BRIEF 59: ALL MY FRIENDS

Brief 59: All My Friends
Deadline: Sunday 22nd September 2013
Image: Elisabeth Dunker 

Best friends. Potential friends. Facebook friends. Friends of friends. This brief is about all of them, real or not. 

We accept all mediums so get out your pencils, camera, scissors or tablet. 

Email your work to sparkapolooza [at] gmail [dot] com, upload to our Facebook page or tag #sparkapolooza on Twitter or Instagram. 

Less procrastination, more doing yeah!

By Joanne Chan

There once was a man named George,

with 10 tall daughters and a son,

They drove him crazy with their nonsense,

but mostly, he reflected, life was fun.

The house they lived in was grand,

and people would come gather round to see.

They'd have parties and music and ponies,

and every so often a tee pee.

But one by one they grew older,

and slowly ventured out its door.

Til one George realised 

that his play house had become

no more.

A coffee haiku for this month's brief. Inspired by that feeling of desolation when you finish your coffee each morning.
By Kate Toon

Between night’s dusk at sunrise
By Sean Bidd

Her active days, they rush on by so damn fucking fast,

Far out beyond the nightmares, keeping company the estuarines,

Where the snakes, the vipers sweat each their long days away,

Passing through every deep dark hole between east and west.

“Girl born with a wild heart,

Came the daughter of the untamed lands,

Grant freedom to the brave whom help,

With love in earth and verse, love to all her kind.”

Her time in some of the darkest places, darker than torn souls,

JK walked in out of each nightmare, her world a war torn zone,

For many years have passed, since the doctor she became,

The days the war rages on, her skills she bent a smugglers run.

“Girl born with a wild heart,

Came the daughter of the untamed lands,

Grant freedom to the brave whom help,

With love in earth and verse, love to all her kind.”

Always laid within the thick of it, JK rescued thousands from such wrongs,

Through the chaos day and night, the medicines she brought new friends,

To stem the constant flow of blood, to help revive so many broken lives,

How can such a once quiet place, turn to become a war zone in our time.

“Girl born with a wild heart,

Came the daughter of the untamed lands,

Grant freedom to the brave whom help,

With love in earth and verse, love to all her kind.”

We met so many years ago, JK like the daughter one could love,

Born her wild ways, she walked in tall with a big wide open heart,

Her stance a vantage to good sense in living, her love for others’ ways,

She does not need to think to hard, about when, n’where to lend a hand.

“Girl born with a wild heart,

Came the daughter of the untamed lands,

Grant freedom to the brave whom help,

With love in earth and verse, love to all her kind.”

Brave in her trepidation, many peoples’ in she trusts along the ways,

The places where her life has traveled, the dreams she’s learned to breathe,

While JK walks to greet me, walking slow now in a new found peaceful land,

A daughter’s love to welcome fresh, will always set free this tired old open mind.

“Girl born with a wild heart,

Came the daughter of the untamed lands,

Grant freedom to the brave whom help,

With love in earth and verse, love to all her kind.”

“Where the storms of night’s dusk wave their curtain,

Each one calling brave aloud to her name at sunrise.”

Brief 56: Somebody That I Used To Know

Brief 56: Somebody That I Used To Know
Deadline: 18th May 2013
Image: by Max Wanger

Remember that best friend you had for a semester? Your first crush? The person you had a d&m with and never saw again? This brief is dedicated to someone in your past that you've never quite forgotten. Maybe you knew them for a fleeting moment, or maybe something more- let them be your muse, your starting point, your subject. 

As always, submissions are based on the interpretation of the above, in any medium you like. E-mail your works to: sparkapolooza at gmail dot com or upload to Facebook / Twitter / Instagram and tag us with #sparkapolooza

Happy making!

