So after a madly insane dash up to Brisbane, leaving a battle field of traumatised drivers and insurance claims in a sprawled wake behind us, we arrive at the promised land. It was raining.........

.........had been for ages, heavy thick relentless rain. My van hadn't been this clean since I bought it. I had wanted a sofa in my Dome, so I studiously researched where the nearest recycling depo to Woodford was so I could pick up an unloved sofa. And blessed be, there was a depo about 15 minutes away from the festival. But it was closed, despite assurances on their website. And it was raining. Heavily.

But I wanted a bloody sofa. So at the drop off zone we discovered a very large skip with lots of rubbish, perched on top of which was, glory be, a sofa. It was raining. The sofa was wet.

But hey, an opportunity not taken is an opportunity lost. So we annexed that wet baby and strapped her down to my bulging trailer.

We arrived at the festival sight with my heavy load straddled unceremoniously by a trussed, wet, used, sofa. "PrioritySpace?" yeah that's me. Very clean van though.

A few hours after deciphering the hieroglyphic directions to my site and digging the van out of a quagmire, we rolled onto the flat green little grass patch that would be my lair for the next week. Very square, flat despite being on a gentle hill, well drained, lush with growth, my own little meadow.

And as if it were a sign, the rain stopped falling and the sun punched a few holes in the clouds......... and screamed...... "GET THAT FUCKING TENT UP NOW!!!!!!.......".

Being wise and humble enough to know my place in things I obeyed this grand invitation to haste, my Dome and all its innards popped up as if an enormous kernel of popcorn had exploded.

Now my very good friend who so very unselfishly agreed to assist me on this little adventure, had in a rare moment of almost mystic clarity, suggested hiring some portable air conditioners to run in the dome. A stinking hot Dome, baking from the heat off a spiders web of electrical equipment, the accumulated contribution of a constantly replenishing source of hot sweaty bodies, a wet sofa and lots of very good insulation........ inspired images of a visciously unsubtle form of sick torture.

Now my good friend decided to contribute his engineering genius and skillful research to this problem by working out that the combined heat output of about 25 people, plus equipment, expressed in BTU's (British Thermal Units, one of the few measurements the British didn't concede to the French) could be handled by two condensing air conditioners. The idea of a wet sofa in those conditions actually terrified me. I imagined some vexing mold spore to evolve from that fetid and toxic concoction and, if not wipe out humanity, at least knock off a few of the public.... All my dreams, schemes, plans for an epic conquest of global proportions, slain by a virulent sofa ....

So in a wildly optimistic attempt to ignore this issue, I decided to invest in a barrage of drop sheets (used for painting indoors), and mercilessly wrap that sofa in great psychopathic sheets of choking plastic. Further covered the sofa with large drapes of spare black lining........ and wait, in hope, the public none the wiser they were reclining, ever so comfortably, on a violently asphyxiating lounge.

The festival started. "How much to go in?" the first question of the festival. "How much to go in?" the second question of the festival..... and third.... after many similar enquiries it became apparent people thought I was a stall of sorts. Perhaps selling some dark titillating thrill. I should have ridden this wave, teased the curious public with enigmatic hints designed to provoke their own salacious imaginations, then part them with their money as they seek to satisfy their voyeuristic urges by entering my little deception. But I declined the temptation of untold wealth, and instead employed the creative talents of two 12 year old girls to draw some "FREE" signs for me.

And the crowds grew, and the people started to ask questions about my work. And the response was just fantastic. I would have 5 people standing around waiting for one session to finish, and the moment people started to disgorge from my bubble, a great crowd of punters dissolve out of the crowd and jostle to find a place in the queue. I estimated between 5000 and 6000 people came through my Dome. It only holds around 20, max 25 people a session. I was very happy. It was very successful.

Which is probably why that sycophantic bastard friend of mine tried to poison me with off yoghurt. For simplicity, and security, we slept in the Dome at the end of the night. Now that I was out of commission for a whole day and evening, with a dome on a repetitive wash cycle for the masses, I was left, like some pathetic, groveling, vomiting worm, to endure my ordeal alone, on a nearby hill, somewhere in the festival.

