Three weeks - a precis in images

S(t)ill

Site, Ego, Hard, Car

Collaborative journey

Spirit levels - (un)level spirits

Shadow lands

Vacuum. Current. Flow

 Intuition and reason

Cold steel, warm wood

Overlooked surfaces

level heads

Straw for the fire

Electric light orchestra

US traffic lights make me smile and remind me of our NZ bra and shoe fences...  

The private life of lotuses

I didn't know till this morning that lotuses - specifically the Sacred Blue ones - are still able to germinate after 1300 years dormancy.

Something else I didn't know till the first time I visited the US three years ago is that Albany (which is where I am at the moment) is the capital city of New York State. I'm here to work on various projects with my scientist collaborator, Sam. Today, we dissected an approximately nineteen year-old lotus pod (a mere infant) that I harvested from a pond in a Cape Town park during the years my family still lived in South Africa. 

Sam shaved off enough of the outer husk to free two rather shriveled-looking seeds from their protective chambers: we placed these seeds onto an aluminum 'stub' and popped them into an hermetically-sealed 'sputter-coater' where a fine layer of gold was deposited onto their surfaces (a necessary process for most specimens designated for scrutiny by a Scanning Electron Microscope (SEM).). Specimens need to be coated with gold because the surfaces of most biological materials are effectively transparent to the electron beam generated by the SEM. There are two detectors in the SEM chamber creating signals from electrons traveling off the gold-coated specimen. These are used to make up images. Without this coating of gold, the electron beam would penetrate deep within the specimen rather than imaging the surface. 

Lotus seeds being coated with gold in the sputter-coater

We spent a good few hours examining and recording the seeds' structure and surfaces via the eye and mechanism of this powerful instrument. I took half a dozen videos over the course of the afternoon and have been trying to upload one so you can see how exciting this method of observation can be... but, ah me - having not uploaded a video onto this blog for a wee while, I can't for the life of me remember how to do it. You'd think I'd know better having just been taught a whole raft of new film and video-related skills! (And why is this paragraph being underlined all of a sudden, I wonder?) Perhaps because it's late. I'm going to call it a day and give things another go tomorrow when I've had a good sleep.   

Meantime, here are a few stills showing the complex landscape of a very small lotus seed -

You have come a long way, Sculpture

'... You have come a long way, Sculpture, from those fraught days twenty years back when Ad Reinhardt sadly defined you, Sculpture, as something that a museum-goer trips over when stepping backwards from viewing a painting. And experiences like Waiheke, experiences like Brick Bay, experiences like Bannockburn - and now here - are starting to kick a great big hole in that generic message! 

Find your space, Sculpture. Hold it and share life with us...' *

*Don Binney - opening address, Sculpture in Central Otago, Rippon Vineyard, Wanaka - 6 February 2009 

Waitangi weekend saw the opening of Sculpture in Central Otago, a much-anticipated annual sculpture event in an old, but newly-established venue - beautiful, organically-scrupulous Rippon Vineyard. Visitors to this outdoor exhibition (curated by The Arthouse, Christchurch and the Wanaka Arts Charitable Trust) get to wander amongst the vines, drawn by eye, instinct or a map from one sculptural surprise to the next. Works by seventeen leading NZ artists are on show: Gretchen Albrecht, Graham Bennett, Julie Butler, Jonathan Campbell, Bing Dawe, Regan Gentry, Robert Hague, Mark Hill, Cheryl Lucas, Phil Newbury, Peter Nicholls, Phil Price, Rebecca Rose, Dan Rutherford, Llew Summers and Leon van den Eijkel. 

