WHT WORD HURL TIMES MAGAZINE: POETRY, SHORT STORIES, ART AND ARTICLES
ISSUE ELEVEN: 11:11
Edited by David Graham Subeditor: Carlin McLellan Graphic Designer: Bek Park Photography & Art Director: Genevieve Graham WHT acknowledge the Awabakal people, the traditional custodians of the land this publication was created on. We pay respect to elders past, present and future. Thank you to everyone who has contributed to this magazine. This publication may be reproduced and distributed freely in its entirety. Individual pieces remain the copyright of their author.
CONTENTS 04
EDITORIAL:
05
POETRY:
06
POETRY:
ERIN FOSTER
10
INTERVIEW:
TODD FULLER
13
ART:
AMELIA BAXTER
14
POETRY:
16
POETRY:
18
POETRY:
19
SHORT STORY:
BRAD EVANS
23
POETRY:
KAIT FENWICK
DAVID GRAHAM MICHAEL COLLINS
JASON IREDALE
ERIC WERKHOVEN THOMAS LONSDALE
EDITORIAL David Graham
As the snake drew itself up, posed to lash out at any oncomer, Juniper saw no reason not walk to the fridge and retrieve another bottle of beer. The sun was coming through the shed window and the dog seemed to be taking care of the serpent by itself. It wasn’t until there was a loud hiss, a cessation of barking followed by a bedraggled yelp that Juniper remembered that it was cats that were adepts at killing snakes, not dogs. You see, a cat’s agility and stealth can quickly outwit a legless reptile’s cold blooded aggression whereas a dog’s guileless assault always ends in disaster. Needless to say, when Juniper returned to the corner, the snake was coiled up in docile slumber with a Fido shaped bulge halfway along its endless ribcage. In this fort-month’s episode we celebrate the phenomenon of looking at a clock when it’s 11:11 by a series of works by various artists that you wouldn’t have looked at unless it meant something.
4
EDITORIAL
you look like someone I should know MICHAEL COLLINS
You look like someone I should know He spoke to his own ghost Have I not seen you somewhere before? Then be my guest I am your host. “I am here to take you home” The ghost gravely replied It was a heart-stopping moment It was- indeed- the night he died. Deals were proposed (they usually were) But death would not be swayed No one makes bargains this late in life “You are mine I am afraid”. Drinks were poured, food was proffered All (as one might expect) to no avail Time draws on my pallid friend Your soul it must set sail. Well such was life- I did not notice It has all gone by the way… Is there a library where we are heading? If not… I want to stay.
POETRY
5
I can’t tell you that love sux
ERIN FOSTER
6
POETRY
POETRY
7
8
POETRY
POETRY
9
INTERVIEW WITH TODD FULLER Genevieve Graham
Todd Fuller is a Sydney based artist with a practice that integrates sculpture, animation, drawing, performance and painting to construct narratives drawn from personal experience and observations. Recently Todd co-curated Just Draw with Lisa Woolfe at Newcastle Art Gallery which will also be showing at Bathurst Regional Art Gallery.
It is here that I first saw Todd’s handdrawn animation Little Star based on the 11th dog sent into space. Like other dogs in the program, it endured extreme conditions as a scientific experiment into the effects of orbital travel on a living creature.
Genevieve: I enjoyed that for Just Draw you paired your animation with the hand drawn stills you used to create the work. Can you briefly tell us more about the process of creating Little Star? Todd: Little Star started with a single drawing of a dog watching a shooting star. At the time I didn’t know what Little Star was about. With research came connections around the Russian orbital program and the bittersweet nature of success. Additional personal layers influence the narrative with motifs like my father and a neighbour’s home in Braxton creeping into my drawings until they become key characters and settings. Seven months (and some 3600 stills) later, I organised and edit the stills into a loose, somewhat ambiguous narrative. The actual process is one of observation, drawing and re-drawing. I literally take a subject; draw, photograph, erase and and re-draw it (making slight changes and each time). The process enables me to simulate movement. As I continue to draw, one frame after the other, the imagery generated offers opportunities for transformation or movement. Nothing is really planned, it is more a process of chasing down a character while meditating on an idea.
