Chalk drawing with John Hughes, on the house of Joyce Hinterding and her partner
Photo: Simon Pockley
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Waking from a dream
after visiting Lawson
I see myself
a bag of rats.
Rats all pour out
from a journey through night,
through a wet academic
blanket.
Missing
connections
between Mawson’s mushrooms,
and the Princess in the art gallery,
Lindsay’s tailed nymph by the pool
Smiled to remind me
of the race I made
into the bush
years ago.
I was the bush that day,
and the birds and sky,
before I became
that bag of rats,
contained
by words.
.
.
I have the start of another journey
through lines of thoughts,
and it’s writing like this, and my voice in moving lines…
interconnecting with other people’s thoughts…
My thoughts in dialogue with the world as a mathematical object
and asking, Is it so logical?
.
The final version of the poem (well, at least for the moment) here.
On waking from the dream, I realised (dreams being what they are) that I am all those characters: the rat-tailed nymph, the princess, and the wet blanket.
And the mushrooms?
When Douglas Mawson was young, with Shackleton’s 1907-09 Nimrod expedition, he wrote a ‘dream’ story called Bathybia, in which mushrooms grow inside Mount Erebus.
‘It’s better to solve a problem five ways than to solve five problems’ George Polya 1887 – 1985 mathematician
Roget’s Thesaurus
mathematician, reasoner 476 n.
Section 4: Reasoning Processes
475. Reasoning
476. Intuition
477. Sophistry
478. Demonstration
479.Confutation
Section 5: Results of Reasoning
480. Judgement
481. Missjudgement
482. Overestimation
483. Underestimination
484. Discovery
485. Belief
486. Unbelief
487. Credulity
488. Assent
489. Dissent
490. Knowledge
491. Ignorance
492. Scholar
493. Ignoramus
494. Truth
495. Error
496. Maxim
497. Absurdity
498. Intelligence. Wisdom
499. Unintelligence. Folly
500. Sage
501. Fool
502. Sanity
503. Insanity
504. Madman
Section 6: Extention of Thought
…
Section 7: Creative Thought
…..
There is a certain rhythm with in this journey of understanding, with its times of ungroundedness and times of clarity. With all its questions and no answers, questions and many answers and its choices. Some of these choices will lead to places you will not continue to explore at this time. Some directions will be at the request of others. The journey filled with moments of light to dark give dimension to a immeasurable and boundless extention of the mind.
Ah what delight.
When I started teaching it was at Marrickville Hight School. I lived in Enmore just around the corner from where you live now Lisa. The school took year 10 students, two bus loads of them to Spingwood, Norman Lidsay’s every year. For some of the students this was the first time they had been to the ‘bush’. Some found the pool down the track at the back of the garden. They too became part of that place. For the first time they were in ‘a place of sound’. A quite place. I call it ‘a place of sound’ as you can hear the individual sounds which have a place in the silence. In the area all these students lived in they were surrounded by sound. A mix,a soup, that formed a background hum that was dismissed by the brain in order to cope with living in the city. The students who were sitting in the quiet , (by the pond) asked the students coming down the track and chatting away to stop the chatter. Those talking students stopped immediately and went to join the others, sitting, listening.
Immersed in the sound.
That’s really an interesting connection Christine.
That’s so like what happened to me yesterday, when I was walking away from the pond with John Hughes.
John was telling me about a time he experienced in the bush once – a kind of oceanic connection with it. His recollection triggered my memory of going back to the bit of bush where I grew up, in the Dandenong Ranges.
These are just the kinds of experiences many people seem to have in some places – like Antarctica, and the bush.
Rupert Sheldrake talks about ‘morphic resonnance’, something I’m only just finding out about.
And I found two books on my shelf, which I’d picked up by chance in a London op shop last Christmas:
In the blink of an eye: how vision kick-started the big bang of evolution (2004)
and
Seven deadly colours (2005)
Both are by Andrew Parker, who researches in a similar area to Sheldrake…interconnections between plants and animals.
