December 2016 / January 2017

trouble 141 BIG

CONTENTS COMICS FACE

Ive Sorocuk ..............................................................................................

DOUBLE DATE NIGHT: EPISODE 2

Yung Victoria ..........................................................................................

BVLGARI BELISSIMA

Inga Walton ..............................................................................................

DESPERATELY SEEKING FOX: THE LEN FOX PAINTING PRIZE

Alexandra Sasse ......................................................................................

DECEMBER 2016 / JANUARY 2017 SALON

Don’t Just ... ............................................................................................

TRAVELS IN CLOWNLAND: PART FOUR

Judith Lanigan .........................................................................................

FINDING THE ART IN PHUKET: LOOKING FOR ART IN ALL THE RIGHT PLACES

Anthony S. Cameron ...............................................................................

03 04 06

24 30 42

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COVER: Dame Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011) wears her Bulgari platinum, emerald and diamond tremblant flower brooch (1960, as a hair ornament), Colombian emerald brooch/ pendant (1958), and pear-shaped emerald earrings (1960), with a gown by Pierre Cardin in The V.I.Ps (Anthony Asquith, 1963). © Photofest, New York.

Issue 141 DEC 2016 / JAN 2017 trouble is an independent monthly mag for promotion of arts and culture Published by Trouble Magazine Pty Ltd. ISSN 1449-3926 EDITOR Steve Proposch CONTRIBUTORS Ive Sorocuk, Molly Daniels & Juliette Strangio, Judith Lanigan, Inga Walton, Alexandra Sasse, Anthony S. Cameron, Roxy Cameron, love.

GET from AppStore FOLLOW on issuu & twitter SUBSCRIBE at troublemag.com READER ADVICE: Trouble magazine contains artistic content that may include nudity, adult concepts, coarse language, and the names, images or artworks of deceased Aboriginal or Torres Strait Islander people. Treat Trouble intelligently, as you expect to be treated by others. Collect or dispose of thoughtfully.

DIS IS DE DISCLAIMER! The views and opinions expressed herein are not necessarily those of the publisher. To the best of our knowledge all details in this magazine were correct at the time of publication. The publisher does not accept responsibility for errors or omissions. All content in this publication is copyright and may not be reproduced in whole or in part in any form without prior permission of the publisher. Trouble is distributed online from the first of every month of publication but accepts no responsibility for any inconvenience or financial loss in the event of delays. Phew!

This comic first appeared in Trouble February 2012

web comedy series

by Molly Daniels & Juliette Strangio

DOUBLE DATE NIGHT: Episode 2 Vic’s date, Dana, has just gotten her tax return, and Riley is super excited that her date tonight is Heath, the cool barista from Vic’s cafe.

Starring: Laura Buskes, Molly Daniels, Tiana Hogben, Hayden McKertish, Gemma Bird-Matheson, Dylan Murphy visit Yung Victoria on Youtube

a m i s s i l e B

Inga Walton

“The only Italian word Elizabeth knows is Bulgari”.

(Richard Burton on Elizabeth Taylor).1

Widely recognised as the quintessential Italian jewellery and luxury accessories company, Bulgari actually has its origins in Greece with the silversmith Constantinos Boulgaris from the village of Kallarrytes.

Boulgaris was one of the generations of skilled metalworkers whose craft had been handed down from father to son since Byzantine times. His son Georgis (1823-89) used to travel as far as Albania and Epirus to sell his wares, finally settling in the village of Paramythia where he met his wife and opened a small shop. It was here that Sotirios Boulgaris (1858-1932), the only one of the couple’s eleven children to survive, began his career, and where his first store can still be seen. Regional conflicts between the Russians and Turks in the Balkans, and an insurrection of Christians against the Ottomans in the Paramythia area, contributed to the subsequent collapse of the silver trade.

This prompted the family to leave continental Greece towards the end of 1877, with Sotirios and Georgis heading to Corfù. By the spring of 1878 they had opened a small workshop in the San Rocco quarter.

The arrival of an old acquaintance, the Macedonian silversmith Demetrios Kremos, who was en route to Italy, prompted Sotirios to accompany him. In 1880 they opened a small shop in Naples, but were forced to close after they were burgled. As a result of the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), Italian troops captured Rome, resulting in the capital being moved from Florence where it had been since 1865. To Rome they ventured, but disagreements saw the two men part ways not long after their arrival. Undeterred, Sotirios established his own store in the spring of 1884 at Via Sistina. The street was located in a district known as the Tridente, encompassing three streets, Via del Corso, Via del Babuino and Via Frattina, popular with the locals, and wealthy foreigners, for their walks. In 1894, he was able to open another store on Via dei Condotti with a shop-front inscribed: “S. Bulgari- Argenteria Artistica, Antiquités, Curiosités, Bijoux”. By this date, Sotirios had become Sotirio, and he had Italianised his surname. He produced refined silver ornaments: buckles, oval medallions and girdles modelled in the Neo-Hellenic style, gold and silver jewels, and also traded in antiques and fashionable bric-à-brac. < A Tremblant Flower Brooch (1959) of diamond flower blossoms, set with a circular-cut fancy vivid yellow diamond pistil (3.38 carats), two smaller circular-cut fancy intense yellow and fancy intense brown diamond pistils (1.5 carats), with circular and baguette-cut diamond leaves and stems, set in platinum (8 x 5.6 cm). Gifted to Dame Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011) by her fourth husband Eddie Fisher (1928-2010) on the occasion of her 30th birthday, 27 February, 1962.

(Collection of Jennifer Tilly, USA). Installation photograph: Inga Walton.

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Sotirio’s firstborn, Constantino G. Bulgari (1889-1973), and his brother Giorgio L. Bulgari (1890-1966), gradually took over the running of the business.

Constantino was deeply interested in fine antique silver and decorative arts and chose to focus on that aspect, which also served as a suitable backdrop to the firm’s increased focus on fine jewels and gems.2 Giorgio concerned himself with the day-to-day running of the business: craftsmanship, design, and manufacture. In 1933 the Via dei Condotti premises was enlarged and redesigned to an imposing new standard, its façades and interiors conveying the preeminent position the Bulgari’s business now occupied. The Bulgari family not only participated in the mercantile and cultural life of the city, their wider civic contribution has also been recognised. Constantino and his wife Laura Gulienetti (1892-1966) sheltered and assisted Jews after the German occupation of Rome in September, 1943. For their wartime actions they were later recognised as Righteous Among the Nations at Yad Vashem, 31 December, 2003. Constantino and Giorgio were also active in covertly assisting Allied troops during World War II, for which they were recognised by Field-Marshal Harold Alexander, 1st Earl Alexander of Tunis, and the American Commander of the Mediterranean Theatre, General Joseph T. McNarney.3 Members of the third generation of the Bulgari family continue to devote themselves to the business and its global expansion. Constantino’s daughter Marina would establish her own jewellery company under the name ‘Marina B’, whose creative director is now her nephew Giorgio (the grandson of his namesake). Italian Jewels: Bvlgari Style at the National Gallery of Victoria (until 29 January, 2017) brings together over eighty examples of superb craftsmanship, demonstrating the stylistic evolution of the house. These include a number of signature designs such as the tremblant brooch, so-called because of the small springs of coiled wire that allow the parts to move with the wearer; the ‘Serpenti’ snake-shaped bracelet-watch; the ‘Monete’ (coins), ancient Greek and Roman coins mounted in gold; the ‘Melone’ evening bag; the ‘Tubogas’, a flexible tubular band of precious metal that is manufactured without soldering, used for bracelets and chokers; the revival of the sautoir necklace in the 1970s; and the modular Parentesi line introduced in the 1980s.

