This is photo from the veranda at Arthur Boyd's house, the day I fell a few days ago - Monday.
It was, as predicted, another very hot day - humid as hell - so not ideal for working, but ideal for the cyanotypes. I spent most of the day working on the final print and the results, even if I say so myself, are pretty good. I now have 33 prints (a limited edition of 3, so 11 of each plant).
Which is all good and great, except that I'm still stuck in the accompanying text. My reason for doing this project was to speak about the Other and alterity. I find the plants are a great symbol of the symbolic fight against otherness and alterity, a way of coping with it. But I just can't seem to find an interesting text or other solution to go with the images. I imagine this not as a description of the images and I certainly don't want the images to turn into an illustration of a text. I've been jumping around, "zapping" the internet for the last 3 hours, to no avail.
It also dawned on my that I have exactly one week left and perhaps this has added to the pressure, the panic and the paralysis.
I decided to watch a film on Arthur Boyd, thinking it would be a nice thing to do before going to bed. Big mistake. I can't begin to describe how terrible it is, with a "macho" perspective, a lack of focus, a tendency to put words in the artist's mouth, to interpret his paintings through cheap symbolism and "traumatising" experiences of his life. And poor Yvonne Boyd is shown as a quiet, ever-present wife, just watching.... to think she gave up her career as an artist for him. Anyway, here's a short clip of Testament of a Painter
Or watch him paint with his hands:
(Note: Bundanon Trust & 2 other properties were donated to Australia by Arthur Boyd, considered by most their greatest painter).
