Today I delivered the remaining data files and all 116 DVDs to the State Library, well ahead of the deadline for completing the work. Now we have to write a report on the project for which the deadline is 20 December.
Greer Roberts from Ipswich Libraries placed an order for ‘The Rainforest at Night’ following an order from Logan City Library, both within the South East Queensland region and both new customers.
I started my current tape on the 9 May. Apart from being away, I have been tied up working on Supplements 4 to 6 and only resumed filming on 27 July. Since when my time has been taken up with matching subject content to tapes and DVDs for the State Library and getting work on the website underway. Pardon the preliminary, but today I filmed a Lace Monitor at The Knoll and Lawyer Vine, a climbing palm whose stems can form tangled clumps of 20 to 100 metre long canes. The palm is also and aptly known as Wait-awhile. If you brush aginst a cane, your instinct is to pull yourself free, but the spines dig in when you do so, which can be immensely painful on bare flesh. The answer is to stay put for a moment and the cane releases its grip.
A priority since my return has been to complete ‘The Rainforest at Night’, Supplements 4 to 6 of the video archive. Following an order for 6 sets of DVDs from the Gold Coast City Council, the local shire library placed an order for 2 sets, one of which will be available in Tamborine Mountain Library.
The State Library’s IT whiz emailed Steve confirming pick up of most of the HD data files on which Steve has been working on and off since May.
The Atlas of Living Australia and I have been in contact since the end of 2010 to find avenues of mutual benefit which is easier said than done. Today I received an email from Program Manager Peter Docherty specifying ways in which I could be connecting with ALA. I am not in a position to follow up just yet because I need to deepen my connection with EOL. Once that is done, I can hopefully embark on a similar relationship with ALA.
I received an email from Vanessa with links to the community art residency she and Kat will be engaging in in Japan from 25 August to September 22. Vanessa is also exhibiting a sculpture at the Jing’an International Sculpture Biennial in Shanghai, which she will attend during her Japanese trip.
Ben Sinclair sent me his invoice to inaugurate work to the website. The big project has begun within two weeks of my return from overseas. Great.
This trip was different from any other I have been on in that I was ill with bronchitis when I left Australia and only recovered towards the end of my 18 day stay in Londn. As far as I know I had never had bronchitis and the last time I was really ill overseas was in Israel in 1974. But enough about being ill.
London
My time in London ended up being about people and not a lot else, which was fine. I was able to catch up with nearly everyone I wanted to see among family, friends, researchers and artists. I duly delivered my copies of ‘Gravy’. I also enjoyed two of my four days of rail travel, a particular pleasure of mine, on my Britrail Pass. On the first trip I went from Kings Cross to Newcastle, stopping off at York on the way back. A few days later I went from Euston to Lancaster, an interesting place which I saw for the first time.
On the day before I left, after an off-again, on-again exchange of text messages, I met Jeremy Deller. He had been busy with… Read Complete Text
An email arrived from the Liaison Librarian: Art & Design at Middlesex University, the final home of my alma mater Hornsey Collge of Art. She confirmed her interest in receiving the copies of ‘Gravy’,the college magazine I edited from 1965 to 1967. They are still in the folder in which I kept them after publication.