Ice Lines

from the series WATERS I HAVE KNOWN_Ice Lines i
Oil on paper
2010
760 x 1050 MM (v x h)
This work is available from The Diversion
THIS WORK HAS SOLD

AT HOME IN ANTARCTICA

In this place, silence has a voice 

wide-ranging as the continent. 

Some say it's on the cusp 

of madness, the way it hums 

and stutters, mutters to itself 

in quietest tones. 

In this place, the universe 

brims. Inside absence,

presence. Inside distance, 

dust and our sleeping earth

dreaming beneath her thin blue

mask of ice. 

In this place, the necessity 

of memory, recollections

of a loved one's face, shape

of laughter, weight of breath. 

In this place, nostalgia 

roams, patient as slow

hands on skin transparent

as melt-water. Nights are light

and long. Shadows settle

on the shoulders of air. 

Time steps out of line 

here stops to thaw

the frozen hearts of icebergs. 

Sleep isn't always easy in this place

where the sun stays up all night

and silence has a voice. 

CB - Explorers Cove, Taylor Dry Valleys, Antarctica 2005

detail i

G ULF_Oil and Water Do Not Mix

G ULF_Oil and Water Do Not Mix
Oil & pencil on paper
2010
760 x 525 MM (v x h)
This work is available from The Diversion

OIL AND WATER DO NOT MIX

DO NOT MIX OIL AND WATER

OIL AND WATER DO NOT MIX

DO NOT MIX OIL AND WATER

OIL AND WATER DO NOT MIX

DO NOT MIX OIL AND WATER

OIL AND WATER DO NOT MIX

DO NOT MIX OIL AND WATER

OIL AND WATER DO NOT MIX

OIL AND WATER

DO NOT MIX

DO NOT MIX

OIL AND WATER

DO

NOT

MIX

OIL

AND

WATER

Detail i

Detail ii

G_ULF - Surely Some Revelation Is At Hand?

G_ULF - Surely Some Revelation Is At Hand?

Oil and pencil on paper

2010

760 x 560MM (v x h)

  

". . . Turning and turning in the widening gyre,

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world;

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst

Are full of passionate intensity.

Surely some revelation is at hand. . . ?"

W. B Yeats

from The Second Coming

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G_ULF_Luminescing When Dusk Comes

G_ULF_Luminescing When Dusk Comes

Oil & pencil on paper

2010

760 x 560MM (v x h)

". . .We and many other animals sleep and wake in cycles that repeat every twenty-four hours. Some ocean protists, dinomastigotes, luminesce when dusk comes, ceasing two hours later. So hooked are they into the cosmic rhythm of Earth that even back in the laboratory, away from the sea, they know the sun has set. Many similar examples abound because living matter is not an island but part of the cosmic matter around it, dancing to the beat of the universe.

Life is a material phenomenon so finely tuned and nuanced to its cosmic domicile that the relatively minor shift of angle and temperature change as the tilted Earth moves in its course around the sun is enough to alter life’s mood, to bring on or silence the song of bird, bullfrog, cricket and circada. But the steady background beat of Earth turning and orbiting in its cosmic environment provides more than a metronome for daily and seasonal lives. Larger rhythms, more difficult to discern, can also be heard. . ."

from What is Life? Lynn Margulis & Dorion Sagan  (pg. 240 & 241)

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On the edge of the clearing weather

On the edge of the clearing weather
Oil on paper
2010
760 x 1050MM (v x h)
This work is available from The Arthouse
THIS WORK HAS SOLD

SOTTO VOCE

(Italian term – usually used in a musical context, meaning ‘under the voice’ or ‘in a quiet tone’)

Striking, the ambiguity of language – sound

and sound, hold

and hold, birth

and berth.

Sotto voce. Sotto voce.

Our brave boat’s hull

is a dull silver arc

at odds, and at one

with the ocean’s shifting

meniscus, the sky infinite

yet Doubtful as a clenched fist,

a menace of wishful thinking.

Mariners without local knowledge

are advised to exercise caution.

I am no old man of the sea (my stomach

one of two that pitch and turn

in 4m swells), but Lance and the Breaksea Girl

are unperturbed; back and forth she rocks

back and forth, a metronome used, by now,

to holding her own in stormy waters. 