As Don Binney said in his opening speech, 'I think it is not at all unusual that looking over the scope of art pieces located around this vineyard, we see statements about geology (Dan Rutherford), we see statements about distance and measuring - defining place (Graham Bennett) - we see some pretty lacerating and necessary statements about ecology (Cheryl Lucas). Where did the water go? ... There is another wonderful statement about idiom transition: the magic of stepping from fifty years worth of painting (Gretchen Albrecht) into a highly satisfying and self-defining sculpture. Yes, that transition is there for the taking. The peril of tiny birds - which is a day-to-day talking point, and will be much longer - is in the safe, well-crafted statements that you will find lower down the hill (Bing Dawe) ... The ettricks (sic) of design or accident or incident on solid structure as we all live in times of conflict and stress and ambiguity or, indeed, simply go through the business of growing older are also here, and described with elegance and articulateness - and, the most important self-defining Antipodean practice of just putting up your feet and lounging is writ large, as well it should be! It is a good day... get your feet off the ground! (Regan Gentry)... And there is structure. There is abundant, competent, critically-articulated structure - and there is much colour. There is an angel's wing (Llew Summers). It is hewn out of stone - you can put the colour of an angel's wing there yourself, if you must: its strength is in the seeing. 

These works all exist in this marvelous space, and they seem to have found a space of their own... '

Regan Gentry with his larger-than-life lounger, Recliner Rex - 2005

There was a wonderful sense of generosity and community at this opening, much animated dialogue and open exchange of ideas. I especially enjoyed seeing two of the younger sculptors deep in conversation at the event's notice board, taking turns with the solitary marker pen to draw up possible solutions to a technical challenge one of them is currently facing with a work-in-progress. There was evidence everywhere of mutual respect, support, camaraderie and friendship.  

Here are a few pics I took whilst enjoying the sculpture, the people and the place.  

A Landscape With Too Many Holes - Riroriro (detail) Bing Dawe - 2009

Metallic velvet - detail from Peter Nicholl's Shards # 9 - 2008 

Whose arm is it anyway? 

L - R: Don Binney, Dan Rutherford, Graham Bennett, Julie Butler & Peter Nicholls with Dan's Warm Earth - 2008

~~~

You can visit these sculptures at Rippon till 3 May 2009.

Cage Piece - a somewhat different take on art & time

I landed in the States late last night - seemed to take an inordinately long time to get here, but apparently a slow, circuitous route was exactly what I needed. Now that I'm here, I feel as though I've just woken from a deeply rejuvenating sleep. For some reason, I spent almost as many hours on the ground in transit at the various airports en-route as I did in the air - and the weirdest thing was that despite the many - and I mean many - hours between take off and final landing, I arrived on the same date I left. Talk about time playing tricks... 

I think I've mentioned before that I don't wear a watch (nope, not even whilst traveling). This is doubly liberating when you're needing to unhook and are simultaneously zig-zagging across time zones and lines of latitude and longitude. It didn't matter a jot whether it was light or dark, early or late... I could lol about in my suspended, time-defying 'hammock' and (rare for me) do nothing but read, sleep, nibble on the odd snack, and - surprise - anchor the ideas that found startling clarity as I moved away from the busyness of the past few weeks and into this refreshing transition space. 

The image above shows one corner of an exhibition that's currently on at the Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) in New York City. (I've been searching and bookmarking shows I'd like to get to whilst over here).  Provocatively titled 'A Year in a Cage: A Life Shrunk to Expand Art.'  I was drawn to a review article written by Roberta Smith in today's New York Times (the on-line version).

An admirer of John Cage's work (when his composition 4' 33" was first performed in 1952, it was considered one of the most controversial works of the century), I will visit anything that looks as though it might have something to do with him. (Jumping sideways for a moment, if you go to his website you will find the following, wonderfully-worded invitation 'Subscribe to silence by filling out the following form...' Filling out said form allows list members access to discussions on Cage's music.) 

To get back to where I was... in the case of the New York Times article, the title statement seemed too 'confining' to have anything to do with Cage, the composer. Indeed, what I found was a fascinating account of a piece of performance art (one of five conducted over a year) by Taiwanese-born artist, Tehching Hsiesh (pronounced dur-ching shay). The concepts behind his work are compelling and they raise a raft of questions for me: the same, recurrent ones that I find myself engaged with in regard to my own creative practice (and yes, even - nay, often - re; this environment - that of the blog-o-sphere) - questions to do with integrity & indulgence, communication with others & internal monologue, content & decoration, universal-/community-oriented vs solo, ego-driven work, private voyage & communal conversation... and so on, and so on...    

Referring again to the title of the article, A Year in a Cage: A life shrunk to Expand Art, I found myself feeling immediately indignant. How can anyone advocate that life should be - or indeed infer that it can be - shrunk down to expand or accommodate anything, especially life or art? It's a contradiction in terms, surely? The article's worth reading, that's for sure. Anything that stimulates discussion, raises eyebrows, provokes ire (or subtlest discomfort) has to have something to tell us. Part of me admires this kind of performance and part of me shakes my head. (That's an odd sentence, but I'm not sure how else to put it.) It wears the clothes of 'private, meaningful process for the purpose of personal discovery', and yet at the same time is so obviously hollering out for public attention and reaction (hollering for attention is not the same thing as testing the waters for affirmation? Neither is reaction the same - by a long stretch - as response. Or is it?).

I don't propose to have the answers - far from it: my own creative journey is characterized so much more by questions, than it is by answers. I'd say I regard 'not knowing' as one of the prompts that keeps me working, that it is 'not knowing' that hints at the elusive 'other' that's everything to do with mystery? I'd welcome your thoughts on this subject - the oddly private-public nature of blog-writing suggests we might have some thoughts in common? 

