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| There's actually a face inside that little hatch... |
We had a great field class earlier this week, meeting at the
southern end of the famous Bondi Beach and then enjoying a great Sydney
tradition, the 16th annual Sculpture By The Sea competition / exhibition. These installations ranged from quirky
and whimsical to profound and disturbing, with a substantial smattering of
pretentious art-speak in the creators’ commentary. We totally lucked out with the weather, warm enough and not
super windy, and then had a noisy dinner at the Coogee Bay Hotel, several
beaches down the coast.
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| You could own this 2-meter long pepper for $15,000 |
I found the artists’ sculptures quite entertaining and
thought-provoking, but the sandstone cliffs themselves were beautifully
sculpted, and the waves sending their foam over the rocks below the footpath
were almost as dynamic and fascinating to me. The whole thing was reminiscent of the in-situ installations
we saw a few years back at Oliver Ranch near Geyserville, though without the
scale or pomposity, mostly.
Sometimes the craftsmanship was impressive, sometimes it was carefully
casual. Mostly the commentary from
the artists themselves was laughable, but Lorraine managed to make sense of
things without being overbearing, and the crew hung in there long after the sculptures
ended and the substantial walk to the next town of Coogee continued.
All in all, it was a great evening, though a late one
getting home via bus ferry and bus, which unfortunately meant that Alex has
been more than usually cranky.
Adding to his stress levels, his school’s big end of year exams have
rendered everyone on edge, and even though he is not obliged to take them, he
is probably feeding off the ambient angst levels. I confess that the battles between him and Am have taken a
toll on me, not just in themselves but because I feared they would occur, and
they cost me in ways I feel I can’t afford. Once things melt down completely they blow over for him
pretty fast, but for us the effects are longer lasting.
Things here have been a mixture: I’m typing this on Friday the 2nd on a coach
ride to Canberra, the three hours-plus helping to show just how humongous this
country truly is; we’ll tootle around the capital city for a few hours, guided
by the ever-informative Lorraine (who used to live there), and then head
home. I’m pretty discouraged by a
lot of things, not least of which is the chronic tardiness of a substantial
fraction of the class--we departed from Central 25 minutes late. It’s hard to put into words what goes
through my mind at times like that, as I try to decide when or if to pull the
trigger and just leave them. I
haven’t done that yet (except for the eejit who thought the Blue Mtns trip
departed at 9 and not 8--at least she took enough initiative to find a train to
Katoomba and joined us), but I should have today. How do I get through to them? Using the multiplier-effect that I explained on the very
first day, they kept 23 others waiting--a total of more than 500
person-minutes. So far, not a word
of apology or explanation, even as I edit this in the evening as the DVD player
butchers the video (the overblown epic “Australia”), flickering and rolling
with dizzying frequency. The
landscape rolls by, pasture and bush punctuated by McDo’s and bizarre little
roadside attractions...
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