Finding art in the suburbs

Don't get excited. I'm not here to annoy anyone. Just to let you know I have had a revelation. It came in a dream. Kylie was there but that's incidental. Someone asked me what I 'did'. "I'm an artist" I replied, sipping on my well chilled glass of chard and smoking a French cigarette in a long golden holder.
Hang on, I thought. I don't drink or smoke. That left the artist bit to grapple with. Something had to be real about this dream of mine. Kylie looked real enough but kept vanishing with every nudge from Christine.
I lay awake staring into the dark where the ceiling aught to be and contemplated the idea of being an artist. I thought of an acquaintance who lives in borderline poverty, grapples with bi-polar disorder, washes about as often as I mow the lawn, who's only company is the wildlife that lives in his dreadlocks, and complains that no-one ever understands him. He calls himself an artist. Then I contemplated the life of Henson, who sips the champagne of life with the directors of many galleries, considers shock as the new black and spends a fortune on looking scruffy enough to pass as one of us.

"One of us" I repeated to Kylie who had returned from the bedroom wearing something comfortable.
"One of who?" She asked as she slipped onto the couch next to me like a cat looking for a place to sleep.

"Us! You and me and the other bloke. The people from the suburbs of life who have mortgages and eat at Makka's from time to time and drive cars that are more than 5 years old and go shopping with their spouse on Sunday and consider it a big day out. All those people out there who live the daily humdrum of work, family, friends and the pursuit of happiness, who travel to the far reaches of the planet and to the next bus stop to experience a little of what life can bring, and find along the way a need to communicate in a way they can't find enough words for. They learn to play music, write stories, paint pictures, build statues out of old car parts, dresses from used surgical gloves and houses out of beer bottles. They don't always succeed in their endeavors to speak to others in a more understandable way but they do learn to speak to themselves. They feel good about what they do and about themselves.

A few of these people take up photography. They learn how to use the camera and take pictures. Some do that with gusto. Some have an appeal and are encouraged by the adoring public with their dollars and likes. Some are satisfied with that. Some are not. "I take pictures because I can" isn't quite enough for some. It feels like an unfinished dinner or being woken before you're ready. Those people seek more, something that tells them about themselves. It's an allusive quality that has no definition or boundaries, yet when you find it, there is no other feeling like it.

And here's the funny thing. Stand one of these people next to anyone and you can't tell the difference. Look at their photos and you can't tell the difference. Speak to them and you can't tell the difference. Nothing has changed that is discernible to the passer by or even the astute observer. They blend into the crowd with an anonymity that would disguise a giraffe in a monkey cage. You may just detect the faintest of smiles and a small amount of air between the feet and the ground."

"Not me!" responded Kylie. "I didn't work this hard not to be noticed. So, are you calling yourself an artist now?" she enquired.

"I think so. For the first time it feels right. Don't ask me why and why now. No, it's not a new me. I'm still the same arrogant prick I've always been. I'm still pig headed, a bigot and very much working class in my dress, drink, car, place of abode and attitude. I'm no smarter than last week and I still love a good barny. But I am now calling myself an artist"

Kylie looked intently to see if she could detect the smile and the air space beneath my feet. Then she snuggled in closer and put her head on my shoulder. "If you've quite finished with your ravings can we get on with this dream before you get woken again by the blonde laying next to you. She is keeping us from bringing this endeavor to completion"

How can I deny her the pleasure.

At last!

The muses sent Kyle to finally pull you in. Now you need a ladder!

Asher

Tom dinning said:

Don't get excited. I'm not here to annoy anyone. Just to let you know I have had a revelation. It came in a dream. ...................
How can I deny her the pleasure.

_DSC0458 by tom.dinning, on Flickr​

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Tom,

This picture has an awkward perspective, first, as if it was taken on your knees, (reminding me of a song by Burt Bacharach's here at 2:00 minutes in! "Baby, baby, I get down on my knees for you!", then as if you are wheeling past from above in an agile fighter jet.

The artist provides enough ambiguity that we are pulled in, not just to imagine, but to imagine and create, I guess that's to imaginate!

Here you do that and the edges of what's real got nudged.

