Earlier this year I recorded a collection of spacious, minimalist piano pieces that became the album The Witnessing Of Paint In Its Drying Moments. I was using these pieces to help me process a surge of deep grief and loss at the time. I have no theoretical understanding of classical music composition (nor am I […]
Elegiac Reaction (2021) Read More »
Things to do when you have a broken wrist: Make a guitar album. That is, take an existing guitar album, slash it up, mangle it & feed it through the editing mincer until one arrives at a completely different guitar album. The result is a completely new set of tunes, part growly, lo-fi artypunk, part
Asp Burger ReMangled (2021) Read More »
While these two albums certainly both share qualities of atmospherics, spacious soundscaping and ambient textures, they are both stylistically distinct from each other. Part of why I’ve included them together in this post is that they also share the somewhat dubious quality of being ‘rehashed’, even if in different senses. I’ve written elsewhere about cannibalising
Other spaces: Postnebulism / Uncertainty Box (2021) Read More »
More soundtracks to limbo, stasis & suspension – in this case, the grinding halt of a broken wrist, the physical restrictions of doing things onehanded or not at all, the slow process of allowing the body to heal. Coming to terms with not being able to play guitar, maybe for months, maybe not ever. A
Other spaces: One Hand Three Ears (2021) Read More »
It took me many years to get used to drawing on any kind of large scale, especially anything larger than A2 size. Several different experiences helped free me up in this area; in particular, when I began running cartoon workshops in schools, drawing on large blackboards (remember them?) and whiteboards in front of a class.
Murals & public art Read More »
As described elsewhere in this archive, the 90s were a creatively prolific period for me, and I developed simultaneously in many directions, and through many different media. Most of my focus was on the four strands of esoteric art I was developing – Essence Portraits, Power Symbols, Personalised Mandalas & ‘cave paintings’ – but I
Cartoon illustration: Funky 90s Read More »
At various times during the early 90s, in an entrepreneurial effort to generate some income from my cartoon art, I designed and self-published several series of gift cards & cartoon art prints. Self-publishing, in this case, meant spending what little money I had on laminated colour photocopies (not particularly cheap back then), and hawking them
Cartoon illustration: Card designs Read More »
Even as a five year old I was a keen observer of human behaviour, often coupled with a sense of the absurd, so it’s not surprising that caricature became part of my cartooning repertoire from an early age. Comics and cartoons, to a child of my interests, were a form of sociological and psychological text,
Cartoon illustration: Caricature Read More »
Over the years my illustration has often found a home in various areas of health & well-being, with clients ranging from government health services, mental health organisations, educational ‘well-being’ projects through to private practitioners and community arts projects. My empathic nature, my sense of social conscience, along with my personal insights from lived experience (long-term
Cartoon illustration: Health & well-being projects Read More »
Between June 2020 – Feb 2021, I participated in over a dozen online surveys relating to adult autistic experience (more info here). Most were research projects focused on the very things I was living at the time – mental health & suicidality, autistic burnout, financial not-so-well-being, among others – and the surveys provided me a
Surveying the Terrain II: The AQ Test Read More »
Between June 2020 – Feb 2021, I participated in over a dozen online surveys relating to adult autistic experience (more info here). Most were research projects focused on the very things I was living at the time – mental health & suicidality, autistic burnout, financial not-so-well-being, among others – and the surveys provided me a
Surveying the Terrain I: The EQ Test Read More »
NB – While much of this article is a criticism, I also want to acknowledge that some of the surveys I encountered were well-considered and designed with more care toward autistic processes. I will highlight these surveys later in this series as models of good practice. Researchers are often limited to using or adapting existing
Autism Surveys series: Intro Read More »
‘Aspergers have no empathy’. Of course, I understand this statement is an over-simplification of much data and some consistent patterns, and I use it here for dramatic affect. This dangerous statement has been reinforced in clinical diagnostic attitudes, misconstrued via public stupidity and perpetuated as meaning ‘All autistic people, especially those ‘with’ Aspergers, are insensitive,
How Do I Feel About Empathy? Read More »
I first self-assessed as having an Aspergers neurological profile in early 2018, using an online tool. I was just turning 53, and in the midst of a prolonged period of crisis involving, among other things, upheavals in the custody of my kids from a previous relationship, with the strain affecting every aspect of my life.
