This is a bit of a random blog, simply celebrating the creative spirit in one of South Africa's loveliest and safest cities. The sculpture of a cheetah, outside an exclusive gallery, is exquisite, capturing the speed, lightness, energy and concentration of the chase. Ironically, though, we find it in a part of the country where the wildlife has almost been wiped out apart from in exclusive game parks frequented by foreigners with the purchasing power to install the art and see the animals. The rarer the animal, the more valuable the sculpture. When the cheetah is extinct in the wild, I wonder whether the art will die with it? I'm not knocking the artist, but musing on the relationship between art and nature, and our desire to capture the beauty.
Like many people, I want to touch and feel sculpture, so this strange fellow felt closer to me than the remote, aloof and highly-priced animal. The sculptor, Jean Theron Louw, portrays the old man Oupa Carlos musing on the planet that we have scarred, and wondering - at 3.23 a.m. - whether his life was egocentric or soul-centric. It's a little 'new age' and 'mother earth' and all that, but raises some of the same issues that I did about the cheetah above. "Did you care for mother earth?"
"I don't know whether I cared enough" is the honest answer, but I know I tread lightly through the land, and hurt when I see how scarred it is. But it's romantic in an unhelpful way to care for mother earth without caring for her children, and so often issues of ecology and issues of justice seem to be poles apart. For me, the next 'you can't be serious' poster is the prophetic warning. Ageless is the dream, instant is the mode of delivery, and it is of course available if you have enough money to purchase it. Sadly, it usually seems to involve botox. Pumped full of chemicals, I can neither smile nor frown any more, but at least the wrinkles that show that I am alive have been smoothed out in a chemical death. Now you know why I prefer to photograph old people who have 'let themselves go'. Such a negative phrase, which needs to be given a positive spin. They've let themselves go, they've let themselves live, without fear, without pretence.
If you ever read this blog, it's probably because you can't sleep, and I confess that it is little more than meandering thoughts about an unconnected series of photographs. Maybe that's what art is given us for, to provoke us to think, to live, to change. Let me know what you think!
"I don't know whether I cared enough" is the honest answer, but I know I tread lightly through the land, and hurt when I see how scarred it is. But it's romantic in an unhelpful way to care for mother earth without caring for her children, and so often issues of ecology and issues of justice seem to be poles apart. For me, the next 'you can't be serious' poster is the prophetic warning. Ageless is the dream, instant is the mode of delivery, and it is of course available if you have enough money to purchase it. Sadly, it usually seems to involve botox. Pumped full of chemicals, I can neither smile nor frown any more, but at least the wrinkles that show that I am alive have been smoothed out in a chemical death. Now you know why I prefer to photograph old people who have 'let themselves go'. Such a negative phrase, which needs to be given a positive spin. They've let themselves go, they've let themselves live, without fear, without pretence.
