The Journal of Australian Ceramics Vol 52 No 1 April 2013
You also want an ePaper? Increase the reach of your titles
YUMPU automatically turns print PDFs into web optimized ePapers that Google loves.
Focus : New Zeala nd <strong>Ceramics</strong><br />
This image shows Jim Cooper working at the 2010 Taiwan<br />
<strong>Ceramics</strong> Biennale (TCS) at Taipei County Yingge <strong>Ceramics</strong><br />
Museum. Cooper was one <strong>of</strong> three artists invited by Moyra<br />
Elliott, curator <strong>of</strong> the TCB, to take up residence in the<br />
museum and create works for the show. Jim Cooper's<br />
installation (see left) was composed <strong>of</strong> more than 1000<br />
individual pieces.<br />
<strong>The</strong> wonder, naivety and <strong>of</strong>ten selfishness <strong>of</strong> this time, that history showed was short-lived, allowed<br />
expression <strong>of</strong> an unguarded vulnerability and, to its adherents, an indifference to judgement and<br />
alienation from 'them' - the others. This assuredness came from the convinced and the convicted<br />
rendering condemnation powerless. This, in turn, contributed to an increasing generational breach, at<br />
times beyond comprehension or reconciliation.<br />
<strong>The</strong>n here, in this separateness - the day-glow other - acid achieved the status <strong>of</strong> holy host - t he<br />
lysergic supplement.<br />
Guru Doctor Timothy Leary's guide book to the psychedelic experience ran obvious parallels to the<br />
Tibetan Book <strong>of</strong> the Dead and influenced John Lennon's 'Tomorrow Never Knows', and all this while<br />
the Beatles were elevated by the said Doctor Tim to the exalted position <strong>of</strong> avatars.<br />
Meanwhile, back at the ranch ... the Harvard Temple devotee Baba Ram Das, upon returning from<br />
India, the new Holy Land, presented a chemical-free route to Being Here <strong>No</strong>w' . Pink Floyd, Jimi<br />
Hendrix and numerous others consulted and quoted the I-Ching and Bhagavad Gita while middle-class<br />
white kids ingested a potpourri <strong>of</strong> eastern cosmology, psychedelic drugs and music for breakfast, lunch<br />
and dinner.<br />
Dark clouds gat hered, circled, intensified and became darker. <strong>The</strong> deaths <strong>of</strong> Kennedy and Martin<br />
Luther King Jnr, live action replays from Vietnam, drugs, money and media exploitation and life's grim,<br />
harsh realities, corroded the essential core <strong>of</strong> an undefinable philosophical desire to change the world<br />
via mind expansion and corrupted the ideals <strong>of</strong> many who t ried to survive within such an ethereal<br />
structure.<br />
THE JOURNAL OF AUSTRALIAN CERAMICS APRll<strong>2013</strong> 41
Change language