Aspergers: a new Map of Self Read More »
In other posts, I’ve touched on some of the different ways I experience my own ‘autistic attention’ – ranging from very helpful (eg heightened creative focus, problem-solving, mindful awareness) to hinderance (eg anxiety, depression, rumination). As described in Part I, regarding my years of obsessive drawing, when this hyperfocus is channelled into a particular topic,
Autistic attention IV: Specialised Interest vs Social Disinterest Read More »
In the early 90s I began journaling my dreams, inspired by Jungian dream analysis and accounts of lucid dreaming, as another tool for communicating with my subconscious. I had often found that certain dreams offered important insights or solutions to events in my life, and several times even predicted an event. I developed a habit
Esoteric art 4: Cave paintings (1992 – 94) Read More »
My understanding of mandalas as ‘maps of consciousness’ probably began somewhere in 91 or 92, through the work of Carl Jung, Joseph Campbell and others; I also learned that the use of mandalas (a symbolic drawing or design within a circle) appears not only in Tibetan Buddhism but in the sacred art of ancient cultures
Esoteric art 3: Personalised mandalas (1995 – 96) Read More »
The previous post describes a period during my mid-20s to late-30s, of self-discovery and transformation , and how these ‘reprogramming’ experiences shifted some of my creative work into more esoteric or transpersonal art and design. My first few years in Melbourne brought me into contact with a number of people involved in the ‘new age’
Esoteric art 2: Personal Power Symbols (1992 – 97) Read More »
In 1990 a very different kind of illustration emerged in my work, and continued to develop throughout the 90s in the form of personalised ‘esoteric’ artworks – portraits, symbols and mandalas intended to reflect and affirm the deeper nature of the individual they were designed for. Before I continue, I feel it’s important to set
Esoteric art 1: Essence Portraits (1990 – 92) Read More »
Often, by way of amusing myself, I assemble my recording experiments around a particular play on words, and the oddly-connected thoughts I encounter while working on the music, as I roll the idea around in my mind. The tracks on Occupy Your Mind have been rallied together under just such a tenuous link, like the
Other spaces: Occupy Your Mind (2021) Read More »
In musicking, as in life, there is never any one particular process – each project seems to emerge with a life of its own, with its own rhythm and breath, with both a sense of self-determination and of the unknown. In being receptive to the music as an entity in its own right, with its
Other spaces: Oort (2021) Read More »
Human brains, alike the brains housed in other animals, are intrinsically geared towards patternmaking as a fundamental survival function; via the interface of whatever senses are available to us, our brains (and nervous systems) are constantly scanning the environment, receiving sensory (and extra-sensory) signals, from which we unconsciously select, interpret, classify, and translate into smaller
Autistic attention III: Patternmaking & the Curse of the Million Bits Read More »
In June this year I was cleverly duped into allowing my bank account to be hacked and the little money I had in there taken. I’m usually more cautious, but these people were sophisticated and psychologically astute, using very compelling explanations in their call. They clearly had no moral parameters guiding who they stole from.
