bilateral kellerberrin

May 27, 2005

Kellerberrin Friday 27 May 2005

Filed under: keller dailies — Lucas @ 10:11 am

It’s 9.35am. Last night I didn’t get to sleep until after four, so this typing is understandably shakey. I stayed up to format all the text from the blog entries, into some sort of printable format. All these pages will be printed out on IASKA’s bubblejet, then photocopied a hundred times on the Pipeline copier. Today, being Friday, is the last day the Pipeline office will be open. So it’s now or never.

The exciting news is that Anne and Louise arrived last night. They drove up from Perth after organising a million filmy things for our Saturday night screening of Line Describing a Cone. It’s great to see them. I didn’t realise how much I’ve been missing that kind of familiar “blah blah blah” conversation which races along at a hundred miles an hour. Sometimes you just need old friends for this. Out here, I’ve done a lot of listening, and some measured talking and explanation. But not so much “mindvomit,” as my friend Flemo would call it. (Except for my daily posting here, of course…)

Anne and Louise brought fresh tuna and good wine, and we ate together with Cristina and Felena. It had been a long day for all of us: me driving everyone mad with the racket of nailgun and dropsaw, building my silly furniture for the pipeline assembly line; Cristina and Felena working out the best way to hang her pictures, and crunching away to get the frustrating IASKA computer to spit out a DVD of Cristina’s video (solution still pending).

After dinner I took Anne and Louise down to the cinema and we checked on the ambient light levels, and generally went apeshit (once again) over how brilliant a space it is. Louise got pigeon feathers all over her climbing up into the old projection booth to see if there was any equipment left behind. There wasn’t. Excitement levels high, at this stage!

* * * * *

Who did I meet, yesterday, while I was setting up in the gallery?

Dennis and Anne Alcock. Last Friday I brought Dennis out of retirement, and he generously chopped up the chipboard panels I’ve been turning into my pipeline assembly benches. Yesterday, I needed just a bit more skirting board for the trim which runs around the edge of each bench. He fed it into the table saw, and I pulled it through the other end.

Dennis told stories about being a boy in London during the war. They were tuned in to the sound a “V-1” bomb made, a kind of high pitched whistle. If the sound kept on, you were ok. But if all went quiet, that was bad: it meant the engines of the bomb had turned off, and it was beginning its descent. On one occasion, the sound stopped, and his family thought they were for it. But after several anxious seconds, the engines spluttered back into life and the bomb continued on its way. You see, they hadn’t perfected it at that stage, he said.

This was at the beginning of the development of radar, too, Dennis said. During one air raid, he experienced a very strange phenomenon: after a German plane went overhead, the air in the city streets was filled with a million tiny shards of light metal foil. The foil gently cascaded through the air and fell to the ground. Apparently, this was designed to deflect and confuse the British radars, which would allow the Germans to get more bombers through.

Greg popped in to the gallery, to say farewell. He was on his way to Perth. He said he would give me the contact details of his artist friend who lives in Sydney, near the Warragamba Dam. I gave him a set of coasters (one of which features him!) and one of my little green books. Unfortunately, Greg won’t be back from Perth for the opening. So that’s the last I’ll see of him on this trip.

Later in the day, I bailed up Pip. I wanted to give him back his fancy spanner, which he’d lent me. I also borrowed a driver bit for roofing screws, and an orbital sander. I was worried that the “finish” on the bench was too crappy – that I should sand the whole bugger back and fill and repaint it. But Anne and Louise set me straight. It was good enough “as is”, which, given the amount of time I’ve got left, is the answer I wanted to hear!

I went down and told TeaRooms Joe that we had a confirmed 40 RSVP for the exhibition dinner. How well behaved all our guests are! Joe is worried that his bain marie will draw too much juice and trip the power in the gallery. We arranged to carry it down there today for a test run.

Jo Debney was indispensable yesterday. She stuck little bits of bluetack on all my “window blog” pages and carefully placed them in the windows of the gallery. This is one of the “little” jobs I’ve been unable to get to recently. Jo brought in a Chopin piano music CD, and I walzed my way through the afternoon. I was vaguely stressed about getting everything done on time, but the Chopin helped a lot.

2 Responses to “Kellerberrin Friday 27 May 2005”

  1. Bec Says:

    Hi Lucas
    I’m sooooo sorry about the macrame nets. I feel like a dolt! Can a knitting bee quickly whip-up replacements?
    Good luck with everything. It sounds really exciting…wish I could be there.
    B

  2. Louise Says:

    Hi Lucas

    Now I understand! When your name is in the blog, you scan, scan, scan looking for mentions of yourself – it’s scarey (scary (?)) how I pass over Denis and Anne and all I’m reading for is Anne and Louise.

    I’m writing this Post Line and I think in the end, we will all remember this most fondly. The real artwork was your speech! Such a trooper in the face of ridiculous absurdity – foolish (?) optimism knows no bounds again.

    The other interesting function of the blog is a Post Line soother. I have heard myself say a thousand times using small gauge and old media is an embrace of an aesthetics of failure, grant-speak if ever I heard it, but there it is. Still I’m very interested in the feelings that come along with it (actual failure in terms of non-action) – I learnt a great deal from your composure this eve. This is the other necessary facet to the artwork in this terrain so that the audience (ie blog readers, residents, friends, family here in Keller this eve) can feel comfortable with the non-action. Very difficult. More difficult than listening to that middle bit of Nothing.

    Very best wishes, LI, and what a wonderful experience to have seen a little of Keller in your company. I rate the Hill very highly.

    Louise

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