The Social License to Operate

A social license to operate is an intangible, fragile thing - an extension of Good Will in businesses. It depends on perception, communication, transparency and community values. I suspect though that it will be a pretty good indicator of the future viability of a company. I've done my rant about the ills of decoupling money from the goods and services it represents; now I'm thinking that a method of assessing and recording the social license might be as important as the current accounting of a company when due diligence is done.

A system of assessment would need to be agile and flexible to allow for lots of different situations and technologies, and would need to be able to cross national borders. It needs to be community based and not an arm of a multinational company. In other words it needs to be crowd sourced and used. And verified - no one wants a good company ruined by false information or misrepresentation.

Should an individual self assess? What is my long term philosophy?

I think in future rubbish will be more expensive than recycling

Recycled will be cheaper than virgin materials

Renewable should mean just that - consumption no greater that the earth's replacement capacity - with a bit built in for resilience and global repair.

Kiri and Jamie's Tea light holder

And where do I stand? A long way behind my own standards: this little item in cast glass doesn't just have glass manufacture and a kiln firing - there's a pile of waste mould material I have to answer for - how can that be re-used or recycled? I should get back to carving wood!

Oh Rock!

The rock by the light of the setting moon is white in contrast to the sleeping landscape. It isn't like the rocks in Ryoanji garden that rely on their untouched rock-ness  to make their statement. This rock has been wrested from its natural lie in the ground, stood upright, broken a couple of times and then I get to work on it.

As the worked faces emerge they stand in contrast and in compliment to the marks of the seasons that show where the rock was exposed.

I'm getting line and surface and interface. And the gesture of those things is starting to suggest a name.

The moon has set now and the darkness before dawn prevails. I dare not go for a walk until daylight in this place dotted with mine shafts. In fact driving has its risks too - coming back from the bore baths last night I saw a big grey kangaroo by the road. A collision would not be good for either of us!

The first colour of day is showing - time to watch.

"Mahayana" Sustainability?

My environmental footprint is that of the thousands of people who contribute to me being where I am.... no matter how "green" I am, what my community is and does is the measure of what is done to the world in order for me to live.
So it is better to do something as a community than to do it for myself.
Trade - even globalisation - has a part to play in the building of the new world because what we do for each other and how we do it counts so much in the measure of a full life.

The Role of Art

I've been reading Ian Lowe's A Voice of Reason. I got to the bit about the role of art in societal change - the questions bubble over - do we lead or follow? Give space to reflect or inspire to action? Is that so much wishful thinking or is it the reason that art of an overthrown regime is despised and destroyed? Following that - is vandalism of publicly accessible art an outright expression of alienation?

I remember talking to some school children - they were at the age when they are at their brightest and most inquiring: just before puberty hits and intellect takes a long ride in the back seat. I pointed out that we choose our purchases according to their "coolness" rather than optimal function - an iPod may not be the best functioning MP3 player but no cool kid would be seen with anything else - that we recognise the previous year's model by the line and shape and choose the latest. This is even though most of us couldn't say why the curve or the crisp line looks sooo well - 2007. The process of industrial design is on the cusp of form following function or form describing function or form enabling function or perhaps form camouflaging function and good old brand recognition. It certainly helps to sell stuff and can make or break a product. And sculpture is the precursor skill to defining those forms.

I discussed with the children the sculptures telling their story in form and giving clues with their titles (or lack of title).

Yes I build things to communicate ideas that are best conveyed with form - sometimes because they are funny, sometimes frightening, maybe beautiful or sometimes just because I can. Do I do this in a certain way because my perceptions and skills are part of the big matrix of right here, right now?

And what earthly use is it to make stuff that needs dusting or sits in the garden and provides a framework for spiders to spin their webs from? Why do people want it? And I guess that is where the answer lies - we exercise our capacity for empathy when we look at art and imagine: when we sense the changing light and shade that alters form and perception and takes us out of the narrow focus of getting from one minute to the next. A little bit like practising love.

