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Betreten verboten

July 15, 2012 //
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I find this image  typical of my childhood. The sign, right wham bang in the middle, says “Betreten Verboten“, which means KEEP OUT. This sign turns everything beyond that point into a living picture, just like a stage or TV. It is the lushest most beautiful landscape, but…  all you can do is sit and watch. Over in the distance at the edge of the trees, the little white spots is a group of grazing deer. It is  a very peaceful living picture. Of course, I know now, without the sign there would be no lush and beautiful landscape. It would be trampled all over and the deer would be scared deeper into the woods.

There were a lot of Betreten Verboten Signs scattered around my life and I believe this is one of life’s great lessons: To learn which ones need to be obeyed, which ones can be safely ignored and which ones need to be fought against.

 

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Categories Art, Life, Photography

A lonely path

July 14, 2012 //
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This is another one of my favorite images, even though not many people I showed it to share my excitement. Actually nobody I showed it to liked it, but then I think only a handful of people have seen it so far.

I admire the old lady, holding tightly on to her handbag, striding out with great determination. Her crooked body still exudes purpose. There is no waiver in her gait. Straight down the middle, protected by spring-green chestnut trees. These trees have been around for centuries and have seen many old ladies passing by. (Yes, I do understand why other people might not get excited :)

Yesterday I had some time to do more research on the Internet regarding the puppet world. I found some amazing stuff overseas, but New Zealand looks pretty grim. There is a “Puppeteers in New Zealand” organisation. But their website (Pinz.org.nz) has a very neglected feel. There is a forum with 13 members but it is locked and the last entry was 2010.

There are of course puppeteers for children around and there seems to have been a New Zealand Puppet Theatre founded by Annie Forbes in 1984, which was going for some years. Annie Forbes, a third generation puppeteer, has moved to Australia.

The funniest thing I found was on Wikipedia (puppetry subhead oceania). There are a couple of good paragraphs about Australia and then – New Zealanders hold onto your seats!– one sentence: “In New Zealand, a similar history has taken place.” That’s it! Thinking about it now, that might be because all the good puppeteers have moved across the Tasman (see above).

I am going to finish Push-Push today.

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Categories Art, Life, Photography, Relationships

In the flow

July 13, 2012 //
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I love this image of the submerged leaf with the fairy dust specular highlights, and the water softly flowing past. It’s very peaceful and calming. It’s almost as if the leaf is being caressed by the water.  I love to hike up the mountains here. Rivers bathed in sunlight look like melted gold. (Yes, …there is gold up in them mountains.) And you return home so much richer.

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Categories Art, Life, Photography

Will-o’-wisps

July 12, 2012 //
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What was clear and crisp yesterday, is out-of-focus today.

I will have a bit of a rant today. It’s a pacman day: that means I have hit the wall and need to get unstuck before the ghosts get me. Pretty sure you all know the game.

I have noticed that my book is listed in an online shop of a large New Zealand bookstore chain. (Of course it is, as it is in the Nielsen database and I assume they just republish this database). However this online store shows the book as currently unavailable, which irks me, as it is not unavailable at all. To the general punter it sounds as if it were out of print. So we wrote a nice  letter to the chain with a fact sheet about the book, asking whether they would consider stocking the title as they have it in their database anyway. We even offered them to send an evaluation copy.  It didn’t take them much more than an hour to respond and say it is too specialised. Mmmhm I wonder how they came to that conclusion without engaging.  Furthermore they told us they will take it off the database. (Which is difficult, since I believe they just re- publish the Nielson database). Later on that day we got another email saying they won’t take it off the database, but just order a book from us if someone asks for it. Surprise! But nothing achieved.

This got me thinking about the whole publishing world again. I am stuck between a rock and a hard place. My book could be viewed as a vanity book or self-published as I am a partner in the publishing house that published it. What is a ‘real publisher’? After all I studied publishing for 3 years and set up a publishing house before, which I successfully sold. I adapted my career path when I came to New Zealand as I wasn’t confident enough with the language. I moved into writing computer books for the German market. I have been sole or co-author of around 30 books. So I wouldn’t really call myself a novice. But gee I am happy that books are not cream cakes and we don’t have to sell them by the weekend. Thankfully, they won’t perish.