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When Simon and I were at the Art Gallery of NSW on Friday, he was telling me how there is only one small difference, at the molecular level, between plants and animals. I’ll get back with what that difference is.
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Yes, the rhythm, or swing, between understanding and not understanding seems to be part of the journey.
Misunderstandings are difficult, when I recognise them.
That’s why I have to keep asking questions.
W need each other to tell us when we are not recognising our misunderstandings.
Chlorophyll is indeed very similar in structure to haemoglobin, but the reactive part of the molecule is magnesium instead of iron. This small difference allows each to play opposing roles in the processing of oxygen and carbon dioxide.
Chlorophyll is necessary for the process of photosynthesis which takes place inside chloroplasts in the leaf cells of plants. Photosynthesis combines carbon dioxide and water to make high-energy chemicals – glucose and other carbohydrates. The sugar glucose provides the basic food for both plants and animals. The by-product of photosynthesis is oxygen. Virtually all atmospheric oxygen originates from photosynthesis.
During the processes of respiration haemoglobin transports oxygen from the lungs or gills to the rest of the body, such as to the muscles, where it releases its load of oxygen. Carbon dioxide is then produced and exhaled so that it can be it used up again during photosynthesis.
On 30-09-07 Simon says:
Dear Lisa
Been on the road since then and have only just returned this evening
(Saturday). First, thank you for your stimulating company at the
Dobell Drawing exhibition. It was illuminating to glimpse it through
your eyes. Went back briefly on Monday for another quick look. But
suddenly remembered you telling me about the research library and
found my way down there to search for my long lost Hawaiian Sausages.
Success! Another thank-you. A Victorian artist called Colin Suggett
made Hawaiian Sausages and it was exhibited in Perspecta 1981. I think
the stove has been updated in this picture:
http://www.countryarts.org.au/visual_arts/retro_moments.htm
What an interesting place to spend some time.
Thoroughly enjoyed our mountain outing last Saturday with John. It was
a treat to spend time with him and to meet David and Joyce in their
domain. It made me think about the artist’s life in ways that I hadn’t
done before – something to do with inquisitiveness, mutual respect,
shared activity and following threads for the sake of the journey…
Tried to get to the Simon Yates show and rang Mori on Sunday. He said
he was having a party for his 7 year old but that I could come on
Monday although he was closed. But when I arrived the gallery was all
locked up and he wasn’t answering his phone. I have a mental image but
do you have any pictures of the works?
Recall that I promised to send you a link to the work of Theo Jansen:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/162
Dear Simon
I’ve just returned from participating in a performance in the Bathurst regional Art Gallery, as part of Christine McMillan’s show, Gathering. She wound me up with surgical gauze, with another performer, and grass seeds dancing around in response to changes in humidity projected over us as we moved. We moved in response to each other, and to the movements of the seeds. All improvised, like the random motion of the seeds.
A video journalist recored the event, and will upload it to U-tube.
Yes, it’s so good to spend time with other artists, and to simply do things together.
Drawing with John that day moved me gently forwards, through the words.
In another two weeks, Christine and I will move again. We’ve booked the Dixon Street Hall here in Newtown, to move through the words of Jack Ward that take you through the year of changes in and around Mawson (1955-56).
I looked at the Hawaiian Sausages, which looked delightful, just as you’d described. I can imagine the music.
Theo Jansen’s creatures are extraordinarily beautiful. Their motions remind me of what was possible to do in the programme I used to animate the Pedestrian – Autodesk Animator Pro. I love that canon effect, that makes limbs and wings ripple. Seeing the artist walking beside his huge delicate creatures was quite endearing. They seemed to share their vulnerability on that wide expanse of beach.
I don’t have pictures of the figures Simon Yates made. I looked for some at the gallery, but could see none. It’s a pity, because they seemed so ephemeral, like the party balloons. So I’ve only captured the shapes in my mind. They remind me of my father wafting randomly through rooms.