I have a couple of little steam engines. Sometimes, especially when I am entertaining, I like to fire them up.
They have vivid personalities and can be run inside as long as you don’t mind a bit of steam floating around. I quite like it on my face.
Here I am filling the boiler of one of them with water. It’s still about 5 minutes away from being lit.
Not exactly dressed for the job I know.
Thank you Sarah for the photo.
A week or so ago I was at the Montana Book Awards. The memorable event was held at the Auckland Museum. Arriving a few minutes early I wandered over to the museum shop. I couldn’t resist buying this little set of penguins. $23. I took them into the ceremony with me, to a bar afterwards, and eventually back to my accommodation in Freemans Bay.
Now I’m playing with them to see if there is a photo in there somewhere. These are a couple of very quick rough snaps taken at my studio in New Plymouth. Nothing there yet.
I’ve been interested in penguins for a long time. Here’s photo I took last year in Invercargill.
And one I took at the Central Stories Museum in Alexandra, last year.
On Monday night I was at the Auckland Museum, one of about 350 guests at the Montana Book Awards. After 13 years, Montana are ending their sponsorship of the award. I think that next year it is going to be NZ Post. Before Montana it was Watties.
I was there because a book of and about my work was a finalist. I didn’t win but it was a memorable night.
Sorry the photos are a bit indistinct.
On the way to New Plymouth airport today for a 1 am flight to Auckland I made a detour to see a bird show in Waitara, prime specimens from bird lovers of this Northern Taranaki region were there. I’m used to going to orchid shows here in Taranaki, and once to a cat show, but hadn’t seen an exhibition of caged birds before, not to this degree at least. I didn’t know that this subculture existed here, my lack, not their fault. My father was part of it when I was young and always had aviaries. It was only in the last years of his long life did he give up on his pets.
It’s being held this weekend, in the Memorial Hall at Waitara, about 30 minutes north of New Plymouth. Peter McLeavey talks about it in “The Man in the Hat.” a movie I saw at Te Papa last Sunday night, exactly one week ago.
Last Saturday I was in Wellington being interviewed by Kim Hill. The interview was live and broadcast to the nation at 8.35 in the morning. I’m having trouble setting up a link but if you Google National Radio and follow the steps they suggest you will find it. They keep links live for 3 weeks.
I felt rather bruised after the interview, I was beating myself up over some of my responses to the many questions. Still I thank all the people who have contacted me with such encouraging messages. They are still arriving and I hope to respond to them individually but in the meantime please accept my heartfelt thanks.
PS This image I took 5 or 6 years ago at Cape Foulwind on the West Coast of New Zealand.
When I began photographing in the Seventies, I was very interested in taking portraits, and my interest lasted for several years, then it seemed to fizzle out, I lost interest almost entirely. Every now and then however the urge does come over me, the most recent occasion being about 5 years ago when in the space of about three weeks I took four or five portraits. Then the desire, inexplicably, left me again. Now however I am, quite suddenly, feeling a strong need to make some more.
Above is one of the portraits that I made at that time. In this case, Laura, now a fine and successful young woman.
Right now I am thinking about who would I like to choose as subjects. This is not an easy task because I don’t often see a face that photographically attracts me, it’s nothing personal, it’s more me than them. It seems that I am running my own personal Passion Play, and can only take photos of someone for whom I have a role.
A decade or so ago the Dalai Llama visited NZ. The organisers invited me to take a portrait of him. I had to politely decline because I simply didn’t have a part for him.
About 18 months ago I was fossicking around in an ex rubbish dump in Invercargill. Lying around were some of these plastic soft drink bottles that I have been told were sold at fair grounds. I saved a couple and now have them in my New Plymouth studio awaiting my attention.
Postscript. Yesterday, a couple of days after this posting I received an email from an internet
friend who said that she remembers these drink bottles and that they were spacemen. I believe that she is right. Oh, that’s brought about a change in my thinking. I think.
Overthenet (OTN) have just made their 1500th posting. I congratulate Jim Barr & Mary Barr most sincerely. It is a remarkable achievement. Not only does it take discipline and stamina to sustain this output but they are almost a lone voice in the New Zealand art scene. Few others ask such important questions of art establishments and in such a prolonged way, most of us wouldn’t dare. Or, if we worked in a university or a civic art gallery, we probably wouldn’t be allowed even if we secretly agreed.
I started blogging just a few weeks before they began, if my memory serves me correctly, if not I apologise, and I am only just in reach of 600. My blogging stamina has seriously fallen off in recent months, I’m worn out, and going through a demoralised phase in my life so I particularly appreciate what they do. I haven’t taken a new photo for many months although I am trying to view this as an incubation period.
The posting that I have linked to today is one that they have chosen to mark the occasion of their 1500th. That is me on the left in this image taken more than 20 years ago. The photo is from the Barr’s extensive archives.
I have observed them building these archives since about 1975 or 76, when Jim was director of the Dowse and I had my first public gallery exhibition there. Don Driver was also exhibiting on that occasion.
PS the photo of the quail I took last year at Henderson House where I was artist-in-residence. I fed the quail and they became so tame that they even came inside, a practise I had to discourage quite promptly as two or three tried to take a shortcut to the outside and killed themselves on the window panes. There is always a member of the group, who stood up on a high perch, acting as a sentinel. This is one of those. Sometimes there were about 30 in the groups. We need more sentinels.
