RedBubble

high spirit for a high life right

WOW !! I wish I could be there..Lots of scenes to shot !!! That was a great organization.. wow !!

Wonderful video – maybe we should organise more Red Bubble outings in our local areas and promote our art this way too.

Wow, this was great!

Interesting to see Redbubblers at work…still shots were very intriguing…

looks like a wonderful weekend had by all ,
such a fascinating eery place

How cool is this!

But out there in the “real” world a greater tragedy unfolds with thousands sacrificing their humanity to a smothering mundanity

Amen. Besides … the ones who are 10% crazy are always way more interesting.

Insane people create the best art….

Cool movie. That location was great, and looks like it goes on for miles.

Nice video capturing a great weekend!!

Great to see redbubblers in action, and what a fab location! Nothing like a bit of atmosphere to add that extra something! :-)

Exploring creativity is like slipping through a vortex where the “real” world ceases to exist… stay there too long and the outside world might disappear entirely!! I guess that’s what might have happened to Van Gogh and Sylvia Plath… although I did read that Van Gogh was intoxicated with the reportedly hallucinogenic, Absinth.

Looks like you had fun, good work.

Brilliant. I wish I could be there.

Actually, I might not have any art at all were it not for my psychosis. That’s why I embrace it. Roll up snuggly as a coot in it and lick it like an all day sucker.

Frickin’ awesome!! Would love to do something like this!!
Great shots and creativity by all!!

By the way…great video. Looks like a great time.

aww too cool! i want to be a photographer.. and slightly goth right now!

So cool, I wish I was a photographer!

I wouldn’t mind smothering mundanity… or just getting my fingers around its slithering throat…

Awesome meet up I’m sure, and what I saw come out of it was really good!! More like that I say… (and maybe something in North America would be cool)!!

THE PHOTOGRAPHY LOOKS LIKE SO MUCH FUN!! I USED TO STUDY SYLVIA PLATH IN COLLEGE. I LOVED HER WORK!

That looked fantastic – wish i was there! I will be there soon though! Melb Feb 09 here I come!

There’s some great work produced from this outting.
We need something like that here, in the UK!!!
Anyone fancy going to Broadmoor?

Very cool, what fab location :)

Bugger!!!... wish I was there with your guys!!! Well done.

Sorry I found this absolutly stupid
the madness for real is here and eveywhere in this world

Very cool!

Just fantastic!

it would be really cool for someone to put together a list of the photographers so we can get a good look at what they came up with

nevermind : ))

Excellent work! Must have been a blast!

Hmmmmm, am afraid I’m with kamel… not so much stupid, just a little “ho hum”. Potentially a grand idea, and sure there are some pretty interesting photographic results, results which would actually make for a very powerful exhibition, seen all together on a gallery wall, but to frank Pilgrim your words carry far more resonance than the Youtube mishmash. Offering up a tulip to Reality is a rather potent image. And I do believe you are right insofar as Art demands a certain detachment from reality. To be driven by the Muse of Creativity and respond to her call regardless of the pragmatic needs of paying rent, wearing clean clothes and eating good food, or “having a life” is indeed bordering on madness – successfully walking that razors’ edge: ie, maintaining a sustainable artistic practice redolent with integrity, is the true task at hand.

appendix 1: One of the apects of my craft that I love is the making of art that forms part of a building, and keeps the rain out.

appendix 2: The campus of Sydney College of the Arts @ Rozelle is the former Callum Park Mental Institutiuon. It has given rise to some extraordinary artwork from students who have chosen to draw on the resource of the institution’s deplorable history.

I liked the video. BUt having mental illness as a reality of my life and people I know I don’t think you have represented the tragedy of these places exsisting and the pain of it experienced by the people who onced lived there.

Very interesting (the writing as I did not watch the film, at 11 or any other time). To me, art is a celebration of reality, in fact. Well, more often than not. It tells a truth that is often instinctively felt but seldom heard shouting aloud. Art bring it into eye popping, ear walloping, floor shaking detail and shares it with whomever is brave enough to use their senses. It’s not for the shallow, because it exposes the depths.

Interesting but one or two seemed a bit on the edge them selves , and perhaps would have felt at home But hey each to there own Art style .

interesting, but i was hoping to see more than photography. specifically, i would have liked to see more traditional artists drawing and painting, and an experiment with autonomy as well….but then i wasn’t there and that’s what i would have been doing. great concept though.

