Archive

Hello everyone, I'm in the bush this week and I hope I'm happily snapping photos while you read this.

If you're new here, welcome!

I've been prompted by a few people to write a little bit about photobooks and money. I want to preface this by saying that there's SO MUCH I could write about this topic, and I won't cover it all. In fact, a workshop I'm running focuses several hours on this topic, so it'd be impossible to condense that into a neat, easy email (only 2 spots left at time of writing ;) )

I've recently been asking a lot of people for their experience with publishing and money. For context, I've published a few books - from my own zines, to handmade books, to a huge run with The Killing Sink and, of course, I own and operate a publishing business - Tall Poppy Press. I'm about as in this world as you can get, and yet, it's tremendously opaque. Regularly, artists are asked to contribute money, but when, how much and for what is really tricky to nail down.

So - I did not get out to the bush the last week.

For those not in Australia, we've had record breaking rainfall and huge floods. While the area I was intending to visit isn't (and wasn't) flooded, the roads were wrecked. Specifically, I needed to drive my little car 80-90km down a dirt road which, after quite a lot of rain, was completely impassable.

That's ok - I'll be out there 12th-20th of November.

In the meantime I read a pretty interesting book Against the Anthropocene. This is a book all about the ways that human-led environmental destruction and resistance are represented visually. It's not usually the sort of thing I'd read but I'm glad I did.

Hello all,

I am in the middle of nowhere this week, documenting wildlife surveys in a big property. It is (I hope) fun and important work. It is (I hope) actually happening and the recent flooding we've had in Australia is (I hope) not so bad I can't drive my car to where I need to go. I hope to tell you about how this trip went next week.

Recently, I have had a lot of rejection. That is fine, it's normal. I'm not looking for pity, sympathy or 'poor me'. If you're an artist rejection is just part of it. You propose an exhibition, apply for a grant or submit to an award and, more often than not, you're getting told 'no'. Rejection stings less each year, but it still stings.

So I've started to wonder: how can I make rejection fun? I was inspired by 'un-Rising' which was a 1 night festival where everyone who had been rejected from a big arts festival could exhibit/perform or share in a car park for free. It was a great idea. It was particularly great because Rising didn't tell people that, actually, they were only going to exhibit 4 artists' work at the city wide festival. This is key because if you know they are choosing 4 for a whole city, you get a sense of the scale and impact they are looking for.

One of the really particular quirks of education in Australia is that, around the age of 14-16, a lot of schools assign their classes Of Mice and Men, the John Steinbeck novel.

I should be clear: I really like this novel and Steinbeck in general. He's the sort of artist I really admire: he uses all his skill and life experience to speak up for people excluded from his art form and, in his way, try and do justice. When he's not doing that he was a whimsical engagement with place, people and travel, a sort of really lovely difference between a thunderous 'truth to power' and a calm 'man trees/the ocean are pretty great'.

However, in a lot of ways, that Australian teens are assigned this book is an odd choice: a depression era story about someone with a disability essentially being bullied until his best friend mercy kills him is an unusual thing for modern day young Australians to be assigned. Sure, there's some genuine empathy building and some great charactertisation on Steinbeck's part but almost all books have some education pros so it gets to be a bit of a level playing field.

One of the hardest things about teaching this text is getting students to understand the vernacular. In fact many teachers, almost like clockwork, will start off, before the book's even open, introducing the idea of vernacular.

I love food and am having a quiet week. Food consistently makes me happy. I love cooking, preparing, shopping, eating, enjoying.

Here are a list of some perfect foods:

• Ice cream after a long swim in the cold ocean

• Peanut butter

• Slightly under-ripe mangoes (early in the season, just a touch of tang - amazing, early season calypsos go HARD)

• Big pot of pasta (my favourites are: sausage/brocolli, sunday gravy, lasagne, tomato pesto and fresh summer tomato)

• Apples (Jazz are the best, I think)

• Eggs with salsa

• Good milk chocolate

• Gozleme

• Cherries

• Cherry pie

• Apple pie - with a lot of apples and vanilla ice cream

• Tuna

• Fried rice

• Beef ho fun

• Char Kway Teow

• Miso soup

• Scallion pancakes

• Black forest ham

• Egg salad sandwich

• Chocolate Chip cookies- chewy, soft, large glass of cold milk please and thank you

• Apricots fresh off the tree, otherwise get the fuck out - this food has the largest drop in quality as it sits

• Dan dan noodles

• Butter chicken (I am accepting no feedback on this)

• Dill

• Bread

• Croissants (raisin, almond, plain - they are all 10/10)

• Satay - from a street cart, eaten on the street

• Sultana bran (I will accept no questions at this time)

• Pork rilette

There's a lot more, but these are all just perfect foods. They need nothing more and are just a marvel to enjoy.

Something I've written a bit about is here before is how my life is split between my day job in Education and my life as an artist. For many years, it's felt pretty easy to keep both going, pouring effort into each and generally there's been few conflicts or difficulties in rocking up for 9-5 then moonlighting as an artist/publisher/writer.

However, over the last year, as art has begun to bring in more money, I've found it increasingly hard to balance both. Largely because having a day job just eats up time in a huge way. I'll give you three quick examples of how this is becoming a bit trickier to manager.

a. Australian Geographic want me to write and photograph for an article about Wedge-Tailed Eagles. Great, I'd love to do that - it's exactly up my alley and the pay is great. To do the writing I have to interview several people at the Department of Environment, to take the photographs I need to go to Shepparton (2-2.5 hours away from where I live) twice, for two full days (more or less). So that's 2-3 days worth of work and somehow I need to convince my day job to give me the time off. Likely I'll just pretend to be sick or take a mental health day. It's dodgy but no one will notice.

b. Two galleries in Europe have expressed interest in working with me and doing exhibitions in 2023. To do these shows, I'd need to be in Europe for 4-6 weeks. This is potentially a really good opportunity to have some exhibitions, do some talks, meet some European artists, gallery owners, etc, and get more of my foot in the door there. However, 4 weeks it the maximum vacation time off. I could ask for extra time off, but my workplace would be well within its rights to say 'no, sorry, we need you to do your job'. I could also ask to do it from Europe but, again, my workplace is fairly able to say 'no, we need you in Australia, during regular hours thanks'. This is a potentially big opportunity for growth but it's directly in conflict with my job. I also need vacation time to travel to the bush and make art, and, you know, have vacations here and there too.

On the weekend just past, I went to a stable and visited some horses. A friend's sister has two horses and I wanted to photograph them because I'm trying to photograph feral species and horses are one of the more destructive feral species in Australia. But there was another reason to visit horses as well, as this person was showing me her horses she asked me if I ride horses 'well no' I said, 'actually horses intimidate me a bit'. I find that most large farm animals: cows, horses, pigs - I always worry they will like charge at me or get angry. It's a bit of a silly thought since they have been bred for millennia to be docile but still, I find them a bit scary!

There is something very different, I think, about seeing something from afar and being close. I've seen people ride, handle, lead and training horses, muster cows and be very comfortable and easy around all of these animals, but when I'm close to them, and their size and weight (and how little I really know about them) becomes more apparent, things just change. An animal that seems maybe small, or easily led, when I'm next to it suddenly seems a lot bigger, stronger and more complex.

