Naomi Pelletier's blog

‘Draw It With Your Eyes Closed,’ Edited by Paper Monument - NYTimes.com

via www.nytimes.com

The book, Draw it with your eyes closed: the Art of the Art Assignment, is 'a unique and wide-ranging anthology featuring essays, drawings, and assignments from over 100 contributors', this is definitely on my Christmas list.

I haven't taught art in the last year as I have been part time and teaching film but I look forward to teaching a class next year. In my wanderings around the web, I have had that thought in the back of my head. There are some great resources out there, in the last few years especially so on blogs and pinterest. However it is difficult to find a book dedicated to those processes that start the creativity in a class room. The book is apparently in-part inspired by Paul Thek the artist and teacher. His drawing starters, such as; 'redesign the human genitals so that they might be more equitable'  I mightn't use for the year 9's. You can find the book on Amazon or buy it from the company that created it Paper Monument. Here are some starters to use whilst your awaiting delivery;

“Take an 18 x 24 inch piece of paper and make a drawing using nothing but your car.”
“Design a monstrance.”
“Make a paper doll of yourself.”
“Make a sculpture / installation where everything needed to make it is included.”
“Design something to put over a child’s bed.”
“Make a tool to work on a problem that is currently unknown.”
“Redesign a rainbow.”
“Design something to sell on a street corner.”
“Defenestrate objects. Photo them in midair.”

16 metres of trampoline fun

Who doesn't want to run free for at least 16 metres in a Russian forest on a trampoline? I recently came across this piece of awesomeness on Colossal and  it set my mind adrift. Sailing on an ocean of stretchy fabric. Bouching and seeing for a moment the world a little differently, while also giving your calves and thighs a serious workout. I would love for this to be my way of getting to work. As a child I remember imagining a future in which everyone walked on moving platforms but this is way cooler. It was built by a design firm Salto as part of the 2012 Archstoyanie festival in Russia.

Beard science

Be Kind

Kindness is underrated. We could always use more of it. We tend to worship visionaries and creative people (like Steve Jobs and Pablo Picasso) and elevate them to the status of gods, even though they were often assholes (like Steve Jobs and Pablo Picasso). Stop praising the jerks. It reinforces bad behaviour (all the parents in the house know this).

via http://www.marcjohns.com/

 

I have been looking at this guys illustrations for the past year and it surprises me that I am yet to remark on them. This particular drawing caught my eye. Perhaps because it's Christmas time, a holiday I always enjoy or that I have been grappling with return to work syndrome, that I have been thinking about being kinder of late. 

A teaching environment can be a brutal one and often all your energy is exhausted in being the person that a teacher should be. Kind, patient, supportive, being a bit wise at times always helps, so when it gets to the end of the day your kindness quota can feel somewhat depleted. The adminstrative part of a teachers job is also ever expanding and is a little heartless and often out of synch with what we are trying to achieve. It's extremely difficult to be zen about issues that matter so much. 

I spent a year with my new son, gazing at him, marvelling at first steps and the like. Returning to work was, well, a bit of a shock. The teaching was great but I've always ironically taken issue with being told what to do, particularly when I have difficulty in making sense of the logic. So I found myself getting increasingly annoyed and my mood being, well somewhat unkind. Unkind to myself, my husband and at times a random stranger in the supermarket. 

Grumpy isn't that awesome and often needs a paradigm shift of thought to help you out of it. I find at times my pithy sense of humour, which is certainly leaning toward the sarcastic, can get me in trouble. I also often find myself surrounded by lovely people who are phenomenally different to myself, which can also mean that the sarcasm can often be misconstrued.

In an effort to pull myself out of the grumpy hole, which is really quite difficult when you find yourself in it. I have been attempting to just shifted myself slightly. My morning drive to drop my son at daycare is right near the beach. Finding ourselves with a spare 10 mintues, I have been making the effort to scoop up the 12kgs that is my one year old and walk across the park just far enough so that we can see the ocean and breath in some salty air. It is only brief, just a few minutes before my boy starts to wriggle and wonder what we are doing but it's enough to make me feel connected to something bigger than the petty little world I can sometime find myself looped in.

