in praise of quaintness

Sometimes there are moments when looking at my children, I register the specialness of that moment and store it away in my memory, a treasure to hold on to.  This morning I sat watching my 7 year old daughter, home sick from school, sitting by the heater, listening to an audio book of Anne of Green Gables while French knitting.  She is totally absorbed in the story unfolding and the tricky task of hooking strands of wool around the metal loops of her knitting bee.  She is content, concentrating, oblivious.  Apart from the overwhelming love I feel for my daughter, I am also struck by the quaintness of the scene.  Such an old fashioned little girl – apart from the ipod on which she listens to the audio book.  This leads me to reflect on the type of childhood we hope to allow our children; both my partner and I are very much of the mind that childhood is not something to rush through but something to dwell in for as long as possible.  We limit our children’s exposure to TV – NO commercial television at all, our family TV viewing is generally something like Dr Who, Antiques Road-Show or Grand Designs.  We encourage reading, writing, drawing, tree climbing, playing in the garden, cooking, knitting, sewing, hammering nails in bits of wood.  We discourage any form of gender stereotyping and avoid like the plague anything that even hints at the sexualisation of little girls.  Both our girls  are now very good at judging if something is ‘inappropriate’ – like the dance moves and song lyrics they have to learn for a school concert or performance.  As parents, we are often incensed by the images and stereotypes that bombard our children on a daily basis, outside of the home, and sometimes even at school.  We don’t want to home-school our children or bring them up in a bubble, quarantined from contemporary reality, as much as that sometimes appeals.  But I hope what we can do is give our daughters the tools to deal with the daily bombardment, to develop a strong enough sense of themselves to be able to know what’s important and what’s not.  I hope our children can stay children for as long as possible; that they can be quaint and whimsical and creative and themselves.

Skin

I recently started a post-grad course in Therapeutic Arts Practice at MIECAT.
These are some things I made last night.
I think that's all I'm going to say right now… mainly because it's not really about the words.

On Paths to Portraiture

Irina Baronova (handing on the baton)

by Jenny Sages

image - Art Gallery of New South Wales.

I recently watched a fantastic documentary about Australian Artist Jenny Sages, Jenny Sages - Paths to Portraiture, on ABC iview. I don't think I have seen Sages' work before so it was a revelation.  Her portraits in particular just glow from the canvas.  In describing her own response to Sages' portrait of her, writer Helen Garner spoke of the portrait as revealing something akin to a 'psychic connection' between the artist and the subject.  Sages scratches and scours into the canvas as she builds up the painting - so much detail on the surface of the work, which makes the sheer scale of her portraits all the more impressive. The documentary was extremely moving and beautifully made, revealing much about the artist and her life and how she choses to make her work.  I was deeply inspired by this woman who found her real creative path at the age of 50, after a career as an illustrator and raising a family. The subjects of her portraits are people she has a close connection with or respect for and this may be the reason why these works are so compelling.  Her self portraits are intense and revealing and the portrait of her husband captures all the wisdom and grace of old age as well as her love for him.  Her portrait of Irina Baronova is stunning in the way it captures the intense gaze of the subject and again, the wisdom of age.  Jenny Sages has been an Archibald Prize finalist TWENTY times.  I am in awe of her talent.

Symptomatic Creativity. And Sleep.

(illustration by Robin Cowcher)

Symptoms may include creativity

Jonah Lehrer

I found this article in The Age very interesting and also quite moving.  It reminded me how fleeting and precious creativity is - and life in general. And it also reminded me how important sleeping is... maybe that's why I feel that I have never had enough sleep?  Or maybe it's just because I HAVEN'T HAD ENOUGH SLEEP.

Happy - Sad ... and everything in between

Pictures by Freya, aged 4

It is hard to imagine these two pictures were painted by the same little girl on the same day:  the result of one of our holiday 'art sessions' at the kitchen table, with some paper and water colour pencils and water.  Freya seems to like drawing and painting in dark colours, often in black.  I find it a little hard to reconcile with the funny and generally cheerful little poppet, whose favourite colour is apparently pink.  Part of me is a little disturbed by the second picture - is she expressing some deep seated conflict, some hidden sadness? Am I reading too much into it?
As a parent of course I want to protect my babies from anything that could hurt or upset them but, of course, this is impossible.  So the next best thing I suppose is to help them find ways of dealing with the things that may hurt or upset them, and also ways of expressing these feelings.  Both of our children are highly emotional creatures and quite thin skinned.  Part of me wishes they were otherwise but I hope that as a parent I can help them find a way to be 'sensitive' without being too vulnerable to every little slight or challenge that comes their way.
Being a bit 'thin skinned' myself, I have often wondered if it is not such a bad way of being.  Is this part of what makes me want to write music or create things?  Is it the 'thin skin' that makes me more driven to try and express things in music that I feel unable to express in words?  Or that makes me more aware of those intensely moving glimpses of beauty and strangeness that are all around us?  Although my 'thin skin' has been the cause of much sadness and turmoil in my life, I don't think that I would wish to be otherwise.  And I hope that as our children grow into adults that they will be able to balance a healthy sense of self confidence with a sensitivity to the people and things that surround them, to be resilient but not impervious to the many experiences life will throw at them.
I hope Freya keeps expressing the amazing contrasts of life - the happy-sunny-flower-days and the big-black-gaping-mouth-days - and that she finds her own way of dealing with the ups and downs we all have to live through.