Sometimes I wonder 'what is understanding?'. It's sort of a commonly used but somewhat nebulous idea. Is understanding a horse knowing that I can lead it and it will follow? Is understanding a horse being more comfortable that it is larger and stronger than me? Is understanding the feeling of comfort that comes after some exposure and learning? Is it the textbook, or the doing it all? For me, I don't think I understand things until I interact with them. For something like a horse, cow, goat, snake, spider or tree this means being close enough to actually look and appraise. For something like a car, I don't really know it until I drive it. For something like an exhibition, I don't really understand it until I make it.

In Education we don't really know what understanding is. Famously, Bloom's Taxonomy was a way to try and define different depths of knowledge or ability about a given topic. In this 'understanding' was the 2nd step (eg, 2nd least deep form of knowing), and is essentially someone's ability to explain things. But, I think I can explain something like ink (coloured liquid that marks a surface), but I don't really understand it - why is it the colour it is, why do some sink into the paper and others take ages to dry, how long will ink be shelf stable, is ink toxic?

Something a bit odd about me is that I don't really celebrate my birthday.

When I was 16 I woke up thinking 'this will be a great day, everyone's going to be so nice to me' and people weren't - my family were busy, my friends had things to do, people had lives and priorities and things on and I was really sad, I didn't have a special day, in fact I think it was super mundane, like just aggressively normal. A bit forlorn at the end of the day, I walked down to the park, sat on the swings and I sort of realised that expecting something so self indulgent made me miserable. It was bullshit to expect the world to revolve around me and, now, I don't celebrate my birthday.

It's always a bit bizarre, at work some busy body asks 'when's your birthday' and I have to explain 'I don't celebrate my birthday' and there's always this pregnant pause where this random person takes a second or two to think about what on earth that means. For me, birthdays are quite awkward. I sit on my butt while people sing to me - hate it. I have to pretend to be happy that my work colleagues got me some over-priced junk that I don't want and gets thrown out? Who benefits from this? I'm really quite happy just plodding along having a pretty unimaginative day, maybe I'll get myself a milkshake but that's about all I want.

I see that some other folks have these big social media outpourings of love when it's their birthday and it seems a bit much. I guess I'm just a pretty content guy, I'm happy going for an extra long lunch break on the sly instead of having fireworks and trumpets blaring.

I'm obsessed with fencing and fences right now. I think that they are the most mundane expressions of a sense of inclusion, exclusion and control that most of us see daily.

From temporary fencing around a construction site, to a white picket fence around a family home, from walled military installations, to rambling barbed wire fences - Australia is just a cacophony of borders, designations, dominance and 'fuck off we're full' - a fence is control epitomised. The panopticon might have been Foucault's favourite metaphor, but I think the fence is more present. I wonder what architects think of fences - I wonder if, somewhere, there's even a textbook about the theory of fencing, the history of fences, the whole world of what a fence pretends to do (make life easy) and what is really does (carve up the land). If it exists, it'd probably be pretty dense and dull, unnecessarily so, I think.

More than what you might find in suburbs and construction sites, Australia is a country of fences and for fences. In fact, the longest fences in the world are in Australia and were built as a way to control the native animals in order to enable better farming for European settlers. The longest is the Dingo proof fence, stretching 5,614km (or more than three times the length of Germany, 2/3rds the length of the US/Canada border). The fence is so long it is longer than Australia is wide. At our widest point, we are 4000km from East to West, yet this sprawling, winding, constantly maintained and cared for fence is just massive. If you laid it end to end, it would be longer than China is. Insane.

The purpose of this fence is to keep dingoes moving from the wilder and less settled regions of Australia's interior into from the more arable sheep grazing districts in Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland. It's an absurd project, spanning an unfathomable length (still, to this day) in order to exert an incredibly powerful measure of geoengineering on the land. It is clear, always, that in Australia agriculture comes first - that was true when we were settled, and it remains true to this day. The bizarre value system that says we should completely slice our country in half so fewer sheep die is uncanny to me: it's familiar (I grew up knowing about it) but I cannot empathise.

When I was a teacher, there was a segment of my colleagues who would often lament that working with teenagers made them feel old. Responding to the warp speed trend changes that only teenagers care about and keep up with, a segment of my peers would remark 'oh I don't know what lit means, I'm so old'. I never really knew how to respond, I'd often think - well, of course you're older than teenagers, you already knew that. But also I'd think 'why do you want to keep up with kids? It's exhausting and not really very rewarding'.

I'm lucky because I've found getting older much easier. In fact it seems most years are a bit kinder than previous ones. Of course there are ups and downs, hard things as well, but in general I feel much more content at 33 than I did at 23. In a lot of ways I was quite bad at being young. I didn't enjoy primary school much and high school was quite boring until I was 15 or 16 or so and matured a bit more. I don't drink alcohol (never have) and have no interest in drugs. I'm completely happy sitting quietly on the grass or meandering around in my car taking pictures of trees. It was a bit tricky when I was in Uni, I didn't really want to go to the pub, the bar or the club - I was much happier going to friends' houses or getting lunch. Now that I'm a bit older, it feels like my friends have caught up to what I like and it's great.

There's a nervousness and egotistical anxiety that I observe with people vainly chasing youth, self-conscious and embarrassed about their age. But aging is natural, it's what you've been doing since the second you became alive. You can't fight it, it will win. No one lives forever, no one looks young forever, no one acts young forever. And more than that, there's something so grim and pointless in observing people who try. I think we've all seen or met someone who just doesn't accept that they are 10 years older than they are acting, and it's a bit lame. I think we've all met someone with tattoo'd eyebrows, an obvious combover, or too much botox and just thought 'ah, let it go, give in - life's about more than this'. Maybe that's cruel of me to say, but still, you ARE old and we can tell, who's the performance serving?

I think that being accepting and graceful is very under-rated. Sometimes it feels like even in Australia we live in a place influenced by Hollywood and its capricious and predatory hunger for youth and beauty. It's unhealthy and ultimately futile. I wonder, those who do worry about aging a lot, do they like that about themselves? Is that how they want to experience the world?

During COVID I got really into Saturday Night Live. I don't know why, it's not always funny, but there was something about watching compilations of sketches I really enjoyed. As a creature of the internet, the sketch format lends itself so well to in jokes, repeatability and memes, it just sucked me in.

There's a great Adam Sandler skit where he's playing a travel agent where the joke is all about how 'the same sad you where you are will still be sad in Italy'. It's a great joke - if you're sad where you are, and you get on a plane to Italy, the same sad you where you are will just be in Italy. Wherever we go, we're still us.

The last few weeks, I went on my first overseas holiday since COVID went down. I flew to Hawaii for a friends' wedding and stayed there for a bit over ten days and even before I returned home, people were texting and messaging me 'how was it? what was it like?' which are questions that I always have a hard time answering.

I wasn't sad, but some days I was tired, or sick of the sun. So someone would ask 'how is it?' and I'd think 'well its hot, I'm sweaty and honestly I'm a bit sick of it today'. But that has nothing to do with Hawaii and everything to do with me. I find it funny, of course people aren't going to be super precise with their questions, but no one asks 'are you enjoying yourself?' or 'are you having fun?'.

