At any given art opening, wait long enough and you can find that I’ve made my way into a somewhat secluded corner of the room where no one else dares occupy lest they feel the need to consider themselves antisocial.
It is here that I’ll drink my wine and blend into the background as I watch friends I once knew walk right past me as if they’d never known me in the first place.
I am a shadow.
Tonight I was little more than a shadow at Damo’s opening at [url=http://www.mop.org.au]Mop Gallery[/url].
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-DamosOpening-02.jpg[/img]
[i]Damo… in all his Damo-ness glory…[/i]
Damo & Phil are both TA’s (Teachers Assistants) at the National Art School where I did my Fine Arts degree. They’re both great people and really know their shit (most of the time). So I went along to support them, knowing that both Dee & Emily were going to come along too, as it’s always good to catch up with friends who I consider family and see others too.
With all that said, I got there, said a “Hi” to another TA (He’s either for drawing or sculpture) Tim and made my way upstairs.
It was busy. And small. And cramped. And there was a little table selling wine & beer for two bucks each and orange juice for one buck.
I got in and moved around the masses of people that were talking… socialising… doing the whole normal thing that I imagine people do when they’re out… buggered if I know, really… anyway, I moved around them with my camera bag in tow and looked at Phil’s work first, which is in the main part.
Phil did shots of Japan and … well… yeah. That’s all I have to say about the work. I like Phil, but the images did nothing for me. They had nice colour, but they felt they were lacking any real substance… anything of value. I looked at the images and wondered if me liking them came from me liking the scenery and intrigue of Japan itself and not the images.
I’m not really an artist, per se. Most people who know me know that about me. I do artistic-ish images and I do have some artworks in planning, but I’m not really an artist in the same way that “an artist” is an artist.
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-DamosOpening-04.jpg[/img]
[i]Artists in monochrome: Emily Portmann on the left & Kirsten Farrell on the right.[/i]
Even with that said, I still couldn’t see the fuss with Phil’s images. I’m sure someone will point it out to me eventually.
So I moved onto some guy named “Mike Roddy” who had soft-focus paintings painted from soft-focus photos. They were nice.
I don’t really have much to say extra.
Then I moved onto my mate Damian Dillon’s work. I’d seen him working on it the odd times I’ve been back at Uni so I somewhat expected a kind-of-sort-of sort of feeling when I saw them. If you don’t know what that is, don’t ask me. I certainly don’t. It’s a feeling. What the hell do you people want from me?!
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-DamosOpening-01.jpg[/img]
Anyway, it was interesting. Images that seemed mostly flipped and scrawled all over. It made me think of how a photographer goes through the editing and cropping stage of working through their work. Old school but still relevant to making images. I’m not sure if I was a fan of all the images, but I liked some of them. They kind of felt like they invited the audience to be in on the whole process of making the image and not just the usual bit of playing monkey to the artists’ cage and just co-existing with it.
As I weaved my way in and out of people after looking at the images, I headed towards the opening bit of the gallery-space and found some sculptural work by Kirsten Farrell who’s apparently from Canberra.
I didn’t mind it. It’s odd and you can see it on the MOP webpage as linked earlier. It’s easily the most likely candidate for winning the “Most Likely To Put Your Eye Out” award as the artwork is made out of random bits of acrylics pieces all merged together to make odd 2D and 3D shapes with splashes of colour running all throughout the objects. I didn’t mind it. It was definitely unique.
And then I left. Well, not quite anyway.
I made my way through the throngs of people standing outside and chatting and doing whatever it is people do when they’re socialising (I feel like I’ve been here before) and went to the drinks table.
I got my two bucks out and asked for a cup of white. Yes, you read right. A [b]cup[/b] of white.
It was then when he started pouring the wine that I noticed the label.
[url=http://www.tempustwo.com.au/]Tempus Two[/url].
Saying it like that doesn’t really do me justice. I want there to be simple accented strokes of strings playing right before I say the name, as if we’re about to be scared and absolutely frightened by the sheer terror of the words that my mouth or my blog will utter.