Incognito by Kate Toon

I wish I were invisible or could crawl back in my shell
Right now this situation is my kind of living hell
‘Hello Jen, yes how are you?’ I say with a weak smile
Gulping back the sickly taste of acidic nervous bile

I hand out all the vol au vents pretending not to see
The way that awful Clive licks his lips and leers at me
Then I scurry to the kitchen to check on the first course
My nails tap on the worktop in some frantic sort of Morse

S.O.S. I’m screaming, just silently inside
Oh please God let the house burn down and let me run and hide
But dinner must be served and I must impress Geoff’s boss
Though really, if I’m honest, I couldn’t give a toss

My face is a fixed grimace as I top up Susan’s gin
Trying to repress the hatred deep within
This night will soon be over and I’ll escape to bed
Until then I am prisoner, trapped inside my head

Brief 54: Going Incognito

Brief 54: Going Incognito
Deadline: 22nd February 2013
Image: Photo by Eli Klein via The Daily Mail. Artist: Lui Bolin

This brief is inspired by spies in trenchcoats, a wardrobe of disguises and the art of being unseen. 

This year we're experimenting with how long each brief is open so expect to be on your toes!

Our favourite submission and secret prize winner from last month goes to Alice- we loved her characters.

Looking forward to seeing everyone's take on the brief! E-mail your works to the usual address- sparkapolooza at gmail dot com or you can upload to Facebook/Twitter/Instagram and tag us.

Love messages spread around Sydney
By Laura

Brief 53: Post-it Power

Brief 53: Post-it Power
Deadline: 8th January 2012
Image: Photo by Audrey Kawasaki

This brief is inspired by Giant Robot's current exhibition Post-it Number 8 which involves over 260 artists transforming the humble square into pieces of art. We might not be able to be there but we're joining them in spirit. Whether you're inspired by post-it's or simply use them as your medium you have 1 whole month (think of it as our little Christmas present) to get your works to us!  Our favourite entry will also be sent a special surprise.

E-mail them to the usual address- sparkapolooza at gmail dot com. 

Brief 52: Ice-cream Lover

Brief 52: Ice-cream Lover
Deadline: 20th October 2012
Image: Artwork by The Glue Society, image from here

Birds, not paradise by Sean Biddulph

Paradise is like four walls,
Trapped in a world of little change,
A place of constant colours,
Where textures rarely range.

I'd rather find the fringes,
As the birds they sometimes do,
Or the dark and distant places,
Beyond the walls here set by you.

So give me freedom, not your bird's trapped paradise,
With choices like arcadian, arboreal, and the air,
They come with changing moments, of beauty rich and rare,
From far across a desert, to waters and the mountainsides.

So please give me forests and the plains,
Or somewhere far on out to sea,
Give me places all so different, never static like your mind,
Choose freedom over paradise, surely, you're not that blind.

The choices be to take flight, swim, or run away from here,
For I don't like your walled world, your frozen place in time,
As I live for such diversity, and freedoms so sublime,
I'll not be a bird of paradise, I'll be neither tethered here in fear.

So when chance and opportunity present,
I'll leave this trapped small world of yours,
These thin veiled walls they will not hold,
For once I have my freedom, I will not need your gold...

Birds of Paradise by Kate Toon

Paradise for me
Would be totally bird free
Not a single pigeon shitting
And no tiny sparrows twitting
No bogan mynas blaring
Or evil crows just staring
And I don’t know about you
But I can’t stand cockatoos
It’s a ‘no’ to swans and geese
I really just want peace
That silent empty blue
And space free of emus
A heavenly no fly zone
The time to be alone

Brief 51: Birds of Paradise

Brief 51: Birds of Paradise
Deadline: 16th September 2012
Image by: Laura Tjitradjaja

Close your eyes and imagine the colours and textures of paradise. Is it what it seems? This brief we're inspired by the jungles of Malaysia and Bali(and a little by Portlandia too). Since we were so slack last brief we've given ourselves and everyone else a little more time- this one is open for a whole month!

Brief 50: Shoes

Brief 50: Shoes

Deadline: Monday 9th July 2012

Image by: Peony Yip

Red shoes or blue suede?  It's undeniable shoes have been the the focus of many creative endeavors. What's your take?

Brief 49: The portrait

Brief 49: The portrait

Deadline: Wednesday, 20th June 2012

Image by: Ren Hang

Portraits are about capturing a person- whether your forte is illustration, words, design remember to make it interesting, edgy and make us want to look twice!