I'm off to Sydney tomorrow and Hawaii the day after. It's my first non-art-making holiday (and first international trip) since early 2019. For 2019, 2020, 2021 and 2022 so far, apart from weekends away, any time I've had a break from work I've been going somewhere specific to make photos, conduct research or whatever else is needed to get things done.

I had a taste of what Hawaii will be like over the weekend. I was in Queensland being a supportive boyfriend as my girlfriend's company had an annual retreat to a resort on the Sunshine Coast. Up until this point in my life I would have found the idea of lazing around warm weather in a resort almost offensively unpleasant but, after a few years of not much travel, man it was great to plonk by the pool, or the beach, soak up some warmth and read my book. I napped a lot, ate a bit and generally took things pretty slow.

Hawaii I expect will be a bit more active, but not much. I really feel like I could spend just a week ambling around swimming, lying down and looking at the sunset. Throw in some mangoes, maybe a smoothie or two, some fresh fish - that's just about perfect for my current mood.

It's nice tracking how we change sometimes. When I was younger I was never a super speedy one-day-per-city traveler, but certainly I wanted to be somewhere less removed from the world than a resort, hotel or tourist beach. In general that's still my preference but, actually, this time, I sort of completely don't care: I'm just looking forward to being relaxed and wearing shorts.

One of the things I want to do is show The Killing Sink in places that aren't Australia. To me, this seems like it would be a big step up and allow me to share things that are important to me with people who perhaps have never, and might not ever, think about life over here.

What makes this uniquely challenging is how ignorant and distant I am. If I think about Australia, I have a decent reference point for galleries, festivals, events, opportunities. I can probably ask a friend to introduce me to someone who knows someone, etc, etc, it's not that hard to get around any more. Doesn't guarantee any 'yeses' or anything like that, but at least it feels a bit more productive than it has in the past. I think the LinkedIn crowd call this networking, but really that doesn't quite capture what local knowledge means, to me at least in art that is.

Anyway, the past month or so I've been exploring can I exhibit this work overseas, how would I do that and would it actually be worth it? I've talked to a dozen friends, a few professional peers and one or two gatekeepers.

Still, there are no clear answers to these questions and attempts to seek clarity are very, very messy, and quite upsetting, really.

One of the things I want to do is show The Killing Sink in places that aren't Australia. To me, this seems like it would be a big step up and allow me to share things that are important to me with people who perhaps have never, and might not ever, think about life over here.

What makes this uniquely challenging is how disconnected and distant I am. If I think about Australia, I have a decent reference point for galleries, festivals, events, opportunities. I can probably ask a friend to introduce me to someone who knows someone, etc, etc, it's not that hard to get around any more. Doesn't guarantee any 'yeses' or anything like that, but at least it feels a bit more productive than it has in the past. I think the LinkedIn crowd call this networking, but really that doesn't quite capture what local knowledge means, to me at least in art that is.

What I'm getting at is that if there's something I want to do here, at least I can think of a decent way to approach that aim.

Anyway, the past month or so I've been exploring a few questions:

I think the question that I ask myself in my art life is 'what's next?'. With art making, we often fixate on the wrong end point, and this can cause some consternation. Before this year, I would think a lot about how I am going to make work - what kinds of photos to make, what kinds of exhibitions or publications I want to put effort into. I think, without realising it, I was treating those objects as end points - but it's more realistic to treat them as mid-way points.

When you finish something, it's really just the start of something else. Finish the last page of your draft novel, well now there's editing, selling the book to a publisher, etc. Receive the book bound from the printer? Well now there's publicity, selling the novel (again), working on follow ups, getting it reviewed, etc, etc. Most of us might assume that the publisher drives a lot of that and, fair enough, if you're a big enough deal they probably do. But if you are just a standard writer, artist, creative - you are the one sending those emails, sorting it out. That was certainly something I hadn't thought much about until now.

So in a way, the end product is sort of a springboard for what ever ends up being next. Which is both exciting and exhausting.

If you're not someone with your own art career, I think music makes a really good metaphor for what things look like. No one's START is playing a stadium show, or composing the soundtrack for a Hollywood movie.

A friend asked me to write about why I don't like to use navigation apps in cars and I figured 'why not? it's a whimsical enough topic', so here we are.

After many frustrated years, my girlfriend bought one of those phone holders that sits at eye level and cradles your phone as you plug into Google Maps where you want to go. To most people's confusion, I almost never use it. I refuse to, often. In fact, I almost completely oppose using Maps at all. Something about the grating voice, the never-in-time instructions, the pointless 'don't exit' interruptions that wreck the flow of driving and the over-reliance on a machine I barely trust to tell me where to go just makes me angry. I'm not interested in optimisation, shaving 2 minutes from a trip by taking a stressful de-tour or being so disconnected from my surroundings that I can't get from A to B without a global positioning system. I think it's kind of childish not to know, say, how to drive to my parents' house, the rock climbing gym, my best friends' place or Mildura. I'm not that busy and life's too short to be stressed all the time.

For the worse, then, I am one of those people who you can occasionally hear pointlessly arguing with his phone. Truthfully, I fucking hate them and am continuous debate about whether it's time just to drown the fucking thing. I think a lot of people can relate to this, though I suspect my friend who asked me about this would be quizzical. Convenience isn't, for me, actually very convenient. The overly smooth, unnecessarily machined form of living something like a car guided tour represents just doesn't appeal to me. I'd rather just head out and do it solo, that feels easier and more enjoyable.

I like the Oliver Burkeman school of thought: the more you try to grasp time and eek out every time saving the more rushed and stressed you feel. You'll never have enough time and working hard to get more of it just slams that fact back into your had. On the other hand, time that feels really luxurious and long is almost completely divorced of effort. Lying my the creek listening to the water, riding a bike on a sunny day, cooking a really good meal - could be minutes or hours - it doesn't matter. So I like to resist things that purport convenience but add mania, tell me they'll make life easy, but rob me of engagement. Boredom often feels like the longest time and, far from an inconvenience, so much good shit has come out of being bored: good ideas, interesting hobbies, unusual forms of creativity. Some space in the day goes a long way, that's something I believe at least.

Hey - so I think this is my, like, 5th email that's been about starts and ends in some form. I didn't realise that I've been thinking about things in this way so much but here we are. I guess even I'm learning.

Here are some starts and ends.

1. I've started a new job. I've joined a University as a Student Success Coach. That means my job is to help students complete their studies in a good mood having learned plenty. It's a new role at the workplace and I've not really started yet (just induction). I'm glad to be out of Project Management and into something that's more people focused. Surprising everyone who knew me when I was 14, I've turned out to really enjoy working with people and helping them. Day one was Monday, so this is very fresh.

2. This means my period of holiday has ended. I managed to wrangle three weeks off between being a Project Manager and a Student Success Coach. It was great. I went bush, did some artist talks, absolutely SMASHED about 15 exhibition/festival/grant applications (let's hope one comes back positive) and pushed my publishing business' projects along. I also made a big collage and developed some new directions in my practice, that's sick. It was a waste of what a full time artist would be and it was great, but there are bills to pay.