Drawn principally from the Bulgari Heritage Collection, the exhibition also includes pieces borrowed from the prominent Rome-based vintage and antique jewellery dealer Carlo Eleuteri, whose family are also of Greek extraction. On loan for the first time from the National Collection of Qatar is a Tiara (c.1930) of nineteenth-century inspiration. Nonetheless, it shows how the interplay of coloured gemstones, typical of the jewellery designs of the 1920s, was

Bvlgari Belissima / Inga Walton

displaced in favour of the monochromatic use of a platinum and diamonds arranged in geometric shapes that would characterise the coming decade. The Academy Award-nominated actress and poker player Jennifer Tilly has loaned several pieces from her personal collection, including an impressive turquoise and diamond parure (c.1969-72). Tilly acquired the group, comprised of a collar, ring, brooch and bangle set in gold, in 1993. “When I was having the necklace sized and fitted, the Bulgari archives told me it was a special commission jewel.

They shared the details and original drawing. I think it is nice to have a major piece, but I have never worn it. You need the right neckline like a strapless dress. You can’t wear it with just anything. One day I will wear it. The other pieces in the set, I have worn a million times”.4 It is usual for prestige jewellers such as Garrard (est. 1735), Mauboussin (est.

1827), Cartier (est. 1847), Tiffany & Co. (est. 1853), Boucheron (est. 1858), and Van Cleef & Arpels (est. 1896), to have an in-house archive. This might be comprised of designs, prototypes, customer orders and commissions, and works of significance that have been retained or reacquired over the years.

Bulgari elevates that practice to a different level with its large collection of around 750 pieces, including jewels, watches, accessories, vintage photographs and design concepts that are toured worldwide and loaned out for promotional purposes. “The supreme skill and care of hand drawings make them works of art in themselves, thus allowing [us] to enhance the artisanal mastery behind each Heritage piece, from the very first sketching to the in-workshop crafting.

The Maison started to build its historical archive of jewels, precious objects and sketches in the 1990s”, says Lucia Boscaini, curator for Bulgari Brand Heritage. “[The] Heritage Collection is the result of devoted research and archival work ... an inestimable asset for us as it encapsulates the essence of Bulgari.

Based in Rome, the Brand Heritage Department I lead is the official source of information about Bulgari’s history, the iconic motifs and Brand hallmarks, the endorsement of artists and celebrities from the past, and anecdotes about the provenance of the Heritage pieces”.

The company has a commitment to preserving important works from its past, and has a specific annual budget allocated for such ‘buy-back’ activities. “To this aim, we attentively scout the jewellery auctions worldwide to find out ‘must have’ pieces that epitomise the hallmarks of the Bulgari style or, on the other hand, allow us to discover less[er] known facets of the Bulgari creativity”, Boscaini explains. “As for the criteria, there is a precise purchasing strategy aiming to fill the chronological and stylistic gaps within the Heritage Collection with a particular focus on the decades 1930s-1970s. Even when the provenance NEXT SPREAD: Dame Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011) wears her Bulgari platinum, emerald and diamond tremblant flower brooch (as a hair ornament), Colombian emerald earrings, and emerald and diamond necklace with pendant/brooch at the United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) 20th 4 Anniversary Gala, Théâtre National de Chaillot, Paris, 15 December, 1967. © Olycom, Rome.

is very prestigious, as was the case with the [Elizabeth] Taylor pieces, the criteria is always a balance between the provenance and the craftsmanship [with] fine stones mounted on the jewel”.

Indeed, one of the best known, and most frequently seen, collections of Bulgari jewellery was that belonging to the actress and philanthropist Dame Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011). Throughout her life, Taylor was the recipient of numerous extravagant gifts of jewellery, both from her various husbands, and her prominent friends, such as the ‘King of Pop’ Michael Jackson (1958-2009) and publisher Malcolm Forbes (1919-90). Her vast array of jewels, including such historically important pieces as the ‘La Peregrina’ pearl (c.1579), the Nur Jahan diamond pendant (c.1627-28), the Prince of Wales diamond brooch (c.1935), a Fabergé egg pendant (c.1905), the Krupp diamond (33.19 carats), and the Taylor-Burton diamond (69.42 carats) was internationally renowned. Taylor also purchased and commissioned various pieces of jewellery for herself over the course of her long and distinguished career. In collaboration with the model Kathy Ireland and Mirabelle Luxury Concepts, she established the company House of Taylor Jewelry in 2005 to develop her own line of fine jewellery.

Taylor loaned sixteen of her Bulgari pieces to the first retrospective exhibition, Bvlgari: Between Eternity and History: From 1884 to 2009, 125 Years of Italian Jewels (2009) at the Palazzo delle Esposizioni in Rome. After her death, the bulk of Taylor’s jewellery and fashion collection was auctioned at Christies in 2011 to benefit the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. Bulgari Heritage reacquired a good proportion of the major pieces Taylor had owned. “Elizabeth once told me that she felt she was the custodian of her jewels, watching over them and loving them. Jewels were a source of pure happiness for her and she loved wearing them, because she could then share with others their magic powers of joy and excitement”, Paolo Bulgari, a grandson of Sotirio, revealed at the time of the sale. “For a jeweller like myself, there is nothing more gratifying than having the sensation of adding to the happiness of a client. That is why I feel so grateful to Elizabeth, because in choosing and wearing Bulgari jewels she gave them the inestimable added value of rare beauty and prestige. To me, her star will shine forever in the history of movies, and in the history of Bulgari as well”.5 As Taylor remarked, “Undeniably, one of the biggest advantages to working on Cleopatra [Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1963] in Rome was Bulgari’s nice little shop. I used to visit Gianni Bulgari in the afternoons and we’d sit in what he called the ‘money room’ and swap stories. He had a whole section of antique silver and gold samovars and huge tea sets and other bits for fine homes. And the jewellery? The exclusive crème de la crème pieces were tucked away in a small room”.6 While Bvlgari Belissima / Inga Walton

still married to fourth husband, singer Eddie Fisher (1928-2010), Taylor began a relationship with her co-star, the volatile Welsh actor Richard Burton, CBE (192584) who was playing Mark Antony in the film. As their immensely public and torrid romance both scandalised and titillated the world, Burton commented, “I introduced beer to Liz, and she introduced me to Bulgari”.7 The sprawling Bulgari headquarters at Via dei Condotti seemed to be at the epicentre of the marital drama playing out during the production. Fisher, who “well knew the therapeutic effect of jewellery on his wife, and was accustomed to buying her jewellery from Bulgari” presented her with a suite of white and yellow diamond jewels from the firm for her birthday in February, 1962.8 The gesture had little impact on the outcome of their marriage, however, and came with a financial sting for Taylor. “Richard and I had sworn not to see each other - not because of the press, but because of Sybil [Williams, 1929-2013], his wife.