Asher

Just as I am in the throws of completion with a long awaited coalition with Kylie, I am rudely and abruptly awoken by a short, sharp jab to my rib cage, in particular, the left side which still groans a little from a slip in the bath tub. She knows where it has the most impact, does Christine.
"You're dreaming again. Who is it this time? "
If I lie she will know it. If I tell the truth she will know I was lying all those other times.

"I was dreaming I was an artist", using the 'need to know' tactic of a war criminal under interrogation.

"You! And artist! Give me a break. You don't look like an artist, not even a naked one." She was right. Naked is not a good look for me. I pulled the sheets up to my chin and sheepishly asked Christine what an artist might look like.
"Certainly not like you. A plumber maybe or a carpenter or even a house painter. Anyway, you don't do anything artistic. You failed crayon drawing in kindergarten."

So where does that leave me? Up suburbia street without a brush?
I need to give it some serious thought.

Leonard Cohen dealt with the same dilemma, "Who to believe, the old man on the wooden crutch or the pretty woman leaning in the darkened door?" Well, here's my own take on this. The artist is rightly sorry for the old fellow, but has the moral duty to seek out the pretty woman and how far she'll go!

That job does not require any social status, just the whim to follow beyond what's reasonable. This I'm actually good at! Instead of apologizing one can say, "Well, I'm an artist!"

Christine, do not screw with an old guys hallucinations, as we wait, full of hope, for the summons of young women, hungry for affection, (those freshly-made widows, credit to mammoths, saber-toothed tigers and peyote-crazed neanderthals).

Asher

Tom,

Again, a flying shot where we're not sure of scale. This could be a scene for little people or taken from some considerable height. The picture is made out of uncertainty, order and disorder. We get to be taken off our feet to look at something like Alice through the looking glass. I'm impressed!

Asher

One day ill understand you, Asher, and you me. In the meantime we each struggle with our own version of the ladder and the nymph.

After some serious though, coming to a conclusion with Kylie and buying Christine a bunch of flowers to curb my guilt, I have decided that if the suburbs won't come to art then I have no other choice but to stand alone on the issue. I will be an artist from this point on. Bugger the ridicule, scorn and bad haircuts. No corduroy for this black duck. Wash daily, eat good food, dress in a manner befitting and state my case.

Asher! Pass the ladder. I'm on my way up.

On second thought, I'll stay on the ground. I'm not good with heights.

Here's a bit of fine art from Palmerston shopping centre. As you can see, it's a thriving metropolis. It was recorded at lunch time on a Thursday.

So what do you expect from us, Tom?

All of the textual storytelling and justification for your coming back to OPF and posting again, was kind of uninteresting for me - - - but I do enjoy the first 2 images that you posted Tom. The starkness and simplicity and awkwardness works well. The last one is nicely photographed - but not as engaging I think.

I love the story telling. Everyone here's an individual with their own quirks. I happen to value the acerbic humor from down-under with the constant reference to workmen and differences between a cultured snobby "artsy-fartsy" elite and the working man who lives in the 'burbs, sleeps with his own wife, fixes his own 5 year old car and makes his sandwiches for work as he did 20 years ago, when he first won approval for the mortgage on his 1600 square ft row home.

I have no idea whether or not this idea of the bland artless wasteland of suburbia is really more exceptionally developed in Australia or whether the self-depreciating humor just displays it so well.

Asher

I don't mind the story telling. I just wonder what Tom wants from us.

My guess is that we have a whole lot of new pictures to see and that's Tom's goal, to update us after his self-imposed exile. So far I like what we see.

Asher

Jerome Marot said:

I don't mind the story telling. I just wonder what Tom wants from us.

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Do I need to want anything from you to be here, Jerome? And do you have anything for sale?
And who is "US"? Is it me against "US"? Is that the way you see it? If the truth be known, I was deleting my bookmarks and came across OPF. Thought I'd drop in and see what was happening. Thought Asher might like to know I was still alive, as friends do from time to time, and posted a few shots along the way. Buried in my cynicism and humour is some element of truth. I have learnt some valuable lessons of late about art and people and photography and a few other things unrelated. One of them is that I can call myself an artist and still be myself, the usual sarcastic bigot I have always been. And until Asher pulls the plug on me I can still post pictures if the fancy takes me.