3. The first financial year of treating art as a business has ended. My art brought in $25,458 over the year: sales, grants, artist fees and some commissions. My business expenses were $40,000 - which is quite high because I bought a fancy new camera, paid for a ton of printing (and books you pay for up front then they sell) and included in that is a bunch of car and home office expenses, so it's a bit misleading. The government is giving me back $5700 in tax, which is a nice donation - I'm treating it like a once-a-year artist grant. I can recommend that, if you're juggling a day job and multiple streams of income from another business an accountant really made things easier. First time I've used one!

4. The last book of 2022 that Tall Poppy Press is publishing is just about done. It's been a great project but the most circuitous one to make. Increasing costs, supply chain slow downs, scheduling complexities - you name it, we've been working through it. But the finished book should arrive this week or next and it's already a smash. So that project is coming to an end (sort of, still 2 launch events and selling it to go).

5. I've started making three new books with Tall Poppy Press for 2023. Each one is really different from the other and the business will have some really nice expansion in what it makes, shows and publishes, which feels great. The book I'm most able to share is a book that's an anthology of exhibitions/installations. It's a bit hard to describe but I think it'll be a complete smash hit. I'm enjoying emailing artists and asking 'hey, can I use your exhibition in my book?'. It's really nice to let people know their work means a lot.

6. I've ended some yo-yoing that was kicking my ass a few months ago. Like a lot of folks I've been guilty of pegging a lot of hopes on one specific thing, then it doesn't quite go to plan and I feel like shit. Earlier this year I was struggling immensely at work - I had a friendly but poor manager and was just feeling like a complete loser. I needed a job switch, but more than that I needed to work on bring a bit more accepting and go with the flow. It's a hard thing, sometimes, just to keep on trucking and not like, frantically apply for a zillion jobs or feel the only solution to discomfort is action. Ended is maybe a bit ambitious, but we're getting there.

I've been making new work recently and it's sort of being amazing and disappointing all at the same time.

The amazing part is being out, energised, engaging with people, feeling like what I'm making is purposeful, fun and interesting.

However, the disappointing part is looking at it and realising it's not good enough yet. In some ways this makes total sense: it's new, it's not finished, of course it's not good enough. But I've realised that there's something a bit more pernicious going on in my thinking and perhaps it's a good thing, but also perhaps it's making me feel worse than I should.

For a long time, perhaps even still, some of my favourite photography is editorial photography. For those who are not familiar, editorial is when a newspaper/magazine/website will pay a photographer to go shoot something for an article/feature/etc. The photographer has to produce something that looks fantastic, perfect even, in a short amount of time. So the people who work this way are just masters of the surface of the image. This stuff is highly perfect, tightly controlled and very specifically executed. In my head, especially when it comes to colour work, these types of photographs are really what I'm playing towards.

When I lived in Canberra a friend of mine from teaching said 'hey come rock climbing'. She is a really accomplished climber, as is her husband (Australia's foremost alpine rescue expert, former Churchill scholarship recipient) but at that time, after having two kids, it was a slow period for her. So she roped me in. Ever since I've been climbing most weeks. I'm not very good, though. I'm not into the culture too much, or the grinding, or trying to crack every problem. The people are friendly and I enjoy the exercise, but the whole scene gets a bit much.

Anyway, yesterday I was at a gym climbing and all I could think of was 'man I have been doing this for five years and I'm so bad at it'. Objectively, I am the lower-middle-class of climbers. I can do one level above where most beginners start and, on a good day, two levels above where most beginners start. Which, for five years of work, is pretty bad hey? It's almost remarkable how consistent my plateau is!

I find there's something kind of funny about this. In areas where you could see progress clearly, it's also a chance to reflect and think 'man I haven't progressed at all'. Yet, for me, I don't worry too much about it. At the end of the day I do the activity because I enjoy the feeling and I'm proud of myself for exercising. I'm not trying to be a great climber, just have something to do on a quiet Tuesday afternoon.

It seems to me, and this may just be me, that I have to put in quite deliberate effort to get better at something. Even if I'm doing it, regularly, I don't necessarily improve. I've climbed for, I don't know, something like 250 hours and yet I'm arguably not any better than I was after 25 hours. The extra practice is just, well, a flat line.

I wanted to share a bit about how being an artist is going financially but I’ve had a surprisingly busy week and just haven’t had the chance to crunch the numbers yet – sorry, might have to wait a few weeks!

Anyway…

Low and slow is one of my favourite ways to cook. I really, really get excited when a recipe includes things like ‘let it simmer for 3 hours’, ‘put in the oven for 5 hours’, ‘let it sit overnight’. I think I enjoy the combination of pre-planning and then completely hands off that this type of cooking needs.

The other good part of cooking like this is that people get really impressed with the results, which is great because it’s a very lovely effort:happiness ratio. I really enjoy cooking for people, and putting in an inordinate amount of thinking into it. It makes me feel really, really great when friends or family are visibly enjoying things I’ve made for them and there’s something very direct and rewarding about the experience of providing someone with sustenance.

One of my favourite things to say is 'there's a season to everything' and it strikes me that it's a slightly more poignant way of saying 'everything ends'.

Sometimes I feel like being really energetic and frenetic, other times I like to be slow and patient. Some years I'm active and exercise a lot, other years I tend to just walk around and enjoy that. I have a fairly generous sense of following my own nose and tend not to question why I do what I do or whether there should be something else I should be doing. Such a moralising word, should, not sure I'm a big fan (unless we're talking about ethics).

When I was a kid my Dad told me, with a bit of gentle scorn, I was a fad person, I just would pick up things, get obsessed, enjoy it then stop. It would never be something I got properly good at or stuck with. Seasonality Dad, look it up!

Anyway, I have a friend who just seems always wrapped up in trying to change himself. More time in the gym, more productive down time, better sleep, more learning, reading more, whatever - it just seems so joyless, exhausting and pointless. What, I sometimes wonder, is different in his life for all this effort? How many more books does he actually get through? How much more sleep does he really get? I really wonder: how much more strung out does he actually feel running himself ragged?

On Friday last week I went to my first live music concert in a long time. Not just because of COVID, but just in general I don’t go to much live music. Still, this was a special event for me – one of my favourite bands, Boris, was playing an album they released way back in 2002, well before I could have gone to seen them.

I had an absolute blast, but this was largely because there was so much nostalgia, identity and like life philosophy tied up in this band and music for me.

Boris is a doom/stoner art metal band from Japan that have been around since the early 90s. They are kind of impossible to pin down and seem to re-create themselves from scratch each time they release an album, which is about once every 18 months. Some albums sound like garage rock, others like j-pop, others just are drone music. Not every album is good and I don’t like them all. But when I first heard the band I felt so absolutely inspired and, to a large extent, still do that they’ve become a fixture in my life ever since 2006.

I used to listen to heavier albums and imagine myself on stage, the music was a form of daydreaming for me, they were life and soul. I’ve run to them, danced to them, played them in cars, brought myself up, had my breath taken away, made out to them and felt alive while they were playing. One thing that makes me sad sometimes is very few people I know actually listen to this type of music, or have ever really tried.

On Friday I had a big shipment arrive at my house, a pallet jack had to be used to get it from the truck to my front door. Shrouded in an obscene amount of plastic, a few dozen boxes contained 350 books that are the culmination of five years of work. Shakily I opened a box, took one out - it's so small, light - it's crazy, in a way, that such a long amount of time ends up distilled into something so specific and, in a way, condensed. I love the book, I really do. I'm immensely proud of myself, but it's incredible - over 1500 days end up being able to be refined into something really unique.

