Art

Post #105 Sunday 2 December 2018 – The Finger Wharf Woolloomooloo

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Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Sunday 2 December 2018

One of my routine evening walks involves a circuit of the area down by the Finger Wharf at Woolloomooloo.  At the moment it’s especially nice because summer has brought out the jasmine.  There is a great hedge of it running down one side of the McElhone Stairs at the end of Victoria Street and it’s a heavy summery scent which is just beautiful.

There is a always a set of sculptures on display along the boardwalk adjacent to the Finger Wharf.    According to the labels next to them they come from a commercial “art bank”.   The display changes every six months or so.  There is one new I like especially.  It reminds me of the symetry in a shell or the inside of a flower.

Then sometimes, just when you are minding your own business on your evening walk, a huge floating resort rounds the point in front of you and cruises down the harbour, towering over everything.

I am including here a couple of selfies I found in my dropbox files that haven’t made it to the website before now.

 

 

 

 

 

xx  MG

Post #104 Sunday 25 November 2018 – Theatrical diversion

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Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Sunday 25 November 2018

I recently went to an interesting piece of “immersive” theatre called A Midnight Visit.  It was held in St Peters in a huge old empty furniture warehouse.  The drama was based on the stories and poems of Edgar Allen Poe.  We had to sign a waiver before entering.  We were each given a black surgical mask to wear while we stood around in the foyer.  There was an MC called The Undertaker who then selected people from the audience to enter the performance through different doorways.  We went into different rooms and spaces which were variously got up in detailed Gothic sets reminiscent of Poe themes.  The actors moved around in the spaces performing in among the audience.  There were music and dance performances woven into some of the story fragments.  Then there were features of the warehouse set which can only be described as playful – corridors and stairwells to climb through, mysterious rooms to explore.  One room was filled with CCTV screens “secretly” relaying what audience members were doing in other rooms.  Another room had a small sunken pool filled with soft pink balls and a sign saying No Jumping, and of course people did.  At one stage there was a regal seeming actor strolling around, who would seat himself strategically and beckon a member of the audience to come over.  He would then have an extended private conversation with that person.   He beckoned me at one stage and asked me, whispering, what was I afraid of.  It took me ages to decide but finally I said “uncertainty”.  He said Oh no, you don’t need to be afraid of uncertainty, you need to be afraid of people who text and drive! Lol.

It was clever in parts, apparently developed from a similar immersive theatrical adventure which has been showing for years in an extended season in New York called Sleep No More (based on Macbeth).  A Midnight Visit was ambitious and intriguing.  I could happily have stayed on exploring for another hour.  There are some great photos included in the link here to the review in the magazine Time Out.

xx MG

https://www.timeout.com/sydney/theatre/a-midnight-visit-review

https://amidnightvisit.com/about-the-experience/

 

Post #99 Sunday 26 August 2018 – In miniature

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Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Sunday 26 August 2018

Following a recommendation I braved windy William Street Darlinghurst and went down to the Australian Design Centre where I saw a remarkable collection of miniature streetscapes made by Joshua Smith.  They were fine works of craftsmanship recreating the patina of urban decay in  the shopfronts of poorer neighbourhoods.  Here is a photo of one of them:

It reminded me of the dioramas that used to be in the War Memorial in Canberra, which were battlefields recreated in miniature – tiny toylike scenes made for adults.

MG xx

 

 

Post #92 Sunday 24 June 2018 – Flowering trees and the allegory of the unicorn

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Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Sunday 24 June 2018

I haven’t posted about any flowering trees for a little while. My flowering tree this time is a lemon tree, not from local life but from a set of French medieval tapestries that have been on exhibition at the Art Gallery.

I specially like this tree because it accurately depicts that habit which many lemon trees have of flowering and fruiting at the same time.  And the flower of a lemon tree has one of the most evocative scents.

The context of the tapestries is the age of chivalry in the late Middle Ages.  But there is no trace of darkness or punishing cloistered religious life that we so often associate with the Middle Ages.  Instead it’s a sensual paradise of garden, music and luxury.  The mythical unicorn appears in all the tapestries together with the virgin maiden.  The story has it that the unicorn is only tame for the virgin lady.

Curiously I found in my investigations that the original unicorn figure – a mythical wild man from Mesopotamia – was civilised only by the temple whore.  I was interested to  learn in that social reality the temple whore was a respected figure herself charged with the responsibility of making men into better versions of humanity than they were when left to their own devices.

