23 December 2009

Season's Greetings


It's been a difficult few weeks for me, with some health problems now getting clarification and while pain has robbed me of concentration, it is now established that there is no life-threatening situation (aside from being 66!). I am taking a break to allow the creative processes to resolve and clarify.

I have three art works in the summer exhibition of Jervis Bay and Basin Arts.

Copenhagen has sharply reminded us all of climate issues. It seems that we have a long way to go to recognise that the shape of world politics is shifting very very quickly. There is no longer a capacity for the US and Western Europe and others (such as ourselves, in Australia) to imagine we can determine the shape of things. China has most of the capacity to finance seemingly limitless US inclination to deficit spending, China has most of the world's manufacturing. We assert that we need to be consuming so much carbon because it is efficient to produce aluminium and (a little) steel here. But it remains that we, like but ahead of the rest of the developed world, produce four times the amount of CO2 compared with China. It is a fantasy to expect China (or developing countries generally) to accept major limitations on their development while we seem incapable of making adjustments ourselves. There really is a life or death quality to the underlying questions of mutual understanding and capacity for dialogue which confront the real world, which makes writing fiction difficult for me right now.

On a lighter note...

Our Christmas card, above, is based on the unexpected guest (a pelican) at lunch as we sat in the car by Lake Illawarra several month ago.


see you next year... may it be full of warm surprises for us all.

best wishes

Dennis