Shop

I've added a 'Shop' link to my website and blog.  I've started by making a few prints available and will follow up with more as demand exists.

Check out the link below.

Shop - 1900 Scapegoats

This is the first step of making work available online. More to follow:)

Kauhau

Two weeks ago I saw the site specific performance from the second year students of Toi Whakaari. The performance was called 'Kauhau'. The site was the NZ National Library. A third year student joined the project with an installation that acted as a transition between three parts of the performance. I wrote a response to her work. I will not publish the entire document here but I would like to publish a few paragraphs. The paragraphs contain questions and concepts which have remained with me since the performance.  Concepts which I'm sure we will see artists continue to build upon. 

‘Kahau’ was a success.  The participating students knew the work was of value. From the perspective of this humble viewer it was also a success with the audience. The job of landing the audience, orienting them to the space and aligning them to the purpose of The National Library were achieved with intriguing craft skill. The personal response of individual artists was woven to optimum effect.  Long after the thrill of the skilled performance faded one truth remained and continues to resonate.  ‘The culture of information is having a dramatic impact on the forming voice of contemporary artists.’  

How then will artists respond to this cultural paradigm?  What will artists have to say of themselves, the world and their role within it? How will they be heard? How will they be seen? How will easy access information over multiple platforms be a vehicle for art, conscious social growth, criticism and debate rather than a vehicle for fear and conformity? 

The design and installation co existed with the second year performance. The work added value, connection and resonance. Through the control of media, information and by staging the audience as active viewer to the work our responsibility and voice within the 'information age' came to the forefront of the performance. The work put me at unease. I question how any young voice can survive when so much exposure to ridicule and shame exists within contemporary media. Artists must now experience failure or success with maximum exposure.  The voices I heard from the actors and designers throughout Kauhau became all the more precious as result of this work.  Theirs was a voice of the past.  A voice that is losing its place in contemporary society. There is a need for this voice to adapt if it is to exist in the new cultural paradigm. What ‘adapting’ will look like is unknown to me. It is an unsettling and frightening thought to be without the voices that we value so greatly. It is encouraging though that artists such as those in Kauha are exploring a new voice through the culture that is very much alive now.

The Hunter

There are many number of artist types. I am a hunter. When I go into a gallery, read a book or watch a film I'm hunting. I'm looking for tools, method, technique and context that I can subvert to create new work.
I look at what has been, what is happening and what might be coming. By forging work from these elements I create something new whilst maintaining a connection and context with the world. The result is work that is familiar, new and alive.

One trait of the hunter is knowing that art doesn't exist until we find it. We trust in our instinct to find it rather than imagine it. And so the hunt is constant. I am awake to everything being a potential catalyst or element of a design,. The picture is rarely clear, rather it is ever formulating in my mind or on the page. Costume designers Jim Acheson and Kate Hawley are both hunters. Watching the way they create is like watching a detective. They search out the clues, piece them together and eventually create the story, the motive, the character. It's a thrilling process.  When a hunter works they never have a picture in their mind of the result. How can they? Every part of the process is building on the last. It is a process of discovery. The hunter doesn't know what they're going to catch until they catch it but they are very good at tracking their prey.

I know many artists who have struggled in the hunt. I too get impatient and work in the same uncertainty when results don't materialise as quickly as I would like. My hunt for greater art is a much longer journey than designing just one set or film. It might be a lifetime obsession. Artists often live with uncertainty but take confidence only from the signs they read and a knowing that they're on the right path. In response to a conversation from this blog around 'the hunt' an artist shared with me this poem. The poem expresses 'What it is' to be in the hunt for something that cannot yet be defined.

What it is

It is

whatever it is

that stirs the house

of your heart,

that shares

your hunger,

your thirst,

your urge all day

to hear more

than your own voice

voicing its foolishness

It is 

whatever it is

in your hands

that slithers away,

whatever can only be

glimpsed, sudden

or sharp, but tuneless,

bass notes, not

melody

you were born

knowing

you would have to learn

whatever it would take

and even to learn 

what to make of it

It is not

the words

in your throat

not even

your honest intention

when you open 

your mouth

It is 

whatever it is

that no longer speaks

that longs to speak

whatever it is 

that trembles

-- Andrea Hollander Budy

13 blogs to go

When I begun this blog I aimed to write 100 posts at which time I was going to review the process.  This is my 88th and I can't but help get ahead of myself.

