Pens and Pencils, 25th November, 2019
It is my custom, well, for the last twenty years or so, to write a short statement for occasions such as tonight.
I have written several in the last month. One was read at the annual dinner to celebrate patrons of Sculpture by The Sea.
Another was for a Christmas party at Ron Robertson-Swann’s home. I didn’t read that one.
To some it may appear to be grandstanding, simply drawing attention to oneself, but this is not the case.
It is my calling and I am simply doing my best to comply.
These words are in liquid form and they fill the mold which is Pens and Pencils tonight. Whatever shapes the words take is a representation of this occasion. It is the drawing I might have brought with me.
To be strictly accurate these words probably comprise more of a sculpture than a drawing by requiring a mold and having therefore more than the regulation two dimensions the drawing has.
We find ourselves tonight again, on the one hand still alive, but also representing an historic picture of the Sydney art world.
It is a world we have mostly for the duration of our lives inhabited and is therefore dear to us. It is what we are.
Time changes us. Some of us die off, like good scrub should. Others have accrued sufficient experience to qualify to attend tonight for the first time.
We are a dam and the welcome storm tonight or soon at least, guarantees a replacement in the top end for what goes out the overflow.
So, what is it that we are, to make us one?
We represent what art has been over the last century, (should cover it), in Sydney.
We have responded to the nature of this place, in this time, which has taken into it all the vile and wonderful experiments in art and its attitudes.
We have been traditionalists, modernists, internationalists, not so many conceptualists.
Are there any conceptualists here tonight apart from me?
Possibly not.
We are here tonight to represent all of these moments in relation to our collective love of drawing or what can be done with paper.
In a sense it is nostalgic, looking to values that may not be as strong as they once were. There may be s sense that good values have not been carried along with time and that we, like our indigenous cousins are concerned for the well being of ancient knowledge.
There may be a collective sense of sadness that binds us together.
S H Ervin provides such a great venue on which this Noah’s Arc is safely berthed. In spite of the menace of the towering new casino, we are safely on top of the world.
If we could subtract the sound of my voice from this statement, we would be struck by the resonance in the silence, before the chat starts again.
Thank you.