The Homely

A few years ago I produced this body of work at a place a mere stone's throw away from here. (Actually it's a mere stone's lob away.)

The other day, while recuperating from a bit of a cold, i.e. bored with being in bed, I shot these.

I think of it as Part II.

The Cat

A few years back, thanks to a good friend, I was trying out new developers.

What that means, for the uninitiated, is that you have to take a bunch of photos of no particular value that you can mess up while learning the correct process parameters.

So I took a bunch of photos at one of my favourite (though irregular) haunts.

From memory, I was checking development using a green 'safe' light. Too much 'safe' light however resulted in a solarised negative.

But eventually I started to get things right.

Reckon I should stop attempting to be an artyfarty and do more of this stuff, it's kinda cool (if unoriginal).

The Closed

According to the news, this here road is currently closed due to numerous slips.

So that's a good enough reason to put up a bunch of photos that you'd never know came from a trip along that there road.

The Comic

I like getting mail.

Real mail I mean.

Physical stuff. From the PO Box.

Yesterday, for example, this arrived.

Admittedly I had to pay moneys in order to get it, but that's okay.

Especially when it comes with such a nasty warning.

Inside the envelope was, surprisingly enough, a comic.

This one.

Apparently it's a conversation about writing, art and stories. Oh - and monsters ...


I shall soon read it and see if that is correct.

But as it's by Dylan Horrocks and Emily Perkins, both folk I appreciate and admire, I don't really care what it's about.

By no coincidence at all, the other day I finally got around to buying the re-release (the first New Zealand edition!!) of Dylan's superb Hicksville, having read it years ago.

And, for those of you interested, I've also finally started this thing up again after an 18 month layoff.

The MVP

Last Saturday night (Sept 11), in commemoration of some event some place some years back, our hockey club had its annual prizegiving.

I attended for the first time ever.

This season has been good fun, for one reason or another - and certainly not cos we were a winning team (cos we weren't). It was also remarkably injury free - for me. The worst injury I sustained was thanks to the over-exuberance of a sideline 'nurse' who sprayed a bit too much coldspray on a bump on my wrist resulting in an ugly looking coldburn - thanks Gus.

However, there was vague excitement last night when I walked off with MVP for our team. I say vague excitement cos really there was no competition.

Here's the awesome trophy I get to keep. I should have a couple more of these somewhere, but they never made it to me.

There's also a cup which I get my name on but don't get to keep.

And the winning didn't stop there. Older Bro #1 got the MV Goalie award. Primarily cos he played for two different teams most weekends, and maybe as a reward for breaking his wrist a couple of weeks back while making a (hopefully spectacular) save, playing the rest of the game, then deciding a couple of days later that a trip to the hospital might be in order.

They built us Palmers hard ... or stupid.

The Weekend

It's the weekend.

I have things to do around the house.

But being an expert procrastinator/deferrer I'm not going to be doing much of it.

Nor will I be sitting in the sun on a nicely manicured suburban lawn.

Partly cos it's not sunny today. Partly cos I don't have a lawn. Partly cos I've never been certain whether I actually live in the suburbs.

These photos were for a collaborative design project from a few years back that didn't actually come to anything as far as I recall.

Being a design-led thing, the photos were only elements to be cut up, cut out, and abused. But it was a good excuse to take photos of some crap that I'd never have shot otherwise.

The Prizewinner

As regular readers of this blog would be aware I currently have work in the Bold Horizons National Contemporary Art Awards.

Not quite the snappy name one would like, and it still seems to be referred to by many as "The Waikato", though this is the first year with the new sponsor.

A month ago now was the opening. I was very excited to be able to catch Richard Lewer's I Must Learn To Like Myself, though somewhat disappointed with the show itself. Some works were great, and some left me unmoved.

But anyway, the 'real' purpose of the trip was to collect my $15,000. For some unexplained reason they gave it to some other dude.

I think this review got it pretty much right - except for the lack of comment about how awesome my work was.

Second year running the winner left me underwhelmed. Last year, while the concept was great the work itself had no presence. This year I just think it was rubbish, poor concept, poor realisation. I'm not sure what the point of making art that merely reminds us of the things we all know about (e.g. global warming) is. (Bad) Art as reportage. I'm sure there's room for actually taking a stance, and saying something, rallying the troops, tackling something less than global issues, I don't know ... being controversial!

Speaking of controversial. My work, which I thought may arouse discussion, doesn't appear to have. Judge Rachel Kent clearly ignored the title of the work, and didn't pay terribly close attention to the detail of the work. She thought it was some kind of very personal visual diary of a roadtrip, and that some of the works contained Maori motif.

While that's a reading I had never thought about, and it is a visual diary of numerous roadtrips in the way that any collation of photos is a visual diary, I'm sure that all the images contained Maori motif. And the title Belonging and Becoming - The Complete Original Works may have offered a clue to where I was coming from. But maybe it's just an Australian reading, not helped by the lack of guiding artist statement on my part.

Speaking of which, my favouriste artist statement was this one:

Clinton Cardozo, Untitled, [colour photograph], $2000 [Entrant # 968]
My photographic practice questions post-modern socio-cultural systems that have given birth to hybrid modes of thinking. The photograph brings to life these hybrid individuals.

Your photographic practice doesn't. And the photo is a boring contemporary cliche.