Five years ago, in 2017 I started thinking about Eagles. I saw someone else's photos and thought 'hmm I want to do that with Wedge-Tailed Eagles'. The first picture I ever took of an Eagle was during a spring drive home from a hike with my girlfriend, it was 2017 and I was captivated. She was irate, I was pulled over in the middle of a dirt road on a mountain, she was worried we'd be cleaned up. Always the worrier, that one.

In 2018, things changed. A big court case broke about people murdering eagles. Something inside me collapsed. I'm usually a really hopeful person and believe most people (99%) are just trying to live a decent life, but there was something so fundamentally upsetting and challenging about learning of these crimes. How could someone do that? How could they look themselves in the mirror, or go to sleep at night? Where's your heart, your head, your soul? From then to now I've been working to build the project that is now The Killing Sink.

Five years is a delicious round unit of time, but for someone like me (a spoon, not a fork) there's almost nothing I've done for five years. I've never had a job for five years, haven't lived in the same place for five years since I finished school, I think I have a pair of hiking pants that are five years old, I've been with my girlfriend for 7-8 years and I've been trying to make great art for 10 years now. I think those are like the only 5+ year milestones, which is amazing. I'm writing these figures because I'm sort of amazed I stuck with something for five years. It's such a long period of time for me, I'm so wildly unfocused and energetic I stop-and-start rather than see things through. But I saw this through.

Hello everyone. I know I'd said I'd be too busy to write a newsletter this week, but guess who has COVID? (symptoms are mild and I'm almost done isolating) So, I do have plenty of time.

Starting something new is a bit of a weird experience. Having finished, completely, the Killing Sink, I've had a few false starts on working on the next thing.

It's worth exploring how people work a little as a bit of background for why it's been a bit tricky for me to get started. Some folks just have a camera, take pictures of whatever and then eventually use their editing to build something cool. This would like an author going to the cafe, writing spontaneously everyday and gradually pulling different ideas and passages together. It's fun, to some extent, but you gotta do it everyday. For a few years I tried to do this and it didn't work for me, at all. So I'm much more of an ideas guy - I read, research, talk, work out what an interesting idea is then go and work out how that can be cool art. Or, if I was an author, I'd be spending that time thinking 'what kind of a story would be cool?' and plotting it out before writing it.

The problem with this is: you don't know how good and idea is till you get going. Lots of things sound great on paper but the execution isn't there, similarly, a simple and unimpressive idea on paper can be absolutely gorgeously made. For example, Jenny Holzer's idea, to reinterpret ancient wisdom into aggressively short sayings, sounds sort of bland. Yet the result is one of my favourite art pieces ever. I actually hand wrote a few of these and they sit above my PC at home. Simple idea, BRILLIANT execution.

Hi guys - I'm traveling for work, then on leave, then traveling for work again, so it'll be a while.

Have a great three weeks :)

On the weekend I went to the You Yangs with my parents to weed Koala habitat. We were looking for a plant called Bone Seed (what a great name!) that essentially koalas do not like. We're not sure why, but it seems to prevent them from moving between trees (for those playing at home koalas climb down one tree then wander to the next one).

While weeding I also learned that one of the larger issues facing koalas (whose numbers are falling precipitously) is that the strands of trees they have left are often isolated from creeks and rivers, and the koalas die of thirst, heat exhaustion and exposure. In warmer months, koalas move towards shady creeks and rivers, in colder months to more exposed trees. We've cleared trees near creeks and rivers, often for the purpose of farming, and the koalas have little left. In the You Yangs, koala populations have dropped 46% in the last 10 years.

Bone seed is a weird little plant and it's something I wouldn't have noticed before this event and now I can't stop seeing it. I think it's interesting that these little tweaks totally transform my world view. I remember, when I was like 14, my Mum took me to a weeding day where the group we worked with was trying to remove agapanthus from an area. An introduced species, agapanthus chokes many native species. Since that day I abhor agapanthus and if you have some planted you should bloody get rid of it! Now bone seed is a plant I'll see and probably just rip up. Willows too, something I used to love but now see as this monstrosity.

Of course it's a bit weird to imbue plants with human intention, but that helps me understand the processes that are going on.

Sometime in the last year or two I've noticed a change in myself: when I walk past a sign advertising the lotto I just can't help myself, I think 'fuck that would be great'.

I know the odds are low, and that buying a ticket is statistically futile, and so I don't buy any at all. But I've gone from someone who used to see those signs, roll their eyes and think 'why piss money away?' to someone who now thinks 'how many of my problems would be solved? How much of a relief would I feel?', it's dangerous in a lot of ways because, yes, winning $5 million or $10 million, or hell, $100,000 would complete change my life. And yet I'm not going to win, am I? It's never going to happen. So the danger in the dreaming is the distance - it's hoping for something that is literally unattainable.

Yet, in the past few weeks it's impossible not to think about these absurd amounts of money. Unusually, money is very much under the radar. There's Elon Musk's absurd billions spending spree, there's a federal and state election, with staggering amounts promised, absurd amounts spent and just life-changing money thrown about. Cost of living, too, is on every news website, conversation and all that stuff. A week where I'm really nervous about the next publishing project as it's $1000 more than I was hoping it would cost is also a week where there's billions being talked about. So it's hard for me not to think 'christ where's mine?'.

But of course, globally I've won the lotto. Compared to the majority of people alive I have way more than most and have definitely 'got mine'. I live in Australia where it's relatively easy to have a decent wage and get on with life. I'm free from the risks of extreme poverty, I'm probably free from the risks of poverty all together. While it's certainly possible a bad car accident or something would be a big problem, with good family, friends, social safety net, my partner, etc, it's unlikely I'd become homeless or truly destitute. But we all have that inner voice telling us we could (or should) have more. We all wish for something we don't have. Whether that's a bit more security, the comfort to email the boss and say 'see you!' or the desire to buy any company in the world (not my desire, for what it's worth).

Yumi's Sweet Potato and Cashew Dip has a special place in my heart.

The summer between Year 11 and Year 12 I was really, really sick. In, like, September or October I'd developed really severe abdominal pain and, more or less, stopped eating very much. Almost everything made me feel incapacitated with pain. When summer rolled round in December, and school was out, I didn't feel better all the time, but I didn't feel too sick too often. I wasn't eating very much, but I was still trying to have a regular summer. At the time I'd just gotten a casual job at Coles in the fruit section (maybe the worst job I ever had) and was just thrilled to be on like $15 an hour, more if it was a weekend or public holiday.

Each summer, my parents go and rent a place in Airey's Inlet - it's something of a family tradition. But that summer I didn't really want to go, I wanted to work and have the house to myself, so I left everyone to it and just enjoyed some shifts, some space and some quiet. It was exceedingly rare, in my life at that point, to have the house to myself and it was fucking great. I remember, specifically, enjoying the air-con. Only my parents' room and my Dads' office had AC and I made myself a makeshift bed in the office and just never felt hot at all. I lived off, I think largely, sweet potato and cashew dip and Baker's Delight white bread. I remember sleeping well, my skin was clear, I didn't feel any stomach pain and it just felt like 'fuck yeah, this is living, this is being an adult'.