10
INTERVIEW
Todd Fuller - Untitled (Little Star 1) 2014, Charcoal, chalk, ink and acrylic on paper, 73 x 105cm Brenda May Gallery
Todd Fuller - Untitled (Little Star 7) 2015 charcoal and ink on paper 29.5 x 42cm Brenda May Gallery ART
11
Genevieve: In a world that’s fast paced and all about instant results it’s so refreshing to see traditional modes of animation being used. What inspired you to create animations in this way? Todd: The animation process is intrinsically about time, not just the amount of labour which goes into creating it but also understanding how to manipulate time- how to not just make things move, but move fast or slow and with conviction. I have always loved this process, it allows you to breath motion to the motionless, conjure anything I like. At the risk of sounding trite, I can literally bring my sketchbook to life. My first animations were of dancers and dance has been a big passion of mine, in a lot of way this process really just combines these two loves by enabling my drawings to dance…in a way. Genevieve: When I visited your page on the Brenda May Gallery Website underneath Little Star was the following poem. Why did you choose to attach this poem to Little Star? By night one way, by day another, the spinning ball of blue and the others of light. One falls from the sky. The dream. To catch that ball, to be that star. Todd: At the core of my practice is my sketchbook. My sketchbooks are always with me and a daily part of my life. In them, I make mistakes, explore ideas, record observations, generate satire and get to know my characters before they are ever realised on film. Here, drawings are accompanied by meanderings of consciousness, snippets of conversations, quotes, observations and annotations. In the case of some films, the somewhat random writings from my sketchbooks feel like an appropriate way to allude to ideas or suggest an entry point to a narrative or film.
12
INTERVIEW
looking cool on the rooftop at The Swamp AMELIA BAXTER
ameliabaxter.net
ART
13
Loops, Acts & Waves
JASON IREDALE
Looking through starlight pop groups of travelling, riverside actor’s troupes. This dull darkness is too frightening. So in the beginning; God created loops. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Wake up Look for food Hide from fear Love your friends Go to bed
Every day, same story; every deal, same dowry. The mouse eats the cheese; the cat licks the fleas. “Stop it. Stop it.You’re just horny.” These are written, natural facts; but people said that the Earth was flat. We overthought Shakespeare’s works. So by turning loops into words; God created acts. 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
14
Wake up Farm for food Face your fears Love your lover Go to bed
POETRY
There are too many colours on the page; they have started to sink into the stage. Owls only stay for the night, they have stopped searching for the light. At least the bats can’t find the sage. To make the acts last for days; The vicious vandals vrote a vew plays. Dogs and cats are looped with laziness; when they forgot their animal business, God created waves.
1. 2. 3. 4. 5.
Wake up Cook your food Face your fears Wed your partner Go to bed
POETRY
15
Essay
ERIC WERKHOVEN
To unfold and speak to me afterwards, in a hall where no one is there and you can hear a pin fall. Where the Autumn echoes, lay embedded in the floorboards. And you cry for the bodies that lay in a heap in the corner. Limbs flung out like bird wings on the road. These gruesome images lay submerged in our mind. I had to look twice, if not a hundred times at something that isn’t there. Along these meandering passages, that seek to distract us, from so many unimportant events, worthy of some mention. ‘Love’ that so eagerly waited, with a present of a life time. With a song of a bird and men beating down the vegetation, mowing, harpooning. Cleaning up the immaculate, stupid dreams. Where the incredulous portrays a different picture.
16
POETRY
Free falling along these cascades, where in pools of milky white mists, people’s faces emerge and fall away. Hands reach out and grab at something else. Subjective devices, lay down another oracle, for a man to follow his hunches. So we are back onto the drawing board. Pen and paper at gun point level. Poised feather in a hand, crippled with Arthritis. Skirmishes, I hope for peace to wax firm. For the candle to burn in the ink blackness of unconsciousness. Or just for the living to believe in something.
Eric Werkhoven Š 2016
POETRY
17
Fun Fact
THOMAS LONSDALE
Fun fact Crows remember faces An experiment by a university in america put one bird through it’s paces Do you think they knew that fire keeps burning when they played with that bastard for the sweet sake of learning Did it come as a shock when that bird from the test Went lurking after that ornithologist with murderous zest Speaking of murder - that crow brought it’s friends A group of crows is called a murder if you didn’t know Fun fact Crows describe people The language barrier is no major steeple No muss, no fuss, no fancy simplistic rhyme scheming Just following an urge so simple; it’s screaming Fuck it up. See crows can swear too And bringing some pals in on the malevolent clue Question If a bird can remember a person they met once Why don’t people I saw every month Remember me?
