UPPING THE UGLY DUCKLING

HOW DOES IT GET TO BE SO PERSONAL IN PUBLIC?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swan_Upping

Swan Upping is an annual ceremonial and practical activity in Britain in which mute swans on the River Thames are rounded up, caught, marked, and then released.

Traditionally, the Monarch of the United Kingdom retains the right to ownership of all unmarked mute swans in open water, but only exercises ownership on certain stretches of the River Thames and its surrounding tributaries. This dates from the 12th century, during which time swans were a common food source for royalty. Swan upping is a means of establishing a swancensus and today also serves to check the health of swans. Under a Royal Charter of the 15th century, the Vintners’ Companyand the Dyers’ Company, two Livery Companies of the City of London, are entitled to share in the Sovereign’s ownership. They conduct the census through a process of ringing the swan’s feet, but the swans are no longer eaten.

I’m upping the ante Annie Sovereign of my heart

I have a need to move forward with my Grave Goods and if I’m going to make sense to you, not alienate you from this fairytale ~ then you may wish to be on board – with a ticket.

Have you got your ticket Margery Anne?

Holstee Manifesto Greeting Card ~ Letterpress on elephant dung paper.

50 million hits can’t be wrong?

The Holstee Manifesto is as good a ticket to ride as any. Most probably written by young people – taught by old people, who might have been hippies. It would have got you to Woodstock. On the backpacker trail to London in the 7o’s. Still good for a platform pass on your Third Life journey in the 21st Century.

As Desiderata helped some of us survive the willful 1960s…

In the absence of the Bible…where’s the Bible?

You are my muse Margery Anne, as I keep telling you – my raisin date? This is not without a rational supporting argument – not just mushy sentimentality – not pupae love! It is an evolved, now concrete belief in and a strategy towards a shared life. The mechanics of which are at our fingertips.

I want to be good. I want to make beautiful things in my end of days. I want them to be challenging, not simplistic things, memorable, lasting things. Shared things. Virtual if they must be. Although to make breakfast for you here in Kuching is something real that I do spend time thinking about.

I want all my relationships to people to be simple beautiful and real. My children’s future. My wife’s future? Of course. I want you and I to be a loving deep relationship that lasts forever with all it’s adolescent angst intact with all of our forty years apart on the table. I want my drawings to be good and beautiful . My images. My words. Every day in everyway. Tired or awake. Asleep. To die in a good and beautiful way surrounded by beautiful memories even if the people in them are too busy, with their loves and lives, to be there.

Get used to it, Grave Goods are all about me; that’s the way it is with autonomy.

The up side is it makes me more interesting to be around. If you’re interested.

Three years or so ago – through trying to explain myself to my children – mainly Juanita – but Alexander was listening I know ~ I rediscovered for myself where ‘I am’ began for me – For want of a better date I settled on the year of my first exhibition 1966 – AFW66 then became my tag on the internet. Anthony Frederick Ward was the name my mother gave me with my father’s approval. She was my first Muse. By 1969 she was almost not there in mind but definitely still there in spirit. Out of all the female bodies that came into my life after that date, only that of little Margery Anne McIntosh, bruised and tearful, came with a soul that ensnared me and could displace Joan Nita Ward as the dark mistress of my soul. My new muse, she confirmed my romantic disposition… and then disappeared from my life for 40 years. Displaced by many bodies and some souls but never replaced she’s now back in her rightful place – LBDSM- tired, and sad, still dodging and weaving…
Maybe a little angry?

What about ME!

Hoping for a perfect life.

There isn’t such a thing in fact, but pursuing the ideal,
vigorously, with a high degree of stubbornness – is the romantic life.
And to do so without doing harm . To yourself particularly.
To be successful at that demands we be mature. I think we are. I also think there is no sustainable
moral/social argument against us being what we want to be to each other
that isn’t ‘childish’.

I have discovered that the more I make my life about an US, the simpler it gets. Simple is good. Simple is beautiful. Simple is sustainable.

To write for you. To see for you. To draw for you. Even to cook for you.

To have goals is necessary – to integrate those different goals into a single goal is a strategy. A plan. Strategy is empowering. (That’s what I learn/teach at skule)

I missed you tonight. I can see you running for your sanctuary after you read this – but I know where you live Annie McIntosh. And anyway I don’t need your permission to love you.

After all that’s my goal.

To love some One as much as you are able. Whatever the Cost is the White Dog Philosophy.

And when I look at the pages I’m publishing on my blog about you – for you – about us~that you will never read – it doesn’t matter.

From Look & Learn

They are acts of love in a virtual world. Gifts of love with no substance. I now have five subscribers who probably read them without knowing what/who they’re about. Maybe they don’t care? The photographs you get and many more I take – for you – are on Facebook – and people sort of know why I make them, and they like them. I wish they were interesting every week – but I’m not.