My marriage to Eddie Fisher was already over. On this ‘occasion’ I had just turned thirty, and it was the most miserable day of my life”, she recalled. “The earrings, the ring and the brooch came as a total surprise from Eddie on my birthday. The whole set. I thanked him, but really I was just looking for some sign of something, anything, from Richard ... As for Eddie, in a couple of months he was out of the house, and a couple of months after that I received the bill for the jewellery. Did I end up paying the bill? - mmmm, probably”.9 The Tremblant Flower Brooch (1959) from this set was bought from the Christie’s sale by Jennifer Tilly. “I had a wish list of items for the Elizabeth Taylor auction in 2011. Most slipped away ... The astronomical prices of everything was making me think I wasn’t going to get anything”, Tilly admitted. “I was bidding against a guy in the room, which I thought was a good sign because most of the really big ticket items were going to people bidding over the phone.

He got really annoyed at me when the price kept going up. He actually pointed at me and asked, ‘Is she going to keep bidding?’ That’s when I put on my poker face and said ‘Maybe, maybe not.’ He finally stopped bidding and I got it. I have been on a meagre jewellery diet ever since! But I am thrilled I got such an iconic piece”.10 Tilly persevered to win the bid at over USD$1.14 million. “I love the story behind the brooch, which maybe isn’t romantic to some people but to me it was amazing”, she enthused. “Eddie Fisher gave it to Elizabeth at a dinner party in Rome where she was filming Cleopatra - and falling in love with her leading man Richard Burton. Two weeks after her birthday she left Fisher for Burton. Eddie hadn’t paid for the brooch yet so he sent the bill to Elizabeth who paid it! Elizabeth was notorious for getting people to buy her jewellery so I thought she must have wanted that brooch awfully badly to pay for it.” 11

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The first gift Burton bought for Taylor was a Ring (1961) from Bulgari featuring a 7.4 carat octagonal step-cut Colombian emerald with a radiating border of twelve pear-shaped diamonds (5.3 carats), which she later auctioned at Christie’s in 2002 to benefit the Elizabeth Taylor AIDS Foundation. Burton also requested that Bulgari deliver a selection of items to the Cleopatra set at Cinecittà Studios, where he picked out an emerald and diamond ring. As a bemused salesperson noted, “a few days later, a beautiful and elegant lady called at Bulgari’s and asked if the ring could be resized because it was too big”. The lady was not Taylor, but Mrs Sybil Burton; one can only speculate as to which of them received the larger rock!12 Taylor reminisced about her visits with Burton to the Rome store, “I used to get so excited, I would jump on top of him and practically make love to him in Bulgari”.13 Paolo Bulgari describes the selection process more sedately, “When [Burton] picked up a piece, he looked to [Taylor] to see her reaction; there was always an electricity in the air, a kind of telepathy so he always knew what she preferred. I think they had a very special relationship with jewels; they were a sort of completion of their love and a tangible symbol of the happy times they shared”.14 Taylor’s magnificent collection of emeralds from the firm centred around an impressive Necklace (1962), suspending a Pendant/Brooch (1958), both gifts from Burton. Taylor recounted another of their excursions to visit Gianni Bulgari when this set was presented for their appraisal, We simply gasped, and I thought, ‘Oh my God! I’ve got to have the emeralds’.

Gianni was so smart, because he didn’t just show us one piece, he showed us two different sets to choose from. The smaller of the two necklaces had a pendant that could also be worn as a brooch. So I tried them on, the huge one, then the smaller one, then the huge one, then the smaller one- the $100,000 limit was out the window. But I reasoned with Richard, ‘You see love, you can detach the pendant and wear it as a pin, so it’s really like getting two pieces for the price of one!’ We saw how beautiful it was both ways. The big diamonds around the brooch were 10 carats each ... Finally, I tried them each on one more time, and I said, ‘Richard, you know, I think I like the smaller one’.15 Pieces from Taylor’s collection of Bulgari jewels found their way into publicity and on-set photographs, and even into the films themselves when she wore them in The V.I.Ps (Anthony Asquith, 1963) and Boom! (Joseph Losey, 1968), opposite Burton, and later in Ash Wednesday (Larry Peerce, 1973).

LEFT: Dame Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011) receives her Bulgari-designed David di Donatello Award as Best Foreign Actress (Migliore Attrice Straniera) for Suddenly, Last Summer (Joseph L. Mankiewicz, 1959) in Rome, January, 1962. She wears her Bulgari platinum, emerald and diamond tremblant brooch, and diamond and pear-shaped emerald earrings (both 1960). © Accademia del Cinema Italiano, Rome.

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Bulgari has been associated with the Italian film industry since 1956 when the firm undertook to make the trophies for the newly established David di Donatello Award, Italy’s equivalent of the Oscar. Presented by L’accademia del Cinema Italiano (ACI), the design took the form of an 18-carat cast yellow gold miniature replica of the bronze version of David (1440s), held by the Museo Nazionale del Bargello in Florence, mounted on a malachite base. Some recipients, such as Marilyn Monroe (1926-62) in 1958, received the award in the form of a gold plaque with the image of the statue in relief. The David di Donatello Award was presented in nine further categories, all since ‘retired’, including Best Foreign Actor and Actress (1957-96), and Best Foreign Film Director (1966-90). Bulgari withdrew its services from the Award in 1960, but made several ‘David Speciale’ castings for the ceremonies in 2004 and 2005.

The popularity of the studio space at Cinecittà for international production companies led to it becoming known as ‘Hollywood on the Tiber’, owing to its expansive grounds, large sound stages, and the relatively low cost of labour.

MGM used Cinecittà for their epic films Quo Vadis (Mervyn LeRoy, 1951) and Ben-Hur (William Wyler, 1959), and it became closely associated with the Italian filmmaker Frederico Fellini (1920-93). It was Fellini’s La Dolce Vita (1960), with its iconic scene featuring the voluptuous Swedish star Anita Ekberg (19312015) frolicking in the Trevi Fountain, that ushered in a new era of glamour and opulence within the Italian capital. Bulgari played its part in this hedonistic narrative as the ‘go to’ purveyor of jewels for visiting stars, to the extent that fans, and the ubiquitous photographers, would congregate around the store hoping to catch a glimpse of its exclusive clientele. Appropriately enough, La Dolce Vita also ushered in the term ‘paparazzi’, named after the character of ‘Paparazzo’ (Walter Santesso), to describe their intrusive presence. Ekberg, who moved to Rome to consolidate her career, was quoted as saying, “Dolce vita is Roma, and Roma means Bulgari”.16 Internationally renowned Italian actresses who patronised Bulgari kept the firm’s work firmly in the public eye. Anna Magnani (1908-73), who would win the Academy Award for Best Actress for The Rose Tattoo (Daniel Mann, 1955), was known to have a large collection of Bulgari pieces that she wore frequently.

