Flat cat

Ghent, Belgium

dearly departed

Surely the strangest cat art ever: Bart Jansen turning his deceased cat, Orville Wright, into a helicopter. He does look like he really misses him.

Ruben's magnolia

is flowering again.

On a recent trip to my parents I dug through a box of books and found some of my collection of artists books including one by Lucas Ihlein.

Lucas and Ruben. photo by Lizzy from 2008

Lucas and I where co-owners (? fans? carers?) of Ruben. The book was of some of Lucas's writing from 1998-1999 when Ruben was a kitten, and includes two Ruben poems/ stories. The first one is about his naming and the second a dream. Reading them really took me back to that moment in time. I could see the room we where sitting in when we had the below conversation and the bed we shared where the dream occurred.

click to make bigger to read.

Conversations with cats: the Shirlow gang again

Lisa Kelly, a Sydney based artist who I have linked to before, sent me an email recently letting me know about a project she did a couple of months ago. It was at an artist run space in Marrickville that had a policy, for a short time, of not naming the artists whose work was on display, so she was not able to blog about the work till the policy changed.

The anonymous policy had me thinking for a while. I would have loved to take up the offer, when an invitation popped into my box asking if I wanted to show some work, as it would have been a great way to test some old ideas: where they recognisable to my practice; or wildly experiment with some really new stuff: does the work stand without my past practice. But this year is all about writing that thesis...

But back to Lisa's work..
She made a couple of nice observational works and I include some images and direct quotes from her blog here about the Shirlow Street cats- but go to her blog for the full story- the lizard walk way artwork is wonderful!

Visiting the end of Shirlow St in the afternoon and no sign of cats. Riding back after dark and a pair come galloping towards me from down the road, seeming familiar with a figure on a bike. They prowl around, tails up, expecting food. Returning to the gallery to get the box of Friskies. Coming back they remain aloof and disinterested in me. Smart cats.

conversations with cats - through the sapphire sky

Check out this post over on through the sapphire sky about the cat painters of the Edo period:

Using cat paintings to rat proof - cat painters in Edo

"A conference of cats"

It's not been a good day

Not much progress has been made on the chapter that is almost finished and I am in terrible hormonal mood which is sinking into a blue funk as I face the reality that I probably wont be going to Japan or Europe this year.

Siting at my messy desk I notice a zine that has been living on the left hand side of my computer for some time now. It has a price sticker on it which makes me think that I bought in the flesh from Sticky (as opposed to online) on my way home from Nagoya which included a long stop in Melbourne. My desk is like that, things land there and stay there.

Anyway I was procrastinating so I read it for the first time- I often buy zines quickly on the feel and look of them.

Called "Raining in my room" it was a charming read. I realise now that I shared a table with the writer Emma at the Wollongong zine fair couple of years ago. She is one half of Take Care distro. (Flaps doesn't currently stocks with them) (if your interested in zines it's worth checking out her blog, scroll down for distro information and some posts from her about zine making, also good list of links)

Its a zine about suburbia and memory, and the last section is about the stray cats that hang out in the closed off road at the end of Shirlow St, Marrickville - it turns out that they are many peoples secret pleasure.

Emma I hope you don't mind me posting part of your zine here:

My favourite line: "The streets are dark and catless."

now I can move this zine to the pile on the bookshelf..

Mambo’s Hydrangea

Is in bloom. They beautiful and they remind me of the blue of his cushion that used to be next to my computer.

It’s seven month since Mambo was laid to rest under the Hydrangeas. I still miss him. Below is Haico saying goodbye.

Conversations with cats - Gotokuji Shrine

I wrote this more than a month ago but had not had time to correct it or put in as many details as I had wanted- and then I just got super busy finishing the work for Aichi Triennale. But time has passed and is passing so fast and I am now back in Australia so it will have to go up as is in order to think new thoughts.

In 2007 my dear Ruben died. It was long and drawn out. Not long after a friend of Lucas(Ruben's co-owner) and I, Jo Law, had the Australia Council residency in Tokyo. You can read about her trip on her Season Almanac blog. As part of trip she went to Gotokuji Shrine and said prayers for Ruben and her cat Puzpuz. When I came home from Tokyo in April my dear Mambo died and I felt I needed to go to the shrine to visit Ruben and say good bye to Mambo.

Gotokuji Shrine is where the legend of the waving cat- Maneki Neko is said to have happened. The White cat - Tama- is buried in a shrine along side the main Buddhist (?) temple, and this is where I said my prayers.

It was a fantastic thing to do- the quiet ( there was only me and two other people there) and very green space was exactly what I need, and I lite insense and said prayers for all my friend's cats who are no longer around and for those who still keep us company.

Cats of freinds who have passed on: Tupelo, Jose, Blanche, Smilla, Puzpuz, Puspus, Gordon, Lucy, Claude, Gus and Carole. As well as those still living: Otik, Martha, Sushi, Drazic, Orlando, Dexter, Zooty, Minny, Baba, Brian.

I love the backs and the tails in the shot above, and I couldn't resist putting my miniture Yokoo Tandanori cat Buddha in for a picture too.

letting go

It’s been hard to think about writing this blog since Mambo died. Partly because it has been hard to think about putting some thing in front of him so that slowly, slowly he disappears from the top post, when I still feel his absence as a large hole. Sitting to work at my desk is not the same anymore.