18
POETRY
Incident at Seagrove Caravan Park Part 2. BRAD EVANS
I looked at Mick completely stunned. ‘No shit?’ ‘Full on. She had taken his body somewhere private, completely undressed him. They found the dead guy with an erection and it looked like she’d been working him big time.’ ‘ No fucking way!’ ‘Yes, way! Somehow she’d made the guy hard. It wouldn’t be difficult with a piece of arse like that humping you, eh!’ ‘Yeah, she is fucking hot!’ I had to agree with Mick on that one. ‘But that’s her thing, you see. Which is why you don’t see anybody around her much.’ ‘Is it because they know about her past?’ ‘No, that was really hushed up. I don’t think anybody else here knows about that. She just likes to be left alone.’ ‘Fucking hell! This would make a good story.’ Mick laughed, ‘I thought you’d want to write about this one.’ ‘It may be just bullshit, though, ‘ I shrugged. ‘How can you prove this happened?’ ‘I found it while snooping about in her office. She left a filing cabinet open and was outside for a while when I found her discharge paper bundled up in the bottom of the cabinet drawer. For some reason she kept it there. The comments made by her manager were vague...’ ‘Ahh, so this could just be bullshit! You could be just making it up.’ ‘No fucking way is this bullshit.’ Mick drained his coffee. ‘And I’ll prove it to you, just wait and see.’ Mick ended the discussion with a confident tone in his voice. I walked back to my van, disoriented, rethinking all that Mick had told me, trying to match the dark desires of this ‘fictional’ character that he spoke about with the beautiful, innocent-looking woman who had greeted me earlier...
SHORT STORY
19
A routine was pleasantly unfolding for me at Seagrove Caravan Park. With my free time, and a boss no longer looking over my shoulder, I was beginning to write again after being locked into a low wage, shitty job for five years. I was catching up, writing about the city life, the women I never had and the few I did have, shitty moments, happy moments, mad-arsed moments that most writers ignore at their peril. Once a fortnight, Mick and I would drive over to the unemployment office to submit our job-search applications, a small amount of money would come through where I could buy a few groceries, some ginger beer and write some more for a little longer. The beach was in walking distance and I would go down there late in the morning. Usually I would leave behind a short story in the van, fresh from the night before, and wade into the ocean up to my neck. The water was always cool, it woke me up quickly. It was early one evening, when I had just finished cooking dinner on the gas stovetop that Mick knocked excitedly before bursting through, ‘old man Jonesy has carked it.Vera’s been hovering around his van for some days now with her tongue hanging out, I think she can smell death before it strikes.’ I grabbed a knife and fork, ‘You’re so full of shit!’ I sat down to eat some mashed potato. Mick let loose with his obsession about Vera and what she’d planned for Jonesy that night. ‘I saw her over there at dusk, it’s going to be an all- nighter in THAT van with Vera and STIFF Jonesy.’ ‘Bullshit!’ ‘She’s wearing a skimpy outfit.’ ‘Bullshit!’ ‘Take a fucking look!’ I carried the plate of food over with me to the window and continued eating. A faint light was seeping out of Jonesy’s van. Mick was becoming increasingly desperate, ‘She’s banging that old dude right now!’ I gave Mick a strange look and kept eating. ‘Who the fuck would be desperate enough to bang that guy!’ ‘There are candles lit inside his van. Jonesy never lit candles in his van!’ ‘Maybe he’s out of power!’