You see, Jerome, I take my photography (art) as seriously as the next bloke, who well might be you. Just because I take it seriously in a different way doesn't make it of any less value than that of the next bloke. Value to me, that is.

What do I want from you, personally. Nothing at all. And I mean that in the nicest possible way, truly!

Over the time I have been a member here I have I have got to know Asher as well as I might within the limitations. We have our differences and are willing to discuss these and share them as such. The uniqueness of our differences adds to our art. I don't care much for the way he approaches his work and I'll poke fun at him from time to time, but I value his commitment. He, likewise. As with all people I enjoy the company of and value their friendship I will, from time to time, drop in on them and have a laugh, drink their bar dry, eat out their fridge and make a pass at their wife. I might even show some photos i have taken recently. Why? Because I value their friendship.
It just so happens that Asher had other visitors at the time; you included.

I'll be gone soon. There is still some food in the fridge and I'm having trouble keeping up with his wife. She keeps avoiding me for some reason.

Feel free to ignore me.

Now, where was I?

I note your comment, Robert, and read with some sense of pride. It was meant to be unengaging. This is a relatively new suburb. The town centre provides facilities for about 30,000 people. It is as uninspiring a place as you would find anywhere. If the photograph says that then I have succeeded. The only way I can describe it is as a computer generated landscape where the designer forgot the people, and now the people forget the design. The shop fronts are empty, the place is spotless, you could get a parking space any time of the day or night, exactly where you want it. No-one would want to park here for 2 minutes let alone 2 hours. Just long enough to visit the porn shop at the end of the street, which provides the only bit of colour and interest. I stood in the middle of the road taking some photos and I saw one car in an hour which politely drove around me as if I were a bollard directing traffic.

See how art works, Robert?

I do get the impression from Tom that Aussies at least, might recognize the existence of a strong sense of esthetic emptiness outside the great busy city centers of art and architecture.

Just for reference to the spine of this series, could each of us comment on whether there's a real sense of some "absence of art" in the suburbs of the various cities we come from?

I have never felt this in Los Angeles, but now I'll pay attention and try to find out more of what folks think about art and where one lives.

Asher

When I travel to other cities and communities around the world there is usually a presence of art in some form or other. It may be in to form of the buildings themselves or the contents, galleries, statues, functions, displays, venues and even the book stores. Only this last months I have returned from Prague and Manchester where art is a character of the cities. This isn't so in the suburbs where I have lived. There is a sense of snobbery about art from both directions. When it is brought to the suburbs it is as a gesture, almost poking fun at the lack of knowledge and interest.
I know there are artists out there but they are behind closed doors, like some sort of freak, hiding in the dark and only showing their faces to the city people who will either understand them or patronize them.
Those in the suburbs are busy with raising children, going to the footy, mowing their lawn on the weekend and having a drink with their mates. They go to the pub, a movie and the mall. They only enjoy art when it's part of a holiday in a far distant place. Few have time for art, or the patience or understanding. This isn't some sort of lunatic rant on my part. I'm one of them. My family lives here. My friends are here, the people I work with and work for. They think I'm mad. Even my wife thinks I'm weird.
I think, in a way, art has done this to itself. It's conceptual ideas, its price tag, it's isolation from the suburbs and the people who live there, it's pretense , its language and even its history has pushed away the 'ordinary man'. And don't get your knickers in s knot over that term. I'm struggling for an alternative and I think you get the idea.
So if art reflects our ideas and those of our culture then surely the bland and ordinary facade of the suburbs is a very acceptable canvas from which to work. The question I ask myself is : who would be interested in this stuff? Well, it just might be my mate Asher and his merry group of artists or my neighbor or my wife or brother or the electrician who is about to install my air conditioner.
Or it might just be me. Personally, I'm fascinated by what I see. It slaps me in the face daily with its brutal ordernariness and its complacency, lack of beauty, its disjointed, ill organized, even dull and at times lifeless appearance. Why do I live here? This is where I know I belong. The trick is to call myself an artist and still be accepted. That's the test.
I'll let you know the outcome.
Christine is still laughing at me, my neighbor has a puzzled look on his face and won't let me talk to his kids any more and my daughter says she still loves me, like I have a deformity and she doesn't want to be seen in public with me.

