Wednesday, June 8, 2011

Soaring and art - more inspiration

9 June 2011

An article in the Sydney Morning Herald today, with Australian artist John Olsen inspired by the view of Australia from the air.

This is how Olsen sees the Australian landscape. When he flew across Lake Eyre in May, the lake was filling with water from recent floods. With two young artists, Guy Maestri and Luke Sciberras, he sang bushmen's songs and looked for shapes and stories in the landscape below. A squid made of vegetation, a fish of salt, a shadow shaped like a woman's leg. Says Olsen "Unless you fly over it, you just don't get it,'' he says. ''That's the thing I've found about Australia - it's best viewed from the air. That gives the proper scale to it.''
I think this encapsulates nicely my thoughts about gliding and art - that the unique viewpoint and intimacy of gliding can provide a special artistic inspiration.

2 comments:

Johnnie Walker said...

smith, not sure of the protocol. Came across your blog by accident but notice you mentioned you had a copy of Zulu Romeo Good Start, a documentary I made at the World Gliding Championships at Waikerie in 1974. The original footage was lost in a fire about twenty years ago . If this post gets through to you I'd be happy to tell you all about the wonderful two weeks we had doing aerial photography from a helicopter surrounded by the absolute cream of the world's glider pilots including Moffat, Reichmann and Renner. Regards Johnnie Walker

Johnnie Walker said...

have left my email address:

walkerco@bigpond.net.au