A few days ago I received an email from a researcher working on a CSIRO book about the status of Australia’s biodiversity, requesting permission to use my image of a Pixie Caps Orchid, which is listed as threatened. Following an exchange of emails and images, two of my video frames may appear in the book, one of the orchid, the other of Zieria collina, a plant listed as vulnerable. Both images appear on Gallery Page 20.
Following receipt of the Letter of Offer, I launched straight into shot selecting the videos, starting with the Standard Definition footage, all of which was filmed over 12 years ago. Yesterday I emailed Steve the first 15 videos which we assembled at his place in the evening. There were 12 bird videos, 1 plant, 1 spider and a snake video. The shortest video is 69 seconds. Six are over 2minutes, of which 4 are over 2 ½ minutes.
A Letter of Offer arrived in the post today stating that my RADF garnt application had been successful. That’s great news. Now Steve and I have until December 15 to complete the 100+ short flora and fauna videos. I hope I haven’t over-estimated the number of videos I have up my sleave. I am looking to create videos averaging from abt 1 ½ to 2 minutes, with a few of about 1 minute duration and a few of perhaps 3 or 4 minutes or possibly more.
Vanessa, Kat and I met at the opening of Additions 4 at the eponymous gallery in West End, a lively Brisbane inner suburb. Our on again, off again October exhibition is on again, from 24 to 30 October. The Gallery has been attractively realised in a building of character. We discussed ideas over dinner, having met Nicole, Addition 6’s curator.
An email arrived from the local council Cultural Projects Officer, confirming the safe arrival of our latest RADF grant application and stating that it will shortly be distributed to the RADF committee.
I needed a script (prescription), popped into the surgery and made an appointment to see my doctor within the half hour. He took my blood pressure, which was good and for the first time ever, weighed me and measured my height. I consider myself slightly over weight and this was confirmed. But the most astonishing information was that my height was 175cm, whereas on my passport and driving licence it has always been 178cm. Thinking about it, I believe I actually measured 177.5cm. Reader, I have shrunk. I didn’t want to believe it and questioned the accuracy of the doctor’s measurement. But of course people shrink as they get older, so my shortening was no surprise to him.
After deciding to apply for a RADF grant to create 100 + new flora and fauna videos of some 1 ½ to 2 minutes duration, I contacted Cynthia Parr, Chief Scientist at EOL, asking her to provide a Statement of Significance in support of my application. Following an exchange of emails, I today received the Statement, for which I am extremely grateful to Cyndy.
Sent the latest in an email exchange initiated by Kat Sawyer receiving a reply from Additions, a new gallery in Brisbane, to a query she made last October about staging an exhibition of her Vanessa’s and my work. I first heard about it via a phone call from Vanessa when I was driving home from the coast on the 16th of last month. We were intially offered a time in April, but agreed that we would prefer a date in October. Kat is presently under work pressure and Vanessa suggested that we try and meet over dinner to which I agreed, while pointing out our need to be productive when we do meet.
Between 25 and 29 January it was the Gold Coast hinterland’s turn to host ex-tropical cyclone Oswald. In my 26 years on the mountain I have never seen it so bashed up by the elements. This time it was the trees which were broken or uprooted everywhere. Property damage appears to have been restricted compared to the hailstorm on 16 November 2008, which resulted in hundreds of houses needing new roofs. Parts of the mountain had over 800 mm of rain. I was without power for 3 days, some poor people for 5 days or more.
Hard to fathom how a category 1 cyclone (the most severe is category 5) which formed in the Gulf of Carpentaria 1,600 km from here, could have been so destructive for so long, with record inundation further north only 2 years after once in a century floods, having tracked down the east coast before losing some of its intensity and petering out in NSW.
I delivered the report on our RADF grant project at my local Council offices. We had to wait for additional information from the grant giver and were cleared to meet today’s new deadline which we nearly missed due to having to abandon the optional audit, causing me to include a refund cheque.