The Greatest Smallest Forest

This week was the birthday of my friend Nathalie (Nat)

https://smallestforest.net/

An artist, with many talents and a woman who I admired for her humor, her capacity to see through bullshit (including mine), her straight talking cynicism, her taste for strong coffee and her propensity for freedom over comfort and truth above conformity!

It was heartbreaking when Nat died at the end of February last year. I have missed her deeply.

She had so much talent to share with the world and produced art that in my opinion was the best in Darwin!

Nat was also pretty good at Calligraphy she designed and drew the guest book when Prince Charles visited Darwin in 2018. 

My mum has a hand written copy of Desiderata that Nat wrote in beautiful calligraphy before Christmas in 2018. It must have taken her ages.

Please check out her work on her blog The Smallest Forest, it is full of so many wonderful surprises. I have no idea how long the blog will continue to be hosted. Chances are it will be taken down pretty soon.

The Smalest Forest

Farewell Vikki!

Yesterday we lost a dear friend and fierce advocate for the rights of vulnerable people. Vikki Riley has made a major contribution to alleviating the terrible anquish faced by so many people currently held in detention in Darwin. The art exhibitions she has facilitated have given voice to so many people who would otherwise have been locked quietly away without any way of communicating their message to the broader public in Australia. Vikki went to places many of us would prefer to forget even exist. She met and supported the people who many Australians would rather be kept out of sight and out of mind. In her own obstinate way she forced people to considder realities they'd prefer to claim ignorance of! She did not take no for an answer and she did not accept weak excuses for not doing what she felt was right.

Vikki died as the result of a colission with a car while she was riding her bike. Despite the tragedy of this event the comments came flying in accusations and attacks against her simply because she was on a bike!

I am currently in Melbourne staying with family. Sadly the mentality down here appears to be even worse than in Darwin. Having fixed my bike up with the intention of using it for transport I was inundated with pleas not to ride! Whenever the subject of cycling comes up in my family it is all to do with some kind of political possition and what side you're on! Cars against Bikes! How ridiculous!

My right to go out and ride my bike appears to be subject to the oppinions of rednecks and dickheads who's 'point of view' is apparrently worthy of printing in newspapers and coverage by all kinds of media outlets. I am advised by caring family members that I shouldn't ride my bike... 'People around here hate cyclists'. Somehow any error committed by a cyclist on the road can be used to justify every degree of neglegence on the part of a driver. 

After hearing the terrible news about my friend Vikki, rather than compassion or sympathy for her family I am given an oppinion from one particular family member, who can see 'both sides' and how there really isn't enough room on the road for bikes! I couldn't f--king belive it!

There are no sides in this situation! There were two people. One riding a bicycle, one driving a car. There is a duty of care when using the road under all circumstances to avoid causing injury to any other human being, be they driver, passenger, pedestrian or cyclist! A person driving a car hit a person riding a bike and the cyclist died! That is what happened! This is a tragedy! The driver must now be in a state of shock and be suffering terribly for his mistake. I can feel for him.
If you want to talk to me about sides, points of view... the right of drivers to an open road where they don't have to considder slowing down or avoiding any other trafic then.... (I reserve my comments for later!)

Many people will mourn Vikki. My thoughts are with her Partner Jimmy and son Elijah. I hope there will be something published through our mainstreem media that allows the public to get a glimpse of her world as she saw it and the forces she struggled against for the sake of the vulnerable people in our Detention Centres right now and those who will soon be shipped away... Out of our sight, far enough that they can be forgotten!

I'm not sure what to say about any of this right now. I am a bundle of nerves. Maybe better you read about it in The Northern Myth

Vale Vikki Riley – “a beautiful woman lost” … and still the trolls come out to play

A glove full of peanuts...

Give me an inch and I'll take a Glove full of peanuts!

I know that obsessive self indulgence is not a healthy path to tread. I know that I'm prone to fits of fantastical illusory dreams of divine expression and art and that the high I seek will always dump me like a king tide surf on an empty shore.... but... There's no law against it yet and if it don't interfere with my ability to operate a motorcar then what's the harm right?

Tonight I dragged the family out to the Darwin Visual Arts Association (DVAA) at Frogs Hollow to see an exhibition of paintings titled 'Peanuts fill the glove...' by the Artist Nat Uhing. Nat is a multi skilled and practical artist who has produced some awesome textile creations in embroidery and bookbinding... sometimes, I think combining the two! If you thought embroidery was just for old ladies (Hey I didn't think that! I'm just saying if you did...), you'd be tragically wrong! This exhibition isn't about textile art though I did see one mixed media piece... the exhibition is essentially paint on canvas! Paintings...! 

The title for her exhibition may seem a bit cryptic so if you're wondering maybe a snippit from the Artist's blurb will explain...

"...every one of these paintings went out on a journey by itself, to grapple with whatever the fixation of the week was, and without a care for where the others had gone…peanuts, gathered to fill an ineluctable glove."

Nat's art erupts with colour and exudes imaginative introspection, self exploration, energy and humor! It's fun, sexy, elevating and... well I reckon pretty bloody good! 

'Reading Monsoon Dervish' is Melancholy... Lady Kitsune (foxy) is crazy! 

I've followed these paintings via Nat's Blog so I'm already kind of connected to these paintings in a way but Sam, who hadn't seen them before was just as impressed (as I am obsessed!)... The kids were more interested in the free corn chips and lollies outside! (Well we hadn't fed them dinner and hey if their busy stuffing their faces and letting me check out the art, I'm not going to complain!)
Just as Nat let us in on the creative process vial her blog 'The Smallest Forest' she also shared some of the music that inspired her paintings. I'm listening to it now and am transported into that ethereal world of imagination.. possibly gleaning some of the power that enabled the artist. But to be honest, feeling more like the voyeuristic dreamer. No paper, no brush or hand. I can't watch the bubbles bursting above my head all day (or night). It was a nice interlude though. Thank you very much! 

Oh yeh there was a collaborative exhibition next door called Sirens which was also great, full of mermaids, octopuses and seascapes, the female form with fins in shades of blue. We were surprised to see some familiar names in the list of artists and rather impressed with their work too!

I'm not sure how long the exhibition goes for... maybe all of November. Check it out.