'What It Is?' #3 - What a Thing It Was!

So, last night Monday 27 June 2011, at Readings bookshop in Carlton, we delivered the third show in the category-busting series that IS, 'What It Is?'

In this case, the 'we' was me and

Alex McDermott, whose latest book

got published recently. So we launched it, there and then, with the three 'Huzzahs' normally reserved for the launch of a comic book (if you'd been there, you'd know why I consider Alex's weighty yet extremely toothsome tome to be an honorary comic book) and then we got into the show, kicking off with a kamishibai about the Australian career of the 19th century natural historian Wilhelm von Blandowski (yes, THAT Wilhelm von Blandowski - the one who I took on a Victorian roadtrip last year - read all about that here)

The kamishibai WAS to have been 'narrated' by a song called 'The Curious Man', by calypso artist 'The Death Adder', of Berlin, but various technological barriers meant that the recording could not be played, so I ended up speaking the story.  The song however is magnificent, a sprawling calypso epic of high romance and utter desolation, and I will find a way of posting it.

Wilhelm at the Port of Adelaide in 1849.

He loves it here.

But 7 years later, 200 miles up the Darling River, he has an experience of the sublime.  And from that point, his career in Australia starts to unravel.  Our argument was, he SEES something out there...

Something...

oooooooo000000000000000ooooooooo

We then went onto the story of Redmond Barry, a big statue of whom stands outside of the State Library of Victoria:

Our proposition was, you can't really understand Redmond (or Melbourne) without the vital piece of information that he was actually a

centaur.  And, as a centaur, it is unsurprising that he spends quite a bit of time on his 1839 voyage over from Ireland

amidships, as it were, with one Mrs Scott, which Mr Scott, and eventually the entirety of the rest of the passengers, finds quite off-putting (thank you to the puppetteering hands of Stephen Mushin (Barry the centaur and Mrs Scott and ocean) and Colleen Burke (boat and ocean).  When they get to Sydney?  He's really frozen out of the social scene there.

Anyway he eventually makes it to Melbourne and makes it in Melbourne and, in the end, makes Melbourne (State Library, Melbourne University, Art Gallery).  Well, you know:

he's a centaur.

ooooooo000000000000000ooooooo

Our coda to the night was an imagined 1859 meeting

between Blandowski (me) and Barry (Alex), in which Barry identifies what it is that has followed Wilhelm back from the interior, and indeed what it is which will tail him all the way back to Silesia.  All the way back to his death.

And you too can see it, here.

THE NEXT 'What It Is?' (and final in this series): songster Marin Martini and I will puzzle over, sing about, and draw about, the mysterious and ancient connection between comics and songs.  Monday 25 July. 8pm. Readings Carlton. See you there!

THANK YOU: to Jackie Kerin again for the loan of her kamishibai box, and for all the photos dotting this post.  Soon I will post the youtube episode of last night's 'What it Is?', which, as with the other two, was shot and is presently being edited by the skilful Dan Hayward.

Wilhelm von Blandowski - interlude

This arvo Rebecca and I drove into Sale and there was time, as there often is, for a bit of a sit down after checking into our hotel (tonight, The Princeton Motor Lodge).

Ahh, you know?

Soon, though, it occurred to me that the first page of the Blandowski Paperpoint presentation ('Performance today at 11.30 & 1.30') had been getting a bit tatty.

See?


So I thought I'd re-draw and re-letter it for the last two days of the tour, and the new picture ended up looking like this:


Both of them are versions of the classic Blandowski self-portrait, which you can see here. Neither of them really captures him, which is 1) a little bit disappointing and 2) fine. As a maker of comic books, I enjoy (but REALLY. I really enjoy) play with representation. As a maker of theatre, I really enjoy playing historical figures because of the degree of interpretation it invites - that is, people who have seen Blandowski on this tour have really been seeing my Blandowski.

Although in terms of the 'real' Blandowski, I hope that the performance ignites interest in him and that people leave it with another name, another fragment of a piece, of the story of Victoria that we all carry around as a backdrop to our lives. The story of where we are. The story of how we came to be.

Before this all gets too deep, check out this 3 minutes of audio of an interview I did as Wilhelm on Mildura ABC radio with Louise Ray a couple of weeks ago. Oh, yes, it's a pretty funny accent, ze Prussian one...

