Past, Present, Future

GOING TO A LOCAL FLEA MARKET OR ONE OF THOSE DISUSED CINEMAS OR AN OLD WAREHOUSE NOW FULL TO THE BRIM WITH OLD STUFF IS A 

GREAT, CARBON FRIENDLY, FUN IDEA. 
FASHION, WHETHER IT IS THE OBVIOUS CLOTHES WE WEAR, OR THE INTERIOR DESIGN THAT SEEMS TO HAVE BECOME A CONTEMORARY CONSUMER OBSESSION, SHOULD BE YOUR OWN,
 NOT THE VISION OR STYLE OF SOMEONE WHO DOES NOT LIVE YOUR LIFE OR KNOW YOUR QUIRKS AND FANTASIES.

Objects of Delight

Like the saying goes..."I don't know much about art, but I know what I like" 

or one of my favorites, which was expressed to me by a bright young man, 
when we were looking at some of the great master pieces of the 20th century...
"No wonder these are so expensive, looked at those frames!" 

 I love people's responses to art and to imagery that people think is art. 
 If you like it and it brings your pleasure, if it lets your imagination wander to somewhere else, 
then more power to it.

Just a slip of a thing

Great ideas are all around us. Simple in essence. Truly effective design lives in inventive and lateral thinking.

Mo Day

Joy is fleeting so embrace the bringers of it.

Bounce Back

In the 1st world, aka, the developed world, we rail on about recycling and reusing, 
 but the inventive products that are coming out of some of the slums of the 3rd world,
 such as rubber shoulder bags, put us to shame.

Finally we are starting to see some wonderful end results of people taking control of their own circumstances and 
trying to improve them by whatever means available. 
There are stores now that will connect us with these products. 


 The r.e.a.l store in Woolloomooloo is one of them.

Hiding in the open

Street art comes in more than one format_that of paint on walls, it can comes in many guises. Someone, god love them, in Enmore and Newtown has gone to such great care and effort as to cut tiny, beautiful birds out of tin, paint them and then place them in secret places, that are out in the open.

Looking at the bigger picture sometimes mean you miss the tiny stories within. It is in the detail or in the punctuation that the subtle is found.

One year down

A new lease of life

My friend has just moved and she is cleaning out her cupboards. 
She is getting rid of everything they do not use all the time. 
"You can have too much stuff...I just want it gone."

But where does it eventually go? 
And just because you don't want it anymore, has the stuff stopped being useful or even beautiful?

No, it has just grown tried in the eyes of its current owner. 
A lot of my friend's objects will find themselves on the shelves of an opshop. 
There they can make money for some worthy cause, such as animal shetlers, and also avail themselves to a fresh set of eyes, 
who will jump at the opportunity to give this stuff a new home. 
So go out there and recycle, reuse, reinvent_Its FUN.

When I go to The Rio

I deeply suspect that there is a lot of truly interesting stuff out there, in lesser known areas of our city, unrecognized, 
and sadly disappearing in front of our very eyes, just waiting to be rediscovered. 
Few seem to get that these shops, things or buildings, institutions in their own right, found throughout our local areas need to be appreciated and maintained.

A perfect example of beauty unrecognized is The Rio milk bar in Summer Hill.

It’s the old fashion kind of milk bar. The type that kids would go to with what little pocket money they had and buy that Chew Chew bar or those Redskins. 
 It has fallen upon sad and lonely times. 
The owner sits alone, inside, growling at any one who may wonder in aiming to buy some sugar in the guise of either a candy bar or a chilled drink. 
And yet there is a strange attempt to create a curious window display made out of bits and pieces, 
little pieces of paper, some decals, old wrappers of the candy bars, silver foil, bits of plastic.

It is an eccentric sight, but thank god for the eccentrics of the world as they keep things interesting.

VITA

A photographic exhibition created by Jacqueline Hill, and entilted VITA, 

is to be shown this Spring on the 15th October 2010, at the China Heights Gallery.

The inspiration for this project was fueled by a life-time of influential visual experiences and 
the need to give dreams and memories a sense of physicality and actuality. 
By taking the abstract, and making it tangible, this body of work explores the concept of distortion in recollection. 
Images blur and overlap with others, and impressions blend together to be an intriguing melange.

Spring has sprung...

The Spring, regardless of whether it is Northern or Southern hemisphere, 

is full of promise and a kind of fisson that is purely instinctual rather than cultural. 
 We all feel it. All of us from the tiny dear birds to the most sophisticate human.