Actress and artist Gina Lollobrigida had a keen eye for jewels, as evidenced by three pieces formerly in her collection. She wore her diamond and pearl drop Earrings (1950) in the comedy Come September (Robert Mulligan, 1961), and often paired her diamond Convertible necklace (1959) with a pair of diamond Earrings (1964) featuring Colombian emerald pendants. “The flourishing Dolce LEFT: Gina Lollobrigida wearing a Bulgari necklace and earrings at the David di Donatello Awards, 1958. © Reporters Associati. NEXT SPREAD: Marcello Mastroianni (1924-96) and Sophia Loren in Prêt-à-Porter (Robert Altman, 1994). Loren wears a Bulgari Collection Internationale gold necklace comprising 48 rubies (59.33 carats) with baguette and brilliant-cut diamonds (13.94 carats) and matching earrings. (Grazia Neri Photo Agency, Milan).

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Vita epoch, when celebrities and notables from America came to Rome and discovered the Bulgari Condotti store, is key to narrate how Bulgari achieved an international fame. This is the reason why we invested a lot of effort to enrich this ‘glamorous’ angle within the Heritage Collection, incorporating pieces that belonged to famous actresses of those years, or with pieces from the 1950s-1960s very similar to the ones owned and loved by them, on and off the screen”, Boscaini observes.

Among Bulgari’s roster of famous clients, Ingrid Bergman (1915-82), Silvana Mangano (1930-89), and Sophia Loren wore Bulgari jewels in the films The Visit (Bernhard Wicki, 1964), Conversation Piece (Luchino Visconti, 1974), and Prêtà-Porter (Robert Altman, 1994), respectively. The artist and filmmaker Andy Warhol (1928-87) was fascinated by the interplay of colour, shape and design in Bulgari’s pieces, all aspects integral to his own practice. He visited the store whenever he was in Rome, “because it is the best exhibition of contemporary art”. Warhol favoured the ‘Monete’ style gold necklaces, such as one with a Roman bronze centenionalis coin of Emperor Constantius II (AD. 317-361) sold as part of his estate in 1988.17 For the film Casino (Martin Scorsese, 1995), jewels from Bulgari functioned as a plot-point when Las Vegas hustler ‘Ginger McKenna’ (Sharon Stone) becomes the wife of casino owner ‘Sam Rothstein’ (Robert De Niro). He cements their marriage by gifting her with an entire suitcase of Bulgari pieces, on the understanding that she will retain them as her personal property. “With over a million in cash and jewels tucked in a bank in Vegas only for Ginger, she was secure and happy - she loved that shit”, Rothstein boasts. When the marriage breaks down, and he reneges on their financial agreement, it precipitates the disintegration of his empire. Eva Perón (1919-52), the second wife of the Argentine President Juan Perón (1895-1974), was also a Bulgari client. The firm supplied period-appropriate jewellery for Madonna to wear in Evita (Alan Parker, 1996), including a replica diamond flower spray brooch.18 “After all, jewels and fashion combined closely together through time to reflect the history of costume, and of women too. The movie stars of the past, for example, often used to buy jewels for themselves as an expression of their taste and personality, thus heralding the dynamic and cultivated career women of the decades to come”, Boscaini contends.

When items from the Heritage Collection are not on display overseas in exhibitions like the present one, or on loan for fashion shoots and events, some are displayed in a designated space called Domvs, in the Via Condotti store. Consisting of two rooms, a parlour with boiseries and sofas displaying photographs and original sketches, and a small museum where the jewellery is Bvlgari Belissima / Inga Walton

housed; the spaces were converted from the offices of Paolo and Nicola Bulgari (sons of Giorgio L. Bulgari). “This space can be visited only by appointment and I have to say that so far the most enthusiastic visitors are the young designers attending design schools who come to experience first hand how a style took shape over the decades”, Boscaini relates. “Due to space constraints, and to the Heritage activities constantly planned all around the world only a small but very remarkable - part of the Heritage Collection is on display. Recalling the cabochon cut that Bulgari loves so much for gems, the ceiling is vaulted, lit up by crystal chandeliers ... [the] jewels are displayed in cases and units designed to resemble the modern columns of a hidden temple. Many creations [now part] of the Bulgari Heritage Collection were designed and conceived for the first time there, so the Domvs really hosts the heart of the Maison”.

Although she presides over an extraordinary collection of silverware, objets d’art and jewels worth millions of dollars, Boscaini does not hesitate to nominate her preference. “My favored piece is a Choker [c.1979] with lapis lazuli and rubies made of elliptical shapes with cabochon cut stones. It is joyful, colorful and epitomizes the most appreciated hallmarks of the Bulgari style, such as the daring color combinations, the perfect wearability, the round forms”. Although this piece is not in the current exhibition, there are plenty of others to daydream over - nose pressed to the glass of course!

ABOVE: Choker (c.1979), gold with rubies, sapphires, lapis lazuli, diamonds, 36 x 5 cm (Bulgari Heritage Collection, Rome).

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FOOTNOTES: 1 Amanda Triossi (Ed.), Bvlgari: Between Eternity and History: From 1884 to 2009, 125 Years of Italian Jewels, Thames & Hudson, London, 2009, p.241. 2 Constantino G. Bulgari would later publish Argentieri, Gemmari e Orafi d’Italia (1958-74), an authoritative five-volume directory of Italian silver hallmarks from all periods, which brought the firm to the forefront of dealers and connoisseurs in this field worldwide. 3 Daniela Mascetti & Amanda Triossi, Bvlgari, Abbeville Press, New York, 1996, p.24. 4 Marion Fasel, “Jennifer Tilly Tells Us About Her Beautiful Baubles”, InStyle [US], 26 September, 2013. [online] 5 François Curiel (Ed.), “The Collection of Elizabeth Taylor: The Legendary Jewels (Evening Sale)”, auction catalogue, Christie’s, New York, 2011, p.115. 6 Dame Elizabeth Taylor, My Love Affair With Jewelry, Thames & Hudson, London, 2002, p.56. 7 Amanda Triossi (Ed.), op cit, p.241. 8 Ibid. 9 Dame Elizabeth Taylor, op cit, p.111. 10 Marion Fasel, op cit.

11 Ibid. Tilly also loaned the brooch to the Minneapolis Institute of Art (MIA) for their showing of the Victoria & Albert Museum touring exhibition Italian Style: Fashion Since 1945 (2014-15). 12 Amanda Triossi (Ed.), op cit, p.241. 13 Alex Kuczynski, “Good Times and Bum Times, but She’s Here”, The New York Times (‘Sunday Style’ section), 29 September, 2002. 14 François Curiel (Ed.), op cit, p.115. 15 Dame Elizabeth Taylor, op cit, p. 59, 63. 16 Paola Di Trocchio & Amanda Dunsmore, Italian Jewels: Bvlgari Style, National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne, 2016, p.14. 17 Daniela Mascetti & Amanda Triossi, op cit, p.39. 18 Ibid, p.34.

ABOVE: Playing card sautoir (1972), gold, coral, mother-of-pearl, onyx, diamond, 58 x 1.8 cm (chain), 6.4 x 5.2 cm (pendant), the central section may be worn as a bracelet (19.5 x 1.8 cm).

