Another one from the ‘completed’ files, and I actually like this one. I think I get it just about right.
Month April 2015
A COMPASS THAT DOESN’T WORK MAKES ME THE WORST PIRATE I’VE EVER SEEN
Luscious and I spent this evening watching a documentary about Henri Matisse’s final years and his rejection of paint in favour of paper cutouts, and it’s got me thinking. Incapacitated by illness, feeling the onset of his approaching death, this man in his 80s experienced an artistic explosion. He moved away from the paints and sculpture which had made him famous, and took to cutting directly into coloured paper, arranging them on (often) vast canvasses in a riot of colour and form in a frenzy of reinvention that secured him an artistic legacy even greater, and more respectful, than that which he had already secured. Despite his terminal illness, Matisse’s last years were amongst his most productive, and his most revered. I watched, and wondered, not only at his energy and almost supernatural ability for reinvention, but at the way this wonderful craftsman was able to distill such incredible emotion and form onto a page with such sublime fluency, simplicity, and staggering effect.
I struggle with writing, and much of it is, I think, because it lacks the visceral response of visual art. Writing is an intellectualisation, from the formation of the work to the absorption– while visual art is too, of course, writing involves so many sets of decodifications throughout the genesis of each work that, ultimately, it becomes an intellectual game we play with ourself– rather than instinctively experience a gut reaction, we, as audience, must trick our mind, rather than our heart, into the experience.
As an author, I find myself reaching for simplicity more and more; eschewing literary tricks and language for simpler words, greater repetition, more linear narratives, and viewing Matisse’s work tonight I felt a sense of what I’m reaching for: a visceral, emotional response to form, rather than a response determined by a determined level of intellectual vigour.
The truth is, I’m envious of visual artists. I envy their ability to create an immediate emotional response, to create multiple level of connotative meaning in a single work, to utilise such a range of media and forms when I am, to all intents, stuck with one: my words. More and more, I find myself wishing I had the time to work in a visual way. Retirement can’t come soon enough: I need time, damn it.
And at the heart of it, I’m beginning to see that it’s affecting what I want to write about, as well. I’m losing my infatuation with the accessories and glamours of speculative fiction. A story about a man painting holds more fascination for me right now than a story about a man building a portal between worlds. It’s all just dissembling. It’s all just getting in the way. Speculative fiction used to be about stepping to the side and throwing light upon subjects we weren’t really able to address head on, but in many ways, that no longer applies.
I feel myself falling away from the rhythms and the beats of the genre that has enfolded me for the last 25 years, yearning for the simplicity and direct emotional reaction that it seems to obfuscate when I try to write it. It’s frightening, in a way, because I don;t know what I’m really moving towards, or whether, indeed, I can even define it, or achieve it. But then, I look at my writing career so far, and it’s a bucket of mist and obscurity, so what harm can possibly befall me? All my life I’ve been fascinated by polymaths. I surround myself with their works: Spike Milligan, David Bowie, Reg Mombassa, David Hockney. I analyse their achievements, envy their success, yearn for their facility.
Maybe, having taken such great effort for such small reward, it’s time to branch out, to test myself in other ways. Maybe what counts is not the medium but the expression.
Or maybe I’m just full of shit.
FETISH FRIDAY: GREG CHAPMAN
I’m running a new series of guest posts throughout 2015: Fetish Friday. Don’t get all sweaty in the pants—I’m going back to an older definition of the word, and asking artists to show us something that helps them with the ritual of creation, some part of their surroundings—physical or mental—that eases the path into the creative state, whether it be a location, a piece of music, person, picture, a doohickey, whatnot, curio or ornament without which the creative process would be a whole lot more difficult.
This week, we welcome Australian Horror Writer alumnus, author and illustrator, Greg Chapman:
Are you a creative artist? Fancy joining in and letting us know about that special item, object, location or cosmic state of being at the heart of your creative process? There’s always room for another lunatic in the asylum: email me and make your most excited Horshack noise.
THUMBNAIL THURSDAY THINKS TIPPI HEDREN HAD IT EASY
IF THIS POST IS LATE IT’S BECAUSE I’M STILL ON BALI TIME
You’ll have to forgive me if I seem distracted: two weeks ago I was standing at the bottom of a forty-foot gorge, having clambered a hundred feet upstream to stand at the base of a fifty-foot high waterfall, halfway up a mountain in the middle of an Indonesian island.
By which I mean, I was in Bali.