I'd do some shitty shift with the most self-absorbed guys I've ever met, dodge the small-town-bickering that is just ever present in Williamstown (where the Coles was), walk home and just munch on some dip and bread, play video games and feel good. It had been months since I really felt good. I'd missed school a ton, had to cancel so much stuff with friends and was, without realising it, in need of a small win. This week or so gave that small win. Even though my Dad was mad when he got home (I left some cheese uncovered in the fridge and it had dried out!), even though I missed the beach (which is a bit lame because the beach is great) I sort of have this really warm memory of that time, and eating just a criminal amount of dip.

Something I've been grappling with for a long time is the idea that regular, small things matter as much, or more, as larger, more dramatic, more story-generating big things.

A fancy restaurant meal that we have once in a while might stick in our heads, but actually the breakfast we eat every day sort of matters more, even if it is not as memorable or special. In art, a lot of people are drawn to spectacle and drama - superhero films, large colourful artworks, musicals, fireworks, projections - but the book you read, music you listen to, drawing that you've put on your wall perhaps influence you more. Certainly, you spend more time in their company. Yet those things are less remarkable and less championed, and that may mean they are overlooked. If the day-to-day stuff we do, see and notice is overlooked then it maybe can't end up mattering.

The thing is, I really care about these small things, I don't really know why. I recently was trying to express this in an essay I wrote for someone's exhibition. Why do these photos of small, local, routine interactions between people matter so much to me? How is this valuable? Why does it move me, deeply, to think that it's the texture of our day-to-day existence that is so vital?

I don't really have a clear, one sentence answer, but the more I think about 'why' the more I think about the Wind in the Willows, you know the aggressively quaint kids book. This book is pretty romantic, but I really loved it as a kid. It has such well drawn characters: the charismatic rat, the gruff-but-loving badger, the effervescent toad, the meek mole. In one of the final chapters of the book, mole stumbles (literally, smacks into during a snowstorm) into his home. Over the course of the book he has made new friends, gone on adventures, been swept up in the drama, intensity and grandeur of interesting and exciting new things. So much so that he's forgotten where he started, and what his home was like. The story just breaks my heart, this totally lovable character is embarrassed, ashamed even, of his home - showing his new friends the humble, perhaps even drab, place that he lived. More then that, the character realises he's forgotten a part of himself, he's neglected the part of his personality that's embodied in the house. He's become a bit unstuck, heady and un-tethered.

In my memory, some years are just monoliths: so much seemed to have happened and occurred. Others are barely blips. 2005, for example, is a year I could name nothing about. Not a single occurrence is lodged in my brain from that year. 2019 is a big year for me. 2020 was not. I'm interested in how time seems both linear and relative. I'm interested in why and how our brains, memory, perception and our own inaccuracies layer up to create an incredibly bizarre pastiche that makes complete sense and nonsense all at the same time.

Sometimes things that I remember that are thematically connected seem super close in terms of my memory. Something like, starting teaching and traveling to Taiwan, there's something connecting these in my head - youthfullness, freedom, I don't know, but they were three or more years apart. Similarly, Outkast's 'Hey Ya' and house parties are sort of the same in my head, but I think Hey Ya came out when I was 13, and I didn't go to many parties till I was 16, so that's a big chunk of time between things that just feels like it isn't there. But then what's complicated is in the three years between the song and the party there are other memories that are stuck together, getting my second job (working at a board/card game store) and the first time I really quit something as a semi-adult (playing games like that).

Time and memory sort of seems both like a spider web and a box-and-whisker plot, this weird relay race being run in every direction simultaneously and completely unpredictably.

In a few weeks, the cohort of people I started teaching with are having a ten-year anniversary. For those who don't know, I started teaching through Teach for Australia which, at the time, meant myself and 37 other people were on a two year intensive crash course, often living and working together for weeks at a time. It was a time of incredibly deep bonding and while I don't stay in touch with all of those people, it's incredibly rare to have such a formative experience in such a communal way, especially as an adult, especially in Australia where most people do not move to a University town to study as they may do in the USA or UK.

I run a small publishing company and through this I send maybe 200-300 packages a year. It amazes me that, just by saving packaging I get from other things I buy, that I basically don't need to buy anything but envelopes to send 200-300 books out in the post.

Bubble wrap, cardboard, boxes, peanuts, newspaper, packing corners, etc. There's so much of it packed in other things I buy that I have enough to, more or less, never pay for packaging materials.

Most days I feel fizzy for some of the day. To me fizzy is both tired and energetic, it's stimulated but undirected. I could go for a run, fire up Photoshop (my least favourite program ever created, seriously) or lie down and sleep. I can't focus on much and I just have to take that energy and go and do something. The worst time to feel fizzy is when everyone is still asleep but I want to do something social.

For this reason, among others, I go to the supermarket almost every day. I don't keep a lot of stuff on hand and don't do those mega shops once a week like my Mum did. It's a good excuse to go for a 60 minute walk, pick up some food and feel more calm and relaxed again.

I really love going to the supermarket, which a lot of people find amazingly bizarre. Part of it is the walk, walking is my favourite thing, I can put on music, a podcast, talk to myself, day dream, see how the world is changing, people watch and feel like I'm ticking off something from my 'to do list'. This habit probably means I buy a bit more food (and a bit more chocolate) than I strictly should, but as I get older I care much less about that and much more about things like: is adding 20% more effort into thinking and making dinner going to make this day feel great? (usually it does). Will going for a walk for a manufactured reason make me feel more calm and collected? (it always does).

In general, this fizzyness stops me from just taking stock. Sitting still is really hard for me. I've never, that I can remember, had a weekend or holiday where I wasn't actively doing stuff. At the moment it feels like I'm almost on the precipice of 'too much'. In addition to my work, and my publishing company, I'm also releasing my own book and searching for a new job. You know when you stack the dishes and you've JUST balanced everything just right but you know a stiff breeze will bring it all down? That's how I was feeling for a few days last week, but things moved on and we're back to 'frantic but manageable'.

Of all the genre fiction that I adore, Fantasy is my absolute favourite.

While it's the red-headed-step-child of the writing world, for as long as I've been reading, Fantasy has just had its hooks in me. While, like lots of people, I'm a bit tired of the euro-centrism, protagonist as narrator wish fulfillment and bizarre obsession with a very inaccurate re-casting of medieval times, on the whole Fantasy gives me much more than its cliches, tropes and traps.

Last week, I absolutely just plowed through a book about the rigidity of justice and the complexities of hosting judge, jury and executioner in one house (but also the problems of allowing these groups space). This week I am just about finished a book about the insidious problems of money and power being the same thing. These are not fresh takes by any stretch, and they aren't the most insightful takes either, but the use of narrative, character, tweaks to the world and social commentary is really addictive to me.

One of my favourite novels I read last year was Black Sun - this novel is incredible and contains so much about the complexities of colonisation, the legacy of revenge and the inability for personal connection to heal social grief. Every page kicked ass and it felt substantial but really easy.

One of my favourite things about life is how small the difference between a normal day and a great day really is. To me, and maybe this is my personality, a great day is just one abnormally nice experience away from a normal one.