(Bulgari Heritage Collection, Rome). Photo © Antonio Barrella Studio Orizzonte. LEFT: Ingrid Bergman (1915-82) in 1963 wearing Bulgari jewels on the set of The Visit (Bernhard Wicki, 1964).

Costume design by René Eugène Hubert (1895-1976), Academy Award nominee for Best Costume Design (Black-and-White), 1965. © Ingrid Bergman Archive-Wesleyan University Cinema Archives.

ITALIAN JEWELS BULGARI STYLE Level 3, National Gallery of Victoria (International), 180 St Kilda Road, Melbourne (VIC), until 29 January 2017 FREE ENTRY - ngv.vic.gov.au - bulgari.com

Desperately Seeking Fox

The Len Fox Painting Award Castlemaine Art Gallery

by Alexandra Sasse

> E. Phillips Fox, On the Mediterranean Coast (detail). c.1911, 38.0 x 45.5 cm, oil on canvas. Presented. 1935, Collection of Castlemaine Art Museum.

Categories. They are very useful things. All sorts of unlikely objects or ideas can be clumped together simply on the basis that they have one thing in common. Art historians tidily sweep works into certain little piles from which a narrative can be plotted. Post Impressionism can go over here, tuck Baroque back a bit, pop in those Futurists there, and now where did I put the Surrealists? It’s a helpful tool albeit with limitations.

In art things are always much more complex. An artist like any human being has a multiplicity of influences, yearnings and aims. And a trajectory of work over a lifetime can veer like a drunken sailor, as for instance in the case of Turner who for many years produced highly rendered topographical views and house portraits before his work transformed into almost completely abstract whirling vortices of light and colour.

If it’s hard to categorise either art or artist, you can imagine the difficulty of administering an art award that has a $50,000 purse for ‘a painting of an Australian subject in sympathy with the work of E. Phillips Fox.’ The artists trying to get their work before a judge might pause and wonder what exactly this means. They would probably look at Fox’s body of work and try to divine his motives and concerns. A mere stylistic similarity would be an inadequate response, but his motives are pretty clear. Fox’s work displays a strong academic base with an impressionist sense of colour, worked out in pictures of intimacy: the portrait, the interior, the genre scene. His attempt to reconcile Victorian narrative, tonalism and impressionism speaks of a cautious optimism. He was not the fearless experimenter, his was a mind that took in developments in painting and attempted to adapt and reconcile, not to breakdown and start over. His was essentially a conservative spirit.

None of this seems remotely connected to the selection of most of these pictures, and it is difficult to divine the raison d’etre for the exhibition’s content, the upshot of which is a somewhat incoherent mix. The field of 170 entries is tiny for such a fat purse, (the currently showing John Leslie Art Prize for landscape painting at Gippsland Art Gallery attracted 426 entries with a prize of $20,000) and may reflect the fact that many artists, taking the rules seriously,

Desperately Seeking Fox / Alexandra Sasse

considered their work ineligible. At my visit, three artists were in the room, in heated discussion about the criteria and its application.

So what did they hang, you might be wondering?

It’s quite a mix. Firstly, forget the Australian subject. Abstraction features loud and clear. I don’t for a moment buy the idea that if it’s by an Australian artist it’s of an Australian subject. That takes us into qualities entirely extrinsic to the work. Secondly, forget painting. John Nixon’s Briar Hill is a yellow canvas to which are collaged coloured bottle caps, some nattily showing their pretty silver underside, and pieces of coloured timber. It’s vibrant, has a certain sort of formal aesthetic balance which is pleasing but it’s not a painting.

Despite these difficulties, there are some very impressive paintings here, and some seriously good talent. Peter Wegner, known largely for his figure compositions offers us Thundercave, a swirling mass of his favourite chromium and pinks depicting sea thrusting upwards on the picture plane into a triangular shaped headland cave. There’s a little of Kossoff in it, the form arguing with the energetic storm of marks on the surface plane. Far removed but easily as good is Adriane Strampp’s small and delicately balanced First Light which offers us just a glimpse, like a dim memory of that intangible moment pre dawn when the world seems to float in a mystery, impenetrable to prose, where only poetry could make sense.

Jason Jones’ Stand of Grey Box could be the exemplar of a painting of ‘an Australian subject in sympathy with the work of E. Phillips Fox’. Its clump of eucalypts, in strong colour – neither realistic nor random – with simplified form and flattened space is neither old nor new in style, but a synthesis that I think Fox would have applauded. The same could be said of Janet Green’s Landscape Castlemaine, hung too high to be properly appreciated, but nevertheless wonderful. This painting of curving, looping, almost dancing eucalypts is entrancing. It’s realist in style but the note has been shifted just a half tone towards the surreal to induce a weirdly intoxicating mood. Restrained and harmonious in colour, the palest phthalo sky echoes the lichen covered granite boulders semi submerged in their citrus green and ochre undergrowth.

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These trees have been caught in a bacchanalian revelry, and driving back towards the city, I saw them everywhere. Kenneth Felstead’s Mt Sargeant, Sutton Grange likewise has a bit of the spirit of Fox and is vibrant and competently handled. Lynne Boyd’s tranquil high key Whistlerian seascape Pageant is a delicately balanced composition of the palest orange with warm and cool blues singing through layers and drips.

There is merit in winner Prudence Flint’s Wash, but it is easily equalled by several other pictures here. Art prizes are a little like supermarket shopping trolleys. You can leave one next to almost any car in the car park, and sure enough a whole clutter of them will shortly appear. Art judges seem as fond of precedent as those practicing law; if an artist has won something before, it is much more likely they will win again.

It’s a safe choice and an opportunity for Castlemaine to acquire a solid mid career artist’s work. Flint’s painting brings to mind John Brack, her formal concerns and distorted figure create a ponderous intimacy; mundane activities made timeless with a sense of cool detachment.

It’s terrific to see serious money being contributed to the vital and vibrant tradition of Australian painting. A clear premise for an exhibition, such as the bequest outlines, should give coherence to a show and guidance to entrants. However, those elastic words ‘interpret’ and ‘contemporary’ (not in the rules but on the website description of the prize) have led to an exhibition padded with the mediocre and laced with the irrelevant. This misguided approach leaves Fox out of the picture.

The Len Fox Painting Award 2016, Castlemaine Art Gallery, 14 Lyttleton Street, Castlemaine (VIC), until 31 December 2016 castlemainegallery.com

> Prudence Flint, Wash, 2015, oil on linen. Reproduced courtesy of the artist and Australian Galleries. Winner of the 2016 Len Fox Painting Award.

dec / jan salon

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1. PJ HARVEY, Fremantle Arts Centre, 1 Finnerty St, Fremantle (WA) Tues 17 January 2017 | 6–10pm | South Lawn | Bar Open | 18+ Tickets $95.70 from fac.org.au 2. Hendrik Kerstens, Bag 2007, pigment ink-jet print, 62.5 x 50.0 cm, courtesy of the artist. Dutch masters of light: Hendrik Kerstens and Erwin Olaf, Monash Gallery of Art (MGA), 860 Ferntree Gully Road, Wheelers Hill (VIC), until 4 December 2016 - mga.org.au 3. Georgina Cue, Light works 2012, acrylic yarn on tapestry canvas, hard wood. Courtesy of the artist. Photographer: Christo Crocker. & 4. Anne Zahalka, Lost Lynx 2006, Ilfaflex Type C print. Edition of 10 + 2 A/Ps. Courtesy of the artist and Arc One Gallery, Melbourne. & 5. Chris Bond, Vogue Hommes, September 1986, mirror (detail, front and spine) 2014, oil on linen. Courtesy of the artist, Darren Knight Gallery, Sydney, and THIS IS NO FANTASY + dianne tanzer gallery, Melbourne. Photographer: Joanne Moloney. & 6. Georgina Cue, The Necker Cube 2010, acrylic yarn, tapestry canvas, pine wood.