~~~

In my next post, I will be writing about Sculpture in Central Otago.

    

Lines from Mr Lightman

"Suppose time is a circle bending back on itself. The world repeats itself , precisely, endlessly. For the most part, people do not know that they will live their lives over...'' (pg 8)

"There is a place where time stands still. Raindrops hang motionless in air. Pendulums of clocks float mid-swing. Dogs raise their muzzles in silent howls..."  (pg 70)

"A mushy brown peach is lifted from the garbage and placed on the table to pinken. It pinkens, it turns hard, it is carried in a shopping sack to the grocer's, put on a shelf, removed and crated, returned to the tree with pink blossoms. In this world, time flows backwards... " (pg 102) 

These are various lines that open the succinct, time-defining (time-questioning) chapters in Einstein's Dreams by Alan Lightman.

One of the popular global themes at the moment is 'living in the present.' The ideal is that by living in the present, one can still assimilate and integrate the past (without getting stuck there) and trust that - with a healthy dollop of proactivity on our parts - the future will unfold as it must. Lightman addresses time from a number of different angles. In each chapter, time is introduced as a unique concept with a peculiarly different set of characteristics. In one chapter, time is a sense. In another, a memory. He wanders and muses, opening the subject up rather than drawing any conclusions. 

I reckon time is a gift, not a commodity and yet, we think (in our so-called civilized communities) that we can trade it, save it, promote it, bottle it, consume it... Not so! Apparently 'time' is one of the most frequently used words in the English language. It is also one of the most elusive and un-pin-down-able of subjects. I don't intend to go into it too much here - for now, I'll simply type up one of my favourite chapters in Lightman's book and leave it at that.  

"In this world, there are two times. There is mechanical time and there is body time. The first is as rigid and metallic as a massive pendulum of iron that swings back and forth, back and forth, back and forth. The second squirms and wriggles like a bluefish in a bay. The first is unyielding, predetermined. The second makes up its mind as it goes along.

Many are convinced that mechanical time does not exist. When they pass the giant clock on the Kramgasse they do not see it; nor do they hear its chimes while sending packages on Postgasse or strolling between flowers on the Rosengarten. They wear watches on their wrists, but only as ornaments or as courtesies to those who would give timepieces as gifts. They do not keep clocks in their houses. Instead they listen to their heartbeats. They feel the rhythm of their moods and desires. Such people eat when they are hungry, go to their jobs at the millinery or chemist's whenever they wake from their sleep, make love all hours of the day. Such people laugh at the thought of mechanical time. They know that time struggles forward with a weight on its back when they are rushing an injured child to the hospital or bearing the gaze of a neighbour wronged. And they know too that time darts across the field of vision when they are eating well with friends or receiving praise or lying in the arms of a secret lover. 