Art and Maddness. Personally, I produce art at points when I feel there are no other solutions to the problems,state of mind presenting itself. Through experience I have learnt ,that the act of producing art is transformative. The work frequently takes over ,as beeing what matters most,and as the work evolves my mind is rejunvinated. There may well be troublesome points during the creation,but I remind myself to stay in the moment ,to be with the unfurling of the art work. It is a mysterious process,but ultimately a deep and penetrating way of addressing the unresolved conflicts within myself. I create a rule of self acceptance when producing art. Judgements inevitably present themselves.I beleive it is through allowing and letting go of these that allows,what is essentially within my soul, to breathe.Visit my work and be inspired to go upon your own journey.I hope you can sense my passion for life and beauty.

It seems that there is an artistic complex of traits. I, for example share with other artist the trait of being navigationally challanged. In other words I can not find my way out of a paper bag even if provided with a map. Addictions and psychiatric disorders are also part of the complex. The artistic complex involves genetics (in is inheritable) brain structure and neurotransmitters. It effects sensory perception and behaviors.

It has taken me decades to come to some understanding of my own personality. Artist are different. Our inate world view is very different from the dominate world view.

A few years ago I painted some aliens. Perhaps we are aliens? At least out modus operandi is alien to the dominate behavior patterns of the culture.

ALIENS R US

We are the other side of the coin of consciousness.

It helps to “know thyself”

fantastic !!

Nice to see some of the faces behind the photos! Looks like it was a really interesting occasion. I’d love to see on future vids, more about the way some of the shots were set up. But good work nevertheless.

I personally found that more complex the piece of art is, obviously, more complex is the brain who did the piece of art, therefore, more obsessive and neurotic is the owner of that brain, consecuently, more sick. Result: Chaotic compositions, abberations and gore things are made by that mind. Gore and violent images (such photo-montages) needs a very complex process of destruction and reconstruction, a very high technical level of knowledge when it’s well done.
Twisted things are always dramatic and problematic.
Art that is simple, has no complications, so the onwer of a simplier brain will preffer harmony and calm, simplicity instead tortuous compositions, that would overwhelm a simplier brain, I’ve deduced…

A music example is Beethoven and Bach, very complex guys in opposite with the clown of Mozart. Mozart did his best when he was crazy, close to die… Depression and strong characters are 2 common things in the artistic personalities, other than that, are just superfluous, like Mozart in his early years…

I really could live in that place for 1 year, then, move to another abandoned construction. I do love industrial and decayed places… Give me a TEC 9 (just in case) and I will live there ;)

By the way, amazing shots… Where I can see them?

wonderful .. full of wonder … great day for all … wish I could have been there (big smile)

ah the exploration at the edge of madness … we’ll a little off or at least I am (grin) ... to see what others do not see as we do … to broaden sight beyond the focus of reality … (smile)

Why not? You’re only young once! Looked a bit cool. As is wet and brrrrrr. Good to see Bubblers get together. Well done.

Totally jealous that I wasnt there! Looks like so much fun…x

This reminds me too much of some very bad times. Goodbye.

I just think you’re all crazy!!

hehehe just kidding…..I love art :)

just beautiful.. great ohhhh so jelous :)

Very generous of you to share this with us.

This is soooo awesome, wish I was a part of it :) Look forward to seeing some of the pics on here.

Facinating point of view. I have been passionately looking at the link between sensitivity, creativity and mental health for years. My belief is that there is far more to human life than we are aware. That some are born more sensitive to feeling this greater scope of information than most others. That these people have suffered due to what they have felt but not fully understood.

I believe that creative people have a real gift for humanity. However until creative people really take their thinking as deep as their feeling that this gift will be a cross to bear. However if they do go deeper in thought I believe they will begin to make sense of a human nature that for it’s history has been very dis empowering in my opinion.

Best Wishes Tony.

Art can touch past the surface, it can delve so much deeper, i only respect people who explore that. It would have been interesting to show sensitivity to the location in fashion and portraiture. I’m inspired to be goth.

OMG do Im famous and do really sound like that eek…..

It was strande that with so many people we didnt run into many (600 rooms can do that) so this is great to see what people where up too….

I can understand why creativity and madness are so very close. I have been told when I have worked on an art piece, whether digital artwork or traditional, I forget the world around to the point my eyes are dry and sore, and my legs cramping from staying with what I am working on, not wanting to stop for fear of losing the inspiration.

I was constantly told I was ‘off’ by my parents. Imagine being an artistic child growing up with every unartistic parents. I have rediscovered my after many years, and am once again ‘happily insane’. :)

sanity is merely a perceived notion of self

I must say it was a great weekend and I hope it inspired you all to go out and meet your fellow bubblers in your area and have huge meet ups. They are easy to get going once you find yourself a place you want to go to and others interested will help you out with organizing it as well. Meeting so many people was great.