But life goes on, and there are lots of cats in the world and one day another one will walk into my life as Mambo did. He was dumped by his previous owners, from a car, and found his way into our corner block-backyard to hide. My parents heard him meowing and my father dug into the germaniums and brought out a six month old non-desexed friendly, but nervous, ginger fella with very long sharp nails. I had been asking for a companion pet, as I needed lots of affection at that point in my life and it is much better from a soft animal who gives without demands- or at least the easily met demand of food- than confused art school boys and girls.

But the new posts are stacking up and the owed posts of my trip are still waiting to be written so best to get on with it.

Rest in Peace dear Mambo

He had a massive tumor in stomach area which was affecting his kidneys. There was no possible treatment, which we had suspected so pampered him for weeks till it looked like he was loosing the plot. Luckily he made it through ok till I came home. The demise was pretty fast in his last week, so Haico and I took the hard decision that it was best he took a one way trip to the vet. I didn't want him in hospital like Ruben, mostly because he was an anxious cat and wouldn't cope. The vet told us he probably only had days to live. He is now under the hydrangias in the front yard in the opposite flower bed to Ruben.

I instinctively look at the front door when I walk past expecting to see his shadow asking to come in. It will take a while I guess.

He was very restless his last two nights, getting up lots to drink, wee and lick at a vast array of food we presented him with. Poor thing, but he had a good and long life. He arrived to live with my parents and I (he was dumped over our fence) in my honours year at Art school. He appear in various of my performance to camera, which I am now keen to dig out the video documentation.

conversations with Beppu cats

View from my hotel window

Three different tabby's in central Beppu. The bottom photo is outside the Beppu Projects Office.

After living in a flat where you couldn’t open the windows for 10 weeks, it was an unbelieve joy to get to a hotel where you could open the window wide. Better still that it was a barmy humid Beppu in Kyushu.

One of the side effects of having the windows open means you hear the city. After 10 weeks with the drone of air conditioning and police sirens being the wallpaper sound scape (sirens being the only sound that cut through from outside), I thrilled to lie in bed and drift off to sleep to the sound of cats scrapping and tomcats wailing. It seems like a rare sound scape to me- the last time I remember hearing the sounds of stray cats like this would have been in Barcelona (10 years ago). Although there are stray cats in Marrickville, it’s not really a sound I hear much at home. I spent a couple of night and morning hanging out the window with my microphones recording their yowls echoing up from the walls below.

As you can see from the pictures above, most of the cats seemed to be tabby’s, I only saw one ginger tom- white with ginger patches. He was very large with lots of battle scares on his face.

Conversations with cats

When I visited Taoko-san I came into the shrine courtyard and heard the incessant mewing of a cat. It was a small white cat with ginger patches sitting in front a watercolour painter begging for food. I made me distressed to hear a stray in an area I had gone to visit to see birds. Later I walked past the monk’s quarters to visit a cave shrine and saw some cat food bowls in a doorway, with a photo of the cat I had seen, lying on a royal blue silk cushion. So a scab, not a stray.

Walking around Yoyogi Park late one afternoon I saw an old street dweller man open a homemade cardboard cat box and let out a large white cat.

I have been missing my Mambo quiet a bit, and have often found myself thinking about Ruben who died a little over a year ago. I am pretty crazy for ginger cats so was very excited by this homeless man’s three well cared for cats. They had really soft fur and the two stripy ones where very friendly. The man was very well organsied, like many people living in cardboard, and was setting up his bed cabin for the night. There are a lot of people living in this area around Shinjuku. It doesn’t look like they have lived long on the streets and it makes me wonder about what kind of social security Japan has and whether the government is going to build more social housing for these people who lost out went the bubble burst.

Two domesticated strays on Endoshima getting lots of attention from visitors. Second one looks like Glenn's Darryl.

Isetan department store windows: The model dressed in a super expensive designer dress has a speech bubble that says: “Lets Work” and holds out a rattrap. The mice in the hole on the far left also say “Let work” while the cats just have blank looks. The designers had quiet a sense of humour, not sure how they got away with this one though.

Endoshima

At the moment there are lots of plum trees coming into blossom. They are so beautiful and vary from yellow, white, bright and pale pink. Sometimes there is a beautiful tree flowering in quiet an ugly setting. The one above is on Endoshima Island.

I went there last Saturday as it was going to be a clear day and hoped to get good views of Fuji. It was a clear day in Tokyo and Endoshima but a cloudy day over Fuji- very disappointing as it is a quiet famous viewing point (the fore cast tomorrow is for a clear day so I’ll try it again).

I meet Kate, an Australian artist from Warnambool, which is sister city to the Kanagawa district, where Endoshima and Kamakura are located. She is here as an exchange cultural ambassador, teaching English in local high schools and writing for the local paper in Warnambool. We had a nice day talking about life and art, and exploring the island including going up the tower for fantastic views of the coast.

When I arrived at 8am there where only a few Black Kites about, although more than at Kamakura. I had been thinking about re-enacting my encounter with a Black Kite and though that it would be good location given their greater numbers and boldness. Around lunch time though I started to re-think that. There were really large numbers of Kites and as they don’t usually hang out in flocks there was a lot of territorial dive bombing going on- handing out free food would just be asking to be attacked. (I have had a niggling doubt about the worthiness of this as an artwork anyway- I have found better option- will blog later). There are 15 black kites in the shot above. The warnings where a little more explicit here than in Kamakura (Tsunami signs too).

There are lots of cats in Endoshima. They to be domesticated strays, although this one looks like he is a pet.