Let’s be honest: when Luscious organised the trip with her brother and sister-in-law, I was on the ‘un’ side of enthused. Nothing I’d heard about the island made me want to go there– everything pointed to a filthy third-world shopping mall fit only for drunken AFL end of season piss-ups and surfer dope-a-thons with bonus dysentery and bombings to deal with assuming you didn’t get picked up for not noticing the baggage handlers’ dope stash in your carry-on.
Turns out that’s just Kuta. And I’m happy to admit just how wrong my preconceptions were, because we found a whole lot to love.
For a start, we managed to avoid the plastic beer-haus atmosphere of Kuta by staying at a villa just outside of Seminyak, rural enough that there were multitudinous rice paddies dotted in between the buildings. As our driver explained, the Balinese grow three types of rice for different purposes– white for eating, red for ritual meals, and black for religious festivities– so a significant percentage of the rural environment is held over for growing the crop, something we saw in spades on our next-to-final day when we took a trip up-country to the Old Balinese Kingdom capital of Pejeng to view the National Archaeological Museum.
Before that though, there was a stunning range of experiences: the traditional Aussie-in-Bali market shopping, including a visit to a series of stalls run by a family who lived side by side with their stalls inside an old unused temple; a roadside fish pedicure, with Luscious, Master 10 and I sitting on a bench with our feet inside a whacking great fish tank having our peds nibbled by a swarm of teensy tiny catfish; a hand-in-hand walk along a shell beach with Luscious (I’m a softie. Sue me); the trip up-country through the artist’s enclaves at Ubud to view the Museum; a day spent screaming and laughing at the utterly insane Waterbom Waterpark; and to wrap it all up we spent the final night of our stay on a night safari at the Bali Safari and Marine Park, where tigers with heads wider then my shoulders climbed the caged truck in which we stood to feed less than 6 inches from my face.
By the time we stumbled, exhausted and sunburned, onto the plane home, the Battchilder had already started a list of things we’ll be doing when we return. I’ve got one of my own.
FETISH FRIDAY: KAARON WARREN
I’m running a new series of guest posts throughout 2015: Fetish Friday. Don’t get all sweaty in the pants—I’m going back to an older definition of the word, and asking artists to show us something that helps them with the ritual of creation, some part of their surroundings—physical or mental—that eases the path into the creative state, whether it be a location, a piece of music, person, picture, a doohickey, whatnot, curio or ornament without which the creative process would be a whole lot more difficult.
This week we say hello to author, friend, lovely lady and awards hoover, Kaaron Warren:
Are you a creative artist? Fancy joining in and letting us know about that special item, object, location or cosmic state of being at the heart of your creative process? There’s always room for another lunatic in the asylum: email me and make your most excited Horshack noise.
THUMBNAIL THURSDAY PLAYS THE SPACE JESUS CARD
FETISH FRIDAY: TEENA RAFFA-MULLIGAN
I’m running a new series of guest posts throughout 2015: Fetish Friday. Don’t get all sweaty in the pants—I’m going back to an older definition of the word, and asking artists to show us something that helps them with the ritual of creation, some part of their surroundings—physical or mental—that eases the path into the creative state, whether it be a location, a piece of music, person, picture, a doohickey, whatnot, curio or ornament without which the creative process would be a whole lot more difficult.
Please welcome Western Australian children’s author Teena Raffa-Mulligan:
It’s a different story when it comes to writing anything of substantial length. That’s a real challenge for me. The butterfly approach is not recommended. That’s when I do need help. Walking works…so does riding my bike along the beach path, swimming, weeding the garden, sweeping the floor, ironing my clothes. There’s something about getting physical that triggers my creative brain. I don’t consciously think about the next scene of the novel I’m working on but there it is, waiting to be written down. Yet I could sit at the computer all day and be completely lost for words.
http://www.teenaraffamulligan.com/
Are you a creative artist? Fancy joining in and letting us know about that special item, object, location or cosmic state of being at the heart of your creative process? There’s always room for another lunatic in the asylum: email me and make your most excited Horshack noise.
THUMBNAIL THURSDAY REACHES THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL AND KEEPS ON DIGGING
FETISH FRIDAY; STEVE CAMERON
I’m running a new series of guest posts throughout 2015: Fetish Friday. Don’t get all sweaty in the pants—I’m going back to an older definition of the word, and asking artists to show us something that helps them with the ritual of creation, some part of their surroundings—physical or mental—that eases the path into the creative state, whether it be a location, a piece of music, person, picture, a doohickey, whatnot, curio or ornament without which the creative process would be a whole lot more difficult.
Are you a creative artist? Fancy joining in and letting us know about that special item, object, location or cosmic state of being at the heart of your creative process? There’s always room for another lunatic in the asylum: email me and make your most excited Horshack noise.