The Forgery

The thing with New land is that it must be forgotten to become new. First there must be the cleansing, as shown here. Then the world must forget over all those years where rocks and stones and trees are made into timber and footpaths and i-pads.

Through forging a proper life we forget that which has come before. And then we are good and well and it is time to look back on what we have made. We brush the tussock aside and remember the day in which the trees were felled and the ground tilled. We lift a rock and marvel at the life beneath it.

This is culture.

This is Pakeha culture.

This is new New Zealand land.

Back in the Black

Gidday there, I was only back for a week in December and had to rattle my dags back to the South because I found a bloody beaut wee spot to buy up a slew of batches. I can't say for now, but once all the deals are inked, well, then you can be all ears. In the meantime, my newnew zeal landland has been suffering. 

I asked one of the boys to put it in the shade, but he only shifted one batch. So now we've got some that has been baked in the long hot summer Wellington days. You really can see the difference in the batches. This weekend I finally got round to giving it a trim up around the edges and removing the leaves and other detritus that was clogging up the light. I gave them a good water and hope they'll be happy. We'll see!

The top was one in the shade. The bottom one was exposed to that CFC sun of ours. Too right, struth and all holy hell! It's gone to rack and ruin. But these lower photos are after I got the snippers onto them and cleared the accumulated debris. Tending, always the tending.

Summer Dumb

I'm off on a property buying trip to the South Island (Te Wai pounamu) and wont be back until December. Shirley and the boys will be looking after any urgent business but, between us, they're less into a NewNew Zeal LandLand than I. Figures!

It's aliver!

I don't know much about artists, nor do I know very much at all about children. But a strange feeling has got to me in the last day as the seeds have sprouted and grown as tall as you can see. I am feeling paternal and patriotic. This is my land. This is my project, my eight little children, like the fingers on my two hands. Each plot is getting its own personality. I try to treat them equally, which has been especially easy as I haven't been watering them recently - the rain has been coming from Ranginui.

So I've been online quite a lot in the last few days, you know, just to find the facts. And there seems to be some confusion about the facts. See here for example. Or over here.

Oh well, I suppose that this is simply the process that us A-listers have to go through as we wendel our way towards making great profits from art. I mean, if this arty-farty thing was easier then I reckon everyone would be doing it.

That said, there has been some good news in the last few days. Now I'm no sporty-supporty kind of guy either, but I have noticed a few things from the rugger. One of those things is that you can make money by getting someone who is good at running about on grass to associate themselves with your product. In this case my product is art. And the other thing that I noticed is that there is demand for grass that is as beautiful as mine in a couple of places. Nah, but my grass is too fresh and soft to have oafs jumping about on it. There's no respect on those pitches. I'd hate to be the groundsman there. Ah, but, one day.... one day my grass is going to be all grown up and is going to have to earn its keep somehow. Maybe it'll be a pitch. Bit of a pun there eh? Pitch!

It's alive!!!

Some people think that the main trick in making money from art is in the division of labour. But they're wrong. The trick is in the subdivision of labour and capital. And so it is with finery and embellishment, though not so much that it would be gaudy, that I can make an announcement: now that the original living entities from the Stolen Land art project have been maimed or killed, the fresh occupants of the land are growing straight and tall. In the photo to your top left you will notice that the two punnets are protected in their new pottles by British Brick.

Then in the lower photo you will see the symbol of these subdivisions: the pale petal. Oh how it feels to be a parent: I now know.

The art of deciding on what is art and what are weeds

The first shoots have come through from this long winter project. Spring has sprung from the corpse of September. September is the rib cage out of which a special kowhai could grow.


But this is not a blog about the end of lives, but about the beginning and though the end is the beginning is the end and the beginning is the end is the beginning, none of that much matters to the gorgeous shoots of youth that are growing in Stolen Land. I mean, ask a baby to philosophise about individuals, collectives and shared being and all you are likely to get is a goo goo gaa gaa. It's like trying to talk to a libertarian about the assumptions of neo-liberal economic policies. Any sensible businessman doesn't get bogged down in the purity of the doctrine. A sensible businessman will add "yes, buts" and try to be your friend.

Now the question is: what is a weed and what is grass. I did give the Stolen Land two weeks to germinate all of these weeds out of itself, but yet I did not give the soil as much attention or sun as I have in the last week. And so now I do not have 100% weed free grass... wasn't the first part of the Company's role to clear all that was living from the land? It was. And now I suppose that there will be embarrassment.

The Business of New New Zeal Land Land

(1) The purchase of the land and removal of surplus living matter.
(2) The promotion of new living matter.
(3) The laying out of settlements and towns.
(4) The gradual resale of land according to its new value.

A chief concern at this point in time is to avoid the embarrassment occasioned by claims against the company in concurrence with part one above. My earliest and most careful attention will focus on securing the rightful title of this land in my name. Principally, I must make ensure that Dick Whyte (aka ArtDick) held sufficient rank within the art establishment to sell my organisation his stolen art. It will be an embarrassment to my organisation and rank if I find that there are future claims regarding the art that I have bought that undermine steps two through four above.

How to sow stolen land

Because I don't know much about sowing grass I took a few hints from the back of the grass seed packet. I knew that I should sow it, and that sowing can be defined as putting the seeds in the soil. I didn't know that the bloody seeds were going to be blue. Well now!

To your right is a great way to make money with land: buy low, fix up, sell high! More to come on this one for sure!

I had been up at the baby-momma's place in Berhampore and she and her missus gave me a bunch of long-acting fertilising products (much like when they gave me the pumpkin and sunflower seeds to encourage my spermatoza). Anyhow, I mixed that fertiliser into the soil and in went the seed. The company said I should wear gloves and keep it off my hands, so I was careful to keep my hands away from it. I used a teaspoon to distribute it and ploughed up that Stolen Land and it looks right good.

Now I play the waiting game. Oh, first I washed my hands, took some photos, then I began the waiting game.

How to clear stolen land

Now I don't know much about this Dick Whyte character, but I do know that when you steal land you've got to get rid of all the life on it so that you can build your venture. That's what I did today. There was some stringy green stuff on the top of the land that was bloody difficult to get off. Anyhow, I stripped it all back and put most of the green stuff into a dish so it can dry out in the sun and die. I did feel a bit sentimental about it, though, so kept some alive, taking most of the land off of it and replanting it in a nice round clay dish. I'll have to get round to putting some drainage holes in it. That can be tomorrow's job.

Development

Now I don't know much about art, but I do know about money. I know how to make money from art, art from money. So when I spied Dick Whyte's 'Stolen Land' project at some Concerned Citizens art sale I knew what I had. I had a deal! I paid $50 for a plot of prime land.

But what about the legal issues? Well, I'll deal with them down the line. I can probably make up something to do with art, some sort of meta-concept art wank about crims and art and the Oz Wilde quote:

Crime belongs exclusively to the lower orders.  I don't blame them in the smallest degree. I should fancy that crime was to them what art is to us, simply a method of procuring extraordinary sensations.