the actual shops and Michael took a photo of a scull & a Thair buddha adjacent to one another. We went into the carpet shop – they are having a sale from June 1 (40% off) – Michael told me how you identify quality in a rug – if the pattern on the front is as sharp on the back, you’ve got quality, a wool base is better than cotton. The one I like is $1490, the one Michael liked is $4000+, a tree of life with silk detail.
Okey doke, I am waiting to complete all my instructions – eat cake (had it earlier), drink tea (maybe), shake Lucas by the hand and wish him well and tell the mayor about social changes he should make – my first comment for the mayor is please could he ensure there’s a sign for Mallett Street coming off Parramatta Road – I got lost getting here.
Thanks once again Lu for another inspirational project – our fave moment on the walk was the quiet once you re-enter back off Parra Rd into the park, lovely.
Ahh correction here I didn’t say it was my favourite rug (but it was very beautifull with silk highlights in the pattern) but it was very similar to a “Tree Of Life” carpet I bought in India in 1979 for $100 and sold as soon as I arrived in Sydney after 7 months in Asia from Uk for wait for it ..$100 to friends who put me up in Melb. .. i also sold my new Sitar by setting myself up on the ground outside Paddo Markets.. ah the days of hippdom!
Anyway the carpet joint are having a 40% off sale from June 1st but I’d rather go to India to get one ..so place your orders with moi :)
Bowling was so exciting that this lady lost her dainty white gloves!
Congratulations on getting the exhibition up and running, Lucas, it sounds like it was a success. The 1600 pieces of blu-tac made me think of the map pins I used for a short film retrospective I set up last month, pinning old festival fliers and programs in to the gallery wall – although I think I only used a hundred or so.
It’s almost sad to think this is all coming to an end (what am I supposed to read now?) … it came along at just the right time, as I was finishing up with the festival and actually had time to read and enjoy it, and it has also got me thinking about new projects as well as ideas of community and connection.
Even today, on a rare weekday at home (I’m getting over a cold), I was thinking about the block of flats I live in, and the fact that I really don’t know anyone else here or even see anyone very often … compared to the last place a few suburbs away, pretty much the same number of flats, and everyone was very friendly and helped each other out – in that small-town Wollongong way, the guy living next door to me was one of the Arts postgraduate students I now support in my job at Uni, and there was another UOW Arts student living upstairs.
I’ve also realised that my own network/community now has so many people scattered far and wide … I sent out an email the other day, and realised that there would be Australian friends currently living in Sydney, Canberra, Melbourne, London, Japan and France reading it. So I’m starting an online photo project with some of them, about their neighbourhoods and communities. And via one of them, who lives in Sydney, there is one degree of separation between me and you – I told my friend Megan (video/installation artist) about this project when it started and she said “Oh, I know Lucas! I met him in Brisbane, and I usually see him walking along Broadway in Sydney … well, I guess not for the next two months.” :)
And I bought The Architecture of Happiness a couple of weeks back, looking forward to reading it.
Hope it all wraps up well, and that you enjoy your return to walking wherever you want.
Cheers
David