Three ceramic birds on our lounge room wall photograph by Phil Day

A twitch some can’t not scratch

A friend of mine, lets call her K, is an ornithologist. She described to me the behaviour of a ‘twitcher’. A twitcher is somebody who travels around trying to witness as many different birds in their natural habitat as possible. Twitchers are not interested in studying the birds; they are not interested in their behaviour, their evolution, or their nests – none of it. Simply put, twitchers are not interested in anything about birds; they are only interested in themselves seeing more birds than anybody else.

Years Ago

When I was 15 and still in high school in Goulburn, a Commercial Artist (that’s what the occupation was called then) at the New South Wales Police Academy offered to teach me what he knew about ‘colour and design’. He spoke to me at length about line, lettering, tone (especially in photography – he taught me darkroom photography), composition, page layout, illustration, the advantages of drawing at an easel, photographic silkscreen printing, and how computers (which he didn’t have) would change everything about commercial art. Not once did he talk about money and art; I never knew how much he was paid, and we didn’t talk about what was Art. The only time money was mentioned in any connection to what I was learning was when he showed me his new one-hundred-dollar-plus paint brush for sign-writing on glass, which he did around town for shops, mostly butchers: CHOPS! 3.99 kilo. We never talked art theory, we never talked art history; instead we talked about colour and design in regard to the visual problem before us – we had a lot to talk about.

About three weeks ago
I had an exhibition recently, a small show in a friend’s garden – the garden is delightful, with mature trees, a formal garden bed full of roses, a white garden bed, hedges and manicured lawns. Regardless of the season it has been planted for colour – the changing of leaves, summer and winter blossoms. This is part of a private residence – it isn’t a gallery. This was the second time I’d shown my drawings there. We do it to raise money for the local hospital. It is invitation only and those who attend pay twenty-five dollars to see the garden, my drawings and drink as much wine and eat as much food as they like. Of the twenty-five dollars five dollars is taken to recuperate the cost of the alcohol. The food we prepare ourselves, and the work is taken down the next day. After both exhibitions people, more than a couple, ask: ‘Did you sell much?’ or other local artists accuse me of being elitist (if they were not invited).

Last week
In a café in ***** an art person (painter/critic/curator) sits herself down and tells me she is finding it hard living in ***** (the same town as me), because ‘It is too small,’ the art person tells me ‘I need to be around complex people; Jewish people; – I speak more than one language.’ I had no idea what she was talking about. ‘I’m an existentialist – I need to be in cafés among people’ she tells me. I made the remark, ‘I don’t think Kierkegaard was big into cafés.’ She then said, ‘he wasn’t one of the biggies of existentialism.’ I reminded her, ‘Wasn’t he the father of existentialism?’ ‘ But he was a theist’ she said. I say to her, ‘I think Wittgenstein once said he was the most profound thinker of the nineteenth century.’ She said: ‘I don’t want an argument’ (she did, otherwise she wouldn’t have wanted me to explain myself, which is how the conversation had begun. She asked me: ‘how do you live in *****.’ I told her I found it comfortable because I teach here, and the money I earn here would not be as much if – ‘No, what I mean is how do you cope with so little art going on. No galleries, no openings, no real art society, how do you cope? I tried to explain to her that all that didn’t matter to me, that monks made The Book of Kells without dealers and art galleries and without signing their names to it. ‘But we’re not monks are we?’ she said with a smile, being friendly. I agreed, ‘No we aren’t monks, but we don’t have to be to make art. Look at the Chinese literati painters, they didn’t care about what society thought of their pictures at, nor did Cézanne or Rimbaud and Carroll imagined his greatest work in a row-boat to a little girl – not some supposedly intellectual equal.’ The art person (painter/critic/curator) explains, ‘But they were all great artists. I need to be around complex …’ and the rest you already know).

Still last week
*****, an artist, buys books from my wife’s bookshop located in the front of our house. I am in the shop at the time. A conversation gets going about art-this and art-that. I am informed that the Aboriginal artist ***** in ***** is such a good artist, people fly in from all over the world and queue down the street to buy a latest painting. ‘Really?’ I say, lost for something to say. 

Still the same week: last week

My wife’s brother is getting married in July this year. He is getting married in Norway to his Norwegian fiancée. I have never been to Europe before. An artist who taught at the ***** University, *****, who is present when I say this is surprised: You’ve never been to Europe before?! Oh well then, you must go and see the art works that have held the world together for centuries. I explain, I’ll only be in Europe for a little over two weeks and I’ll be travelling north into Norway. The artist replies: you must find the time to go to London and visit the British Museum, the Tate – Oh! – you must  go to the Victoria and Albert. I ask what for? The artist explains: There is a room there full of keys, KEYS! A whole room FULL of keys! I remind her that mountains are bigger than men.