Such is the life of a suburban artist.

Tom dinning said:

Do I need to want anything from you to be here, Jerome? And do you have anything for sale?
And who is "US"? Is it me against "US"? Is that the way you see it?

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Don't be silly. You are welcome to post any pictures you like, you are also welcome to add a 30 pages story to each picture, but you cannot pretend to be surprised when I wonder whether you have some hidden motives.

And: no, telling me to "fee free to ignore you" is not the answer. Not when you obviously make so much effort to attract attention. It is a bit as if you came with a huge show, lights and music in the middle of the town square and asked people to look the other way.

Tom dinning said:

You see, Jerome, I take my photography (art) as seriously as the next bloke, who well might be you. Just because I take it seriously in a different way doesn't make it of any less value than that of the next bloke. Value to me, that is.

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Your photographs are very good. This has never been an object of dispute in this forum.

Tom dinning said:

"Not me!" responded Kylie. "I didn't work this hard not to be noticed. So, are you calling yourself an artist now?" she enquired.

"I think so. For the first time it feels right. Don't ask me why and why now. No, it's not a new me. I'm still the same arrogant prick I've always been. I'm still pig headed, a bigot and very much working class in my dress, drink, car, place of abode and attitude. I'm no smarter than last week and I still love a good barny. But I am now calling myself an artist"

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Bravo! Self-identifying as an artist is the right thing, the courageous thing, to do. And the committment involved in making it come true is character building for better or worse.

When I made a similar jump some time ago I found the worries about whether I really was an artist or whether photography really was an art all evaporated. My guiding light became the "AS IF" principle. Photograph as if one is an artist and as if photography is an art. No more can be done in any case. No further credentials are needed.

Tom your bleak maps of suburbia remind me of the work of a famous Australian photographer, Grant Mudford, who went on to less fame and more fortune in the USA. Keep 'em coming.

Maris Rusis said:

Bravo! Self-identifying as an artist is the right thing, the courageous thing, to do. And the committment involved in making it come true is character building for better or worse.

When I made a similar jump some time ago I found the worries about whether I really was an artist or whether photography really was an art all evaporated. My guiding light became the "AS IF" principle. Photograph as if one is an artist and as if photography is an art. No more can be done in any case. No further credentials are needed.

Tom your bleak maps of suburbia remind me of the work of a famous Australian photographer, Grant Mudford, who went on to less fame and more fortune in the USA. Keep 'em coming.

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Thanks, Maris. I remember the same feeling when I left my first wife. For better or for worse. I never did like the title 'photographer'. It usually resulted in an invitation to a wedding, to view the last shots from Bali or the experimental shots of the wife dressed in something she would best hand over to her grand daughter. Being a teacher was easier. No one wanted to invite you to anything. Now that I'm retired I need a title if for no other reason than to answer the series of questions one is asked after you say hello. When I tell people I'm retired I'm immediately told what I do. Nothing. "It must be nice laying about the house doing nothing". I got sick of explaining to Chrisitne this was not true. Now, when I say I'm an artist I still get the same reaction but but now they say: "oh, that's interesting" and ask directions to the beer fridge.

Jerome Marot said:

Don't be silly. You are welcome to post any pictures you like, you are also welcome to add a 30 pages story to each picture, but you cannot pretend to be surprised when I wonder whether you have some hidden motives.

And: no, telling me to "fee free to ignore you" is not the answer. Not when you obviously make so much effort to attract attention. It is a bit as if you came with a huge show, lights and music in the middle of the town square and asked people to look the other way.




Your photographs are very good. This has never been an object of dispute in this forum.