But what doesn't kill you makes you stronger, Nietzsche was a con man.

The festival ended. I had few opportunities to experience it. But I was happy, everything had gone well, very well. But there was one thing left to do. Dismantle, then exhume the sofa. We decided to pack as much away as we could, before we released the hell that had been brewing in our make shift plastic sarcophagus. It was one of those moments, it had the tension of an Australian Idol winner announcement, or a big brother eviction.....

Peeling away the plastic..... great forests of green and mottled white, stretching like a fuzzy carpet sprouting with evil intent from the innards of this tomb, as if stretching for warm flesh, smelling it, seeking it........ well that didn't happen. In fact it was surprisingly dry, my theory being that the constant condensation of the moisture inside the Dome by these air conditioners accelerated the evaporation of the water in the sofa....... that's my story anyway, and my mate will corroborate it..........

On the way home from the festival we returned the sofa, drier than we took it..... it had been well loved by the punters....

I had a chance to redeem myself with plan A.1, the festival circuit. You can’t go wrong with a crowd of happy pissed and stoned people, rule of thumb…..

The first Festival I set up at was the Major’s Creek Folk Festival in November 2005. Small, intimate, and when the fog rolls in late at night it gives the place a special magic you just can’t find anywhere else. I set up as a stall, so I had to pay stall fees. It was easier to get into the festival that way, relying on being accepted as an artist was too unreliable, my artistic product too unusual, and considering I would be operating my Dome around 14 or 15 hours a day it made more economic sense to get people to pay rather than accept a flat artists fee. Entry fee was  not a lot, less than an ice cream, same as outside Questacon. It was a risk, maybe nobody would take the plunge into my dark womb  and I would just end up as a financial abortion, but my assessment of the festival atmosphere was pretty accurate and lots of people came. In fact the response was great, I had many, many returning punters. Often I was told it was the most unusual and original item of the festival, a comment repeated at every festival I went to subsequently.

In particular I attracted a cohort of kids who got addicted  to  my cosy digital wash cycle, endlessly trying to negotiate to get in for free. Pleading kids……god! how hard is that.

I met  a fellow, Mike Sarroff, who taught digital media studies at Crow’s Nest Tafe in Sydney, he was genuinely impressed by my work and asked me to adjudicate a competition of student animation works he was running.  Dave O’Neill,  program manager for the National Folk Festival in Canberra (which attracts around 27,000 people), unbeknownst to me, came through my Dome and asked me on the spot to be a part of the National Folk Festival  at Easter.

So I came away from a tiny festival in the middle of no where on the biggest high. It was a well needed affirmation.

After Majors Creek came the Illawara Folk Festival, where I was adopted by  the cutest little 11 year old girl who wanted to see my animation over and over again. I made a deal with her, every person she encouraged to come through my dome, she could join them and watch it for free. I had my own little spruiker, she did a fabulous job. Then came Cobargo Folk Festival and the National Folk Festival in April. Each was a success. The response from people was overwhelmingly positive. Interestingly though, there were still a large proportion of people who, because they couldn't smell, touch or see my product, were unwilling to part with the token amount it cost to enter my Dome.

Regardless,  my ambition was to set up at the Woodford Folk Festival just north of Brisbane, held over the new year. I had been to that festival a few years ago as the member of a band. It is an amazing festival, I would encourage everybody to experience this festival, it is a huge and remarkable event.

But how do I get invited to participate? Stall fees were too high for me to afford and I had missed the closing date for artists.

Ambition….. ingenious in its method, determined in its execution…....

