This is the business card, fun to design a new one, building on old ones like my ‘Wizard of Eutopia’ card. So, the main thing we do here now is make things in the Arts & Crafts Renaissance spirit, and hold workshops, or ‘apprentishops’, for others to learn how to make them, and become (some of them) Masters in one or more of the multiple skills fostered here…
And the First workshop is as described below in the flyer:
Wizard Workshops First FREE workshop/talk/korero At the new Round Table, Dreamspace, 61 Carnarvon St, Saturday 23rd February 7PM :
On Coming Out as a Creator and even making money in the coming Arts & Crafts Renaissance.
Led by Peter Harris of Dreamspace Gallery, builder of Cafe Eutopia in Northland, who has been coming out, or trying to, as an artist, craftsman, visionary and writer for the last 20 years, with many learnings, fears, failures, and scattered triumphs along the way.
Before that he started, ran into the ground, resurrected and finally sold a frame manufacturing and wholesaling business and got an MA in philosophy.
He now wants to share the agony and ecstasy of the art-business-life balancing act, and a new way forward with kindred spirits here in Gisborne as he offers a workshop space for dreaming, discussing, creating and making, at the ‘everything workshop’ of Dreamspace, 61 Carnarvon St.
At Dreamspace there is a Round Table in a round Library room for the discussion and brainstorming workshops, and many ‘playstations’ for renaissance-level creations, including: printmaking, bookbinding, blacksmithing, coin striking, painting, casting cement and plaster, mouldmaking, jewellery making in pewter, stone carving, woodcarving, woodturning, joinery, ferrocement building and sculpting, glass work, stained glass, framing and board mounting of artworks, writing, meditating, recording, conferencing and brainstorming.Phone/text Peter 022 332 6568 email wizardofeutopia@gmail.com
I hope these photos say more than the many words I don’t have the time to say right now about the wonders, the synchronicities of new friends, wizards, Gods in hiding etc… Come and see if you are in Gisborne. 61 Carnarvon st. ..or follow this blog! And join Lifegym our ‘dojo for creative misfits’… http://www.lifegym.nz It’s transformational stuff! And even …dare I say it… fun…
I haven’t posted for ages, on account of being away North a lot sorting our property – the land and the Ark
– for sale and migrating stuff down to Gisborne, and waiting for our ship to come in, in the form of a sale which releases us from the Mort-gage. But meanwhile we have almost built a ‘ship’- or ark – of possibility here at 61 Carnarvon St. The gangway is not out yet, but visitors who get past the infinite improbability field (thanks Douglas Adams for that and many other nice concepts!) are most welcome.
The Dreamspace sign the night it went up – letters still a bit drunk!Straighter…by streetlight and moonlight…the gallery, earlier photo.gallery by nightA new door being made in the workshop.. yeah messy here too. But productive!Planning room and library, taking shape…
We now have four – well, three and a half – studio rooms, a gallery space, a front shop area, and a back workshop for woodworking, as well as a yard for ferrocement building and sculpting. I say ‘we’ as a man of many parts, not as the leader of a mass movement! Or any movement, as yet. But this may change, if I am true to myself, i.e., don’t keep going without but instead strengthen the going within. ‘Of all treasure pits, one’s own is the last to be digged’ – Zarathustra. Indeed if there’s a movement it must start in this truth first – that we go within for our true treasures. And then as through a magic folding of spacetime, we find ourselves outside again, as if we had lived all our lives on the inside of a sock, and one day the sock is turned inside out – nothing has changed, yet everything has (Wittgenstein’s delightful metaphor). And we can begin to create in the outer world… out of the inner one. And truly meet and recognise others who do that too.
This clarity about Dreamspace’s inner vision came to me this morning watching the 2015 graduation address at Naropa University… interesting place! – It was good. Thanks Raewyn for the link! The title is ‘Living from the Inside out’. The link to the youtube video:
So how do WE live like that? Dreamspace is a place that really stands for what he describes…isn’t it? Vulnerable, about faithfulness to ideals, not mere effectiveness at the cost of openheartedness.
Can you see it? Could you join me?
To make it partly concrete: Dreamspace is where we make only things (namely: hobbit havens and accessories, elf havens and accessories, artworks, sacred scultures, arches etc) of beauty, with integrity, for community. Where we bring forth treasures from within, from a cultivated heart and mind. Where we practise and teach digging that inner treasure pit which often is the last thing to be digged…
Increasingly in this new economy we really have to ‘go within’ , or we will ‘go without’… the rewards just aren’t there for us when we try selling our inner life for outer material success. That path has mostly been outsourced…
We need a prospectus for Dreamspace. ..and an ‘Athanor’ covenant by which only those dedicated to living from the inside out may join the ship, as there are limited berths… and from that focus on inner being, do, and finally from the doing, have. This is how we turned around memory frames… after it had been insolvent for years, until one day I picked ‘Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance’ off my brother’s shelf, and read that Quality is what makes up our world, and is the mystical-empirical wonder we all glimpse in the world through all the confusion…
But now it’s at a whole new level of awareness, able to be articulated, a flag hoisted, people enrolled… Dreamspace is a ship awaiting its crew. But first it needs its captain and first mate, to really step up. Well just its captain, truth be told. And that’s me.