Regardless, I took the yellow drink and found a corner of the hall where people weren’t going to bother me while I waited for Emily & Dee.
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-DamosOpening-07.jpg[/img]
[i]A slightly artistic image done in Infrared of Dee.[/i]
I stayed in that corner occasionally taking swigs of the yellow drink while I wrote that intro to the blog. The yellow drink had a decent nose to it, mind you, but drinking it was another matter entirely. Whatever the hell Tempus Two are putting into their wines, it certainly isn’t flavour. It was more akin to drinking grape-flavoured Turps. That’s the best I can put it down to.
Eventually Margaret came and then Emily came in. They each went in, met up with each other inside, and then Margaret left pretty quickly. Emily came over with a beer. We moved outside, saw a few more people, moved back in… really… we didn’t do a whole lot until Dee came. When Dee came, we waited outside to help her find her way and when she did come, I changed the batteries in the flash and we headed back up the stairs to see Damo.
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-DamosOpening-05.jpg[/img]
There we saw some other friends who I took pictures of (see above) and who also took a photo of Dee and myself (see below… isn’t this fun!).
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-DamosOpening-03.jpg[/img]
Damo was probably drunk already. That’s ok. I probably would be too if I were in his position… whatever that position is… the whole celebration thing. Anyway, I got a few shots of him and of one of his mates who seemed pretty zany and we started taking pictures of a cup.
Yes, a cup.
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-DamosOpening-10.jpg[/img]
That cup found itself in a series of images, I’ll tell you what.
And then Dee, Em & I pretty much left. We walked down the stairs to the exit amid a fragrance of pot and burning rubber. I’m not kidding. That’s what it smelled like and I even made sure to say it to Dee & Em at the time.
So we three left and clamored into Dee’s car and made our way somewhere for dinner. Betty’s pretty much has our name on it.
I had some Thai sushi from Monkey Magic or “The Place Formerly Known As Monkey Magic” earlier so I wasn’t that hungry. I was quite thirsty, however so as Em had bangers & mash and Dee had a soup of some kind, I took a piece of the soda bread they brought round and had a Coke (complete with a bottle I could’ve made into a lens).
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-DamosOpening-08.jpg[/img]
Throughout the meal, we talked about stuff… in general. Photos… how people were… competitions… I was wondering why the gay waiters were always raising their eyebrows at me and smiling at me. Was it the red shirt I was wearing? Is red the new colour that makes me gay?! I’m not bothered really if it is… I just always thought that it was the purple one that got guys checking me out. It had in the past.
Dee said that maybe it was because I looked somewhat like a child while I was sitting there like… well… how I was sitting there.
[img]https://www.leighlo.com/uploads/random/2007/02-DamosOpening-09.jpg[/img]
Maybe. I’ve had someone tell me that recently too. Is that a good thing that I look somewhat childish? Does that perhaps mean I look more innocent? That’d be… odd… or nifty… or something… I guess.
Then Emily paid the bill while Dee & I didn’t notice. Damnit. I don’t like it when people do that. I know I only ordered a Coke, but still… I was gonna pay for my Coke. I was! (Still… thanks Em.)
We were going to get ice-cream after we left Betty’s but there is a major shortage of ice-creameries on Oxford St. So major… there are none. It’s ridiculous. Where is a person supposed to get their gelati and ice-creamery goodness. It’s almost blasphemy. Hell, it [i]is[/i] blasphemy.
So Dee dropped me home. And I ran inside quickly and grabbed the last of my “Two Bricks” DVD’s (of which I’ll burn a few more off later on) so I could run back outside and give it to Dee so she could take it home and watch my failed Tropfest entry.
She was gonna drop Em home in Ryde and then go home herself. They could listen to Nelly Furtado on the way back.
Dee & Em are both good people. Smart, nice, decent… good people. Really good people.
Like the night. It wasn’t all that long, but it was a really good night.