It is a moment just for us where we stop. This is a feeling that is rare in a life that seems to be moving at a neck breaking pace in a direction that I am uncertain of. So I'd like to wear this little illustration as a talsiman of sorts, to remind myself to stop and look at the ocean once in a while and be kind to myself, my family and random people in the supermarket.

Foam Clouds in the streets of Singapore

 

A recent fire in  Singapore, of a warehouse resulted in about 70 barrels (200 litres each) of detergent-based concentrate creating a fairly magical display of thick white foam in the streets. Twitters provided a number of images to marvel at.

 

 

 

 

MAIL ART

After my lengthy rant about the many and varied pleasures of the Handwritten letter. I thought I would compile a little selection of mail art to further expound the joys of the posted letter.

 

Hand Written Letter Project Second Edition Book

 

The Handwritten letter project is a experiment of sorts that 'promises nothing other than handwritten ephemera', now that is right up my alley. That feeling of heavy pen in hand gliding across dense 120 gsm paper, fill me with longing and remembrance. Now all I hear is the chattering click of the keyboard, the bright hum of the screen. Oh I do remember a time when the only contact I had with a computer was playing 'Where in the world is Carmen Miranda?'.

My brother in subsequent years had a commodore 64 and I have a distinctly sparkling memory of when he turned it's screen into a glowing green birthday message, the words Happy Birthday emblazoned across the screen. The sparkle has worn off somewhat and although I have a deep love of my Mac Book and iphone bordering on the obsessive, apparently now labelled 'nomophobia', I am deeply cynical about my technology obsessed world and I miss getting letters in the mail.

When email came into my life things quite frankly got briefer and more bland. Emails are notes, not letters and are often a way of removing yourself from your recipient, not connecting with them. Work email can get especially tricky and be an easy way to be rude and distant. After all it is a lot harder to look someone in the eyes and say, 'You need to work 3 hours overtime on Saturday, colon parentheses. ' Just like it is easier to defriend a Facebook friend rather than say to them, 'I never want to see or hear from you again.' What was it that Holden Caulfield say's  in Catcher in the Rye:

'I'd rather push a guy out the window or chop his head off with an ax than sock him in the jaw. I hate fist fights. I don't mind getting hit so much--although I'm not crazy about it, naturally--but what scares me most in a fist fight is the guy's face. I can't stand looking at the other guy's face, is my trouble.'

Yes it's the other guys face that is taken out of the equation. The other guys face that reminds you that it's a person that your communicating with. Of course that is also removed from a letter but the difference of course is that email is being used to replace conversation. Letters are about long winded prose, they are another layer on a longing gaze, not 'could you pop to the shops and grab some milk on your way home.'

 I don't want to say that you can't receive a beautiful love letter via email, its just we often don't. The tactile nature of a handwritten letter is also not something to be underrated, nor is the idea that your letter has taken a journey to get to you, has passed through strangers hands, possibly suffered hardships and still reached you. 

 Apart from the impersonal nature of email, you also miss out on the joys of snail mail. After all there is nothing more delightful than receiving a little letter in your mail box. When I was 13 I had a pen pal from England and I would spend hours designing the envelop. Swirling the letters of the address on the cover of my giant hand made parcel. A letter can include so many tactile joys. A ticket stub, a sticker, words wrapped in words that flow like water. Dripping in assonance and steeped in alliteration. In an email we call these things attachments and they usually come in the form of 'The 20 funniest dog moments' or 'The man with his penis pierced 8 times'.

Perhaps you'd like to start your own Handwritten Project and write a letter to someone you've been thinking about. Just remember that the words need to travel so consider them carefully.

Spring


So Spring has sprung and all around me I see signs of life blossoming. My backyard is teeming with flowers just waiting to be pollinated. This is the first year that my lemon tree is showing signs of life and I’m desperate to have a reason to make Limoncello. Living in Mackay most backyards have a mango tree, ours is old, a bit tired and only manages a dozen or so mangos every season, most of those the possums eat. Our Macadamia tree had an excellent run last year and I’m hoping it does the same this year. Apparently they need a particular bee to pollinate the flowers. 

Spring in the tropics does kinda feel like summer in Sydney. Every year when that warm scent of spring fill's the air I find myself getting ridiculously homesick. I miss my home town and I have such beautiful summer memories of Sydney. They most likely seem even more rosy now that I have a little one that I’m chasing after. The unfettered years of lazing on beaches have past for now.