20
SHORT STORY
‘Look, it’s getting near dark. Let’s sneak over to Jonesy’s van to see what’s really going on!’ I took a bite of hot, greasy sausage, ‘Mick I think you’re fucking deluded. Since I’ve been here I’ve seen nothing odd about Vera and I saw Jonesy just this morning, he was half-jogging along the beach and he looked fit as. So stop talking crap, I’ve got some more putrid stories to get on with tonight.’ Mick looked only slightly offended. ‘I’m offering you something juicy, dude!’ ‘Dinner... is getting... cold, ‘ I replied between mouthfuls. ‘You’re going to lose a good fucking story!’ I quickly finished the rest of my meal while Mick left the van. I lifted my cup of hot tea, turned on the pocket radio and turned off the light near my table. The dark interior was a dream for a voyeur, I looked over at the soft light coming out of Jonesy’s van and sipped at my tea, before retreating to my bunk. With the radio crackling static, sleep came on slowly that night. Mick’s disturbing words had entered my consciousness and were still echoing through my brain. I was still shaking away provocative images of Vera when I awoke... 1:10am. Wide awake! That didn’t normally happen to me unless I had a strong desire to write or take a shit. The air felt tense, vibrant, too active for the deader side of night. I sat up in the bunk and looked through the opening between the curtains that covered the front window. Candlelight was still seeping out of Jonesy’s van. Just as I turned to lie back on my small pillow, movement caught my attention. I looked back at Jonesy’s van. A pale, semi-naked figure of a woman was moving about inside. My eyes widened. ‘That’s definitely not Jonesy!’ I thought. Curiosity was building up inside me whilst I stood looking out at Jonesy’s van. ‘Fuck it!’ I thought to myself. The air was vibrating, it was too much, just too much. Mick’s comment about missing a good story came back through my mind as I carefully unlocked the door to my van and
SHORT STORY
21
pulled down on the latch. My feet found the galvanised steps in the cool morning air. The surf could be heard crashing in the distance, the sounds of breaking waves were being carried across to the caravan park with a gentle onshore breeze. I walked toward Jonesy’s van, keeping away from the larger windows and remaining within the darker areas of the park. ‘I must be fucking mad!’ I thought to myself as I slowly ambled towards the van, each step taken carefully so that no dry twigs would snap beneath my feet. I got down on all fours and crawled beneath Jonesy’s van and waited. I looked for any light seeping through a crack in the flooring and only saw a small gap, just enough to put my ear against... Mick awoke to the sound of rampant thumping on his door. ‘Who the fuck is it?’ The thumping continued until he hauled himself out of his bunk and unlocked the latch. The door swung out sharply. ‘Mick, come quick dude, it’s Vera.Vera’s dead-fucking humping Jonesy.’ Mick slammed the door on his mate and crawled back into his bunk. ‘I’m eating my dinner, so fuck off!’ ‘Mick, Mick! there’s an all-nighter going on with VERA and STIFF JONESY. Come and check it out!’ Mick pretended to make chewing noises, ‘Dinner... is getting... cold... good night!’ ‘MICK, DON’T BE A FUCK-STICK! JUST COME OUT!’ The door to the van was bashed several more times. Mick could not be heard inside his van... Footsteps, punctuated by the odd snapping twig, faded away into the night.
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SHORT STORY
If you don’t you’ll die at midnight KAIT FENWICK
Share This! (If you don’t you’ll die at midnight) my relationship with the act of writing is as fickle as my gender marker visual fixity occurs the second pen marks page & I guess that is why we are all addicted to Facebook refresh refresh shift paradigms? alter self + meaning with the click of editchange side change the place and pace keep face what was otherwise penned would remain permanent unlike the revolving door of. com Empty + Full Instagram alerts me to the existence of Catherine Opie // I open my tumblr. app + SEARCH CATHERINE + OPIE A face appearsa leather dyke feeding a hungry child? Masculine maternalism? Opies’ barbed wire armband wraps coils around my brain I spy “PERVERT” scarified across their chest sharp sentiment for the professor of photography @UCLA
POETRY
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SUBMISSIONS – “STUDIO LA PRIMITIVE ARTS ZINE!”
Submissions artists’ essays and short stories online Arts & Literary PRIMITIVE ARTS ZINE.
i n t e r v i e w s , p o e t r y, are welcomed for our magazine - STUDIO LA
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Submissions welcomed, we would love to have your words in future editions. email: werkhovenr@bigpond.com The ARTS ZINE is available at our new web site www.studiolaprimitive.net And direct link to latest March issue -
https://issuu.com/robynwerkhoven/docs/arts_zine_march_2016 We look forward to hearing from you.
DEADLINE is April 15TH for next May issue. Robyn & Eric Werkhoven (Editors)