What was it all about?

I thought it was about time I revisited why I started this blog and what it was supposed to be about.  “A blog about creating things and the spaces between creating things”.  And herein lies the reason why my posts have been so few and far between.  I’m not creating things and the spaces in between seem to be jam packed with other, not so interesting, stuff.  I’m not finding those moments for reflection and refocusing and recharging.  What I AM finding is full-on child-focused summer holiday blur, following on from hellish year of great sadness and stress and business.  There was a brief period of energized activity between busy hell year and school holidays when I got the garage door replaced, a new skylight and attic put in and the garden brought under some semblance of control.  I could perhaps have spent that energy and time on starting a new piece or doing yoga but I chose to try and bring some outward signs of order to our physical space.  The garage door was so that we could put a CAR in the garage – what an amazing concept – instead of all the junk that we have been ‘storing’ in there. And that necessitated a bit of a purge of no longer used things thanks to our local freecyle group. The attic was because we were rapidly running out of storage space, particularly after taking possession of many of my mother’s things – furniture, papers, photos etc.  The skylight was to brighten a gloomy kitchen.  So all of these things have actually helped make me feel a bit better about the space I am in.  I am feeling less swamped and oppressed by stuff.  I feel slightly more in control.  And that is important to me. I find it hard to work in chaos, surrounded by boxes and no longer used things.  So although I really don’t have very much to report in the way of ‘creating’ things or inspiration in the spaces between, at least I am in a slightly better place than I was before.  So, as I get closer to the end of summer holiday craziness, approaching the start of what looks like a dog’s breakfast of a year, I shall take a deep breath and brace myself. And I will keep trying to find those spaces, between and otherwise, where I can do the things that I really need to do.

Something in The Age

Photo by Wayne Taylor

Thanks to Kathy Evans for the lovely piece in The Age today - a follow up to the premiere performances of EPIC by the Australian Chamber Choir.  

Musical Chairs Anyone?

Yesterday I spent a very pleasant couple of hours 'speed dating'.  Not the conventional meat-market-show-us-your-wares type of speed dating, but a much more refined and creatively rewarding version. Chamber Made Opera and the Victorian Writers' Centre have just run a week long Librettists Workshop, part of which was a lunchtime 'speed dating' session where writers could meet composers, discuss ideas (briefly) and make connections. I sat in a comfortable chair by the window and talked to writers about their work and told them a little bit about mine.  There was food, drink, interesting company and a clearly defined structure to make sure that writers got to talk to composers (and vice versa) for at least a couple of minutes. And in between the hard work there was time to chat to everyone else, other composers and performers and old friends.  I'm sure I will follow up a couple of the writers I met, as even in such a short space of time, various strands of common ground emerged.  Possibilities start to present themselves, seeds of ideas are planted and I am reminded that I am part of a community and not just a solitary composer sitting at my desk.

Mr Price's Food Store, North Melbourne

A New Routine

Our five year old daughter started school last week.  Things seem to be going fine - no howling at the school gate (unlike her mother at the same age) and she seems to be adapting to the change.  Her three year old sister is in creche two days a week, and although she is less enthusiastic, she seems to be getting into the swing of things.  So, with my partner off to work and the house quiet, I have two days where I can (from the hours of about 9.30am - 3pm) do some WORK.  This is just as well, because I have a fair amount of work to do.  I'm re-writing a course which I'll be teaching in second semester and writing a piece of music for a performance in October and I also have a couple of other 'projects' I would like to get under way.  Although it is only the second week of my new routine, I am beginning to experiment with different work schedules.  Writing lecture notes and composing music are two quite different activities and I am finding that the best approach at the moment seems to be one day of words and one day of notes.  I find it difficult to change easily from one to the other but maybe this will be a skill I can develop with practice.  Once I am immersed in the world of sound, I want to stay there for as long as possible and the same is true when I am focussed on words and theoretical ideas.  For the time being, this is probably the most efficient way of working.  I'm also trying to make time for things like playing the piano - something which I've found very difficult to do with two small children around.  I remember thinking, when I was pregnant with child #1, that I would be able to play the piano with the baby/toddler/small child beside me, happy to listen to music.  This has NEVER been the case.  Either the children have cried, complained, joined in or just generally pestered me until I stopped.  It is lovely being able to sit for 20 minutes and play some Bach Preludes and just enjoy making music.  And then, with my mind focussed, I sit down and get on with some words or notes and reconnect with my thinking and creating self again.