On the subject of Wheel of Fortune in Vietnam by Tabitha Carvan

Televisions in Vietnamese homes are always on, so the television was on when I had lunch with my friend’s family.

It was showing the Vietnamese version of Wheel of Fortune. The game has an added difficulty in Vietnamese, as tones must be guessed as well as letters. My friend told us that sometimes the letters are all revealed but still the contestants can’t work out the phrase, because an identically-spelled word in Vietnamese can have six different meanings, depending on its tone. I felt vindicated for finding the language so difficult.

The contestants, surprisingly, sang between rounds. Apparently the Vietnamese Wheel of Fortune has a performance section where you can show off your “special talents”. My friend said the talent is usually always singing.

Nathan mentioned that his Auntie Roz went on Wheel of Fortune in Australia. I had heard this story before, how she was robbed of victory by supposedly mispronouncing Gwyneth Paltrow’s name. Ridiculous! It’s not like she could have meant somebody else.

My friend asked Nathan if his Auntie Roz sang when she was on the show, but we explained that no, in the Australian version you don’t get to show your special talents.

“Is that the only difference?” she asked.

We watched the show, and ate. Her mother had cooked a fish on a charcoal burner that was out on the front steps, near the motorbike ramp. The motorbikes themselves were parked in the same room as us, a kind of combined garage-dining.

Her father was finding it difficult to eat, and couldn’t use chopsticks, because he’d lost his thumb in a factory accident. The hospital had tried to rebuild him a new thumb out of flesh taken from his arm, but it looked more like one of those homemade stress balls, a balloon filled with rice.

There was a glass cabinet with an unopened bottle of whiskey – not for drinking, just for show – which you see in almost every Vietnamese home, and a clock, branded “Money”, or at least that’s what it said in the middle of the dial.

I realised I was wearing two left plastic house slippers.

The Vietnamese Wheel of Fortune continued. The female assistant touched the letters to change them, another woman displayed the prizes on stage.

“Yes” I said. “Everything else is the same.”

Brief 47: The Wheel of Fortune

Brief 47: The Wheel of Fortune

Deadline: Monday, 2 April 2012

Image created by: Jordan Clarke

The Wheel of Fortune, or Rota Fortunae, is a concept in medieval and ancient philosophy referring to the capricious nature of Fate. This wheel belongs to the goddess Fortuna. In the modern days, the Wheel of Fortune is also a game on television and at casinos. One concept, different ways of interpretations. We're also inspired by Kay Starr's music. What's your take on the brief? 

Shadow Play by Tracey Sargent

There is an old house that crookedly stands on the corner of two intersecting streets. Back when a family first called her home, she must have been a highlight of the suburb. With freshly painted gables, sparkling windows and a garden neatly trimmed; she would have charmed all who laid eyes upon her.

Now though, instead of gleaming with pride, she recedes into the background. Her paint is worn and peeling, those bright shining windows have dulled beneath years of dirt, and that once tidy garden has hungrily reclaimed its natural territory. Neighbouring houses turn their gaze away in embarrassment.

From outside she looks not just old and tired, but abandoned - like all hope has long since been lost. All is still and quiet, and it seems that no life remains, and yet .... there is that wild garden which grows unchecked. The trees that stand to her front have spread their branches both up and out, obscuring the ground floor almost entirely from view. A vine once used to visually soften the hard edges of the attached carport, has stretched sinewy limbs across every available surface, covering the front stairs and verandah with an imperfect, yet ever changing mask. The shrubs that once formed a precisely trimmed hedge along the fence, now cascade beyond the property boundary and on to the footpath below, like slowly crashing waves on an ocean of green.

With a subtle change of focus, it does appear that abundant life is to be found here, but its movements are slow and inelegant. It is only on the stormiest of days, when the dark clouds hang heavy and low in the sky, and the wind roars through the streets, that these green inhabitants display their true energy and inherent grace. As such rain-threatened days draw to a close and the street lights begin to flicker and hum, these botanical dancers are enticed to the stage.