You’re good for me gentle Annie – I wish I could be good – maybe even better for you.

I am an old and curiously
fashioned man who
will love you always

Tony

FOOTNOTE

What’s a muse?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muse

Name of muse/Sphere of influence
Calliope/Epic poetry
Clio/History
Euterpe/Flutes and lyric poetry
Thalia/Comedy and pastoral poetry
Melpomene/Tragedy
Terpsichore/Dance
Erato/Love poetry
Polyhymnia/Sacred poetry
Urania/Astronomy

http://www.guardian.co.uk/artanddesign/artblog/2008/jun/02/theroleoftheartistsmuse

Germaine Greer says :

A muse’s job is to penetrate the male artist and bring forth a work from the womb of his mind.

Go Germaine!

Tony (AFW) Ward / Lecturer / Graphic/ Design / School of Business and Design / Swinburne University of Technology Sarawak / Jalan Simpang Tiga 93350 Kuching / Office : G506 / Tel : +60 82 260945 (Internal : 8945 ) Fax : +60 82 423 594 / Ambassador INDIGO http://www.indigodesignnetwork.org/Blog :https://anthonyfward.wordpress.com/

*

This is for you Mrs Boon it is also for me – that’s the Muses lot. Love. The Two Way Street – the Big Give and Take?
One day you will get round to reading all this and the other stuff on my blog.
Because you want to. Not because you were told it was good for you. It is increasing in pages there, but it starts here – you get to read it as the first draft –
It is for you and it is for me. It is OUR Pmail –

M&B

Presents

ROBINSON CRUSOE

THE LOVE STORY

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Selkirk

http://www.gutenberg.org/files/521/521-h/521-h.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robinson_Crusoe

THE ROBINSON CRUSOE NARRATIVE OF DANIEL DEFOE WAS BASED ON ACTUAL EVENTS IN THE LIFE OF ALEXANDER SELKIRK, MAROONED BY HIS MANAGEMENT FOR 4 YEARS ON AN ISLAND OFF THE COAST OF CHILE.

Alexander started as an arsehole by all accounts but somehow through his native Scots wit and goat charming he learned how to survive alone, off the land, and through reading ‘The Bible’ he calmed down and became a sweetie. Sound familiar dear girl?

Where’s a bible when you need one?

Quoting his rescuer –

“This plain Man’s Story is a memorable Example, that he is happiest who confines his Wants to natural Necessities; and he that goes further in his Desires, increases his Wants in Proportion to his Acquisitions”

The Hermit In Love With Love

One thread of the Crusoe narrative invented by Daniel Defoe that always intrigued me is the Man Friday episode. Crusoe discovers the island that is his prison, and refuge from the world, is occasionally visited by cannibals. On one visit by the cannibals with a picnic lunch, Crusoe is motivated by decency to rescue he who became known as ‘His Man Friday’.

————-AFW Kuching

September 2012

Upon finding

An Imaginary Soulmate

This Self Castaway upon Life
An Island in The Ocean of Time
A marooned Voyager, one man alone
Wakes one day, barefoot in Eternity
Finding that he is not yet master of all
And his aloneness is brutally occupied
By another True Self not at all his own
With more difference than sameness
With mysteries unexplained still endured
Disappointment. Sadness. Pain understood.
Pride and a Staunch Belief in the Self upfront
Doomed setting brave sails to Save the doomed
Clinging together Two drowning no longer
Floating on Time’s tide to the line of the sky.

——————

By rescuing Friday, I always liked to believe that Crusoe was rescuing Crusoe? And that he would spend years, day’s and nights working out why. I was young but I was right.

Reaching out to, saving, loving you is not a selfless act Annie I think it is probably the most selfish – because it is intuitive – instinctive not rational except in retrospect, for people with the time to reflect.

In loving one another, both sides of our deepest character is occupied. I was drowning, rescuing you is my salvation. Not trying would be my damnation. Drowning together in the flood tide of Life is preferable to wallowing in the shallows at Rosebud with sand in your bathers.

Exit to drums and tambourines singing – Hallelujia !

—————-

All my love always Mrs Boon

Tony

——————-

TSUNAMI
Borneo’s ebon darkness / Is shades darker this day / A tsunami cast it’s shadow / And no sun proffers hope for Oneday.

AFW March 12 2011

“Hallelujah”

Leonard Cohen

I’ve heard there was a secret chord
That David played, and it pleased the Lord
But you don’t really care for music, do you?
It goes like this
The fourth, the fifth
The minor fall, the major lift
The baffled king composing Hallelujah