Friday, October 23, 2015

Game of Drones

Hi pal, if you're free tonight (Friday the 23rd) you should totally come to the National Gallery of Victoria; there's gonna be drones!
No wait, I mistyped that, not drones, even better, you should totally come to the NGV tonight cause there's gonna be Gareth Liddiard, the front man from legendary Melbourne band The Drones!


This'll be week four of the six Friday Nights I'm super stoked to be resident artist for at the NGV and if you haven't made it to one of the Friday nights yet this is an awesome one to start with. If you haven't heard how friggin good Gareth Liddiard is, here's one of my favourites of his;

And as if Gareth Liddiard wasn't already enough there's also great food, great dj's, great talks and Catherine the great's art. 

Plus on top of all that you get a free little drop by drawing book I made responding to the exhibition full of lots to read and draw. Here's a couple of photos from last Friday night of some of the fantastic drop by drawing participants getting into it.


Here's a young couple who drew each other and then demanded I tell them who'd drawn a better portrait. I said they were both excellent for different reasons, ha, but that clearly the girls was better.
And then when they asked me to show them how I might go about doing a drawing I did a quick little demonstration by making this drawing of another couple who were also drop by drawing. 
But one of my favourite surprises from the night was at the very end when I went to pick up my backpack and I found that the security woman working the cloakroom was also drawing in one of my books. So cool.
But so yeah, please come be a part of drop by drawing, it's clever, creative, and just plain fun... 

Ha, but no, those aren't my words, I'm just quoting this very generous tweet by one of last weeks participants.
Thanks heaps Michelle Anderson! And also thanks so much to a guy named Jesse Chambers for this extremely flattering tweet.
Those tremendously kind words are of course tremendously appreciated, but there's no way they're true; Catherine the Great's collection is genuinely amazing and Augie March were friggin awesome. So awesome in fact that I spotted a couple in the crowd literally tearing up with happiness. Naturally I made this quick drawing.
"But for one crowded hour they were the only two in the room."
And after the final song was over and the guys from Augie had marched from the stage, I gave the couple my drawing. 

Fortunately they seemed to like it and they were super lovely. Ha, and when we posed for a photo I definitely didn't look ridiculously dorky, no way, not in the slightest, that's for sure.
Even though I wasn't crying like that couple I do also really like Augie March, and so in the lead up to them playing at the NGV last Friday night I made a ceramic sculpture of a blu-ray DVD of everyones favourite hit 2005 nature documentary 'Augie March of the Penguins'.

Towards the end of the night I found the frontman Glenn Richards and showed him the sculpture and asked if he'd please sign it.

He was super friendly and wrote a really generous little message. What a superstar.

Acrylic on kiln fired ceramic. 16.5 x 13 x 1.5cm. 2015.

I also asked Augie March keyboardist Kieran Box if he would sign it and he was also really cool. While Kieran Box was signing the sculpture I asked him "so you probably get this all the time, but are you related to Fifi Box?" To which he replied "yeah, she's my mum..." 

After a little pause I laughed and he said "No, she's my daughter..."

I laughed again and finally he told me that Fifi's his sister, (which I just confirmed by reading it on Fifi's wikipedia page).
So there you go, small world, Augie March's keyboardist Kieran Box is the brother of Fox FM radio star Fifi Box. Two Box's who are both very outside the box thinkers.

Also hey, longtime readers of this blog might remember that I was actually invited to draw Fifi Box with her then Fox FM radio co-host Jules Lund back in 2013 when Fifi'd just had her baby. (To read all about that click here.)
But as well as Kieran Box and Fifi Box, another person who loved to box was Catherine the Great. In fact, Catherine was actually given the title of "the Great" in 1978 when she knocked out Muhammad Ali. Up until that point everyone had thought Ali was the greatest.
Another fun fact about Catherine the Great is that as a teenager she was bitten by a radioactive spider and became Spiderman. This is where she learnt that with Catherine the Great power comes Catherine the Great responsibility.
To learn the rest Catherine's impressive history, as well as fully experience the incredible depth to her collections, and just have a great night, then click here for more info and to get tickets to the NGV Friday nights

Thanks so much for reading this, I really appreciate it, hope you're going really good and hopefully see you soon! But so yeah, I don't wanna Drone on too much, I'll leave that for Gareth Liddiard, but you should totally come, because just like Catherine did in her day, this event rules!

4 comments:

  1. Sir Pittock.... well it is a matter of time.... I have nothing to say about this blog post except, I loved that DVD... march on.

    I do have an idea for another blog post, leveraging the food diary. How about an actual diary broken down into 15mins blocks... or maybe 30 mins.

    I am sure we are interested in your typical days. Do you make your bed, wake up at 11am, cruise into the studio for 2 hrs, then off to some cocktail function. Do you have set thinking times and lists of idea, or do things randomly pop into and out of your head. Are you 7 days or do you stick to a regular two days off. There are a million answers that a diary will reveal... can't wait for Pittock's Serial.

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  2. Sir Anonymous.... hi, thanks, and awesome, I'm really happy you like the DVD!

    I like your idea of a "Pittock Serial", although the word Serial is kind of synonymous now with that great podcast of the same name. I definitely hope I don't turn up in the next Serial, either as a victim or a suspect. The idea of a Pittock Cereal is a much more fun and delicious thing to think about. I've actually got a couple of ideas for new kinds of cereal's but before I write them on here maybe I'll test them out in the kitchen first.

    Anyway I'd better go as I've got a one minute thinking time scheduled in and after that I have to make my bed then head off to some cocktail function, but thank you again for the cerealously kind words, really appreciate it! :)

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  3. Hello Kenny! I really enjoy, loved your drawings, book, thingy on that night. I've written about the night over at my blog, thingy here https://a1000mistakes.wordpress.com/2015/11/24/live-gigs-gareth-liddiard-ngv-friday-nights/
    I hope you don't mind but I've used your Gaz drawing, gif, thingy on my post?
    Keep up the great work :)
    Cheers!
    William

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    Replies
    1. Hey William, yeah you're welcome to use my drawing/gif just so long as I'm credited and so thanks heaps for doing that, and for letting me know, and I'm really happy you like it :)
      Also, thanks heaps for coming to the NGV Friday Night event and I'm really glad you had a good time. And yeah, Gareth Liddiard is awesome. I've only really gotten into his music pretty recently but I've dived in deep and am definitely a big fan. He's such a great performer too. And so ok cool, maybe I'll see you at his next gig. Or even better, come along to my next show. Either way hope everything's going good with you, all the best, thanks again, Kenny.

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