Your glamorous aunt MG xx

Post #78 Saturday 17th March 2018 – Back from Canberra

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Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Saturday 17 March 2018

I had the fastest drive home from Canberra than I’ve had in ages.   This notwithstanding there was a lot of road work – for which we all slowed down.  But as I regularly  let myself travel just above the speed limit, alas I am thinking this may be the reason for my fast trip even with roadwork and I am none too proud of it really.

It was a good stay and I collected visuals of another interesting piece of sculpture on an early evening walk near the hotel.  On reflection I could have done a better photo:

Here’s a better shot from the local Sculpture Walk Guide which I found on the net, together with a spiel about the scuplture’s name and significance, and its’ creator, all of which is quite appealing:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Being a bit frisky one Canberra morning I took an unsual selfie – the underboob and pyjamas shot, here to amuse 🙂 in the usual way:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I can also say in recent news, I learnt how to make Steak Diane, thanks to an entrprising visitor at home, and that was all very good indeed.

 

Your glamorous aunt, MG xx
reporting on some of this week’s adventures.

Post #79 Sunday 25 March 2018 – Mapplethorpe and Araki

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Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Sunday 25 March 2018

Earlier this month I managed to get to the NSW Art Gallery to see an exhibition of the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe.  Here I am on the stairs posing with  an enlarged self portrait of the artist himself.

 

The challenging thing in the Mapplethorpe show is the kinky erotic photography  – predominantly homoerotic BDSM style scenes – some of them very graphic.

There is a common theme in all the work – erotica, portraits and kink alike –  and that is they have a “sculptural” feel to them.  It’s a very classical form and composition and the subjects are posed and still.   These are beautiful and accomplished images.

 

 

 

Here is one of the sculptural portaits in a classical style:

Mapplethorpe makes some images of kinky “domestic” scenes which are droll.  It’s incongruent to see a tough leather clad master slave couple in a Victorian pose in a 1960s lounge room.

And on the other side of the earth right now, there is an exhibition of photography showing at the Museum of Sex in New York.  There is something of the Mapplethorpe dilemma in this work too.  The exhibition is of the work of Japanese photographer Noboyushi Araki.

Many of Araki’s kinky erotic images are brutally challenging.  It’s hard to freely enjoy the brilliant aesthetic of Araki’s work because of the troubling depiction of feminine bondage and enslavement that features in so much of it.  And it’s troubling no matter what complex quality of consenting relationship the photographic models might have had with the great man.

Unlike Mapplethorpe there is far more candid imagery, action shots, and location work all of which make for a more dynamic subject matter – there might be stillness in the work but it’s only for a moment.  The erotic world of Aaraki is Dionysian.

But like Mapplethorpe there is also great humour in some of Araki’s erotic work.  Perhaps I should be asking a less obvious question: how did comic pornographic art get itself into the gallery…

Here are some Araki images, the one on the left I have posted before and it’s of the Yakuza crouched like a dragon.  The one on the right is a the lighter relief version of “the reptile within”, the lizard having been reduced to little plastic Godzilla figures in the corner.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Your glamorous aunt MG xx

Post #75 Sunday 25 February 2018 – Zen and the city

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Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Sunday 25 February 2018

In the background of one of my selfies I must have included the part of my loungeroom wall that has a scroll of Chinese characters hanging on it.   I say this because I had the pleasure of meeting a man who had taken the time to get a translation before we met.  He had read the characters from one of my photos.  I also had pleasure of hearing from him an interpretation of the words on the scroll which was a totally new to me and quite different from any interpretation I had thought of.

The scroll itself I had made about 4 or 5 years ago.  I had found a beautiful Zen saying entitled Subtlety.  I searched about and discovered a Chinese scholar who worked at Macquarie University who was skilled in calligraphy.  He agreed to do the calligraphy.  He also recommended a man who could mount the work in traditional Chinese paper and fabric form.  So the calligraphy was done and the work taken to the scroll maker, and in time I came to own this lovely thing:

 

 

 

The translation of the Zen saying is as follows (reading down first the column on the right, then down second the column on the left):

Entering the forest, he moves not the grass;

Entering the water, he makes not a ripple.

I had, and still do have, a fairly literal interpretation in mind.  But my new friend had another interpretation, thus:  when you enter the forest you are so small in such a great expansive world inevitably your presence does not create any special disturbance.  And the same with water.  When you merge with the ocean you do not disturb the huge body of water, you become part of it.  You cannot disturb it.  And following on from this my new friend drew another parallel – the difference between the city and the village.  In the city your conduct will not be noticed but in the village everything will be the subject of judgment and comment.  And we both agreed how grateful we were that we lived in the city.  In the village we would not be so free to meet.