Of course not much has changed in the publishing world since Gutenberg… until the Internet came along. We all know that. Generally I am very much in favour of the institution of “the publisher” to ensure quality through the editing process and vouching for well researched and well written stories. But it reminds me so much of the time when computers started to move into offices. I met a lot of 40-year-olds then who said they don’t have to learn computers, it won’t affect their work at all. Ten years later they were too young to retire, but unable to find a job without computer skills.

Enough of the ranting!

On a more positive note: I met up with a friend yesterday to discuss the puppeteer workshops and it is all looking good here. I’ve nutted out a session plan which I will fine-tune after the discussion we had. Then we will take it to the next stage and test it with a group of people. This is volunteer work and I am really curious how it will all pan out.

The biggest hurdle I face is that there is the common misconception, particularly in this country, that puppets are only for children. I have been warned! In Europe, on the other hand, there are some amazing permanent troupes with elaborate stage shows. My puppets are different, as they are not professional performers. With my workshops I want them to become confidants for the participants. I would so love to unleash their creative juices.

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Categories Art

Where to?

July 11, 2012 //
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This image is a close-up of a spider web with dew. It is an allegory of what’s going on in my head at the moment. I have all these great and sparkling ideas but the path there…

I want to share a couple more surprising tidbits from my reading lately.

So, the reigning powers tried to marginalize popular theatre  (I am not just talking about puppet theatre, but all forms of entertainment for the masses). In the article The golden age of the boulevard Marvin Carlson describes the rise of popular theatre from  fair ground attraction to permanent stages around the Boulevard du Temple in Paris, where all the entertaining stages conglomerated. The Boulevard got the nick-name Boulevard of Crime in the 1820s, not because it was dangerous to go there, but because what was on show. The Almanach of Spectacles  1823  published the numbers of crimes performed on the stages (for twenty years):

… Tautin has been stabbed 16,302 times, Marty has been poisoned in various ways 11,000 times, Fresnoy has been murdered 27,000 times, Mlle Adele Dupuis has been the innocent victim of 75,000 seductions, abductions, or drownings, 6,500 capital charges have tested Mlle Levesque’s virtues and Mlle Oliver, whose career is scarcely launched, has already tasted the cup of crime and vengeance 16,000 times.

Sounds like a normal year on TV to me.

John Houchin recounts in his article The origins of the cabaret artistique how the cabaret moved from a place where artists performed their own material for their peers to a public establishment to make money.

By 1900 the cabaret had become a competitive, commercial undertaking. Owners and producers had to devise a point of difference to stand out and attract audiences. The Cabaret de l’Ane Rouge (Cabaret of the Red Ass) had a large fresco depicting the crucifixion of a large red ass. Singers presented café-concert fare and the announcer was a huckster who encouraged the audience to drink. In the Cabaret du Néant (Cabaret of Death) visitors were served at coffins and lighting was provided by corpse lamps. The Cabaret du Ciel (Cabaret of Heaven) featured harp music, a master of ceremonies dressed as priest and a man costumed as an angel sprinkled the audience with holy water. The Cabaret l’Enfer (Cabaret of Infernal Regions) offered the alternative to celestial bliss, a glimpse of hell: The decorations that hung from the ceiling were sculptures of bodies writhing in pain.

All I can say: Move to the side Goths. We have seen it all before :).

Both articles were in Schlechter, J. (ed), Popular Theatre, Routledge 2003.

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Categories Art, Life

Monday morning

July 9, 2012 //
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Monday morning and I am running late. Might have something to do with the Wimbledon finals and us being on the other side of the world (it started at 1 am in the morning here).

This image here  is called Down the road from the fairytale garden. People who know my hometown, know where it is. It is really down the road from the fairytale garden.

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Categories Art, Photography

Next

July 8, 2012 //
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This image was taken on an island in the Baltic Sea, called Rügen. I think every German knows the scenery, it has been made famous by the romantic painter Kaspar David Friedrich. Even though the scenery is engraved in the common German memory, I don’t think that quite as many people have actually seen the white cliffs in nature. The island belonged to Eastern Germany when the country was still divided. It was military territory and therefore out of reach.

