Archives: Essays

“My religion is very simple. My religion is kindness.” Dalai Lama This quote by the Dalai Lama seems incredibly simple but in my books that’s why it is so profound. Kindness isn’t just a healthy attribute it is essential for having a good and happy life. Kindness, I feel is the most contagious of emotions […]

I was first exposed to Gormley in the early nineties when I bought an art book on young British artists including Andy Goldsworthy too and his sculptures captivated me. I feel Gormley’s sculptures made a return to figurative sculpture in contemporary art. Then last year I found a community transport driver who also had an […]

“There’s not much that doesn’t get me stoked. I love what I do and am so passionate about it that I get stoked on the simplest things – watching the sunrise, walking on the beach, going for a run through the forest or along the coast. One of my all-time favourite things is surfing amazing […]

 “We are shaped by our thoughts; we become what we think,” “The past is gone, the future is not yet here, but you have this moment,” and “Hatred does not cease by hatred, but only by love.” Buddha quotes These Buddha quotes speak to me and I am most influenced by the idea that we […]

“Shapeshifting requires the ability to transcend your attachments, in particular your ego attachments to identity and who you are. If you can get over your attachment to labelling, yourself and your cherishing of your identity, you can be virtually anybody. You can slip in and out of different shells, even different animal forms or deity […]

“Smell the roses. Smell the coffee. Whatever it is that makes you happy.” Rita Moreno I have interests in different things but my main interest is just in art and music. When I say art, I also include not just visual art but movies and books too. When I talk about literal and metaphorical coffee, […]

“When one door closes, another opens; but we often look so long and so regretfully upon the closed door that we do not see the one which has opened for us,” Alexander Graham Bell Ever since undergrad in sculpture in the early nineties I have made sculptures with doorways. First with ceramics then plywood and […]

I have made many friends while swimming laps early at the pool weekdays and mum taught me not to play favourites but I have a soft spot for my new great grandmother friend Gwenda. Her advice is sage and she has a gentle kind smile. I think that the best resource anyone can have is […]

I made the title then thought that Kapoor and Laib are contemporary and still working but Beuys was a Fluxus artist most active in the 1960s and 1970s.  “Fluxus artists were members of a loosely organized, international avant-garde network in the 1960s and 70s, founded by George Maciunas, who aimed to break down barriers between art and […]

“Music acts like a magic key, to which the most tightly closed heart opens.” Maria von Trapp I like this quote about the ability of music to open up one’s heart. I have a big music collection of records and CDS but I mainly listen to music on Spotify mostly these days. When I have anxiety […]

“Happiness comes from the full understanding of your own being.” Marina Abramovic I feel that happiness is the full understanding of your own being however I also feel that the full gamut of emotions such as sadness and anxiety make up a full understanding of one’s being as well. “Time is an illusion. Time only […]

“But part of the enjoyment I take in it is finding the most efficient way to do it, which doesn’t mean the corrections aren’t made. I like to have a feeling of the whole task before I start, even if it changes.” Bruce Nauman I like this quote by American conceptual artist Bruce Nauman and […]

“Visual storytelling of one kind or another has been around since cavemen were drawing on the walls.”  Frank Darabont I like this quote about the long history of drawing back to cave men prior to the birth of writing. For about the past five years I have been working on a ten-drawings a day project […]

“Never see a need without doing something about it,” to “Love one another, bear with one another,” and to “Teach more by example than by word,” Mary Mackillop These quotes are by the Catholic saint Mary Mackillop and her and Saint Francis are my favourite saints. “Mary Helen MacKillop RSJ (in religion Mary of the Cross; 15 January 1842 – 8 August […]

 “Fill your paper with the breathings of your heart” William Wordsworth I like this quote by Wordsworth and I feel that’s what my journaling was like last year when I journaled most days and also filled the a4 notebooks with many drawings. I found that journaling helped me fix my many issues both practically and […]

“I can’t change the direction of the wind, but I can adjust my sails constantly to reach my destination. “ Jimmy Dean I like this quote and I feel the same that you cannot control life but you can control how you deal with it. I feel the best way to deal with adversity is […]

“Developing a strong “spiritual backbone” alongside physical exercise involves aligning your inner resolve with outward action.” Google Search  I like this quote about aligning physical exercise and inner resolve and feel when they align one can really shine. “It is a great thing to have a big brain, a fertile imagination, grand ideals, but the […]

“The glory of the elderly is their insight, their knowledge, and their wisdom.” Lailah Gifty Akita Probably the best time in my life was when mum was old and I became her primary caregiver when I lived with her particularly over the last few years. Then when she had to many falls and needed more […]

“Drinking water is like washing out your insides. The water will cleanse the system, fill you up, decrease your caloric load and improve the function of all your tissues.” Kevin R.Stone I love this quote about the benefits of drinking lots of water and in the last year have started drinking around three litres daily. […]

“My nutritionist has done a great job in changing my diet after we established, I am allergic to things like gluten – I can’t eat pizza, pasta and bread. I have lost some weight, but my movement is sharper and I feel great.” Novak Djokovic I’m kind of a vegetarian but I still eat eggs […]

“To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.” Susan Sontag I like this quote about the connection between mortality and photography but I feel particularly in photographs and drawing that they can capture life […]

“That is beautiful which springs from inner need, which springs from the soul.” Wassily Kandinsky I like this quote by the late Russian painter/artist Kandinsky about how an artist makes their art sing when it is an expression of the soul. I felt this as a viewer of his paintings at the Guggenheim in New […]

“It’s good as an artist to always remember to see things in a new, weird way.” Tim Burton I have always been a movie buff but now I have taken that obsession to new levels. Most days and evenings I watch at least two movies on Netflix and most days it’s three. I was talking […]

“Nothing will benefit human health and increase the chances for survival of life on Earth as much as the evolution to a vegetarian diet.” Albert Einstein I’ve been a vegetarian on and off during my life but it’s been steady over the past four or five years. Mum spent the last year of her life […]

“Swimming is simply moving meditation“ Cesar Nikko Caharian I think all the swimming first thing in the morning five days a week over the past three months has emptied my mind out so the job of renovating my apartment has shifted too and I am seeing all the different possibilities to make it minimal and […]