Sotto voce. Sotto voce.

Ours is hardly the first voyage, neither will it be

the last. There are records aplenty

of this coastline, these steep, hard-nosed

mountains, the seductive tongues

of waterfalls.

           

I have scoured the record books,

wondered more about the lines not there

than the many written; nowhere

do we find Cook – or Orton –

writing of love or lust

or loneliness at sea; in the journals, no poetry

to soften the un-yielding years, the reek

of sour beer and unwashed skin,

the loud absence of women.

These men, too, must surely have known

the sudden singe of heat

on heart, the un-confided bruise?

But

who

am

I

to

make

such

assumptions?

On the edge of the clearing weather,

mountain, sky and ocean lean towards

each other with conspiratorial intention.

They are lifetimes ahead of us

the way they know how to sleep

together, dream together, lie awake

in the dark together, rarely - and always - 

alone

with their separate thoughts.

Where are we to drop anchor?

I am reluctant to interrupt this silence.




CB - Western Fiordland, New Zealand 2007/2010

detail i

detail ii

G ULF_Battaglia

G ULF_Battaglia
Oil on paper
2010
1050 x 760MM (v x h)
The Arthouse 
THIS WORK HAS SOLD

                        BATTAGLIA

                        oil and water do not mix do not mix oil and water oil and water do not mix do not mix oil and water
                               do not mix oil and water oil and water do not mix do not mix oil and water oil and water do not mix
                               oil and water do not mix do not mix oil and water oil and water do not mix do not mix oil and water
                               do not mix oil and water oil and water do not mix do not mix oil and water oil and water do not mix
                               oil and water do not mix do not mix oil and water oil and water do not mix do not mix oil and water


                        Let us not forget the silver-headed
                        minnows, their presto con brio flash
                        and exuberant, spear-shaped shimmer.

                                See them now?

                         Their fins are barely a-flicker. Instinct
                         propels them but their once-vivid slice
                         through water is nothing but the faintest quiver.

                                See them?

                          Mouths shut tight and belly up, they might
                          easily be mistaken for cutlery clattering
                          in a rimless ocean sink.

                                 See?

                          There's no music left in them, no sound
                          stirring in this floating orchestra of cartilage
                          and bone. This was no accidental storm;

                                 ?

                         the earth recoils in disbelief, her grief
                         is deep, our indifference to her, unfathomable.
                         This is a solemn and vicious tide

                                .

                         with power to turn salt water sour; a viscous bile
                         that dulls the shining scales of fish
                         and rusts the sleeping turtle's shell.



                                 CB - on the Deepwater Horizon environmental catastrophe 
                                 April, May, June, July, August, September 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017. . .

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G ULF_Elegy

G  ULF_Elegy for the Giant Turtles
from the poem by Margaret Atwood
Oil & pencil on paper
2010
760 x 525MM (vx h)
The work is available from The Arthouse

ELEGY FOR THE GIANT TORTOISES

Let others pray for the passenger pigeon

the dodo, the whooping crane, the eskimo:

everyone must specialize

I will confine myself to a meditation

upon the giant tortoises

withering finally on a remote island.

I concentrate in subway stations,

in parks, I can't quite see them,

they move to the peripheries of my eyes

but on the last day they will be there;

already the event

like a wave traveling shapes vision:

on the road where I stand they will materialize,

plodding past me in a straggling line

awkward without water

their small heads pondering

from side to side, their useless armour

sadder than tanks and history,

in their closed gaze ocean and sunlight paralyzed,

lumbering up the steps, under the archways

toward the square glass altars

where the brittle gods are kept,

the relics of what we have destroyed,

our holy and obsolete symbols.

Margaret Atwood

from Eating Fire: Selected Poetry 1965 - 1995

Margaret Atwood's website is a roomy place that, amongst its many treasures, offers generous resources for writers (ref. Negotiating with the Dead: A writer on writing). She has also included 'links of interest', photographs, media clips, podcasts of interviews, reviews, readings. . .

Remarkably, she wrote ELEGY FOR THE GIANT TORTOISES in 1968.

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