And here is the very exciting news about the publication of Blandowski's book of illustrations of Australia. The illustrations are actually by Gustav Mutzel, who made them under Blandowski's directions after he had returned to Europe. Blandowski then photographed the illustrations and stuck the photos in albums, as I understand it, in order to self-publish a small number of the book 'Australien in 142 Photographishen Abbildunggen'. A zine, effectively.

Sur le route mit Wilhelm

Ecce homo, my friends.

Here is the man.

The man, in this case, being Wilhelm von Blandowski (1822 - 1878, in Australia 1849 - 1859), who I am performing for a program called 'The Art of Scientific Observation'. This program has been developed by Museum Victoria to celebrate The International Year of Biodiversity and National Science Week and is travelling across country Victoria over the next three weeks.

The program has a drawing component, whereby we set out a bunch of drawing materials (pencils, crayons, pens, fineliners) and a whole bunch of museum natural history objects (birds, mammals, reptiles, shells, insects) and visitors can have a go at drawing them. We are at the gallery or art centre in question from 11am to 3pm, and at 11.30am and 1.30pm, I perform a 20 minute illustrated show, 'Wilhelm von Blandowski: a curious man'.

The article above is from Ballarat's 'The Courier', from Tuesday, reporting on the first show of the first day of the tour, at the Art Gallery of Ballarat, on Monday. The article was written by Pat Nolan and the picture taken by Craig Holloway (who made good on his promise NOT to use any of the shots where my moustache was dangling from my upper lip - thanks, Craig!).

One of the great things about visiting the galleries (two so far) has been checking out the exhibitions on display. On Monday I was GUTTED to realise that I had missed an exhibition called 'In Your Face! cartoons about politics and society 1760 - 2010' at the Art Gallery of Ballarat BY ONE DAY.

To console myself I bought the catologue, and what a show I missed! Gillrays! Hogarths! Cruikshanks! Tenniels! Gills! There's a cartoonist in there, Tom Carrington, who does work for the London and then Melbourne Punch, whose work is superb. And there's a bunch of brilliant Australian cartoonists, including Will Dyson, whose 'Anyhow it's cleansing' from 1925 for Melbourne Punch is below.


This guy looks a bit like Henry Lawson, no? And his cravat reads 'Labour Party', the implication being that a positive spin must be put on everything. Timely no?

The next picture is by S.T Gill (1818 - 1880), maybe the best known 'goldfields artist', who was also represented in the exhibition (although I don't know if this image was in it - this is from a postcard) 'The Unlucky Digger that Never Returned' has a desolate melancholy which I really like. There's an Eddie Campbell element to this picture. Yes? Yes.


Tuesday was an 'On The Road' day, Ballarat to Mildura, via Horsham, though grey skies and Mallee scrub.


At Ouyen, the Big Sheaf of Wheat.


Do three stalks make a sheaf?


Me and The Big Mallee Root, which is that massive dark thing that looks like poured concrete. Hectare after hectare of these things were ripped out of the ground so that wheat could be planted up here. This picture is for my dad, Salvatore, who is (still) a Mallee Boy. It was taken by Amy Briese, from the museum's Discovery Program, my travelling companion for this week and a lot of fun to be with.


The sandwich board outside the cafe in Ouyen when Amy and I had lunch yesterday. Nice cartooning and nice colours, Cowards!


Today, Wednesday, outside the Mildura Art Centre. The skies are all day permanent grey, and the winds are high. Last night there was a tornado in Moama. Are we in Kansas? I don't think so.


The Chaffey homestead 'Rio Vista', part of the Mildura Arts Centre. We set up in the drawing room, a lovely room, where Gemma and Joe from WIN TV came to shoot the second show of the day - we (Amy, Wilhelm and I) were the post-weather story on tonight's news!

After we packed up, we had a wander around Rio Vista and the galleries.



Hi, Amy.


When I have a top hat, I will also have a box for it.


The Mildura Arts Centre has a fine collection of works by Frank Brangwyn (1867 - 1956), including many working drawings and a quite overwhelmingly large picture, a study for a church mural back in England. The scale of the piece and the scale of the room are staggering.


Meanwhile, back in Rio Vista, the wood-lined smoking room. Ah. When I establish my Men's Club, the designer will need to visit Mildura to understand the aesthetic I'm after.

Don't worry, the comics gallery/library/atelier comes first. Once it's up and running, THEN the Men's Club.