It is a festival of life and energy and flowers and leaves are the perfect metatphor for how we all feel. 
 I have included some observations of Spring from some of the great English speaking poets in this article to bring life 
and stir our deep feelings of this time. A shift. 

 The words of these poets may have been written a time ago but the insight and beauty that they bring to the page 
with their elegance of words has got to shift our concept of past times to realise that there was 
power and true sophistication in their articulation that is sadly lacking in this modern, technologically driven world.

Dreams are bigger than where they come from

You may be just passing through some small town. 
 Just passing slowly or quickly through some small town. 
On first glance it doesn't look so special, not too memorable. 
You couldn't remember its name, or describe any one thing about the place. 
But it is full of people who live there, who dream and hope of small and big things that bring contented smiles to their faces, and a laugh to their day. 
The town is not so special immediately, but if you look a little deeper, you will find it is full of beauty unrecognized. 
Its not obvious but it is there for those who shift their view of life.

Several year ago photographer Harold David jumped into his beautiful Mini and went for a bit of a drive. 
He drove along the south coast of New South Wales and he took photos of what surrounded him. 
Basically lots of photos of the small towns that dot the coast line. 
They are not of glamorous things or places, or buildings, but they are about the things that make up peoples' lives.

Red

Wonderment

In July 2010 Shiftazine shifted its world view and spent the month in the ancient lands of Crete. 
The Sun and the water were constant in their gifts of beauty. 
But what I really loved the most in spending time there was the opportunity to observe the motion of the astral bodies_ 
the Sun, the Moon and the stars.

It sounds glib but these are our orginial and formative wonderments. 
 When you are immersed in the urban landscape you become detached from these heavenly bodies_
these things of beauty, of dreams, of joy.

Shifting Possibilities

Regardless of your political persuasions the swearing in of the Honorable Ms Julia Gillard on the 24th of June 2010 sees Australia consider a shift in possibilities of problem solving. Now an individual will not be firstly measured or defined by their genre's characteristics but rather by their own talents, persona and their ability to solved what problems are before them.

A shift has occurred, lets build on it. Well done!

Painting the Upholstery

A canvas is not necessarily a flat, almost 2 D object found hanging on a wall. A chair, a table top, a fire screen, even a wardrobe lends it's surfaces to the artist to fill and stroke and create images that can and will enliven your life, every day.

The idea of painting furniture is not a new idea. The Bloomsbury group of the early part of the 20th century turned their all ready creative and productive minds and eyes to the endeavour. Painted furniture is about you looking differently at the flat or not so flat surfaces that you find in your immediate surroundings. The surfaces do not even have to be hard. As you can see from the images of the first spread, you can happily and successfully paint the padded seat of a chair.

This type of art is empowering, as this is your chance to create art which is approachable, accessible and charming. It is from the school of live and love art, and make it a part of your every day rountine.

JoyDay_Geraniums

JoyDay is on its way. 
Remember the 25th of November and remember to celebrate the joyful things in your life. 
They can be a simple as a geranium flower shining with rain drops or as great as a big blue sky. 
Just remember to always have some joy in each and every day of your life. 
It is good for your body and soul.

Orange_sooo tangy

There is more to a magazine than meets the eye.

Sometimes you can’t sleep at night. You lie in bed, waiting for dreams to begin, but they don’t arrive.

So what do you do? Well, you could count sheep, or you could think about all the things you were meant to do at work that day, but didn’t. Or you could get out of bed and pull all the pages out of your two favorite 1985 ‘Interview’ magazines and glue them all over your kitchen and dining room walls which is exactly what photographer and my friend, Harold David did last week.

The result is so exciting, so typically inventive of Harry and very SHIFTAZINE.

Go get your magazines, carefully tear those favorite images out and start changing your living space!Put those paint brushes down. No more need for a thousand colour swatches. All you need is a pot of wall paper glue, a fairly smooth wall, some loved images and courage. You’re set. Enjoy!

Enduring

How strange, and yet compellingly, a sight to see all those caged dolls. 

What fate had befallen them. 
I was confused and concerned for these little objects of my childhood affection. 
It made me reflect that we may grow up and get older but we never really grow away
from the notion of connection we have with our toys.

The concept of these endearing little objects, who sort of look like us but not really. 
Who were there to listen to every thought we had, they always had a smile on their face and were always up for a hug. 

I think we should honour our toys, as they are apart of our own story.