Under steady gaze of artificial light, the rain and wind collaborate to push and pull the leaves and branches of this urban wilderness in accordance with some unknown rhythm and unheard beat. The steps are fluid and natural, and each plant knows them well. The performance is intoxicating, soon luring other players to join the stage. Moving in unison and growing steadily stronger, dark shadow twins throw themselves up against the surface of the house, in mirrored and silent homage to the green performers.

This house, she lives. Even if one day the green ultimately overcomes her, life will continue on - ready and waiting for the next act to begin.

Brief 46: Throwing Shapes

Brief 46: Throwing Shapes

Deadline: Wednesday 14th March 2012

Photo shot by: Justin Ridler

Each month when we put up a brief we try to walk the line between two meanings. We're inspired by dance, colour, movement and of course, shapes. Which way will you go? 

Betrayal in Boganville By Tracey Sargent

Like he did every Saturday, the man started his day with a breakfast of bacon and eggs, and the company of the weekend newspaper. After a quick look through the main news items, he turned his attention to his two favourite sections. Firstly to ‘Sport’, where he learned the coach of his footy team (league of course) had resigned, ‘and about bloody time too’, he said to no one in particular. He then poured over the results of the games he’d missed because they hadn’t been televised on normal TV - ‘those Pay TV big-wigs are just money-hungry mongrels’, he’d say if anyone asked him what he thought of that arrangement.

Closing the sport pages, he moved over to the ‘Motoring’ section, a place he really liked to spend some time. Making himself a cuppa, he was ready to settle in. In his opinion, this section had everything you could ever hope for - excellent research (reviews of new car models), inspiration (a showcase of the latest luxury releases), personality (interviews with sporting legends), hard-hitting features (this week it was the top 10 most fuel-efficient cars), and national interest stories (how the Australian motoring industry stacked up globally). As his dad used to always say, there was ‘something for everyone’.

With the sweet, oily fragrance of fried fat still hanging heavy in the air, he left his dirty plate behind and wandered over to the window to look outside. You couldn’t trust those weather guys on TV - those galahs never knew what was going on. The only way to see what the weather was like was to look for yourself. It was a bit cloudy out there, but it should be right. Well it had to be, didn’t it? It was car-washing day.

Wearing his favourite pair of old khaki ruggers, and with feet as bare as his chest, he was ready to battle with dirt, oil and grease. Armed in one hand with a suds filled bucket and sponge, and in the other his high pressure hose was poised to strike - this was a war he had won before and would win again. The subject of all this attention was his black Series II VE Holden Commodore SV6, or ‘the other woman’ as she was also known. Not that there was a woman for the car to have stolen his heart away from, but still the name stood.

He hosed the car down first and then got busy with the sponge and the suds. Starting on the roof and working his way towards that slightly boxy nose, he was consumed by the task at hand. If he’d been paying attention, he would have noticed the clouds above his head had transformed from light shadowy grey, to heavy, black and menacing. But he wasn’t, so he didn’t.

After a quick rinse, the car was ready to be dried off. As sweat beaded on his brow, his left arm worked hard to remove every last drop of water. He paused from time-to-time, but only for a moment, to wring the collected water out of his chamois. If he’d been paying attention, he might have been concerned about the kids playing in the street with cans of silly string and glitter spray - a messy combination to remove from any clean surface. But he wasn’t, so he didn’t.

Now that the car had been wiped dry, it was time to polish. This was the best bit, it was a slow process but one that was ultimately rewarding. As the chalky white polish was buffed away, a brilliantly glossy finish was gradually revealed.

Finally, a good hour and a half after he started, he was finished. A job well done. Standing back to admire his handiwork, he finally noticed the gathering storm and the children wildly dashing about. ‘Right then’, he said as he fixed upon a solution - moving his car up out of the driveway and under the car port. Putting away his bucket and sponge until next weekend, he headed back indoors where a cool drink beckoned. If he’d been paying attention, he would have noticed a muddy dog chase a cat into his front yard. The cat jumped to safety, but the dog, distracted by her reflection on the surface of that glossy car, became aware of her dirty appearance and proceeded to shake herself clean. But he wasn’t, so he didn’t.