So here I am, at the threshold again…
Live hand in hand, and together we’ll stand
On the Threshold of a Dream’
– our motto at cafe Eutopia, from the Moody Blues.
In Cafe Eutopia we built a threshold with blood sweat and tears, but we never fully went through ourselves. Dreamspace, which was built 100 years ago this year as a woodworking factory, at the tail end of the Great War as they called it, has a new motto: maybe it could be from the song:
…. (Who is the Mighty Quinn in Dreamspace? well, I think it’s the great aspectual diagram of the four phases of all process, and the Fifth Element which is the synthesis, the living organism which results from these four weaving their evolutionary magic… see https://4phase.org/
And whosoever wields these five…. in this case, in the first instance, me 🙂
I recently asked a wise Lady, Anne Hamilton who I think of as a prophet of the threshold and of destiny (see her series on names and thresholds and covenants here: Anne Hamilton), ‘Is my whole life to be threshold, and never promised land?’ I think I know the answer – it’s up to me. As it always is… Do we enter, or not…
Yet we have to know that here at the threshold of great things ‘lie in wait for us our seven devils’ (see Thus spake Zarathustra, On the Way of the Creator) God is at the Gateway – and the Devil is at the door – and it is us.
Anne being a Christian, says – as I understand her – that there must always be a sacrifice there at the threshold, before we can safely pass over (just as at the first ‘pass-over’ where the blood of a lamb had to be put on the threshold so the angel of death would not enter). Not to be so churlish as to argue here the literal truth of the cross, I can see that the thing is, we are that lamb, or if you are a Christian the idea is that we must identify with the Lamb of God – and what crosses our threshold is not our old self, but our true self, reborn, freed from the shadow self or ego, which imitates the true us but always lives backward and fearful of losing itself, and out of fear tries to freeze-frame life … and therefore lives a kind of death in life. It really must be sacrificed if we are to be free to be the divine selves we all are to be.
I will let that gangway down, for the sake of those brave souls who will sail with me. We will set sail! There are Blissful Isles to be discovered!
A picture paints – a picture. Photoshop gives a nice image. Only paint, dust, noise, chaos, money, and even blood sweat and tears, create a walk-through 3d-real, real-time, livable Place that looks something like the image. Along the way we can get tired, forget to step back and let the place in progress carry us, delight us. But the work goes on. Too late to turn back, luckily! Here is a picture tour through the ongoing renovation of the 99 year old lady for a new life as a gallery and workshops, opening soon, asap, before the money runs out (well, not to long after that point!). There are 3 studio spaces for renting to keen co-creators, maybe 4. The gallery now has about 12 spotlights. I did one or two driftwood works in between efforts, and of course more grandson times! Oh and the strange holes in the particle board panels: they are free on side of road. I have a round router pattern and rout disks to glue into the holes. A great ongoing resource!
ps: yes I know that ladder looks dodgy. It is ok, but it’s a bit scary 5 metres up it! I’ll take care. Stairway to heaven – not yet!
Some photos taken in the middle of life/work/play/agony and ecstasy in the big shed as I renovate and make the walls for the exhibition space. Visitors, well-wishers and helpers of all stripes invited! (And thanks to those who have already helped to make it even vaguely viable!) Also inquiries for studio spaces small or medium-sized for craftspeople or artists who love the vision of an Arts & Crafts revival.
