When East Geelong churches combined

from w
Some time ago I made a picture by using Fijian masi and sketches of churches that combined into one parish in East Geelong - after Presbyterian, Congregational and Methodists came together. The pencil and a bit of colour sketches are of Shenton church,(now the music/drama theatre of Geelong High School) the bell tower of the original Shenton, - (also part of Geelong High School) St Andrews, (still going) Garden Street Congregational (now a studio house for an architect and potter) Ormond Rd Methodist - now East Geelong Uniting, (still going and my home church) a seagull for luck, and scratched words in cememt from the back garden of the Shenton Manse where we lived for nine years. Our house became the music studios of the high school so I was happy about that.

Sorry it's not square but light from a window crept over it when it was straight!
The picture is in the vestry these days - where no-one much sees it!

In response to the violence against international students

photo from 'Crosslight'.
from w
In response to the violence against international students in Melbourne, an interfaith gathering was arranged at Box Hill Uniting church. Here are some notes from a report about this experience from the Uniting Church website.

Interfaith gathering of prayer for peace and harmony

People of many faiths met together on Sunday afternoon, 5th July 2009, to show their support for Indian and other overseas students. The gathering of 150+ people at Wesley Uniting Church, Box Hill (Melbourne), was a response to recent events where Indian students living in Melbourne have been threatened, attacked and racially vilified. The gathering provided an opportunity for leaders of the Hindi, Muslim, Sikh and Christian communities to offer prayers for peace. The gathering was also addressed by the Chief Commissioner of the Victoria Police, Simon Overland, and the Moderator of the Uniting Church's Synod of Victoria and Tasmania, the Rev Jason Kioa.

The gathering was an initiative of the Uniting Church's Hindi Fellowships at Blackburn North and Dandenong co-convened by the Rev Dhirendra Narayan and the Rev Chris Meneilly. Chris Meneilly, in stating the purpose of the gathering, explained that as the Indian (and other international) student community feels isolated and afraid, it is important that an opportunity be provided to show that faith leaders and the wider community are supporting them in this time of uncertainty. Also, it’s a unified statement of peaceful support of a community which respects the rights of its citizens and wishes to pray for peace and harmony.

Chief Commissioner Simon Overland expressed his concern at recent events and stated that brutal attacks which are racially motivated are completely unacceptable in the Australian community. He pledged the Police Force's determination to work towards a society where we value one another and in which racism has no place. He noted that he regularly meets with community leaders of many ethnic groups and that he encourages them and the Force to continue to work together for peace and harmony.

Moderator Jason Kioa shared the story of his own experiences of coming to Australia and being locked up at a migrant detention centre. He stated that the acceptance of many nationalities in our multicultural nation is fundamental to the way our society works. He reminded the gathering that such acceptance, and our responsibility to live in peace and harmony, is enshrined in the words of our National Anthem, particularly in the second verse:

"For those who've come across the seas
We've boundless plains to share,
With courage let us all combine
To advance Australia fair."

During the gathering, leaders of Hindu, Christian, Muslim and Sikh faiths offered prayers for peace and harmony. Despite the differing faith backgrounds, each prayer had striking similarities: acknowledging our dependence on a God who wishes the best for the creation; and challenging us to see one another as equals, all being part of a community which values peace and respect.

A musical group sang Bhajans (Hindi religious songs) within the service, each calling upon God’s love and that we share that love for others.
The music did add to the special nature of the gathering and it was not a problem that the words could not be understood by everyone. The music was an important component of creating an atmosphere of calm and reflection.


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Text written by Geoffrey Willis, member of Mountview, Mitcham UCA.


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Additional notes from Chris Meneilly:

Another great aspect of the occasion was the relaxed atmosphere and people mingling easily, taking advantage of the opportunity to chat with the Chief Commissioner simon Overlandand his wife Barbara.

To close the service a young Indian student, Ms Ravinder Kaur said, “…thank you to everyone who spoke and prayed” and “that while we live, study and continue to reside in Australia, this country for all of us is our home”. She was very warmly applauded! At the afternoon tea people took seriously the opportunity to deliberately speak with people from communities different than their own, folk they did not know.

butterflies and flutterbies

from w
Layering again with three pictures of butterflies this time using Picasa. I'm in a better mood this morning after phoning my server about a password. Something interfered with my email and this nice guy told me what to do to fix it. It's a bit sad when a few missed emails gets to you isn't it?

the creeping new suburbs

frmo w
The Macmansions are rising in the outer suburbs and very small crowded in block kind of houses. That's the cheaper options for new home buyers, but so far there's not much in the way of gardens and trees. Maybe you need from $350,000 to buy a house and block in the Melbourne and Geelong suburbs where there is little so far in the way of community function centres, churches, etc. There's an Australian painter (can't recall his name now) who died recently who was renowned for his ugly pictures of suburbia. Here's my take on these houses. Some communities are even gated - yesterday I had to get a code to get through a high gate to visit one home. #000#etc.

