Somewhat delayed, but Here’s a reflection on 2016. It’s been a relatively quiet year, mostly spent on nagging health issues. Lots of physio rebuilding my knee, which periodically gets worse, in my opinion, because the post-operative rehab physio in 2012 got me jumping too early. Just as that was coming good, I managed to tear a ligament in my dominant hand, one that keeps the tendon centred over the top of the first knuckle, meaning it fell off to the side when I bent my finger down enough. A pretty terrifying experience all round, but after 2 months in a splint it’s slowly getting better.
In terms of art, the beginning of the year saw Surfing The Deathline – Fourth Dose released, and now at the beginning of 2017, Fifth Dose is out, which means it’s all done – I could be hit by a bus tomorrow, and the work is more or less what I intended. Finishing a project that’s been going for 14 years is interesting. It didn’t really have the commercial success I would have liked, but at least it’s done. Most importantly, I’m now free to look to new projects.
Some other notable events this year were a small retrospective of student sculptures at a laneways festival, and delivering a PetchaKucha talk about The Metaning at Nambour.
Going in to 2017, what are my goals? Right now, I’m going back through the old issues of Surfing The Deathine, and updating them to the style of the last part. Then? I’ve got a bunch of photographic projects planned, some will require space to set up lights etc, some are landscape based. Along with that, there’s sculpture – I’m going to need space to weld, after which I’m going to try to learn TIG welding properly, so I can do fine and neat work. Things to look at sculpturally are revisiting the ethernet figurative piece, even if it means I just have to buy bulk cable in various shades of blue. I’ve also got to get serious about investigating bending perspex rod without blistering it, so I can build small versions of my valve sculptures.
I think that’s enough to have on my plate for the moment.