Clown


Killer Klown

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.

Clown 2

Looking at the clown photo from yesterday I decided to return to it for another look. It’s a photo that I am going to stay with but wanted to see what it looked like with the colour removed. Although this version still needs work, I prefer it this way. I certainly like the Stephen King feel.

I am a little bit relieved for this to happen because since arriving in the South Island 2 months ago I have only been able to make images in colour and was beginning to wonder whether my black and white days were over.

There was a long period of time some years ago when I only worked in black and white. My ideal is to be able to work in both ways.

Clown

I went for a walk today along a nearby foreshore, through an area that I had not visited before even though it is only 5 minutes away by car. There is so much to see in Southland. I made a big mistake when I took this residency for 4 months when I could have had it for 6.

I don’t know this area’s history but it is currently under restoration I could see. It’s the kind of saltmarsh that would have been turned into a rubbish tip in the not-so-distant past. There are places like this in Auckland such as Ngataringa Bay in Devonport and Tahuna Torea in Glen Innes.

There were signs, in spite of the extensive planting of flax, akeake and other native flora, that this thinking had prevailed here until quite recently.

Lying around there were plastic bottles in the shape of clowns. Here is a snap of one of them. It does remind me of a late night film that I saw once called something like Invasion of the Killer Klowns. I don’t know what these bottles originally held but I suspect that it was of a lurid colour.