Then there are those who think their bodies don't exist. They live by mechanical time. They rise at seven o'clock in the morning. They eat their lunch at noon and their supper at six. They arrive at their appointments on time, precisely by the clock. They make love between eight and ten at night. They work forty hours a week, read the Sunday paper on Sunday, play chess on Tuesday nights. When their stomach growls, they look at their watch to see if it is time to eat. When they begin to lose themselves in a concert, they look at the clock above the stage to see when it will be time to go home. They know that the body is not a thing of wild magic, but a collection of chemicals, tissues, and nerve impulses. Thoughts are no more than electrical surges in the brain. Sexual arousal is no more than a flow of chemicals to certain nerve endings. Sadness is no more than a bit of acid transfixed in the cerebellum. In short, the body is a machine, subject to the same laws of electricity and mechanics as an electron or clock. As such, the body must be addressed in the language of physics. And if the body speaks, it is speaking only of so many levers and forces. The body is a thing to be ordered, not obeyed.

"Taking the night air along the river Aare, one sees evidence for two worlds in one. A boatman gauges his position on the dark but counting seconds drifted in the water's current. 'One, three metres. Two, six metres. Three, nine metres.' His voice cuts through the black in clean and certain syllables. Beneath a lamppost on the Nydegg Bridge, two brothers who have not seen each other for a year stand and drink and laugh. The bell of St. Vincent's cathedral sings ten times. In seconds, lights in the apartments lining Schifflaube wink out, in a perfect mechanized response, like the deductions of Euclid's geometry. Lying on the riverbank, two lovers look up lazily, awakened from a timeless sleep by the distant church bells, surprised to find that the night has come.

Where the two times meet, desperation. Where the two times go their separate ways, contentment. For, miraculously, a barrister, a nurse, a baker can make a world in either time, but not in both times. Each time is true, but the truths are not the same." 

~~~

Oh, and HAPPY 200th BIRTHDAY, Charles Darwin!

Fire

 

My heart is with the people of Victoria who are suffering devastating losses as a result of the bush-fires. 

This evening, dear friends told me they'd found out that their son ('unaccounted for' for 36 hours) is safe. He chose to stay inside as the fire approached: miraculously, it jumped over his house and left him unscathed. His neighbour's house was burned down and further up the road, two people died in their car whilst trying to get away.  

There are times when words are inadequate. This is one of them.  

May rain come soon as balm. 

Tribute 

Splash, shudder, shimmer

The companionship of silence

Why is it that the more we come to understand the imperative for stillness, the more determinedly this ideal seems to elude us?

Replenished - Pastel on paper, 2003 - CB

I speak for myself here, of course - and, yes, situations are always of our own making. BBS (Buzzy Brain Syndrome) is no longer entertaining. Frankly, I'm feeling frazzled and fried, which is ridiculous, when you think we're only four days into February. The year is yet young and there's much to make, do, and (perhaps, more wisely) not do during the coming months... My head is constantly engaged with ideas, projects, schemes, images... no sooner is one set down than another pops its head up. I'm constantly on the lookout for ways to slow down, still down, be quiet, contemplative, mindful, measured... Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Suffice to say, it's an ongoing conversation. Right now, all the signs are here that I need to pace things more sensibly, pare things back, top the cup up.

Breaksea Chalice II - Pastel on paper, 2008 - CB

The other day, my rickety old mailbox delivered up a speeding fine - hmmm. I was not pleased. But, admittedly, it was perfect: a cautionary message sent to pounce on me at just the right time. In all honesty, I've had this fine coming for some weeks now, and not just because I happened to be driving too fast out near Broad Bay on a magnificent Sunday afternoon. Clearly, I need to put my foot on the proverbial brake. No one else can do it - after all, 'tis I who is sitting in the driver's seat. The thing is, I do know this - stillness and quiet are right up there when it comes to ideals I aspire to. Apparently, though, I sometimes need a remotely-operated speed gizmo to spell it out -  'S  l  o  w     d  o  w  n,  C  l  a  i  r  e.'   From time to time, one's internal authority figure gets nonchalant or forgetful or just plain tired. 

As a way of countering busyness, I work. This may sound like a contradiction, but actually, it's not: when I'm in 'right relationship' with my work, then my work is my play. It's also my battery charger, my raging tiger, my wise counsel; my lap, my staff, my yardstick, my still point and compass. I depend a lot on drawing - the smudge of black on my hands, the smatter of dust at my feet - and my dream life for poise, discernment, balance. Another paradoxical element of creative - predominantly solitary - work is that it does not separate us from a sense of connection with our community. Solitude is diligent... it works in mysterious, intangible ways, connecting us all, despite the vagaries of life, time and place. It can be a companionable journey that leads us all, via our marvelously different routes, to the common wellspring.  I wonder, is this your experience, too?

Bearings IV - Pastel on paper, 2002 - CB

I find that when I'm tired, I get thirsty. And when I'm thirsty, that's my reminder that it's time to make my way back to the water. I'm never fully at ease when away from it... neither literally, nor metaphorically. With this in mind, I've soaked my next big stash of paper, taped the patient white sails onto boards. My notebooks are fat, my hands and heart ready. Tomorrow, I hope, hope, hope the day will be uninterrupted so that I can jump in and make another big splash. Having said that, the images that keep floating to the top are spare: they have names like seven minutes silence/shimmer/still point/resound.  

In August 2006, my South African printmaker friend Lyn Smuts, wrote 'Visual images are compelling exactly because they are multi-faceted objects. That which is visible, always implies all that is invisible.' (From the catalogue for SOUND STILL, Cape Town - curated by Katherine Glenday.)

In my bid to resist busyness, I've been trying to stay in the present, focused only on what is immediately in front of me. I've also been reflecting on the joys of collaborative partnerships, and the fact that distance need not be an obstacle when it comes to working collaboratively with others. To the contrary, distance contributes something unique and unexpected. 

Back in 2006, I was fortunate to participate in  SOUND STILL , an exciting cross-gender, cross-cultural, cross-disciplinary exhibition in which a group of nine artists, dancers and musicians (from South Africa, Austria and New Zealand) explored sound, movement and stasis, applying the characteristics of these complimentary states to the solo journey and to that of the group. It's been interesting to note how insistent certain of our preoccupations can be. Here's another excerpt from the same catalogue in which I was quoted as saying,   

'Silence suggests an experience of absence or aloneness, whereas in fact, it can be one of presence and oneness. Stillness and silence are dynamic. They are potent spaces - ways of being that resonate with energy. Silence contains and emanates all the fullness of sound. Similarly, stillness is anything but static. It reveals our connectedness with - and separation from - our environment. It exposes memory, challenges reality and the imagined, highlights knowledge and ignorance of self and other. It accompanies us through life and death, teaches patience, protects innocence, encourages community.'

