Conversations We Don't Have
Alan Pentland is a long time friend and colleague from Melbourne, Australia. He qualified as an architect but ended up a prize winning writer, comedian, poet and performer. Many Australians will recall one of Australia's most memorable comedy characters Ferret from the ground-breaking 90's TV comedy show "Fast Forward". That was my mate, Alan and he created the character!
Alan is a Melbourne Spoken Word poetry champion. When I asked him whether he might be interested in collaborating with me on a book, putting some words in a poetic form to my artworks, he kindly agreed if I would buy his idea - "poetry to stimulate realistic and positive discussions, on topics we often avoid". I loved the idea and immediately provided him with 10 artworks designed to stimulate his creative poetry juices.
Under a tentative book title "Conversations We Don't Have" we offer our first collaboration. The artwork is Sea Dunes, for Alan Pentland the poet, it transformed into Memory Machine
Memory Machine
My mind runs on memories
it’s a memory machine
second-guessing the future
based on things that have been.
All that is certain
all that has last
all that we know
comes from the past.
It’s all about memory inside my head
knowledge, talent, family and friends
old and the new
jumbled and sorted
sometimes it’s chaos
sometimes it’s ordered.
Sometimes it’s love
where memory gets set.
I’d love to love more but
sometimes forget.