It is a mystic place, I could not describe it any differently.  We went there in winter (summer might be a different story), and we had the place all to ourselves. The image I had in my post Friends!? was taken at the same place, but at the bottom of the cliffs.

When I look at this image I can hear the silence of the place and feel the protection of the trees all around me. I can feel the springy layer of humus under my feet and smell the damp moss. It is a huge problem I personally have as an image maker in that only I have all this additional information that went into the image and everything comes back instantly when I look at it. My images are always personal memories and this is the reason why I am hesitant to share them. They might evoke emotions in other people, but what the viewer feels will always differ from what I felt.

Of course we all know that advertising imagery is build on the common memory. It is never-fail generic  imagery that evokes feel-good moods. But what is going to happen when we sit in front of the computer day in, day out and never learn what damp moss smells like. Will these images still work?

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Categories Art, Photography

Weather forecast

July 7, 2012 //
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Landscape images are not really my thing to take. It annoys me tremendously that I can’t capture the grandness of nature. They always look flat. I usually work right at the other end of the scale in space by exploring the minute, the intimate, what’s right at your feet. Here I am often after a simplicity and a sort of flatness (for a lack of a better word). But unlike portraits of people (which I don’t ever attempt to take, except of people I know extremely well) I do sometimes try landscapes.

This morning I couldn’t decide which of the two images I should use today. They couldn’t be more different, so they have both ended up on the blog in one post. One is the weather as it is outside, the other represents more of my inner landscape at the moment. Which is which I won’t say!

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Categories Art, Photography

Black & White

June 30, 2012 //
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This image here I took six years ago. I like the juxtaposition of the lines with the round crater. For obvious reasons I originally called it “Square peg in a round hole.” It is just a close-up of some rocks we were climbing over at the time.

When I accidentally came across this image today, a totally different interpretation jumped out at me.

There is a little story to go with it: A friend of mine, a school teacher, was once asked by one of her pupils: “Tell me Miss, what was the world like when it was still black and white?” I just love this story. The pupil was of course referring to black & white photography and TV.  When I first heard the story, I thought it was so cute I laughed. Today, my answer would be: “The world was more colourful then…” as there must have been so much more room for imagination.

Today, when I glanced at the photograph, I instantly saw a smiling face with a rock hurled at it from a giant fist. When I showed my discovery to a friend,  he couldn’t quite follow. So I coloured it in for him in Photoshop. Now the image is called: “Honestly, I didn’t see this coming!”

However this is a very disturbing interpretation, and I went looking for another image. It took me a while, but this time it is called: “Life is beautiful!” It shows two playful figures in the sun.

Thank God you always remember what you saw last. I have difficulties seeing the giant fist now when I look at the black and white original.

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Categories Art, Digital art, Fun, Life, Photography

No oysters today

June 28, 2012 //
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This is a bit of false advertising! I am currently trying to tie up so many loose ends. For the first time I sat down this morning and didn’t know what to write about. I have to meet somebody relatively early this morning and am therefore under some time constraint. I looked through the images I have taken recently and found this lost looking oyster catcher. The only thing to pick on this bare ramp is a plastic bottle cap.

I’ve just finished this little book called “Modern Puppetry” by a guy called A.R. Philpott. He was obviously a very famous puppeteer in his time, known as Pantopuk the Puppet Man. The book is mainly on puppet making, but touches on performing and the current state of puppetry in general. Current in this case means 1966, as this was when the book was written. I am surprised how much puppetry still seemed to have been part of society then.  But I suspect in the meantime I am just living at the wrong end of the world for puppetry.

One sentence in the book really touched me. He talks about finding material for your puppet show, he says: “Once you need them – that is as soon as you start being a puppeteer – ideas will come, a part of your mind being always alert for new possibilities – and not only for puppet characters but also for situations in which these can find themselves on stage. Plots and plays are inseparable from characters.” [p40].

Phew, so I am normal!

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Categories Art, Fun, Hand Puppets
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