The apartment in which I’m staying in Auckland has a 42 inch plasma television set. One station the television receives is NHK, a Japanese no-ads broadcast.
Watching Japanese television here in Ponsonby is an intriguing experience even though I don’t understand a word of what is being said. I could watch it for hours.
I particularly like the weather maps, and here is a snap of one. It’s slightly soft partly because the image on the screen was not particularly sharp.
Must get back to TV now.
Ubu Web.
Ubu Web: here is a very important new site.
Sculpture-Hamish McKay Gallery.Here is a sculpture that I exhibited at Hamish’s about 10 years ago. The blue was the paint left over from my Herald Island house which was the colour of the Tongan Royal Family. The previous owner had been part of that family, Queen Salote used to visit in her black Cadillac but not while I lived there.
Since then I have used this blue a couple of times since. Most recently on my New Plymouth house although I have changed it slightly, now I use Resene Tranquil. My house and studio is now entirely painted in Tranquil, there are no other colours at all apart from the white ceilings. Certainly there are no window frames picked out.
Studio View.A section of my studio. The toy crane in the foreground I bought at least 10 years ago. Many times I’ve tried to photograph it. The green object behind is a section of poenamu, commonly in New Zealand, called greenstone, although found around the world and generally called jade. Notice the whitish crust that stones of pounamu often have. I bought this piece from an eldery man here in New Plymouth, with the aim of one day making some of my own jewellery. So far the only jewellery that I have made has been been from Fimo.
The two dark objects on either side of the pounamu are ventifacts. Old rocks shaped by the wind. There is a field of these in Taranaki although taking of the rocks is strictly forbidden. Both of these ventifacts were bought from collectors. Again, I have these with the aim of photographing them but so far no luck.
saw these sheep. They reminded me of Canterbury Landscape, a photo that I took in 2004.
Stoney is often spelt Stony, even on the island. I prefer the look of Stoney. I need Max Cryer!
Batter I have looked up in my Shorter Oxford English Dictionary. Shorter meaning two big volumes with lots of detail.
Often over the last few years in art galleries we have seen video works on display. Until the advent of sites such as YouTube and Googlevideo on the internet, apart from art galleries, there weren’t many venues to display any videos that were not completely mainstream. Television stations rarely allowed room in their programming.
Now however, everything has quite suddenly changed. Now we have the internet providing venues for all sorts of video material, some taken by camphones.
Here is a cheery Japanese example, which while it is of rather low resolution, does remind me of works that have been showing in art galleries for some time. I don’t know any background to who did this work, except that I’m fairly sure that I saw an earlier version some months ago. I enjoy its lighthearted approach, a sort of fun day at the office.
Pine
Anyone interested in purchasing a framed Pine, please phone me at 021669879. Delivery this week could be overnight.
Tamarin
There is a successful breeding colony of these tiny monkeys here in a zoo in New Plymouth.
It is possible for humans to enter their tree-filled cage so that there is nothing between the tamarin and the human observer. I’m interested in doing a serious portrait of one, but so far this is as good as I have been able to manage. I’ve been back many times with my camera but still have not managed to improve on this. The zoo is a few minutes walk from my home, and it’s a council run, free entry zoo so I will keep trying. There are some photos eg portraits of tadpoles, that I have been working on for many years. I would also like to do a portrait of a slug.