Courtesy of the artist. Photographer: Crystal Dunn. Tricking the eye— contemporary trompe l’oeil, Geelong Gallery, 55 Little Malop Street, Geelong (VIC), until 12 February 2017 - geelonggallery.org.au 7. Jason deCaires Taylor, Vicissitudes (detail) 2011, Installation view: depth 5m. Grenada, West Indies. Courtesy of the artist ©Jason deCaires Taylor. Human/Animal/ Artist: Art Inspired By Animals, McClelland Gallery + Sculpture Park, 390 McClelland Drive Langwarrin (VIC), 20 November 2016 – 19 February 2017 - mcclellandgallery.com 8. Auguste Rodin (France, 1840–1917), Andrieu d’Andres, monumental 1886 (Coubertin Foundry, cast 1989), Paris bronze. William Bowmore AO OBE Collection. Gift of the South Australian Government, assisted by the Art Gallery of South Australia Foundation 1996 Art Gallery of South Australia, Adelaide. Versus Rodin: Bodies Across Space & Time, Art Gallery of South Australia, North Terrace, Adelaide (SA), 4 March – 2 July 2017 - artgallery.sa.gov.au

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TRAVELS IN

PART FOUR

Being handed the keys to the moment ...

On the map of Clownland, we have to now go a bit off to the left, then quite far south, into the country, to a railway hotel decorated with old guns and pictures of football teams.

Lifon Henderson was born into a new-age clown family. He has always been a clown. When asked to define Clown Lifon talked about using your mind and what’s around you to entertain. He talked about a freedom to interact, a freedom that comes from being given permission to be in charge. When I ask if he has ever misused that he said no, instantly, and looked quite shocked.

Lifon said ‘It’s a privilege. There is nothing like that privilege; a room full of people handing you the keys to the moment.’

‘I’m willing to show I’m an idiot,’ he said. ‘I’m no better than anyone. I guess it’s the opposite of bullying - where a bully will tell you “Look this is how it is, I’m in charge, and a fool will say - this is how it is, I’m wrong, you’re in charge.’

WATCH Lifon Henderson mash ‘Seven Nation Army’ by the White Stripes and ‘Closer’ by Nine Inch Nails, accompanying himself on the ukulele on YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R-2al1y-pKo

I asked ‘Is there any difference between you and who you are when you are performing?’

‘That is one of the biggest things I struggle with; that moment when I finish performing and get out of costume and see that I am no longer allowed to say anything I want. Maybe that’s just my perception but you can’t go up to someone you don’t know and say “hey what’s your favourite song- let me sing you a song and stand here for ten minutes and have a chat and then we’re going to get those people over there to join in”. That’ he paused ‘generally doesn’t happen. And that’s sad.

In any different situation you could be a fly on the wall and there’d be a clown, in every group of people at any moment anywhere - whether they’re being paid or not. But then people want to pay for it as well, and that’s what a clown is, isn’t it? When people start paying for you to do it? Is that when clown becomes Clown? People want to have fun and they’re having an event and they want their event to be fun, or they’re having a party and they want their party to be fun, and the general malaise in society thinks that fun just happens but ...’

I interrupted him. ‘Do you agree with that?’

‘Yes, fun does just happen, if you are fun. You know what I mean?

Concentrating on making fun happen is not fun, so you have to be it.’

My summary thus far ...

Clown is: ... a fresh willing idiot ... that sees the obstacles in life and makes fun of them ... that defuses the tensions, that has been given permission; handed the keys to the moment. They are ‘some serious personnages who through some blunder on the part of a celestial travel agency, landed from the other side of Arcturus, on the wrong planet.’

The odd way a clown looks focuses our attention because it does not fit our facial recognition process. And if some sort of understanding or training is not present then a clown costume does not a clown make.

It’s not about being the best, - it’s about just doing it. If ‘the best’ happens to also happen, that’s ok. If you are willing to take risks then you are in the game.

Clown Dares; Build a bridge and get over it, do shows again, and smuggle a pair of clown shoes across a border.

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PART TWO: The First Dare The Clown Shoes, and Boxing Gloves, and the ‘not’ a hula hoop I was at the airport. I had two suitcases. One held clown shoes. Two pairs of very large, very dirty clown shoes. The other suitcase was packed with toys. They belong to Wacko and Blotto. They have told me that the way to understand clown better is to courier their clown shoes across a border or two.

I said yes.

That means I am going to Brisbane.

I also had a bundle of hula hoops, and a case of things for a show because Rani Huszar has not only dared me to step back up to performing but also helped to arrange a festival in which to do so. It is in Canada. I have said yes.

Something about ‘being given the keys of the moment’, the feeling of making a crowd of people laugh. I feel like being a ‘fresh willing idiot’. Whether I can do it is another matter. Maybe the specialists were right? Maybe my smashed foot would not allow me to perform?

I checked them all; cases, bags, hoops, hopes and fears, in at the airport counter.

I wonder if the lady that works for the airline; powdered, immaculate, scented, can smell the clown shoes. I am lucky this is not Schipol airport in Amsterdam, or Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow. I wonder if they would be considered a biohazard.

I made it through the x-ray and security machines.

I made it on the plane.

Whether the Clown shoes do or do not make it through is yet to be discovered. God knows what substances they may have absorbed in their time around Wakko and Blotto’s feet, in the caravan.

Or is that just my over active imagination? I’ve never travelled with Clown shoes before. What do they look like in x-ray? There is of course no real danger here. The Clown shoes pose no threat to anyone. Wacko and Blotto just left their shoes behind and need them, but it is a welcome distraction from my real nervousness. Do I still know how to do it; how to get into the zone - that state; Clownland?

I’m taking risks but at least I’m in the game.

Clownland / Judith Lanigan

Brisbane’s winter is soft. You cannot even really call it a winter; it is a gesture at winter, a few cooler months. Southbank Parklands, just over the bridge crossing the Brisbane river from the city center, is a place where clowns have gone to make a new show, or to work when they are not representing their country at high profile international festivals, royal command performances, or in between winning international prizes for exceptional street theatre.

In the past the administration of the tourist precinct had realized that this was something to be encouraged. They had put in infrastructure to make it easier for the artists to do this- for example a lock-up box in which to store their props and equipment between shows.

This was where I was headed.

As it turned out it was not easy. The administration had changed. There was no longer a place to store gear between shows. Where before there had been a cafe, there was now sprawled a bar blaring out ‘popular’ music.

Street performing is possibly the most rigorous of performance spaces. If the audience’s attention wanders, so do they. If you cannot hold their attention they are gone.