The vise pictured is on an old bench with three vises I bought from a nice retired builder who said it’s from Cornwall he thinks, where his (and my) ancestors sailed from in 1860. I LOVE the quality and heavy blacksmith’s grace of this tool – it feels like a symbol of what we yearn for here. The old wooden floors also – nearly 100 year old rimu. To think that the building permit was applied for in 1917, while WWI was still raging! So there is ALWAYS hope for freedom, and peace to tend to good things and make good things. This is what our grandfathers fought and died for… I want to cherish it, and be worthy of them, as we continue the ancient struggle to manifest the Good and defeat the Bad…
From the pecha kucha talk came this article, in the Gisborne Herald weekender supplement, 11/6/16. My phone has (not) been ringing red hot, but… the wizard’s word is out there! Glad we have got the place, so those who seek shall find… something! Yay! Some floor scrubbing, tidying and unpacking has begun. Electrickery to be switched on through the new fuseboard and cabling tomorrow, we hope! Then there’ll be no stopping us…
Thanks to Natasha who bravely interviewed me and managed to make something coherent of it (and who let me see it and tweak before publication). And the photographer – a nice young man who came, smiled, arranged doglets and wizards, and left. Of course, there were one or two minor factual corrections; mainly that of course the pictured playhut is not a true hobbit haven, as it isn’t curved and is very little… Here’s a concept picture of a hobbit haven just to set the record straight. I need to build one ASAP!:
Well it happened yesterday, Tuesday 07 06 16. The owner signed and we paid a month and got the key. Owner is a good guy, an electrician who is now fixing the old wiring as promised! Raewyn and I both have colds, so I said ‘Thag you very buch’ and left him to it. I copied one green one for me and a red for Raewyn. Lots to do now, on all levels! Cleaning, sourcing stuff, painting walls, signage, scrubbing floors, putting up display partitions, moving and setting up workshop and painting gear, planning, budgeting, celebrating, networking, enthusing, selling… thinking, meditating, praying! 🙂 A feeling of expansion and limitless possibilities – not something you get as often at 61 as at say 16! Not without overcoming a fair bit of fear and inertia… I wouldn’t go back, though, for the world!
To dream, reason, articulate, and actually live, a vision of the ideal human as an individual and in society, evolving through the process phases of Love (openness to new input), Beauty (new ideas), Truth (logical evaluation of new ideas), and Freedom (action based on logical plans).
To do so with pride in the ideals of our Western culture as developed over the centuries to honour individual freedom and dignity, enterprise, nobility, beauty, justice, rationality and truth, and love. Millions of our ancestors died for these values…
To imagine, invent and lovingly make such items of beauty that reflect those ideals, particularly in the European Renaissance tradition, in the Arts and Crafts movement, and in the traditions imagined and enshrined in Tolkien’s Four Kindreds of Middle Earth.
These items to include ‘Hobbit havens’ – ‘tiny houses’ or curvaceous cabins in ferrocement lined with natural wood and plaster; and items and artefacts to go with said cabins, or with natural homes where beauty and natural materials are still held in honour.
Also, of course, to include ‘fine art’ – paintings and sculptures which reflect these ideals and the positive, noble, ‘romantic’ view of life.
To live in harmony with nature, sustainably and healthily, avoiding toxic processes and products.
To do what we can to restore hope and faith in the high ideals of our civilisation and to counter the arguments of nihilism, cynicism, relativism and despair.
To communicate, inspire and teach these ideas, techniques and knowledge to all who seek them.
To offer the best things with the best quality at the best price we can, and rely on willing buyers of our goods and services to make ourselves and those we train solvent and profitable without subsidies from any authorities which force people to pay them taxes then distribute said taxes to gain votes. I.e., to sink or swim in a free market. (However, gifts of love, given willingly by those who can afford them, to support the cause will not be despised!)
To hold open a great space for the display of all the above, for the founder’s work and for others’ which is compatible with this vision
To encourage the use of this space for informal and formal discussions, meetings and cultural events which reflect the values herein described.
All going well, we should have the KEY tomorrow and begin! I measured it all up and here is the Map of the Dreamspace with some of the ideas for the layout. I’ll make a Page and put the floorplans there as I do them.
It is exciting and scary to soon be responsible for such an area – and the rent thereof! Hitting the ground running I trust. The energy for it is there like a spirit springing within; I hope the body is up to it too! Mind over matter I trust…
The ‘Zen of Knowing What to Do’…. Back from North last night, recovered from a flu, still negotiating to be able to rent 61 Carnarvon (and survive financially!). The heart is sure enough, the bank manager/cash conscience on my shoulder whispers ‘No!’ (as did brother John). No clear winner as yet. But meanwhile two coats, my favourite pictured here, arrived in the post today, as the winter begins to bite. Thank you sister Penny! A great early birthday present – especially if I move into Carnarvon this winter… Is it a sign? 🙂
It seems the great deeds events and gestures of the heart and spirit fly in the face of circumstances, in the end – if they are true and come from a deep place. Still, we have to fight though a lot of superficial stuff to do them… Nietzsche in Daybreak said of inspired states and not-so-inspired:
‘So long as genius dwells within us we are full of audacity yea almost mad and heedless of health life and honour; we fly through the day as free and swift as an eagle and in the darkness we feel as confident as an owl. Yet let genius once leave us and we are instantly overcome by a feeling of the most profound despondency: we can no longer understand ourselves; we suffer from everything that we experience and do not experience; we feel as if we were in the midst of shelterless rocks with the tempest raging round us and we are at the same time like pitiful childish souls afraid of a rustle or a shadow. Three quarters of all the evil committed in the world is due to timidity; and this is above all a physiological process’. (thanks to www.lexido.com for the free texts of Nietzsche).
Dreamspace Gallery and Workshops 