My Melbourne Writers Festival

People have been asking me how my book, Sculptures of Melbourne is doing since it was released in May.  I am still working on promoting it, as well as, writing bog posts, pitching for articles and applying for writers awards, the last two without much luck except for a couple of reposts in The Daily Review.

I do have a few more events and other things coming up to promote Sculptures of Melbourne. On Sunday there is my sculpture walk for the Melbourne Writers Festival (you can book for on the festival website).

I can’t believe that I am in the Melbourne Writers Festival with my first book. My neighbour Jane, who has written several books and a fun blog about her job on Melbourne’s railways (Station Stories), is green with envy.

The festival liked the idea of a sculpture walk, everyone likes the idea of walking. Last week I was working a sculpture walking map for Walks Victoria. It is almost finished; just a few more photos to upload. Anyone can map out a walk on their website and I notice that there are a couple of street art walks (I am doing my walk for an exchange for publicity).

During the Melbourne Writers Festival I hope that I run into the great pedestrian and writer, Will Self, who is also appearing at the festival. The ultimate horror of an intoxicated fan and first time author who wants to tell him that the solution to his, and J. G. Ballard’s, problem with ending their sci-fi novels is that they should be writing their stories as role-playing scenarios. Actually I’d probably just tell him about Nick Gadd’s superb psychogeography blog, Melbourne Circle. (Don’t worry Will I’m not a stalker.)

Anyway, fantasy conversations aside, Melbourne Books has done a fantastic, unbelievable job at promoting my book. I’ve had the experience of going into a bookshops and not being able to find my book because it has been so prominently displayed.

Charles Web Gilbert, Matthew Flinders Memorial, a stop on my walk.

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Book Launch

This weekend I have had two book launches for my first book, Sculptures of Melbourne. It was better than my 50th birthday party but that happened during a heatwave in February earlier this year. It was so great to see so many old friends and to actually meet people that I have only interacted with virtually online.

Why two book launches? The second book launch came about when the publisher, Melbourne Books got a stall at the Art Book Fair at the NGV. So it has been a big week. I have been working social media and writing two speeches for the two book launches.

The book launch at Gallery One Three was amazing, Richard Watts gave a great opening speech. Thanks to Fatima for organising the launch at Gallery One Three. I have so many people to thank for helping me with my first book, I am very grateful for all the help. You might not have thought that you have done much but think about it from my perspective where any help at the right time is so appreciated. Melbourne Art Review covered the book launch and check out the great photos by Matto who took the front cover photo for the book.

Left to right: CDH, Mark Holsworth, David Tenenbaum (Publisher Melbourne Books)

The second book launch at the NGV’s art book fair in the great hall. I got CDH to introduce me because he is in the book and I thought it would be slightly ironic after his Trojan Petition if he was officially talking at the NGV. It turns out that he is a very entertaining speaker and quickly got the audience to laugh. I talked about how I developed the book from writing about public sculpture in this blog. Then there were more books to sign.

There is a video of the launch of my book at the NGV, made by Chloe Brien who edited my book and consequently is a well edited video.

The art book fair is another example of the new direction that Tony Ellwood, the NGV’s director is taking the gallery. There were lots of stalls with zines and artist books. Catherine bought a couple of little publications by  Gracia & Louise (Gracia Haby and Louise Jennison). Although there hasn’t been any main stream media about my book (yet) several bloggers have posted about it.

Interview on The Art and The Curious.

Invurt on the book launch.

Art and Architecture on my book.

Public Art Research mentions my book.

Interview on Invurt about my blog and my book.

You can buy the book, Readings bookstore stocks it, or you can borrow my book from the following public libraries: City of Boroondara Library, City Whitehorse and Manningham Library, and Yarra Plenty Library. My events page has more information on my promotional free lunchtime sculpture tours next week. Normal Black Mark blogging will resume shortly.

Finishing Sculptures of Melbourne

I should write something like “I am pleased to announce the publication of my book, Sculptures of Melbourne” except that I’ve been too busy to think about how I feel. I have been working on the book for a long time, I started a couple years ago and now it is being printed. It still doesn’t seem real yet. All I seem to remember is the harrowing, nightmarish parts and not the enjoyable moments. I really enjoyed interviewing all the sculptors; Peter Corlett, Louis Laumen, Daniel Lynch and Bruce Armstrong. There were surprise encounters with CDH and Stuart Ringholt and the enjoyment of research but that was a long time ago now.