Writing and sharing my thoughts have been beneficial in numerous ways and perhaps it will be some time before I can truly measure its impact. Blogging has helped generate connection with fellow artists and friends on a much deeper level. The resulting work on David Strong's short film was an encouraging sign of things to come. Collaborations with A J Annila,  Toa Fraser and most recently Louis Sutherland feel like the foundations to great work to come.  I am both hopeful and encouraged by our creative community. The response of thanks and joy from those that take inspiration or encouragement from my process has been a comfort and a guide to the work I want to create. To those of you who read this I am grateful. To those who have met me in conversation to my thoughts I thank you.

My first post began quoting David Mamet. His words still ring true as to the purpose of this format.

'Do not internalise the industrial model. You are not one of the myriad of interchangeable pieces, but a unique human being, and if you've got something to say, say it, and think well of yourself while you're learning to say it better.

This is great advice for an artist. Blogging has allowed me to be an artist with every post, with every word. Drawings, paintings and films require a great deal of resource, time and skill. To do them well they require something of far greater value. They require courage. I wasn't sure I had the courage or the voice for those mediums and needed to test my art, my performance and my voice somewhere else. Blogging was that testing ground.

As a result of this blog, as result of 'publishing my thoughts for an audience' I have learnt to say what I've got to say better. The next step is to do the same through the art I create outside this blog. The art of my drawings, paintings, design and filmmaking.  I enter these environments welcoming greater challenge, risk, demand, sacrifice and exposure.  I have something to say in these arena and will think well of myself as I learn speak through them better.

I will continue this blog to 100.  I'd like the following 12 posts to continue as a reflection on the process. As way of creating these posts I'd appreciate any feedback or thoughts generated from what I have written over the past few months . Please feel free to comment on the blog or email me at heffernan.brendan@gmail.com I'm not sure what the resulting 12 posts will be but look forward to the conversation.

How to create films with connection.

I'd like to follow up yesterday's blog with a discussion on 'How' we create connection through film.

The first option is to tell 'Our' stories. Think 'Boy', 'Once Were Warrior's and Louis Sutherland's recent film 'Shopping'. We connect when we see ourselves in film or characters we relate to. This was an old trick used by the NZ film Unit. In early day's of NZ film they used to shoot dramas locally, town by town, with scenes of local events and people. A quick and easy way to get people to the movies was the promise of seeing the thing they most enjoyed watching...themselves.

Telling 'Our stories' is a good niche market option but it doesn't work as well for the masses. Going town to town is not sustainable. Studio films need to have mass market recognition and appeal...but that doesn't mean they should lack connection.  How then do we create connection in these type of films?

Many films try to connect through creating familiar social and political backdrops. The Dark Knight Rises used the financial crisis, Iron Man 3 had a villain that visually took inspiration from all too familiar terrorist imagery. These are very overt ways of creating connection and when handled badly can become offencive, stereotypical and insensitive. When handled well they help us see ourselves and our world better.

Generally connection making is seen as the job of the director. His role is to identify universal themes and societal connections then pull them out for the audience at the right moment.  I would like to suggest that connection is not solely a role for the director and that like the task of audience engagement it is a collaborative task requiring the input of many artisans.

So what is the process for bringing out connection through many artists rather than just one?

If you want to have a film that connects to people on many levels then you need the input of many people. This doesn't mean 100 director's. What it means is many artists contributing solutions to a problem rather than many artist delivering one persons solution to the problem. When a leader allows his team to respond to the universal themes he is tackling rather than just the cinematic solution he has envisioned then the work becomes alive to far greater potential. The work then can connect through many eyes seeing the one idea. The work is no less focused but it is no longer narrow. Working in this way might sound risky but it isn't. On the contrary the work becomes more exciting, energetic and alive. Just like the resulting art should be and will be. To create the art and films we want we must first make the way we work and the environment we work in a piece of art in it's own right.