In my 20’s I lived in Sydney’s Eastern suburbs and summer time meant catching a bus to Neilsen park, hiking around the cliff and nestling into one of the coves for the day. Preferably with cold beer and books. I remember one particularly balmy summer night, a big group of us had spent the day, that shifted into the night at Neilsen Park. Swimming, reading and soaking in the sun till our skin was bursting with vitamin D. Beaches at night are curious places, gone are the noise and energy of the day. This night the air was still heavy with heat and we all dived in trying not to think about harbour sharks. The further out we swam the quieter the stillness became and the bigger our movements felt. The phosphorescence in the water meant that we glowed with a glistering aura that radiated into each other. Those summer memories are so full of sweetness and this is just one of many. They almost always involve, the ocean, the harbour, the sea. Oh, I want to dive in for the first time, so many times again. 

I took Louis to the beach last week, it wasn't peaceful but it was beautiful in it's own way. My fearless boy diving into the ocean, clearly completely unaware that you need to learn to swim before you launch yourself into the sea. In Northern Queensland at low tide the ocean escapes such a distance away you really need some mechanical mode of transport to find the shoreline. What the tide leaves though are large sand warmed pools. The perfect spot for a soon to be one year old with a bucket and spade. Moments of sand encrusted watermelon madness give way to giggles of splashing and water delight. So a new summer memory is made, to file away for a winters day and take out like warm sunshine.

 

 

I love an outdoor cinema at the best of times but a floating cinema has tipped me over the edge and it is all I can do to not abandon my family and fly to Thailand immediately! It's just too great. Ole Scheeren's cinema was originally designed for for the Film on the Rocks Yao Noi Film Festival. It's floating in Nai Pi Lae Lagoon near Kudu Island.

I couldn't think of a better night out, except maybe some of Ole Scheeren previous projects. Such as, the Marfa Drive-In, which was a drive-in cinema in the desert of Texas. Being whisked away on a speed boat and arriving on a glowing platform, has many layers a magic.

It reminds me of my travels in Thailand and makes me homesick for my time living in Bangkok. The first time I travelled to Thailand in my early 20's, I stayed in a little hut on the island of  Koh Lanta at a place called 'The Sanctuary'. It had an honor system and when you arrived you got a little book with your name and room number on it. Anything you helped yourself to at the bar, you wrote in your book and at the end of your stay you payed your balance. I spent a lot of time laying in hammocks and drinking cold beer on low tables and woven mats. One night seemingly out of the blue, some of the guests brought out instruments and started playing. It was one of those perfect moments. The weather was soft, the world was quiet and the sounds of strings were slipping over my youthful soul. Something was said about them being from the Berlin Orchestra. I wonder about these little stories that slip back into my mind. I think about travelling back to these places but I don't want to spoil what is a perfect memory.

I think we need to keep an eye out for Ole Scheeren's  next project and create another little story to tuck in the memory box.

Salt Water Cure Art Print by Tina Crespo | Society6

via society6.com

My Father would wholeheartedly agree with this little quote. We grew up swimming and surfing on hot summer afternoons after the school bell had rung. It wouldn't matter what your ailment, his answer would always be, 'You need to swim in the ocean'. Usually this was true, although often it was the last thing you felt like doing. Diving into saltwater does seem to clear the mind. Water and it's healing properties is not new. Throughout literature there are references to the healing properties of water, the famous cathartic scene of King Lear in the storm, for example.

We are 60% water so it stands to reason that we have a connection with it. Appparently you can even make your drinking water 'Hado' by wrapping positive messages around your water bottle. Talking to it also has a positive effect. Saying things such as 'you rock' and 'your freakin' awesome' can make your water,well, happy. Who doesn't want happy water? According to Mindbridge:

'... water is capable of understanding, assimilating and adjusting to the language of feelings. Our bodies are largely water, so it stands to reason that if our feelings affect a glass or jar of water nearby, they certainly have an effect on the water within us and thus our own health.'

I'm not sure chatting to my water over breakfast is for me but I do think a swim in the ocean can go a step towards working out what ail's you. If you'd like this print on your wall go to Society 6 or if your after delving further into water conversations check out MindBridge.