Other spaces: Red Tape Bardo I – IV (2021) Read More »
This collection, Down On The Farm, could never really make up its mind about anything. It just kind of floated in the middle of a paddock somewhere, chewing its cud, gazing at the occasional fluffy cloud in the blue sky overhead…..just hung there, suspended in time, without really knowing what, if anything, it wanted to
Other spaces: Down On The Farm (2021) Read More »
This has been one of those albums that I’ve sort of snubbed a bit since recording it, but on revisiting I can appreciate it better – both its sonic flow and its significant position in the evolution of my recording process. In 2016 I was reaching the end of a ten-year obsession with playing solo
Other spaces: rain river rain (2016) Read More »
Is Land: Edges defined by water In early 2001 I moved from Melbourne to SE Tasmania, marking the beginning of a new focus in my work as a creative facilitator; in the years to follow, I became active in many community arts projects, and programs that linked creativity and community health. I had just spent
Community Arts: Bruny Kids Artzone Festival 2002 – 2005 Read More »
A feature of Aspergers I know I share in common with many other autistic people, is a pronounced sense of ‘authenticity’. Put another way, I have a kinaesthetic response of ‘wrongness’ if something seems inauthentic, fraudulent, pretentious, insincere, unjust, unethical or patently untrue. This trait is well-documented in research into Aspergers behaviours, and voiced in
Autistic attention II: Positive distraction vs denial Read More »
I’m feeling amused at myself, but hardly surprised. I’ve just spent a whole day writing a slab of something else entirely, intending it to be a brief and succinct introduction to this section. In doing so, I’ve been enacting exactly what I was intending to write about in this chapter: autistic attention. (The same autistic
Autistic attention I: Self-distractive behaviour Read More »
Don’t believe everything you think. Context is how us cuddly ol’ apes hold our notions of ‘reality’ together; context provides specific information to the brain as a container for any further information. To use a tired computer analogy, context is the brain setting up a folder in which to save related files. I also get
Putting context into context Read More »
There are a few autism-related terms that I tend to avoid as they are not good for my health. That is, they cause me various degrees of inflammation. I understand they’re ‘only’ words, but what I’m ‘lergic to is the cultural laziness (or absence of intelligence) that surrounds these words as they are often used
Glossary Of Terms I Won’t Be Using Read More »
I have a list I occasionally return to, if I’m bereft of inspiration and casting around for something new to fiddle with, of unfinished musical projects from the past that require re-mixing, re-solutioning or just plain turning inside out. After the emotional interrogations of the albums Crux and The Witnessing Of Paint In Its Drying
Rhythm collisions: Cut From A Different Cloth (2021) Read More »
The Witnessing Of Paint In Its Drying Moments is an album of five very slow, minimalist piano compositions, created during a period of particularly intense grief and loss. Grief takes many forms, can return in great waves over decades, and loss is not exclusively the province of death. The grief of losing someone deeply-loved yet
More pondersome plunk: The Witnessing Of Paint In Its Drying Moments (2021) Read More »
Huon Pieces: Letters & Notes could be described as a piano album, although the piano is supported by cello and violin, which lends to it the feeling of a small ensemble or quartet. It could also be described as a kind of minimalist neoclassical compositional experiment. Really it was a simple creative exercise, with clearly
Huon Pieces: Letters & Notes (2021) Read More »
Blues For A Mapless God (2020) Blues For A Mapless God is mostly, I suppose, a sombre meal, a tableau in a darkened chamber, shadows peering around the hunched glow of a candelabra, strange fruits and dark meats arranged in muted colours, for guests who may never arrive, who perhaps never existed to begin with…
Other spaces: Blues For A Mapless God / The Mood (2020) Read More »
Walkabout (I – VII) is a series of seven semi-ambient electronic albums created during the Tasmanian covid lockdown in 2020. Each album is developed around realtime recordings of my body moving through space/time along various local bush and beach walks in SE Tasmania. Electronics have been added to suggest a meditative, dimensional journey. In the
Walkabout I – VII (2020): Motion in lockdown Read More »
These two albums were made about six months apart and are two of my least favourite efforts, but they’re honest documents of my musical evolutions at the time, and I learnt a lot in the making of them. Significantly, both albums form bookends to our months of covid lockdown here in Tasmania during 2020 –
Other spaces: Self Isolator / Solaris Beach Party (2020) Read More »
