April 23, 2012 - Remember Pooh
Dark Times
March 1, 2012 - Soothing Spaces
Small suggestion…..take a moment in each day to create a soothing space to be. Something that softens your world a bit – particularly if you’re stressed out or facing the day after sleep broken nights (as in post below). Make it a ritual, something you give to yourself, not as a special treat, but an essential part of your day. And have you noticed there’s an overload of TV shows pushing the ‘an extreme makeover will make you happier’ message? You don’t have to buy into the big spend up. It’s the simple things you surround yourself with that make a daily difference. This is my desk today with beautiful old fashioned roses picked from the old lady’s garden next door. And be careful what you read too. Consider dumping the gossip mags for ones full of art and stories. I’ll share some of those with you soon. Ciao for now.
February 29, 2012 - Hands Up The Sleepless
Ever wake up in the middle of the night and things that happened during the day magnify 100 x worse? Or you wake in a panic with no cause? Wrestling with sheets and mind. This piece arrived at 2am.
Hands at night … They creep like giant crickets. Invading mind and slumber. A looming finger waving at the big naughtiness. Things with which I’d coped by day now magnified and distorted in sleepless hours … Hands at night. Standing over daylight wrongs. Fingers pressing ‘round and ‘round the racecourse on mind – building to steal my breath like an endless tickle … In the night’s quiet. The stroke becomes a punch. Hands grabbing me by the collar—the mane. Tossing and thrashing events and conversations like a rag doll in jammed jaws … Hands at night. Greet the morning wake. Giants of the night deflate and shrivel in withdrawal. Hands hang like sinkers sunk. Caught in the light and jar of dawn.
Click on the typewriter if you want the ‘hand’ typed version.
The image, Artist’s Parents (II) by Otto Dix, 1924, I’d found during the week and the magnified hands distorted by age (and artist) were still prominent in mind – in a creepy Dr Who kind of way. My escape from the panic? I got out of bed and wrote. Then (closer to 3) I went out into the backyard for some big fresh air – and big space the night sky always offers. The ‘Hands At Night’ poem is the good result of a bad night.
February 14, 2012 - Breeding Discontent
Chinese proverb. Image ‘Amish children on their porch, Pennsylvania, 1938 by J.Baylor Roberts’ found in Lapham’s Quarterly publication.
February 8, 2012 - The Red Tree Comes to Life
‘The Red Tree’ by Shaun Tan
‘Darkness overcomes you’ (by Shaun Tan)
Shaun Tan’s book, ‘The Red Tree’ has been adapted for the stage by the Barking Ghecko Theatre Company, Perth WA. Showing from Saturday 11th Feb – Tues 14th Feb. Tickets available through BOCS. Check out the short film of the Red Tree previously posted on Black Dog here. And another story here from his book ‘Tales of Outer Suburbia’. View interview with Shaun Tan and Director of the stage play here as they talk about the themes of depression and anxiety in young people and how the book/play explores these themes.
February 2, 2012 - Word travels
Installation and projection from Preparing the Flute, by William Kentridge (2005).
Received an email from a school in California where the 10th grade students were learning about suicide prevention - saying they “loved the Black Dog website” and were using it for researching their project topic. One of the students suggested adding a useful link on our website that she’d found - so I’ve added it to the links page. Thank you for sending this through - I’m sure it will be very useful to people visiting Black Dog and congrats on being awarded extra credits I hear, for your find!