Yours MG xx

PS On another subject altogether, I give you this week’s before shot:

and the (glamorous) after shot:

Post #66 Sunday 17 December 2017 – The Little Prince, complex love and the rose

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Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Sunday 17 December 2017

I have just come home from my December visit to Canberra, just in time to send out this week’s Letter from America.

It was a great visit.  The weather was pure Canberra summer, all hard blue sky although we had a huge thunder storm in the middle of the second night.  I had an unexpected pleasure from the profusely flowering roses planted right under the balcony of the hotel room.  With the intense heat during the day and the long afternoon, by early evening the scent of the roses coming up  into the room was very strong – a lovely evocative perfume which took me by surprise.  Here is a photo taken by me looking down over the balcony straight onto one of the culprits:

This beautiful flower reminded me of an unforgettable book that is treated as a children’s book (which plainly it is not), Antoine Saint Exupery’s The Little Prince.

Here is a link to Chapter 8 of the book which concerns the Little Prince’s relationship with the rose.  It is a tale of complex love and painful awakening to the meaning of things.  I highly recommend looking at it and the author’s charming drawings.  The chapter is quite short perhaps 300 words, and, as I said before, unforgettable.

http://papermine.com/pub/2005#article/34735

“The fact is that I did not know how to understand anything! I ought to have judged by deeds and not by words. She cast her fragrance and her radiance over me. I ought never to have run away from her . . . I ought to have guessed all the affection that lay behind her poor little stratagems. Flowers are so inconsistent! But I was too young to know how to love her . . .”

 

Your glamorous aunt MG
xx
never complacent in love

Post #64 Wednesday 29 November 2017 – November trip to Canberra

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Wednesday 29 November 2017

It was a lovely visit to Canberra this month.  On the morning I was due to leave Canberra it was raining very softly, exactly the way it doesn’t rain in Sydney (where it shamelessly buckets from all directions).  I took a walk near where I was staying and saw many lovely things including this fine sculpture – an enormous sheet of steel unfolding up the hillside.  And this trip, when I walked in the evening, I saw more bunnies on the lush Canberra lawns than I have ever seen anywhere.  It was like walking into a Beatrix Potter story.  The Canberra bunnies were out and about, mostly in pairs, quietly feasting in the dark.  They were so fluffy and almost tame.  Back in my day I think it was a bit of a heavy myxomatosis scene and there just weren’t a lot of bunnies anywhere at all (sigh).  Such a treat to see them abundant and healthy now in a place where there is lots for them to eat.

I am looking forward to my next Canberra visit in December and I will post the date for the January trip as soon as I know what it will be.

from your glamorous aunt
enjoying gentle vertical rain in Canberra from time to time

MG xx

Post #52 Wednesday 18 October 2017 – Melbourne, Canberra and Parsley Bay – part1

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  Letters from America
These letters are my glamorous aunt’s posts on her adventures and her life and times as a
♦ mature Sydney escort ♦

Wednesday 18 October 2017

In the last week I have been to Canberra and Melbourne and locally, to Parsley Bay, and also to the country and it’s been a pleasant time though busy and a little mixed too, with recurring flu.

Melbourne is a favourite place. I had planned to visit the National Gallery of Victoria*
to see the exhibition there of prints by the Japanese print maker Hokusai and had bought my ticket on line in advance.  I also ended up going to see an exhibition of 70 years of creation by the House of Dior.
(*does anyone else think it’s odd to have a National Gallery  _of_ Victoria? I mean it’s a National Gallery of Australia…).

Here is a very splendid gown from the Dior exhibition, designed by John Galliano who  is the only designer I ever recognised – because of the striking audacity of the billowing sculptural forms he created.  I have just never tired of them:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other exhibition I went to, was of the Hokusai prints.  It was beautifully curated, whereas so many exhibitions are dumbed down.  This  presentation by contrast, was a challenge because the subject matter was rich and the Japanese cultural context always so different.  Some of the images have been heavily commercialised over the years, but even so, seeing them “in the flesh” , they didn’t seem old.   These well known images include a series of Mt Fuji images, and here is the print of Mt Fuji with lightning:

 

I tried to take a selfie involving a steamy shower scene before I left Melbourne.  The steam had the better of it on this occasion.  I will try again in a different hotel room some time in the near future.  For the record:

 

 

Adios mis amigos

xx Su tia glamorosa