~~~

'At the still point of the turning world, is the dance,' wrote the brilliant Mr. T. S Eliot.

EIGHT (from Lao Tzu's The Art of Peace - a new reading by John Patterson)

Tomorrow, within hours of US President-Elect Barack Obama's inauguration, my youngest son will board a plane and fly North West from New Zealand to Hungary to embark on a semester's exchange at Corvinus University. 

Parenting has to be one of life's most extravagant gifts and, too, one of its fiercest and - at times - ache-inducing learning opportunities. Certainly, it's a call to practice over and over again, the paradoxical dance of full engagement and compassionate detachment. I wholeheartedly celebrate my son going off on this exciting adventure, and at the same time... well, frankly - pang!  

This evening, feeling somewhat tender-hearted, I came across the following translation of the eighth 'image' (I'm not sure what else to call it) from Lao Tzu's gentle Tao Te Ching - it covers a great deal of ground in its fourteen short lines, touching lightly on the ideal that we be as adaptable, unbinding and generous as possible in our affections. Also in there is the suggestion that straightforwardness and honesty in government are tantamount to goodness. In the same image multiple scenarios are addressed that might ordinarily be argued as being miles apart, their interchangeability making it seem perfectly normal to find them side-by-side.

         

EIGHT

The very best we can be is like water.

Reflect on the value of water:

It benefits all creatures, without competing,

It settles in places people dislike;

Yes, this is very close to the way.

Goodness in a house is its foundations,

Goodness in a mind is its depth,

Goodness in companions is their kindness,

Goodness in speaking is sincerity,

Goodness in government is straightforwardness,

Goodness in work is skill,

Goodness in movement is timing.

It is only by not competing 

that we can avoid going wrong.