Last week, on a completely average 'ah what a pissed away day' mood I took a blanket to the creek, lay down and just listened to the water. I don't know why I did it, I just had the urge. Man it felt good, I don't know why, but it really did. Great day, despite all the just turgid mediocrity before that.

Today which, by judging by my work was a total write off, had two small lovely moments. An email from a gallery confirming inclusion of my work at a cool show, and also can we use it on the promo poster? Then I saw an old friend. No big, earth-shaking, tectonic changes, but Wednesday feels great.

Some days I'm just hunting for that little something that tips it from a dull day to something great. I've needed this a lot the past few weeks. Despite, I think in this very newsletter, saying that my day job is a-ok, I do find myself constantly just so sick of it. I find it boring (ennui!), lethargic and unnecessary and when those nothing days happen, I just can't help thinking 'I'll never have another Tuesday the 15th ever again, and what a fucking waste, I didn't even like my day'. I don't know if this is just life, maybe these thoughts and frustrations are perennial, that's something I'm trying to work out at the moment. I don't think a perfect blissful state exists, but I do wonder if a cycle of existential sadness and frustration has to hit quite this hard. Unfortunately, for me, the way I spend 8 hours a day at work is a big part of how I end up feeling, even though I like to think I've got plenty going on outside of it. Jobs, man, what a headfuck.

In main part due to how sick I was last week, I have been eating a bunch of white bread, something I've not done in years (decade+). Actually today, while writing this, I finished the loaf. It's easy to digest and simple for the body, so it's been a bit of a safe food as I work out what the heck is wrong with me. I have a CT scan this week, what a weird experience that will be.

The thing is white bread is a very, very odd food. It's both incredibly substance-less and really, really filling. It's unbelievably soft, eating it feels like taking a bite of air, yet it really adds up. This is most noticeable for me when it's toasted. It's just texture: crunch with no body, less there than cornflakes or bran. It's a bizarre miracle food while also being obviously junk.

I spent the afternoon before you're reading this on the phone with the ambulance trying to sort out if I needed to be rushed to the ER ASAP with something life threatening, or if I was just experiencing something normalish.

Safe money is on something normal, and I'm ok. But I can't write much tonight. I always feel quite weird about telling people when I might have been sick, I don't like the idea of panicking someone even though now all is calm. But, something I read recently included a discussion of how many folks feel like if they share their lives they are bothering their friends or peers, but that actually being bothered is not so bad (most of us welcome our friends in this way). So here's me bothering you - I'm ok (I hope), but shit not being able to walk due to stomach pain is no joke.

I've been obsessed with the ocean lately. While I've always loved the beach, and for years wanted to be a marine biologist, over the last few months I've started trying to make photographs about the ocean, trying to find ways to capture what it is and what it means. I've been thinking a lot about how the ocean is a place for leisure, but also of terror (I've nearly drowned 2-3 times, have had some pretty close encounters with deadly octopus, etc), it's a global highway, a military zone, a biological wonderland, a carbon sink and the most alien place on Earth (while also being the definition of what makes this planet habitable). The ocean is connected to the moon, the sun, rivers, land, and time. It moves in cycles that are beyond any sense of human time to experience, yet we can measure it. Water is soft, hard, cold, warm, refreshing and morphs all of our senses. The ocean is too large for us to even hold in our heads - it's beyond our mind's capacity to know. Yet, like everywhere, it is also substantially impacted by human activity.

To me, this expanse is what makes the ocean so interesting and so ripe for art work. How could I explain all the shit that's happening in and around the ocean? The web of things like pollution, invasive species, conservation, fishing, play, texture of water, the fear of drowning, the fear of sharks, etc. If I was to write something about this it would end up just a list of things I think about, it would be messy and probably quite useless. But art, on the other hand, has this fantastic relationship with scale, art can take something too large for us to think of and package it in a way where we see the connections and appreciate the size. Rather than seeking to know, art can help us see. Sometimes art can show us things we can't say, which is kind of amazing, isn't it?

Strap in readers, this is a long one. But don't worry, no NFT chats at all.

In 2018 I decided I would never be a High School teacher ever again. I had completely burned out, wasn't sleeping much, was irritable, resentful, angry and sick of it. As I pondered what to do next, my girlfriend asked me if I'd have a crack at making it as an artist. I can't remember exactly how I phrased it but I think I said something like 'fuck no, I'd just be broke'. Reconciling the desire to spend a large amount of time, energy, emotion and identity doing something that doesn't pay the bills easily is, in some ways, completely insane. But, on the other hand, I think the 'square peg, round hole' of art and money is interesting in its own weird ways. If things can't go together seamlessly, how do we deal with the friction?

I think most of us can relate: don't we all want to spend our time doing whatever the fuck we want without worrying about the bills? Similarly, doesn't the desire to have financial security hold us back in some ways? Don't we find ourselves working more, taking on more hours than we 'need' to so that we can have a larger bank account or more options? These aren't evil or worrying things by any stretch, but there is this tension between the desire to create and the desire to be well off (whatever that means to you) that will maybe always exist. I've grown to accept that this tension will never be resolved, it will just be life.

For those of you reading who aren't artists, there's basically very little in the way of stable money in art. That's no surprise but it is worth re-iterating. If someone wants to make a living as an artist they are probably working as a teacher, in a casual job or a full-time, low intensity job that gives them enough space to keep going (that's me). We've seen this really clearly with Spotify in the last few weeks - if someone wants to make $40,000 a year (which in Australia puts you $10,000 LOWER than the median income) you need 10,000,000 streams. Let's put this another way: if an artist is significant and compelling enough for their work to be played 10,000,000 times they get the privilege of being below average income earners. Of course if that money needs to be split between band mates, well, that's less. This is just a small example of how little income is actually possible for artists.

One of my pleasures is reading to or listening about explorers. Not so much the age of exploration, which strikes me as naive and damaging, but a lot of modern explorers and what they do.

Many people think that exploration means filling in a blank on the map and that, since all the blanks have been filled in, there's nothing left to find. But I think this is quite two dimensional and reductive, a map is just an inaccurate representation of space, but says nothing about the texture of a place. How does it feel being there? Furthermore, maybe we've explored some of the bigger things, but the hyper-local remains elusive. Often I think about places I walk by every day then suddenly notice - how many people in my life have never really seen that building, tree, flower, object? Isn't this a form of exploration?

Putting something out in the world is rarely a good feeling. It's always nerve-wracking and unpleasant, at least a little bit. Questions like 'will anyone come?' or 'will anyone like this?' or 'will this be boring and ignored?' circle round like the worst soundtracks. In my experience, the worst I ever had this was for this rinky-dink exhibition in 2017. It was for an art prize at a community gallery in Canberra. I'd submitted a photo, been accepted, dropped it off and then short listed (so 5 of us in the short list for a prize of $5000). On opening night, all short listed artists were asked to come along as the winner would be announced.

From minute one I felt like shit. I was anxious, something I very rarely feel, sweaty, shaky, felt inadequate, just felt like a fraud and a sham in the deepest way I've ever felt those things. I plonked myself down in an armchair near the stage and waited. Time dragged and every minute crawled. I was breathing super fast and it just was really, substantially unpleasant. When the long boring introductory speech was over the winner was announced. It wasn't me and I instantly felt both relief and grief. The short listed artists were asked to come to the stage to be presented an award, and I didn't move. No one knew who I was or what I looked like so it was easy to pretend I wasn't there as the MC called 'is Matt here? Matt Dunne? Anyone seen Matt?', it's a bit shameful, but I didn't want to stand up, clearly a mess, shaky and just spent.