Sculptures of Melbourne cover photo by Matto Lucas

Sculptures of Melbourne is published by Melbourne Books in late April. It is hardback with 224 pages and colour photography throughout the book and there is more information about the book on my new page Sculptures of Melbourne. It is currently being printed in Singapore.

Over the past months I have been finishing up work on my book, Sculptures of Melbourne; doing the photo captions, index, the order of photos and starting publicity. Following what seems to be an obscure rule of nature and due to various unforeseen delays this has been happening at the same time as the carpenter gets around to building the bullnose verandah on the front of my house and it all corresponded with my fiftieth birthday. Fifty appears to be the next most important date after twenty-one and all my friends are having big fiftieth birthday parties. So sometimes I have been I up a ladder painting of the new verandah, sometimes I have been at the computer looking at PDF versions of the book and sometimes I have been partying.

Doing the index was interesting because I realised how different this book from most other art books. Index terms include: health and safety, football and the MCG. This is because it is about the interaction between the public and art, something that public sculptures are perfect to demonstrate. When I finished the index I went back to painting the verandah before the bullnose corrugated iron roof went on.

Then there is publicity for the book because finishing the book is not the end of my work on the book. On the day of my first meeting with Rita Dimasi, the publicist at Melbourne Books the builder has dropped off the fretwork for the verandah, more painting to do. Lots to do for the publicity like this blog post, the static page about the book, working social media and emailing various people. Where has been the subject of many discussions and emails but I can now confirm that it will be on Friday May 1 at 6-8pm at Gallery One Three in Somerset Place, Melbourne, see the Facebook event page for the launch for more details.

This has been exhausting but fortunately I still have some blog posts in reserve. Having reserve blog posts is important for any blogger who wants to post regularly even when they are busy with other projects.

Painful progress on my book

When I last wrote about progress on my book, Melbourne’s Sculpture it was the end of March. I am now three months behind schedule with my book.

Progress of the book has been slowed with getting better photographs than the ones I’d taken, mine weren’t really up to scratch for publication. I never really thought of myself as a photographer and I knew that my photography was the weakest part. I should have asked more questions about it and read the camera manual.

So plan B for the photographs and start to develop a plan C; scratch plan B after two months of going nowhere. Move on to plan C and start to develop a plan D and whole vicious cycle goes on. Somewhere in all of this I decided to do some renovations and a major clean up of the house.

Paul Montford, John Wesley statue,1935, Melbourne

There has so many lows, more pleas for help on windy winter nights, so few highs recently (some great sculpture exhibitions at RMIT, Callum Morton at Anna Schwartz and Inge King at the NGV) and far too much waiting. It is hard to be patient and anxious at the same time. Waiting can be horribly distressing and at time I felt I was being drip fed hope. The street artist, Mal Function who makes those little gremlin heads finally read and replied to my email six months later but not too late as it happens.

I didn’t feel like writing my blog during this time; too uncertain of what the future would bring, too something. It is an odd feeling because the fate of the book was no longer in my hands. It was a good experience editing with Chloe Brien the book. Everyone is doing a wonderful job holding it together around me, the publisher, David Tenenbaum has been patient, my wife, Catherine and especially my old friend, Paul Candy who had been most helpful when exactly when I needed it. Lots of thanks; I must rewrite the acknowledgements for the book.

The book will now have photographs kindly supplied by the City of Melbourne, ConnectEast, State Library of Victoria and several photographers. More thanks.

Amongst the photographers I actual meet Matto Lucas. I had seen some of his work years ago but I had only met him virtually a few weeks earlier; his Facebook post are are often a work of art. I’d also seen his photography in his blog the Melbourne Art Review.

None of the photographs in this post will appear in the book.

Charles Robb, Landmark, 2005

Bruce Armstrong, Eagle, 2002, Docklands

Working on Melbourne’s Sculpture

I’m currently polishing the manuscript for my book Melbourne’s Sculpture – from the colonial to the ephemeral. It is due to be published by Melbourne Books later this year. Making sure that all my photos are labelled correctly, organising the bibliography and list of index terms is dull work. There has been some dull reading too; just be glad that I read some of those dull books so that you don’t have to.