I was trying hard to make it work, so I wasn’t in the moment. I just couldn’t seem to step into the ‘zone’. I just couldn’t seem to overcome the set of circumstances. I was supposed to be earning a plane ticket to perform at an international festival, but I couldn’t even draw a crowd.

I did my best and most difficult tricks and sequences of tricks. The audience seems to want something more so I tried harder, and then tried and tried and tried harder. I did my best to impress with my most difficult hoop manipulations and separations.

It really wasn’t working.

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Three Clowns are in a van heading home from performing at a festival. You are driving. You have all had a couple of drinks. You hear a police siren signaling you to pull over. You do. You say ‘What seems to be the problem Officer?’

You hear this. ‘Driver, get out of the car with your hands up.’

You do. You are handcuffed and put in a police wagon. The wagon has windows so you can actually see what’s going on.

Another police car pulls in behind, a police car blocks you in from the front. One blocks the road from the side. There are now four police cars and a police van.

They draw their guns.

The other two clowns are in shock. Where they come from police don’t carry guns. You can see they are sitting there looking at each other with their hands up.

You can’t hear them but they are saying to each other ‘Did they tell us to put our hands up?’ ‘No I don’t think so’...’ and ‘what did we do, we haven’t done anything wrong’.

The police shout ‘Passengers, leave the car with your hands raised.’

Inside the car they are wondering ‘how do we open the car door with our hands in the air?

The police get Clown 2 out first and put him in a car by himself. They ask him who he is, and what he does. He is a Clown. He tells them that. The policeman goes back to his car and radio.

Clown 3 has watched too many TV shows and does what he has seen on them - with his hands in the air he steps carefully and slowly sideways in a sort of crab walk, moves over to a police car, puts his hands on the roof and spreads his legs apart, waiting to be searched. He is yelled at and put in a patrol car.

Meanwhile Clown 3 is asked ‘how do you know the other guys?’ He is very nervous. His voice gets higher and faster and he speaks. He says ‘I met them because I’m a clown, and the other guy is a clown, and I met the other because he taught me clown. We’re all clowns.’

“The other two clowns are in shock.

Where they come from police don’t carry guns.”

The policemen reconvene close enough for you to hear what they say. One policeman says to the other ‘This guy is saying he’s a clown.’ The other nods.

‘This guy says he is a clown too.’ They say ‘looks like we’ve picked up a pile of clowns.’

You can see clown 2 taken out of the police car and led to the van. They open the back. You see them motion to the case which holds his show props. There is some discussion about this.

Clownland / Judith Lanigan

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You watch as he takes out a massive boxing glove, it is nearly as big as he is.

Clown 2 is demonstrating what he uses the massive boxing glove for. It is very, very soft and as he explains this to the policeman he punches him very lightly in the head, to demonstrate that they are not dangerous, and that this is what he does in the show.

You watch him punch the policeman with the massive boxing glove.

And that’s when the doors to the paddy-wagon fly open …

But in the end they say ‘get out of the car, clown,’ and the policeman unhandcuffs you. He says ‘You can go. You’re not the clowns we’re looking for.’

(As told by Fraser Hooper, Shay Horay and Eric Amber, to the Buskers Hall of Fame)

You have just met Fraser Hooper. He was Clown 2 in the episode of the Boxing Gloves. The Boxing Gloves are his. Boxing is his current touring show and it’s played worldwide over the last four years.

Fraser Hooper is a well known international clown and clown teacher who lives in Wellington New Zealand. Two years ago he had a gig at a clown festival in Slovenia, the first gig of a long four month European tour. He needed some new giant gloves which are hard to find where he lives, so he found some online, but not from his usual supplier who were out of stock.

Fraser said ‘I had them sent to my parents house in London where I grew up.

I phoned my father the day before I left and he said that they had arrived. I was concerned about their size as this was the main gag in the show but he assured me they were huge and he had already tested them out by punching my mum. (!) The clown festival was the next day after I landed, so there was no room for any hiccups. When I saw the new gloves my suspicions were confirmed, they were much too small, in fact only slightly bigger than any normal boxing gloves.’

He had no choice, he said ‘the festival had bought the Boxing show so I had to take them with me. When it came to the Boxing finale I gave my male audience volunteer his normal size gloves and went to get the slightly bigger ones. There was barely a smile from the audience as I entered wearing them, and then we commenced the fight. Usually the routine is a winner but this was different, it was a real fight and I don’t know how to box. The audience just watched aghast as we slugged at each other hoping that no one would get hurt.

I survived and luckily tracked down in time the right size huge boxing gloves before the next gig.’

Another time Fraser had flown to an international festival but was called in to speak to Immigration before he had picked up his bags, and in that time his case had disappeared. He was left with no show equipment. A colleague, David Aitken, drove Fraser to every Vancouver charity shop until he replaced every Clownland / Judith Lanigan

prop, except the gigantic boxing gloves. The girlfriend of another performer, Janet Guenther, whom Fraser had never met before, hand stitched a brand new pair of gloves.

Fraser said ‘I was blown away. This would have taken her, from my experience, about twenty-four hours of sewing. They were fantastic and also twice the size of my normal huge boxing gloves. It was a wonderful feeling. A week later, after many phone calls, my bag arrived. It turned out a transiting passenger bound for Edmonton had a similar bag and picked up mine by mistake. I would have loved to have seen his face when he opened it.’

Fraser is English but lives in New Zealand and has taught clown in Ireland, Belgium, Spain, Finland, Korea, Japan, Singapore, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, the UK, and at the time of our conversation was teaching in Rovaniemi, the home of Santa Claus. In Rovaniemi you see the aurora borealis up to two hundred nights a year. Northern-most Finland is a long way to go to work.

He said ‘Clown is at its best when audiences witness those golden moments that open their hearts to emotion. I see my craft as trying to get close to these golden moments; they are rare. It involves taking the audience with me into dangerous areas where it might all go horribly wrong. This isn’t reckless behaviour, quite the opposite.’

Frazer dared me to try finding ways to use the hula hoop not as a hula hoop and I added that to my list.

It’s actually not easy to play with the hoop without treating it like a hula hoop, when you’ve been a circus hula hoopist for years. I stumble and fumble, and think too much.

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Pat Bath aka Dirty Pat said ‘Good clown shows are really made in front of an audience. You can rehearse and rehearse a show, but find when it is performed to an audience that you don’t react to how the audience responds. With an audience you instantly know. I’ve done shows in front an audience and then completely changed it because I saw how the audience responded. For me I like every moment to count on some level. And the best Clowns are made in front of audiences. You can’t think about it esoterically and go out there and expect it to be good. You’ve got to be prepared to be bad, until you work it out. And as you get older that can get harder. It’s scarier to allow yourself to be bad. You can’t really just start off being good at something.’

He is right. It’s been three years of not doing street shows since my smashed foot. Sometimes I do good. And sometimes I do very not good.

Each day the show changes a bit in response to the audience feedback, in applause or attention, and it feels like the audience is acting as my director.

The show takes on a bit more depth, and each day I have to think less and less about the sheer mechanics of what I’m doing and can spend a little more time trying to get close to being in the present, where the magic happens. Like Fraser said, it is a search for the rare golden moment.