Oh Jeeeeezzzzz

Looks like it was alot of fun! Wish I had been there!!!

Really nice, but with so much people… No thanks; I think with so much people any abandoned place gonna lost its real spirit.

ok i have been diagnosed with manic depression since i was 20. that was 16 yrs ago. it fucking HURTS. my life has been shaped by it, driven by it. right now… this moment i can feel physiological pain from the fucking thing.
it is NOT romantic. it is UGLY and ruinous.
as my father said to me after i had cut my throat without the beginnings of control; volition, in a dissociative psychosis -
‘i think it would have been easier for you if you had been born blind or crippled or with another form of major disability. at least then you would have a chance to be happy.’
i have massive brain damage from a tumour that grew as i did, and it is from this that the madness derives its inception and the impossibility of its cure.
yes, it drives some of my creativity. i have epiphany after epiphany and their genesis is inexplicable in sheer scale.
i would gladly give up these wonderful things if i could somehow stop hurting all the fucking time.

oh and btw at a place not dissimlar to this one, Bundoora Repatriation Hospital in Melbourne, John Cade discovered the fist ever psyche drug, lithium.

dunno if this will work, i still find the html or php here weird, but anyway:

have a picture.

these are my scars.

and if you would care to learn what it actually feels like;
HISTORY OF MADNESS

and i think that posting my own drawing here may well be fair enough given the subject… so i guess i am not sorry. just wish i had not been asleep for all of yesterday (20 hours not by choice; more ‘madness’). then i could have posted my reply when this was first publicised.

and the full text version
HISTORY OF MANDESS; COMPLETE

and please, if you feel that i am promoting my own work or that this is inappropriate, go to hell.

sassie says art is a way of transporting you away from your troubles,and soothing a harassed mind.You would never find someone committing a bad deed while they’re in the middle of a painting.

Personally, I don’t know how people can live in today’s world and NOT go mad. I’ve recently discovered that pursuing art is the only way I can block out my feelings about the world (well… about human nature, really) and save myself from going completely barking crazy.
“I could have told you, Vincent, this world was never meant for one as beautiful as you” – Don McLean.

This is so cool !!

Thanks to Mark for the video and again to Mel for organising the location.

I shot there that weekend, and I felt moved by all the creativity going on – it was a very positive feel.

I felt that the place though was full of invisible sadness, of tragedy and loss. Unanswered questions of “why”.

I think that for me, shooting there in no way dismisses what happened there, or disrespects the poor souls who were locked within. I myself have been touched by metal illness in my family, depression, so I can only attempt to understand the impact a place like this must have had.

But I felt a happiness that the place was finished with. Over. Lost to history and dust, never to hurt again.

Some of my shots focussed therefore on freedom, release… not of negativity. That’s the feeling I left with.

So thanks again for the invitation.

“Unanswered questions of “why”.” – Darryl A

At the risk of seeming to be self-promoting

http://www.redbubble.com/people/catruth/art/1600805-1-why

I ask myself the same question every day.
But, perhaps, in a different context?

How many of us wish we could take back an unkind word?

“Tragically some artists push this too far and lose their sanity to art” – RB

Perhaps the artists don’t lose their sanity to art. Perhaps the art is no longer enough to help them maintain their sanity?

We all seek oblivion in various ways to block out or to create our own reality. When we seek means of escape, but no longer succeed, the conclusion may seem inevitable to some.

It’s all about final straws, really, and whether or not we have someone to help carry the load.

Did not see much about the little “short” film that was worthy of all the praise given…but I am one voice and that is what makes all different….we see and hear by our own inward hearing and seeing. However there were some good pictures of the building itself. I love history and old buildings. I loved the shot of the glass that was broken looking out over the other buildings. It is a sad day if and when we take lightly the “struggle and the pain” of a brother or sister in the agony of mental illness. I really did not see the mockery or the lightness of this in this little film but it appears that others did. On a scale of 1-10 the little film would rate a 1 ….some of the photography would rate higher …I am not sure what the film was really trying to project to the viewer.
But praise should always go to those that put forth effort to produce any type of art as long as it does not belittle, harm or scorn another person.

I loved it.. too bad I live across the world, or I would take a few models and go there myself. Congratulations , cile

Art grounds me and fills silences that might drive me mad.
I agree with catruth when she said: art. Perhaps the art is no longer enough to help them maintain their sanity?
Hope neither I nor any other RB artist gets to that point

“Tragically some artists push this too far and lose their sanity to art. ” And sadly some artists have no way of expressing their own version of sanity except through image and symbol that cannot be named. It is often not until we find some way to releasing the unnamed angels and demons that reside within that we can in the end make sense of anything at all.