Malfunction, Leopards, 2011, Fitzroy

It has not all been dull; I have been enjoying meeting sculptors and exploring the city to see new sculptures. Just working at my computer when I received a phone call from Bruce Armstrong in reply to an email that I’d sent about a month before through John Buckley Gallery who repents him. The email from Maurie Hughes came at just the right time as I was struggling to make sense of sculpture in the 1990s.

Bruce Armstrong, Two Persons Hugging, Footscray

Some of the highlights have been enjoying great steaks and wine over a lunch with Lou Laumen at the Station Hotel in Footscray. Visiting Peter Corlett in his studio at the back of his beautiful garden and visiting Meridian Foundries with him. He gave me a little tour of the foundry and introducing me to Peter Morley and the workers.

I have not been stuck in front of the computer the whole time. I have been visiting new parts of the city in my search for significant public sculptures to photograph. I hadn’t been out to Footscray or Preston in years. I had never been out to see EastLink offices in Ringwood; the offices are a beautifully designed. EastLink was very helpful, allowing me to use their photographs of the sculptures for free and providing me with a folder of articles on them including one by Ken Scarlett that I was looking for.

Sometimes I have felt like a detective tracking down information from a scattering of clues. I had to make contact with some artists for copyright permission, sometimes anonymous street artists based on little more than a photograph or the initials GT. (I am still trying to get in touch with Mal Function.) Trying to locate George Allen’s Untitled, 1957 a couple of tons of rock that just disappeared. Discovering the lies that Charles Summers told to Governor Darling about the casting of the Burke and Wills Monument.

It has been fun having my ideas challenged and changed. Sculptors who are conservative artistically but a progressive politically. Large corporations are more progressive artistically than local governments. City governments are capable of planning and enacting long term. Enough to make my mind spin a couple of times.

I’ve had a lot of help from artists, academics and various test readers who volunteered to read my manuscript. I still have to polish the manuscript some more and check the acknowledgements section to make sure that I’ve got all the names right. I will be glad when I can hand the manuscript and photographs over to the publisher next Monday. Not that I will be finished with the book but it will mark another point in the process. (See my December post: Book Deal.) I still have to find an image for the front cover.

Culture Rubble, 1993 by Christine O’Loughlin

Book Deal

I’m very happy to announce that my forthcoming book on the history Melbourne’s public sculpture will be published by Melbourne Books next year. It is the blogging dream – a book deal based on the blog.

Bruce Armstrong and Geoffrey Bartlett, “Constellation”

As regular readers of this blog would know one of the topics that I regularly write about is public sculpture. Not that the book will be exactly what I’ve written in my blog, far from it, there have been many additions, revisions and corrections and there are still many to do.

Which public sculpture represents the identity of Melbourne? I started thinking about this question and so I wrote a blog post about it (see Melbourne’s Sculpture). The question is still haunting me and now I have to choose an image for the book’s front cover.

As I wrote more and more blog posts about public sculpture I became more interested. I noticed that very few people were writing about public sculpture, it is considered a dull topic by art critics and art historians dismissing it as the work of second rate artists working on commissions. However the public want to know about these sculptures I was finding some interesting stories about public sculptures politics, crime and the history of the city. Putting all these blog posts together I found that I was writing a history about a major change in public sculptures; a true story with a beginning, middle and end.

Although it is every blogger’s dream to write a book, it took prompting from my wife, my inspiration, Catherine, for the idea to form. I also needed the copy editing skills of Sue Wind and the advice of many people to get the manuscript to this stage – I’ve already added getting a proper thank you list together to my ever growing 2Do list… write, edit, sort and label jpg files, the front cover image…. ?

La Pok’s guerilla gardening Melbourne

Hester, “a world, fully accessible by no living being”, 2011

Paul Montford, Adam Lindsay Gordon, 1931

Charles Web Gilbert, Matthew Flinders Memorial, Melbourne

John Kelly, “Cow Up a Tree”, bonze, 1999, Docklands