At Herring Island

"Frankly, My Dear" from the back

Well at last the work was finished and taken to Herring island. It was a bit hilarious setting up in the rain - there was a wiping brigade to dry the work before it was placed in the gallery - then the weather cheered up and the opening was fine and sunny. The people in Queensland haven't been so lucky - and luck it is - we have no way of knowing if the rain will fall on Melbourne's catchments next.

Well I polished the work and polished the words to go with her - this time the woman is handing out the famous line. But we all know it's a construct and nothing is ever that easy:

"Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn"

So I wrote: 

"Frankly, My Dear"

As Rhett Butler's famous words mark the denouement of his obsession with Scarlett O'Hara and the Southern Belle, so "Gone with the Wind" describes the end of that era of flawed beauty built on slavery. I wonder what images will be created, in fifty or a hundred years time, to reflect on the end of this era of extravagance built on the myth of cheap, plentiful oil.

John waiting for the punt at Herring Island

My dad came and visited the show - we had a good discussion about the support work for the figure - a difference of opinion or interpretation? - all good. And am I lucky to have parents who can disagree with me on the intellectual and artistic level? Most definitely yes.

New Year's Rant

Instead of making New Year's resolutions that I won't keep, I'm telling the world of humans a few of my home truths - knowing that no one is listening - right!

I reckon so called free trade agreements should be negotiated in an international court of law with independent arbitration. There is too much power/economic imbalance and most of what I understand of these agreements is that they look remarkably like protection rackets operated by stand over merchants. Even if it's just an appearance this needs to be amended.

Barnevelder chicks settling into their new home

The priority of all nations is first to have people involved in communal activity for mutual benefit - we call it "work" - but I think the concept needs to encompass what we do within our families - growing vegetables and raising children as well as the voluntary work that holds the community together - the running of sporting clubs, the scouts, the choral societies.... there used to be enough spare capacity in society for these things to be well run - now it isn't just the climate of litigation that is killing these groups but the emphasis on productivity and efficiency (and consumption) that has taken away our initiative and our spare time - after all that, then add in the economic "keeping the wheels of industry turning". Trade is a communal activity whether it's between individuals or nations: there is not only the benefit of the exchange of goods and services but the cultural interaction that permits trade to happen. If people believe that there is exploitation by one side or the other the cultural "infrastructure" is damaged and the exchange is flawed.

work in progress

Then the next thing I want to fix on this little rant is the "war on drugs" - what did the drugs ever do to deserve this effort? We have a medical problem - it needs to be sorted out and the victims given back their lives. Why not address it in the same manners that eliminated small pox or reduced the black death to a mythological memory? What is a war but boys playing with their sparklers and causing a lot of death and destruction? We can do better than that.

Now it's time to go back to the studio and get on with the work - the piece for the Herring Island exhibition is slowly taking shape - the thoughts materialising in the form. Sometimes I get lost in the process - sometimes I watch myself working - sometimes I use the more mechanical aspects to have some thinking time.

Leaving the Day Job

Every artist faces the decision at some time as to whether or not to leave the day job and pursue their art full time. We can end up fairly poor if we do, but it does give us the time to improve our skills and fashion our philosophies. And again some make a quiet living with commission work, or well subscribed exhibitions.

When I first announced my intentions in that direction my then husband said -well what's your business plan? - Business plan? You make stuff and you sell it! The main difference between selling art and selling anything else is that market research isn't a preliminary part of the game – we are out to express something that we believe is important – we don't go researching what people want to buy unless we are then going to comment on that, we don't just supply willy nilly what people already think they want.

The being poor bit is hard to handle - makes relationships and family life tough – but we eventually sort out a modest income stream and life goes on - So should we really take vows of poverty, chastity and obedience in order to contemplate a life devoted to the arts? It doesn't sound very real – and in fact when you think of it, this is a call to moderation not to extremes – the words could have been destitution, celibacy and subservience – but they are not - they moderate our obsession with money, sex and power – to focus our attention on what is really important – on sufficient food, love and imagination.

The artist does have a place in the world – not in the ivory tower. But the very diversity of art defies definition – some get their message across by shocking people, others by making one think, some make us laugh, some find beauty in the commonplace, others rage against the thoughtless – all of us have turned the unique vision of an individual into a philosophic statement - the belief that without dreams our bread is tasteless.