The end of last week – Friday 28th March 2008
I was putting my helmet on and getting ready to ride home from the school I teach at. A parent who was watching her children play on the play-equipment asked me:
How was your day?
– Good. Yours?
– Yeah, I went to the ***** gallery to look at *****’s work, I didn’t get to go to the opening. Have you been?
– Yeah, I went to the opening.
– It’s really good isn’t it? Everything’s sold except two works!
– Hmmm … anyway, have a good one.

 

Saturday 29th March 2008, before Earth Hour
My wife and I are the first to arrive at a party (hoping to sneak away early if possible). I am told by the host there are some ‘extraordinary’ artistic people coming. People you can’t ‘put in a box.’ Architects, professors, PhD students, painters (of the artistic type), curators, famous painters (of the artistic type), people from other countries, and others –  ‘like, people from different backgrounds.’ One of the people, who is from another country, is married to an artist, both of whom I already know. I introduce the husband to an old friend of mine, *****, the old friend of mine is a llama breeder. The artist’s husband immediately says, while still shaking the llama breeder’s hand: are you an artist?

During Earth Hour

With the lights off and candles lit, new small social groups have formed when everyone leaves the kitchen/dining room to where the candles are – the lounge room. I find myself in a new ‘art conversation’ talking about literature. There are two art people both talking about the Australian author, *****, who just received $35,000 for their latest novel *****. Art person one and two (including me makes three) have not read the book. Both one and two decide they should now read the book. This is odd because the well respected Australian literary critic, *****, gave it an exemplary review about a year ago on its release. The literary art conversation (if you can call it that) continues. One and two start listing authors and books. Art person one: [blah blah] Dickens [blah blah]. Art person two: [blah blah] Dickens [blah blah] Woolfe. Me: A student of mine is reading Orlandoand another student of mine wants me to read Ulysses. Art person two: Joyce! Nobody reads Joyce! you can’t read it, can you? Me: I’ve read bits, the Siren chapter is difficult, but … Art person one interrupts: I read Joyce when I was a student, I read The Dubliners and I read Woolfe. Second art person: Yes, Woolfe you can understand, but nobody can understand Ulysses, its unreadable. Me: You just have to get used to the conventions he’s using, then you – . Art person two interrupts: It’s impossible to understand; I’ve never been able to read it.

Post Earth Hour

The lights are back on and I am talking to an architect by the name of *****. I ask him: Is it true, are all architects fascists? He laughs and says: No, but I know what you mean. We talk about architecture some more and I say: In Gombrich’s last book The Preference for the Primitive … Architect: Who? Me: Gombrich. Architect: Who? Me: Gombrich. Architect: ? Me: He wrote The Story of Art. Architect: Don’t know it.

Leaving the party to go home to *****

As my wife and I leave to say goodbye a professor of art we both know stops us on the way out. He starts talking, more lecturing really, about Earth Hour: ‘[blah blah] important it is to save power so [blah blah] future generations [blah blah] and Al Gore [blah blah] and the future [blah blah] we must think globally and act locally.’ ‘We must think globally and act locally’ I think to myself ‘the post modern mantra’ but think it best to not say it aloud.

Nevermind

About a month ago I was walking around the Art Gallery of New South Wales art. I made my way down to the contemporary art section. Within seconds I was disappointed yet again by the silliness of what I was looking at. Most of the works were untitledor had titles like Interactionist, history of (I made this title up, but I believe you know what I mean). I made my way up the escalator toward the Asian section. (Thinking about it now I remember why I moved to *****. I wanted to make my world smaller; I didn’t want to have more to do with the art world. I can’t help but feel that the art-world is made up of morons, and when I engage in conversation with them, I am always hoping that somebody else isn’t listening otherwise I too could be identified as a moron. Sadly it doesn’t have to be like this. An interest in pictures and decoration has produced ideas and actions that offer an insight and therapy to being human. Unfortunately the law of averages tells me it is better to not look for it in contemporary art galleries or contemporary artists anymore, contemporary art is for twitchers). When I arrived at the top of the escalator I turned left and went into the Asian section of the gallery. Walking around looking at ceramic pots an ink drawing caught my eye. I don’t know how I recognised it was his work, but I was right, it was a drawing by Qi Bashi. I had only ever seen his drawings in books. It was a drawing of two mice and a lamp. Without trying to explain, I felt it couldn’t have been more relevant. It was then I decided to never make the deliberate effort to go to an art gallery again.

 

 

PHIL DAY

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