All kinds of things have prevented me from visiting galleries recently. I bicycled to 696, Villain and Brunswick Arts last Friday but they were all closed.
I had a brief visit with my brother Trevor, who is over briefly from Canada. I always wonder what to show international visitors in Melbourne: what would represent Melbourne for an afternoon? I walked with my brother along the Yarra, through Fed Square, the Hosier Lane graffiti to dim sum in Chinatown. We then walked to the Exhibition building and back for cakes and coffee in the Greek Precinct on Lonsdale St. My brother hasn’t been in Melbourne for decades and remembered how quiet and lifeless the city used to be.
When I was showing my brother around Melbourne we saw part of the Melbourne Design Festival when we were in Fed Square. There are a lot of festivals in Melbourne currently spread out in locations across the city from the Design Festival, the International Film Festival and there are more coming up, like the Melbourne International Arts Festival and the Melbourne Stencil Festival.
And I have been doing volunteer work for the Melbourne Stencil Festival; it should be called the ‘Melbourne International Stencil Festival’ because there will be international artists, as well as, local artists at the festival. This is coming close to burning the candle at both ends, as the continuing renovations on my house making everyday things that little bit more complicated.
Doing volunteer work for the Melbourne Stencil Festival has been fun. I’ve been coordinating the volunteers, writing lots of emails, painting walls white and many little things. It reminds me that there are many ways of being involved with art from being a critic to hanging an exhibition – being an artist is not the one and only way. The artist is like the front line soldier and for each one another five to ten people are needed working as support in some way.
So these are my excuse for not writing any reviews of recent exhibitions.
Black Mark 