When the many artists that make the film connect with it then a much larger community of audience will connect with it too.  This way of working is referred to as working in the unknown. This might sound scary to an investor who wants to know what they're investing in. They shouldn't fear. Great artists know exactly what they're doing. The unknown is not in themselves or their craft. The unknown is the potential of where their knowledge will lead. We shouldn't be afraid of this potential we should be embracing it.

We want Films that Connect above films that Engage.

I was speaking with another artist yesterday. We spoke about films we connected with. She asked 'What is it that we connect with and why do some films have it when others don't?'

Most would jump quickly to the answer that it's all about the story.  When talking about connection I think this is the wrong answer. I've connected with good stories just as often I've not connected with good stories. Story is the key to 'audience engagement' not connection. Story draws you in and holds your attention from beginning to end.  There are hundreds of courses and books on story structure and how to best engage audience attention but none that I have seen discuss making connections.  Story along with design, drama, character, cinematography, action, editing, music and sound are all elements for audience engagement but they are not directly key to audience connection.

Connection can be measured by resonance. When a film, painting or novel effects you or stays with you then it is 'resonating' with you. You are seeing the ideas and reliving the feelings stimulated by that art throughout your day, week, month or year. You can see that art in your news, on the train, when playing with your kids or buying your lunch. When a piece of art resonates with you soon you see that art in everything and therefore, as is the wonderful result of connection, everything becomes art.

Connection is important.  Engagement holds us only for the time we're looking at a work. Connection  not only stays with us but also enriches how we experience the world around us.

I was in Hamish McKay gallery over the weekend where I spoke to the curator about the Andy Warhol exhibition coming to Te Papa. He was excited about plans for his own exhibition which would show Warhol alongside NZ artist and Warhol contemporary Billy Apple.  Together these artist were on the cutting edge.  Pop art made us re look at the world and ask what is art? Is this row of Campbell soup cans at my supermarket art? Just being alive to the question makes the world a richer place. Their art connected.  What about Fight Club or The Matrix? We all remember how excited we were leaving the cinema after those films but more importantly the world around us got a little more interesting because of them.

So we can measure and define connection. Then surely we can create it.   It's important here to stress that connection can be created. Some would like to think that it's luck.  In fact large studios can afford to throw good stories at an audience based on a gamble that at least a few will connect with someone. This approach is wasteful and unsustainable. This approach is lazy and fearful. We can actively and consciously create art that connects. We can do it well and we can do it more often.

Enough.

3 time Academy Award winner James Acheson was my first mentor for design. He taught me a great deal for which I am ever grateful. One piece of advice that stayed with me is this. 'Never join the 'that'll do' school of design.' I didn't. I trust I know good design and I strive for it.

Over time though I have made an addition to this advice that is necessary for excellent design and art. 'Know when is enough'.

Jim's advice was about not accepting mediocrity. His was a call to arms for excellence. What it was not was a call for perfection. Perfection is a killer to great art. Perfection is unattainable. Perfectionism is the result of fear and limits the freedom creativity needs to flourish.

When striving for excellence completion of work seems a distant ambition almost out of reach.  When working with many artists the volume of ideas, options and potential increases exponentially. Without fail though moments reveal themselves when the art is both alive with potential and resolved in fulfilling its role. These moments are when the art is 'enough'.

Artists advice that knowing when to stop is as important as knowing when to add.  I've also heard that art is great not when nothing more can be added but rather when nothing more can be taken away.  Art exists in a moment of 'enough'. Art exists somewhere between beginning and end. Art is not an end. That's what makes art so exciting and alive. Art is both at the same time complete and potential.

We live now in a society of lack.  Not enough money, not enough time, not enough support, not enough love, not enough freedom. We all seek to add more and more to our lives to compensate this feeling of lack.  If we add more surely one day we will have enough, surely we will be enough?  An artist knows adding more doesn't make great art.  Why should our lives or society be any different? We could learn from art. We could stop seeing the world for what we lack and start to recognise when what we have is enough.

Village Sketch

See attached a little sketch of a village for an upcoming project.  This makes me recall memories of my first trip to Europe after completing South Pacific Pictures 'Maddigan's Quest'. I took a sketch book with me and travelled through the Greek islands drawing fishing villages. On one such island I sat with a bunch of local elders drinking coffee and drawing. They spoke no English and I no Greek but I understood the compliment 'Bravo' when I shared with them my sketches of their home.