My research had revealed to me that in August 2006, Folk Alliance Australia was running a conference for festival organizers where they get together and discuss all the issues involved in running a festival, AND, invited artists have the opportunity to showcase their work, AND it was being held in Canberra that year.   So I negotiated to turn up just with my laptop, desperately hoping that the organizers of the Woodford Folk Festival would be there to pass on their considerable experience in running large events. And they were. I hunted down the program manager, Michael Peterson, and dragged him in front of my laptop. Suffice to say that, despite  closing dates being 7 months passed, I was invited, and I was paid a fee as a participating artist, which also meant festival goers could enter my Dome for free. I was going to Woodford 06/07…….

And so it was. The Dome setup, like the entry to some bizarre space portal. Inside hung the polar fleece material like great dark veils inside some grand Mongolian nomadic Yurt. External sounds retreat into the background as you step into the tardis like space inside. The projector humming, the screen hanging precariously from the heights, cushions on the floor and a couple of folding chairs for the elderly and infirm. It was the colossal womb of a giant.

I also had an ezy-up at the entry, to give some protection from the weather for me, and those waiting to go in. Yes, the hordes, waiting to go in. My A-frames, with funky colourful graphics explaining the amazing world about to be experienced inside, stood sturdy, spruiking in silence. And the great white walls of Questacon towered above, like some ominous castle looking down over my dreams. And then the visitors started to arrive.

Pleasant hellos, "experience something marvelous", "the kids are anxious to get into Questacon, sure, when you come out". And again, "Come and check this out!, less than the cost of an icecream!", "Keen to get in." "On your way out, sure." And again.......and again.....

Then the families started to come out of Questacon, kids are screaming tired, the parents look haggard and irritated. "Come and experience the Dome!" "Sorry, the kids are too tired", "We've spent all our money," "We have to be somewhere else now, sorry."

So my first lessons in consumer behaviour came about. Kids who had been pestering parents to go to Questacon for ages were too keen to spare 10 minutes for some weirdo with some large globulous music ball tent thing. After spending substantial amounts of money on entry fees, food for the family, and then toys from the shop, when families left Questacon parents were reluctant to spend any more, regardless of how little it was. Kids were over stimulated and crying tired, parents were worn out by hours of managing their hypo kids in public. Everybody just wanted to go home. Neither did it help that I had first set up in winter when it was cold outside, and sometimes raining.

That's not to say there was nobody who wanted to go in, there were some. And those who braved the dark round world of the unknown loved what I had created and were impressed by its originality. But overall the numbers were bad, and it became clear pretty early on what kind of miscalculation I had made. And it hurt. This kind of experience effects your moods, your enthusiasm, drive, your relationships, everything goes sour. Self doubt settles in like some vile stench.

It was just as well I had exercised enough sense to have alternative plans for my Dome in case of exactly this scenario.

I finished my animation in early 2004. At around the same time I discovered that Questacon was developing an exhibition about the science of music, to be opened in 2005. Brilliant! I already worked there as a Gallery Assistant, so I lined up a meeting with the concepts department (who were in control of the exhibition's development) to show them my work. The meeting went well, they were impressed with my animation, however, it turned out that all the funding for the exhibition had been allocated in November the previous year. Too late! There was no money left to integrate my animation into the exhibition. But not wanting to miss out on such a good opportunity to have my work exposed through such an exhibition I decided to take matters into my own hands. I lobbied for support from management at Questacon and then negotiated all the appropriate approvals from the relevant government departments to erect a dome tent outside Questacon in which I could screen my work as an artist's contribution to the exhibition. I developed a business plan, researched, sourced and costed all the equipment I would need, dome tent, projector, screen, soundproofing, laptop and a host of other peripherals. I spent hours inside the galleries doing market research to gauge public interest and investigate appropriate pricing structures (ie entry fee, which incidentally, was set at $1 for kids, $2 for adults and $5 for families).

