Art and Culcha

Do you appreciate the art that is around you? Do you absorb the expressions, appreciate the creativity, discuss, lament and ponder the concepts and ideas born in the art that is sprayed, carved, etched and hung on the walls around your city? Or are the Galleries, the architecture, the ornate buildings, and exhibitions all places the tourists visit while you rush, latte in hand to your real life? Or is it all for the tourists?

We are often told, Australia has some of the world’s most livable cities and has beautiful buildings where art hangs sitting, waiting to be viewed, interpreted and spat out as an intelligent thought at the right diner party. Hidden in peripheral plain site are lanes ways overflowing with graffiti art, culture, music and sweet espresso aromas. Ornate bookshops, filled with a thousand tales you will never know.


Perhaps you are one of the suited oblivious masses, guilty of saying "excuse me" as you bump into a bronze statue while playing with your latest iPhone application - iDistract, or iWaste, where you have to toss pieces of crumpled paper past a fan and into a bin, every point gained an insult to the beautiful surrounds you ignore.
I like to think that I am cultured and appreciate the art in my city. I know that Baggett is French for French stick, I don't order white coffees any more I order a "Cafe Latte" and when in a cafe I order a cwass-en not a cross-ont. When I am perusing the wears of the biggest shopping centres in the southern hemisphere, I always buy items "styled in Europe - manufactured in China." Soon all the first world economies will import a packet of HB Pencils a year and export three sheets of design paper. Unlike Megan Gale's career, this is not a sustainable model.



I am guilty of a few faux pars in my time, which may lead people to believe I do not have culture or style. I have ordered a short black while in a cafe named 'Espresso," I have worn a bright tie to a funeral, white socks with a black suit, worn blue and green, traveled and been an absolute tourist cliché. I missed Hailey’s comet last time round because "Its a Knock out" was on the TV, and let the recent Picasso exhibition slip past unattended, the cubic meters of regret will never fully be measured. I have decided I am going to make an investment and get to at least one cultural or artistic event every month for the next year and see what rewards come of it.


So remember as you enter the lobby on your way to work, wading through emails on your iPhone pilot, the financial review under arm, overflowing with numbers and letters all in black and white, none of them read. Stop and see the roses in the painting on the wall. Book into the latest show at the theatre, play chess bare foot in the park on your lunch break, even better, take up a life drawing class after work. Its time to choose, are you Venus or cup of Milo? Are you “Home and Away” and the Anatomy of Grey or the Sound of Music matinee in the theatre on that rainy day? My advice is to find that which engages you, seek out a piece of art that tickles your fancy, choose a favorite building in the city, find a painting that makes you laugh cry and sing all at once.

Jonathan Nolan