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later: It's Howard Arkley and I found this article and pictures.
Christopher Bantick
January 20, 2007 12:00am

I LIVE in a Howard Arkley house. He died not a kilometre from where I live, alone in his studio from a heroin overdose.

Arkley (1951-1999) is known for his iconic paintings of suburbia. His candy-coloured fluorescent images of air-brushed suburban brick veneer and Californian bungalow houses have helped to define the way Australians see the suburbs. Similar to artists such as William Frater, Grace Cossington Smith, Sidney Nolan, Danila Vassilieff and Douglas Annand's images of Townsville, Australian artists who painted the suburbs have often depicted them as stultifying places of squalor or boredom. Albert Tucker's Spring in Fitzroy coalesces the vacuity of the suburbs in one forlorn image.

Arkley understood the crushing sameness of the suburbs and yet his work, beyond the lurid colours, reaches another level. This is largely the insidious darkness associated with suburban life. The suburbs may be claustrophobic and chaotic, but they are unforgiving places as well.

As you walk the same streets of Melbourne's Oakleigh that Arkley walked, his assessment of the suburbs can seem shocking but compulsive. "It's like looking at my own paintings. I can't believe it. My God, I thought I was hyping it up. I thought I was making an imaginative statement. But no, it's real."

Just how important Arkley is to contemporary perceptions of the suburbs is explored in Carnival in Suburbia: The Art of Howard Arkley, by John Gregory (Cambridge University Press, $99). It is a book which attempts to contextualise Arkley's work and also offer a perspective on his contribution to our understanding of suburban life. It achieves this moderately well.

Overlapping pictures

from w
Scanning in cut out pictures, then sorting them two by two, I played around with simple collages. The source pictures were from old magazines, newspaper cuttings etc. - of Federation Square, the suburbs, and I don't know what! Make up the titles afterwards? Diamonds and lace, Spirit (though that's going a bit far!) and so on. Sometimes this works out in interesting ways, at other times it's just patterns and I should be doing other things such as cleaning the kitchen cupboards!

Click on any picture to see enlarged if you wish.

Trollies for little kids in supermarkets!

from w
In the Herald Sun today there's a story about Coles supermarkets. They are iantroducing little trollies for 3 to 5 year olds into some of their stores. How stupid! Can you imagine the trouble mothers will have when the little tigers grab all the lollies and chips and fill their trollies! Then there will be super-size tantrums! Coles PR spokesperson says it's to teach the little kids about food, nutrition, and so on. Oh yeah!

I do love to live beside the seaside

from w
But this is going way back to the time when our children were very small and we lived at Nukutatava out of Labasa. A few eco-tourists came and stayed here at one time but we were too generous - only charged them about $4 a day, and even gave them food at times! I thought this was an idyllic life, but there were difficulties of not always being able to balance the budget of subsistence living, a bit of teaching, Peceli helping with other people's projects.

When you sing together

from w
Peceli is often singing around the house and in the car, either hymns or old folk songs, but how much better the sound is when there are twenty Fijians singing together! Sometimes I play the piano for a group of people singing, such as last week at a gated community where older people have their own little cottages but there is a central function dining-room etc.. Only a few people turned up in the community room, but the elderly men and women enjoyed singing the old songs. I played a grand piano which was nice. I wonder though when I'm older and greyer will they still be singing those songs of the 20s? I hope they remember that our generation grew up with rock and roll, Simon and Garfunkel, Elvis....but not Michael J!

Singing together is such a joy and is universal - people in all cultures sing nd there's something bonding about harmonizing voices together - whether in a Welsh choir, the Choir of Hard Knocks, the Joys of the Women - an Italian choir, and others, formal or informal. Pity I can only sing up to E these days. Doh, Ray, Me, Fa, Soh, La, Te, Doh', Ray', Me', Me', Me'. The pitch just stays there!

Midwinter Celtic fire

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I missed the Celtic Festival this year at Portarlington, but this is a scratchboard picture I made of the Celtic fire at one other Geelong Celtic celebration for mid-winter. I find Celtic art intriguing, the legends a bit scary, but the Celtic prayers meaningful. There is some kind of connection with the ancestors from Kilkenny (on my grandmothers side) I suppose.