The Adventure of Childhood

I watched a fantastic documentary last night on ABC called 'The Lost Adventures of Childhood'.  With a five year old about to start school I have been thinking a lot about what we have given her in preparation for school. Have we done enough 'stuff'?,  ie shouldn't we have tried to fit in more extras like music lessons and dance classes as well as the swimming lessons she loves.  I've been feeling anxious, thinking that in some way I had wasted this precious pre-school time when their brains are like sponges and their neurons are firing and connecting all over the place.  Have I in someway limited her development and potential by not doing all this 'stuff' early?  Watching 'The Lost Adventures...' put it all into perspective and reassured me that perhaps we haven't been so far off the mark.  Our two girls love spending hours in the garden - making potions and 'cooking' and collecting magic stones and building little gardens and climbing trees (the five year old at least) and decorating the pavement with chalk and making 'paint' and dressing up and doing 'shows' on the trampoline and teaching each other tricks and pretending to be birds and building hiding places - in short, having Adventures.  The documentary made a very strong and compelling case for the importance of play as a way of learning important skills like independence and initiative and problem solving and communication and negotiation and of course developing creativity.  As far as I can see, these skills are clearly more important and core to success as a human being than whether you can dance or play basketball. The program shed light on the worst excesses of 'hyper-parenting', however well-intentioned, and debunked some of the myths about team sport being 'character building'.  In one fantastic and inspiring example of the real benefits of play, a drab school playground was transformed by some cardboard boxes, large pieces of fabric, chalk, fun 'props' like walking sticks and other miscellaneous objects intended to stimulate creative play.  The results were quite amazing.  In the playground, the children's approach to 'playtime' completely changed from filling in time to a fantastic chance to create their own adventures.  And in the classroom, the teachers were struck by the change in their students - their concentration, problem solving, initiative and group communication all improved noticeably after only two months of playtime adventures.  The school didn't need to spend thousands on fancy play equipment - a couple of cardboard boxes and some material did the trick!  I found this incredibly inspiring and also reassuring.  Kids can learn more from old fashioned play than from hours of 'extra-curricular' activities that in reality just leave them exhausted and overwhelmed.

taking stock

I have been a ‘blogger’ for a year now (actually a year and two weeks).  I wouldn’t say that I have taken the blogging world by storm and no one could accuse me of writing when I had nothing to say.  Six weeks between posts is not unusual.  In fact there are a couple of un-finished posts that never made it onto the page.  As I write this I have a 5 year old calling out to be helped with something, the garden is rapidly turning into a jungle after all the spring rain, there’s a load of washing in the machine, a pair of curtains to be shortened and the usual housework needing to be done.  That is the mundane stuff.  Then there is the piece to write for a concert in October 2011 – an actual performance, with my name already in the brochure, so I’d better get on with it.  There is a course to prepare for July next year: books to read, lectures to plan – and 15 students already enrolled so, again, I’d better get on with it.  A year has made a difference.  Writing music is back on the agenda and the cogs move a little more smoothly than they did this time last year.  I haven’t strayed too far from the path that I wanted to be on this year and things are starting to fall into place, slowly.  I am beginning to see where I would like to be in five years time.  And as far as the land of blog goes, in many ways it has been a revelation to me.  There are so many interesting and inspiring things out there and although I don’t have much time to meander in blogland, I often come upon lovely things that make me think about something in a new way.  I enjoy the community of people who think and write about the things that interest them.  So although I now have a toddler about to have a meltdown, a load of washing to hang out, and a book about phenomenology to read, I will continue to post things and put my thoughts out there and read what others have to say. 

A love of dots

I receive a flat parcel in the post, from Germany.  It is a score of a Trio for clarinet, violin and piano by Galina Ustvolskaya.  I leave it on a chair and then get distracted by the day, taking children to crèche, doing housework, paying bills, cooking dinner.  The next day I find a window of time to myself, open the parcel, look at the lovely white newness of the score, find the recording on my ipod, put on my headphones and settle into a chair to read.  This is one of my great loves.  One of my other great loves, a two year old, is asleep on the couch next to me.  She stays asleep long enough for me to read the piece through but not long enough to write about it.  That will keep.

I wanted to write something about the joy of score reading.  It is a difficult thing to describe to the uninitiated.  I read the black spots on lines that another composer at another time has arranged in a particular way to represent the sounds that they hear and want others to hear.  Could I describe it as like reading an x-ray of a poem, if such a thing existed?  The black marks on the page are such an abstraction, a visual shorthand so far removed from the music that they represent but somehow reading a score takes me somewhere quite strange and profound.  I can read the dots and lines that someone else has made and I can almost imagine their thoughts as they write; how they imagine each of these sounds, the shape, the colour, the taste.  I can imagine my own hand holding that pencil as it hovers over the page, as I try to grasp that fleeting shadow of imagined sound and pin it to the page before it disappears.  I listen to the music as I follow the score and the experience of listening becomes something quite different – an experience of being inside the piece of music.  Not just of being inside a sound but of having an insight into the idea, the intangible inexpressible thing around which the piece of music has grown and given voice to.  Words are beautiful and I love the written word.  But these strange circles and lines and curves and dots, and the sounds that they attempt to capture, have a more powerful hold over my imagination.  And remind me of why I write music, and that I will keep writing music, even if no one else hears it.

(a little bit from my new piece)