I had just finished doing a show. It had been a long day of sweat and sunburn. I was feeling a bit discouraged, wondering what this all about, really?

Was I just an exhibitionist? Did I really have anything to offer the world? I had my case on a trolley and a pack of hula hoops over my shoulder, and was headed towards the taxi rank when a woman came over to me.

‘Excuse me,’ she said. ‘I just wanted to say thank you.’

She gestured to where her husband stood in the shade with a wheelchair.

‘My daughter has cancer; we’ve just taken her out of the hospital for an outing.

She laughed for the first time in ages. Thank you. It’s been really hard to get her interested in anything. And now she’s talking about trying hula hooping.’

I thanked her and impulsively took a small hula hoop from the stack and gave one to her for her daughter. I walked away feeling not quite so tired after all.

There is a difference between showing off, and stepping into a moment that you and an audience can share.

THAT WAS THE LAST INSTALLMENT OF CLOWNLAND in Trouble – the book is available at all good, bad and indifferent bookstores now.

Judith Lanigan is the daughter of a journalist and a detective. She studied her circus specialty – hula hoops – at the Moscow State Circus School and documented her experiences in A True History of the Hula Hoop, published

by Picador in 2009. This series is extracted from her latest book, Clownland, released by Aerofish Media in August 2016 - judithlanigan.com.au

FINDING THE ART IN

Phuket

Looking for Art in All the Right Places

by Anthony S. Cameron

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Let’s get the introductions out of the way first. Readers, meet Maailay.

Maailay, meet the readers. Maailay is a touch on the shy and timid side, but she will warm up to you as we make our way through this piece. An initial sniff of you and she’ll work the rest out later. And then there is me, we’ll call me ‘Tony’, and I’ve already checked out your scent. Let’s just say I reckon we’re in for an illuminating ride. I am the conveyer of these words and, more importantly, the owner and driver of The Sidecar, the vehicle that delivers us up and down the western coast of Phuket, onto the debris strewn beaches that for us (I think it’s OK if I speak for Maailay here) are some kind of paradise of possibility.

Oh yeah, just so you know. Its Maailay’s sidecar, OK? For a while I was labouring under the false impression that it was mine, given I had paid for it and get it repaired a lot. Lucky for me, Maailay straightened me out on that one in the early days. I was her driver and adventure creator and there was no reason to get ahead of myself now, was there?

So readers, allow me to introduce the third main character in this piece: The Sidecar.

As you can see rust has taken a firm hold on the old girl, but with judicious use of spray paint and the cover-up technique that is the norm here, this is what you get: rust bleeding through layers of mismatched paint. We love her just the way she is.

Sidecar may be a touch on the dull side when empty, but when she is laden with the day’s collection of fishing boat timber, cigarette lighters and driftwood, and with Maailay perched on top with that mad grin that looks like it is trying to split her face in two, then the old girl is quite a sight!

Our backdrop is the mad, messy roads and stunning coastline of Phuket, with its lonely northern beaches as our mecca. The soundtrack is the crash of waves, the splash of food hitting hot oil, the staccato hum of the ubiquitous Honda click, the gloomy whoosh of the wind through the majestic Casuarinas that line the northern beaches, and the thump of the long tail boats as they push through the monsoon swells with the ease of an elderly gentlemen on an afternoon stroll. The scent is pure, unmistakable Thailand: tantalising wafts of

Finding the Art in Phuket / Tony Cameron

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barbequed chicken and Papaya salad, crispy, deep fried holy basil and morning glory mixed with the sweet smell of fried pork; and the thick salty, warm air coming off the Indian Ocean, bringing with it the rain that rejuvenates us all.

So, I think that just about covers the intros, let’s get on with it then.

Let me just say at the outset that Sidecar probably feels the hardest done by on our little adventures up the coast. Outside of a perfunctory check that there is in fact some oil in the engine and a glance at the tyre pressures as I hop on, Sidecar undergoes no mental preparation for the impending onslaught of steep hills, police checkpoints and curvy roads. Not to mention the load of driftwood and lighters I will be asking Sidecar to carry as the day wears on. I have been known to whisper to Maailay “Let’s not tell her yet, ok?” conspiratorially as we casually fuel up at the service station and, now having written that, I can see why the staff at that fuel stop look at me the way you look at someone who is ‘touched’, I think it used to be called.

And to them I guess I am. I mean, I do smile a lot and talk to my dog around other people and I am one of the few farang here who rides a sidecar instead of a new plastic step-through and it is often full of what looks like rubbish … hmmmm, I can see why they might think that now.

So, now seems a good time to give you a bit of context for our driftwood adventures. This is Thailand, and not only that, this is Phuket, one of the world’s most popular holiday destinations. This island is some kind of strange Thai anomaly, being set-up for tourism and expat retirees. There’s plenty of wealth here and construction never seems to stop, but at the end of nearly every street there is also a Burmese ghetto constructed from roofing offcuts and broken cinder blocks that houses the illegal labour that makes it all possible. The third world and the first world on the same street.

Thais are used to seeing rich farang driving new cars and shiny motorcycles, not rusty old sidecars made from rebar and driftwood. And if you happen to be smiling and talking to your dog a lot as you ride, then I guess you are going to stand out a bit.

So anyway, you know, we’re cool with that.

At 7a.m Phuket is still asleep as we creep through the Nai Harn back streets and head for Kata Hill, the first of many ‘hills’ Sidecar will have to endure before the day is done . I build up speed on the corner near the first elephant farm and the shooting range (a strange combination of businesses I would have thought) and watch as Maailay leans into the corner as I put as much torque Finding the Art in Phuket / Tony Cameron

onto the back wheel as I can without starting to slide sideways towards the open concrete drains that run along the edge of the road. I gear down a little too early and make the engine race as it searches for grip on the road again, and at the same time go full throttle as I feel the gradient increase. Sidecar is up to the task, and before I know it we are passing the second and third elephant camps, where I find myself watching Maailay twist her head and look quizzically at the massive beasts enslaved in chains. I try to imagine what she might make of them. They must smell really cool to her, that’s for sure.

The last corner approaches and we go down to second gear and swing ourselves sideways around the slippery early morning corner and I swear Maailay shoots me a look mid –corner, as if to say, ‘WTF?’ so I straighten the Sidecar up, ease off the throttle and cruise on up the road to View Point, the top of the Kata hill.

It’s too early for even the most keen tourist so , instead of the usual array of tuk tuk’s and minivans, we find our view unimpeded as we round the corner and the West Coast of Phuket stretches out before us full of the promise that only early morning can bring.

“This place is fucken beautiful,” I shout to no-one in particular, as we head down the other side of the hill into the waiting arms of Kata beach.

We are looking for art on the most unlikely of islands.

And we are on our way.

ANTHONY S. CAMERON is an Australian ex-pat living in Phuket, Thailand, and the author of two novels, Driftwood (2014) and Butterfly on Bangla (2015).

Born in Melbourne, he escaped in his early twenties to central Victoria, where he designed and built a sustainable house, raised two sustainable children. His books are available on Amazon here.

Pics by Roxy Cameron.