Favourite flavours

Affirmations are being passed around the blog-o-sphere in the form of an Inspiration Award. Vanda Symon at Overkill nominated Ice Lines for one (thank you, Vanda). It's my pleasure now to pass the scoop on to seven bloggers I find inspiring and whose sites I visit regularly.

This is a little like standing behind the ice cream counter in the local dairy, permission granted to stack my cone high. Imagine - I get to choose not one, not two, but seven favourite flavours. Delicious.

Here, then, is my blog ice cream (flavours piled in no particular order): lime, passionfruit, gold rush, boysenberry, apricot, mandarin and cookies-&-cream - 

Kay's Made for Weather

Sam's Ice Labyrinth 

Tony's thistonybridge

Laurice's greatkiwipoet

Pamela's shroedingerstabby

Vanda's Overkill

Steffi's Stuffysour (on the Nature network)

The idea of this award is that it gets passed it on to others, who in turn pass it on to others... There are a few guidelines for those participating - 

1. Please put the logo of the award on your blog.

2. Link to the person from whom you received the award.

3. Nominate 7 or more blog recipients.

4. Leave a message on their blogs to tell them.

Good will. Good fun. Enjoy!

Art & Lies - a brief homage

'"... From a distance only the light is visible, a speeding gleaming horizontal angle, trumpet out on a hard bend. The note bells. The note bells the beauty of the stretching train that pulls the light in a long gold thread. It catches on the wheels, it flashes on the doors, that open and close, open and close, in commuter rhythm. 

On the overcoats and briefcases, brooches and sighs, the light snags in rough-cut stones that stay unpolished. The man is busy, he hasn't time to see the light that burns his clothes and illuminates his shoulders with biblical zeal. His book is a plate of glass..."

(Jeanette Winterson - Art and Lies, pg 3)

~

This morning's email brought a message from Jeanette Winterson's website to say that her latest column is up for reading. JW is one of my all-time favourite people. She's one of those writers I feel a real affinity with, so that I find myself doing what I just did - referring to her as person first, writer second.  Of course, they're one and the same, but Jeanette is someone. I've admired her work for years, have read every book she's written (a number of them, several times) and am always left dazzled by her imagination, her craftsmanship, the courage, intelligence and passion expressed in her art. I'd love to have her over for dinner - or better still - invite her to stay sometime. In my imagination we'd talk for hours, and be companionably silent; we'd share a similar taste in food, make a beeline for our local Farmers' Market on Saturday mornings, enjoy picking herbs and berries from the garden. I'd take her down to the Caitlins where we'd walk the beaches and forest tracks barefoot. 

Of course, I haven't actually met Jeanette - yet. Meantime, I look forward to visiting her updated site each month - it's a nourishing, generous place that you think you'll quickly pop in to, then find yourself still wandering around in an hour or two later. It's also a dynamic site, not exactly a place you nestle comfortably into: most visits leave me feeling stirred up, challenged, inspired and enlivened.

The last year or two have been a bit of a wrestle for her and while she's been prudent in terms of what she puts out into the public domain, she's also been transparent and gutsily honest with the grit and process of her life. I admire that. There's no room for veneer or pretense with her, which is both a gift and an exhortation to those of us on the receiving end of her words. 

This morning's newsletter held the sad news of her Father (John William Winterson)'s death. She writes bravely of her loss and learning and of the healing power of reconciliation. And, in her inimitable way, she offers us some sage thoughts to reflect on. 

Curiosity & the company of Heron-Allen

Edward Heron-Allen (b. London, 17 November 1861, d. 1943) is - or was - a fascinating man: a true polymath. His expertise ranged from violin-making to Cheiriosophy (another term for palmistry), linguistics to archeology, marine zoology to meteorology, esoteric studies to the successful cultivation of - who would have guessed - asparagus! He wrote extensively on all these subjects, contributing significantly, even then, to our current understanding re; foraminifera (the same complex uni-cellular aquatic organisms that Sam Bowser has been studying for the past twenty-five years. Click here to read a recent interview in Nature magazine.). 