It all seemed to be going so well. Then I approached my local government arts funding body to see if I could get some financial support for my hair brained scheme. Now, our arts funding bodies have particular requirements (called key arts fund objectives, back in 2004 they were called something else ) to guarantee that the meager crumbs left over for arts funding are utilised to their maximum effect. My inquiries into the possibilities of funding were fruitless. I can understand the reluctance to fund an artist who has popped out of nowhere with some innocently naive claim to a great idea, however, I was told that my plan was too commercial because it was riding on the back of an exhibition in a major institution. Considering one of their key funding objectives at the time was for artists to develop means to be self sufficient, I would have thought that the whole idea was to engage in efforts to commercialise ones work in any way possible. Despite the fact that this was a self funded proposal with no financial commitment from Questacon, the contradiction introduced me to the wonderful world of arts funding.

So what now. To cut a long story short, I sold my soul to the underworld of debt and went ahead with the idea all on my lonesome. What is it that warrants such faith as to follow such a precarious path......

The result is what you see above, the Dome, setup outside Questacon. 2005

The first and most important consideration for any artist is time.....Without available time you can't produce work. So the struggle to find time, when the inevitable expense of living requires you find the funds to survive, is a consistent and endless conflict.

I work at Questacon, the National Science and Technology Center in Canberra (The Capital of Australia, for those of you who think its Sydney). I work as a casual gallery assistant, guiding the public to the nearest toilets, preventing hyperactive children from engaging in kamikaze missions hurtling down the ramps, and occasionally having intelligent discussions with the more awake members of the public. Usually I have around 5-6 shifts, it varies depending on the time of year, which takes up around 3 days of the working week.

On weekends I often (fortunately not always) have gigs for weddings or functions (If its only one 1hr gig, from leaving home to returning, the minimum time out of my day is 2 hours). During the Spring months, I can have up to 4 gigs a weekend. . With Pachelbel's Canon stained permanently on my memory, at least I can just sit, play, and watch those countless times as the bride slides down the isle in feverish anticipation at getting hitched. I am convinced that all brides take this one opportunity to force their bridesmaids into undersized, sickly coloured and frumpish costumes with hair plastered into what looks like some outlandish experiment by some teenage hairdresser still high from a night of gratuitous drug taking. Teetering on pin head heels ahead of the main event, these poor creatures are made to look as awful and uncomfortable as humanly possible, just so that the bride can look glorious......girls can be so cruel.

As a member of the Canberra Symphony Orchestra, CSO,
(a predominantly casual orchestra as Canberra is too small to support a full time symphony orchestra), there are around 8 concerts a year for which there are mostly night time rehearsals. All the members of the orchestra have other work, some as staff at the Music Faculty of the Australian National University, most as private music teachers, some are tertiary music students, and some have other professions. Seeing the haggard visage of many of these musicians, worn down by the relentless acoustic torture summonsed upon them by the Great God of the Beginner Instrumentalist, it still surprises me at how the orchestra manages to pull it together for the concerts. Perhaps the music offers solace, a small yet irresistible moment of joy.

Along side this are the one off musical productions by small local music organisations, the obligatory St. Matthews Passion, Opera Favourites and the occasional commissioned contemporary work, mixing piles of bricks, high flying trapeze with strange and bizarre music. On the rare occasion somebody rings me up wanting a backing cellist on a CD they are producing. They haven't written any music for it, but they like the idea. Some are good, they let me write what I think is worthy of the instrument, others just want a glorified synthesizer, loooong boring notes.........

This may seem amusing to you, but the reality is that all this frivolity, which regularly tallies to a full time working load, produces only about $20,000 a year. And of course, lets not forget the commitments to ones partner. The necessary periods of emotional grooming which keep us all feeling sane and loved. And of course, the house work, which stops war....

I have been disciplined enough to arrange 2 free days of the working week to produce my art. Can you produce work with only 2 days a week? I estimate had I been able to work on my visualisation, D-F-R, full time, it would have taken between 4-6 months to complete. It took around 16 months. So, in my case, somewhere in this mayhem something did finally get produced. What now?

You would like to think, "great, finished one work, lets start another". But of course, in order to justify the compromises, the art work must produce something in return, recognition, money, meaning? The ugly issue of the purpose of my art now permeates my day to day consciousness. Before, I could just hide behind the distraction of producing it, once it's finished, the difficulties really start.

Where does one go from here.