When I got home I was in tears, and talked to my girlfriend about it. Eventually I wrote this on IG (get ready, it's a bit much):

"My boss always talks about art scars, and I've always wanted to be able to make art. But every thing I've tried has failed and made me feel awful: ashamed, despairing and pathetic. I'm very embarrassed by my work and constantly feel it's not very good, so I rarely tell friends or family about it. Recently I submitted for a local art prize, I got shortlisted and, stupidly, went to the opening. The whole day I've been feeling anxious and my heart was racing. When I got to the gallery I couldn't talk or relax so I sat in a chair and tried to calm my self. Seeing my photo on the wall made me feel stupid, it was a let down. Didn't make me calm. When the winner was announced (wasn't me) I felt so low. Driving home I just felt inadequate and stupid. Stupid for trying, for caring, for being mediocre and for not having the grace to accept that. It's really hard for me to share these things, I instantly get out back in the emotional place of looking at my drawings as a kid and hating myself for being so bad at something I loved so much. I don't know of contests are good or bad, but recognition does matter, I'll never be as good as my heroes and it's one of the challenges I face: accepting being average when I feel like I'm more. I guess posts like this are a bit showy and silly but it's all part of trying to grow a little. Thanks for reading."

Writing it helped. Having people let me know they felt the same/not to give up helped. A friend took me out the next week and helped me realise that doubt will always be there, and that's ok. You can't look for these unhelpful feelings to leave entirely, that's a standard for failure.

When I was 12 or 13 I made the mistake of signing up to play cricket for my school team. Cricket, like anything, really is a struggle to care about once it's longer than an hour or so, and so I was not a fan. I was relegated to fielding (for those who don't know, standing in a field pretending to care, hoping to catch a ball, a bit hard for this 12 or 13 year old, who regularly sat down and complained). Needless to say my team didn't like me and I didn't really like doing it.

On the way back from one particularly awful match I talked my Dad into stopping for McDonalds, something he almost never did. Excited and salivating, I was so incredibly disappointed in the food that it was the last time I ever ate McDonalds. In fact it's the last time I've eaten, really, that kind of fast food - no KFC, Hungry Jacks, McDonalds, whatever - I have my vices, and I love plenty of junk food, but for some reason I just hated eating that meal and never, ever have felt like having another one in my life. I didn't know it then, but that was the last time. It's probably the first last time I'm conscious of.

I find myself occasionally thinking about all the last times I've had in my life. I'm not talking about the most recent times, I'm talking about the finality, the last time you ever see something, do something or experience something. I think it's sort of interesting and a bit melancholic, but through-provoking. For example there's been:

• The last time I saw my high school crush

• The last time I lived in a share house

• The last time I saw my grandparents

• The last time I saw a friend at work who died

• The last time I worked in England

• The last time I caught a flight to Mildura

• The last time I ate a restaurant that shut down

• The last time I ever tried to see if I'd like alcohol (for those who don't know this I don't drink, have never drunk and can't stand the flavour of alcohol)

• The last time I tried to emulsify cheese, water and starch (so hard)

• The last time I practiced martial arts

• The last time I was a teacher

• The last time I broke someone's heart (I think we're here now, but we'll see)

I recently watched this documentary about folks in Australia who believe that the Thylacine (Tasmanian Tiger) is still alive. For those living overseas, the Tasmania Tiger is the poster child of extinction in Australia. The last known animal was captured in the 1930s and died in captivity. For some reason, despite all the other extinctions that happen here, the Thylacine/Tasmanian Tiger is the most iconic species that we have killed off. You can bet, dollars to donuts, that any Australian knows about it while a variety of birds, marsupials and mammals go unnoticed.

I'm not a very good runner, in fact it's probably unfair to call me a runner at all. Once a week, sometimes twice if the weather is extra perfect, I'll go for a ~5km run. While I do some running I'm not much of a cultural runner, I don't expound anything, think it's the best or try to convince anyone that there's some biological/evolutionary basis in the meaning of running.

Having recently moved house, some of my many house plants are struggling in their new space. It's summer, and we're experiencing a heatwave here in Melbourne, which has led to two of our most established plants getting sunburned. A guest over the other day said they've prune all the sunburn away, and my girlfriend agreed. It's ugly, looks unpleasant, I get that. For me, though, there's an assumption that in choosing to prune those leaves at this time of the year we would necessarily be improving the plant by making it look the way we wanted. None of us, in this conversation, are experts on plants, or even know what species the plants we own are. So why do we think we know better? And, more confrontationally: does wanting something to look a certain way lead us to act in the interests of that thing?

I don't think so.

This is a bit of a tough segue, but this discussion brought up some of the things I've been feeling as I've been reading about rewilding (and the irony of this coming from a chat about houseplants is not lost on me)!

I recently borrowed Feral by George Monbiot from the library, which is considered something of a foundational text (and famous in its own circles), and I was really struck by the lack of ego that just permeated the work. As something who thinks a lot about conservation, stewardship and making space for non-human life, I found myself really captivated.

A few days ago my girlfriend screamed 'there's a really fucking big spider here'. He had emerged from some boxes (we'd moved houses) and totally startled her. Like most people I know, I tend to fall apart when it comes to spiders, but of the two of us I'm the least useless around them, so it was up to me to sort it out. My chosen method is pop a glass down, stiff cardboard underneath, run outside, set the contraption down, knock the glass over, run away.

This spider removal was a disaster. First, I couldn't find the right type of cardboard (too thin and it bends, the spider escapes onto my hand, too thick and I can't get it under the glass). Second, when I took it outside it immediately ran back at me/the house, causing a ruckus. Finally, when I eventually got it out, it immediately disappeared. Sometimes it's comforting to see them run into a bush or up a tree. But vanishing is never that re-assuring.

Here's a photo of the spider in question (note it is not 'a really fucking big' one, this is AUSTRALIA after all).

For a year-and-a-bit I worked in England at a fairly posh school filled with great people. One of the best teachers there showed the staff a great lesson he’d made, where he asked students to get into groups of three and elect to be the mole, the fox or the bird. The bird tries to get the big picture, see what’s happening and how it affects everything else. The mole knows a lot about a little. The fox knows a little about a lot. It took me like 25 years to see that I’m a fox: I like to know as much as I can about as many things as possible, but am detail shy. I’m more like a spoon than a fork.

This newsletter is a space for me to write a bit about whatever I want. I find writing helpful and while I don’t think I’ll ever write anything completely mind bending, I think I’ll regularly write something interesting and gently thought provoking. You can expect a lot about nature, a bit about education, some silly stories, things I do to explore the world and the occasional over-thoughtful piece about average performance. I’m a big proponent of ‘just enough’. Some people have podcasts, I have a newsletter. And a website. And a small business.

In the extremely unexpected case that you don’t know me personally but have made your way here: hello! I’m Matt. I work in Education policy, make art after work, publish books and spend a lot of time writing. I think I’m ok at it and want to do more, hence this newsletter. I hope you enjoy it.