When Heron-Allen wasn't writing academic papers, investigating the paranormal or lecturing on the intricacies of violin-making, he was studying Persian. He translated the Persian classic Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam into English, and too, The Lament of Baba Tahir (from its original, very obscure dialect, Luri). As if that wasn't more than enough to keep one man busy for a lifetime, Edward Heron-Allen adopted a pseudonym, Christopher Blayre, and set about becoming a prodigious writer of short stories (science fiction, the supernatural and quasi-erotica). In his ordinary everyday life, he was a lawyer, husband and father to two children. 

The mind boggles.     

As a scribe for The Heron-Allen Society has suggested, "If a serious biography of Heron-Allen were to be undertaken it would have to be the work of various hands. It is highly unlikely that any one biographer could have an informed appreciation of Heron-Allen's many and varied interests..."  

In his book Practical Cheiriosophy, Heron-Allen wrote, 

"If trouble can leave its marks upon the face, as Byron says, -

'The intersected lines of thought, -

Those furrows which the burning share

Of sorrow ploughs untimely there;

Scars of the lacerated mind,

Which the soul's war doth leave behind,'-

why should not the same effect be produced upon the hands, which are so much more sensitive than the face?"

Byron must have been in melancholic mood when he wrote that stanza. I agree with Heron-Allen, though, about our hands. I'm not sure I'd go as far as saying they're even 'more sensitive than the face' but I do think that between them, our hands and face hold all our stories.   

I'm not really sure where I'm going with all this - there are many threads to this particular meander: Heron-Allen (and his myriad research subjects) has fascinated me for a wee while now: I've been following him around ever since I was first introduced to him in Explorers Cove three and a bit years ago. So, yes, there's that connection. And then there's the fact that his primary scientific preoccupation was foraminiferology - it's this that drove the hook right in. As I mentioned when writing from Antarctica, I'm currently working on various collaborative ArtScience projects that have at their core, foraminifera, so Heron-Allen makes logical, inspiring company. 

Aside from all this, I'm enjoying 'dipping my feet into melt-water' and taking time to muse a little about 'curiosity' and where it leads us; what it is about something that ensures it will first capture, then hold, our attention? And what it is that defines a moment/event/encounter (often very early in the piece) as significant so that we're then prompted to move towards or away from it; to say yes, no, or not now, thank you?

Here's a pic of one of my favourite forams called Astrammina triangularis: I'm forever enthusing to Sam that this micro-organism is the perfect metaphor for our human individuation. 

Photograph: Samuel Bowser

This tiny sediment-encrusted creature starts out life as a triangle and becomes progressively more complex as it grows older: entirely responsible for the construction and shape of the protective shell it lives within, it sends pseudopods ('sticky feelers') out into the environment, selects particles of sediment (to very precise sizes) for the purpose of building its shell, then creates an adhesive with which to bind these particles together. The ingredients that make up this 'glue' have so far left scientists confounded. In situ on the Antarctic ocean floor, it's shown itself to be waterproof and incredibly durable (these creatures are living fossils, having survived in essentially the same form for some 650 million years - i.e so long as there are healthy foraminiferan around, there's no expiry date on this adhesive). The glue also demonstrates remarkable tensile strength. And yet, the minute a sample is taken into a lab situation, it proves impossible to stabilize and literally gums up the equipment required to analyze it. 

Anyway, to continue with the metaphor... as it matures, the A. triangularis grows additional apices, gradually extending its shape from a triangle into a square, from a square into a pentagon, from a pentagon into a hexagon, heptagon, octagon, nonagon and so on... and so on... The most complex triangularis found in Antarctica waters so far is twelve-sided.  

Here's a reflected light micrograph image showing a community of A. triangularis specimens of varying ages and complexity - there can be no denying these organisms are sophisticated little masons.

Plate I from Bowser et al. (2002) Journal of Foraminiferal Research 32:365

This week past, I went for two late afternoon walks along St. Clair beach, here in Dunedin. Each time, I 'happened upon' a bizarrely triangularis-like form, only instead of being constructed by single-celled creatures, these were bits of construction debris tumbled and shaped by the sea into objects I could pick up and appreciate. 

Believe it or not, it was these two small, beat-up (but beautiful, in-their-rough-and-ready-way) forms that unexpectedly gave rise to all these associations --- how often is this not the way with extraordinary ordinary things?