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No hidden agenda, Jerome. Just passing by. Do you ever have those days when you have a good idea or have produced a photo you are pleased with or a story that just needs telling. Then when you look around there's no one there but the reflection in the computer monitor.
Sorry about the noise I make. It's more clumsiness than confidence. Imagine it more like someone who has come to deliver the groceries, has tripped on the front step, spilt the milk on the best carpet, called the house owner mate and discovers he knows his daughter from a recent drug festival he attended.
Christine's advice to me when I go visiting is: "just don't say anything unless you check with me first and keep out of the kitchen, don't use the loo and don't pick an argument with anyone people address as 'sir'. Which usually leaves me in the garden talking to the gardener.

You think I'm kidding? I wish I was as well.

How much damage can I do on OPF?

Damaging OPF was not the question. Hidden motives need not be nefarious.

So you are an artist, now. Or, more precisely since you were always an artist in some sense, you define yourself as an artist now. So be it.

What does it change?

Ah, this is a wonderful post. It sort of reminds me of the very early days of OPF when things were wild and wooly. Well, sort of wild and, er, wooly. Anyway...

Tom, congratulations on retirement! You're now older than you've ever been and younger than you'll ever be, so keep on looking through the viewfinder and sharing your results. The lofty goal of photography is to define and share your world view with others. The actual goal, at least in my case, is to get the hell out of the house and release the camera shutter at whatever subject will stand still.

So, please don't delete this place from your bookmark list, man. Your thoughts and photos are very effective in shaking loose the odd bits accumulating rust.

Being an artist in the suburbs has its challenges, especially if it is to reflect the nature of suburbia and my impressions of it.
Today I took a drive through some of the newer suburbs. The local government calls this 'affordable housing' for the masses. To get there I needed to pass through some of the older streets. Mind you, none of this relates to anyone here. 30 years ago there was only scrub, snakes and spiders under an intense tropical heat. The snakes and spiders are still here but the bull dozers have taken care of the rest.
It's easy to feel intimidated by my own thoughts as I cruise along the circuits, courts and crescents. Dogs bark fiercely at every fence, kids look me up and down as though I might be about to kidnap them and adults place me in their sights, warning me with an intense stare and a pointed finger. I feel unsafe in my own street.

I'll return when I'm feeling more at ease.

The new streets are no different. It's a deserted landscape, hidden from public view as you might find a compound or gaol. It terrifies me, not for what it is but for what it will become. I've seen this in other places and I have witnessed the consequences. It's not the tenements or towers of thy past but it may as well be.

I return to my home and contemplate my future. I may not venture out for some time. This is art in the suburbs.

Suburbs are colder where I live.

Spooky, Jerome. And bloody desolate. Is that crops in the foreground? Do all suburbia have to be creepy places with no character and buildings that look like cell blocks? I know we can't all live in open pastures or parklands but surely there has got to be a better use of space than this?

Tom dinning said:

Spooky, Jerome. And bloody desolate. Is that crops in the foreground? Do all suburbia have to be creepy places with no character and buildings that look like cell blocks? I know we can't all live in open pastures or parklands but surely there has got to be a better use of space than this?

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Isn't that what suburbia is about? The powerful decide that the poor shall not live in a place where they cannot be happy?

Jerome Marot said:

Isn't that what suburbia is about? The powerful decide that the poor shall not live in a place where they cannot be happy?

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Was it more like:

... The powerful decide that the poor shall not live in a place where they can be happy?

Tom,

nice to see you back here and I like how you show the suburb. It is all there, it can even be nice, but it can be pretty desolate as well in a larger number of cases.

Best regards,
Michael

Jerome Marot said:

Isn't that what suburbia is about? The powerful decide that the poor shall not live in a place where they cannot be happy?

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Hang on! I live in the suburbs and I'm not poor. I send christine off to work each day to make sure I'm not. I'm happy - more than not.

Yes, indeed: "The powerful decide that the poor shall not live in a place where they could be happy."

Jerome Marot said:

Yes, indeed: "The powerful decide that the poor shall not live in a place where they could be happy."

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The powerful need the poor to feel positive about their fate, at the very least, happy enough to buy stuff, pay their rent or mortgage and still not riot or burn down the malls.

Just as the lion can't eat all the deer and still survive, no society can so ration it's less privileged masses too severely. They'd no longer be money to feed the cash registers of the malls! That would collapse our economy. Then food prices and fuel would have to be subsidized to prevent riots.

Asher