Art's birthday

Art's Birthday.net - an annual exchange-art event celebrated on January 17th by a loose collection of artists and artist organizations around the world.



"Art's Birthday" is an annual event first proposed in 1963 by French artist Robert Filliou.

He suggested that 1,000,000 years ago, there was no art. But one day, on the 17th of January to be precise, Art was born. According to Filliou, it happened when someone dropped a dry sponge into a bucket of water. Modest beginnings, but look at us now.

Filliou proposed a public holiday to celebrate the presence of art in our lives. In recent years, the idea has been taken up by a loose network of artists and friends around the world. Each year the Eternal Network evolves to include new partners - working with the ideas of exchange and telecommunications-art.

Artists have celebrated Art's Birthday with lavish parties and gatherings, correspondence and mailart, and through Telematic networks using SloScan TV, Videophones, music composed for telephone lines, modem-to-modem MIDI connections, early bulletin board and chat systems, and (starting in the mid 1990's) the Internet.

This website includes links to many of the participants from recent years, and an incomplete chronology of past events.

Hespa

Riding the old rocking horse.

Playing with the doll's house.

Helping with the coffee making.

Grinding the coffee.

Dr Pugh and Hespa

Hespa, Dr Pugh and Noel

It is always a delight to spend time with our grand daughter, Hespa. She likes to assist with the coffee making process. She also had fun playing with the doll's house and riding the rocking horse. She asked to visit Princes Square in the city so I photographed her with the statue of Dr Pugh. Hespa also enjoyed taking photographs during our visit to the Square.

Caleb and Raf

Caleb, Deb and Hespa are visiting Tasmania for a week from Melbourne. It was a good opportunity for me to get some photos of two of our sons, Caleb and Raf together.

We visit Ken and Juliet Partridge

Ken and Juliet.

Mike

Trish

Our friends Ken and Juliet Partridge invited us over to their place. Trish and Mike Adams had joined Ken, Juliet and Tim for the evening meal. Ken and Juliet's son Tim is visiting from the USA. It had been at least 10 years since we had last seen Tim.

Mountains and wild irises

Mt Pearce

St Valentine's Peak and wild irises.

A closer view of St.Valentine's Peak.

On the return journey to Launceston, we travelled on the Murchison Highway through Hampshire, Highclere, Ridgley and Burnie. On the way we had nice views of Mt Pearce as well as St Valentine's Peak. The wild irises were in full blook and they looked spectacular.

West Coast Pioneers' Memorial Museum

Old photograph of the Montezuma Falls

Part of the West Coast Pioneer's Memorial Museum building.

An old photograph of part of Zeehan which was once the third largest town in Tasmania.

This very interesting Museum is housed in the School of Mines building, situated in the main street of Zeehan. The complex also includes the famous Gaiety Theatre, the Old Grand hotel as well as the original Police Station and Court House. We also spent time in the main galleries, the railway exhibits, the powerhouse, the machinery shed, the blacksmith's shop and the Stirling valley steam winder. It was a very interesting and enjoyable experience.

The Spray Tunnel at Zeehan

This short trip is on the main tourist route and although it can be negotiated by any manner of vehicle type (provided it is not too high, nor too wide) it's a trip worth making a point of as it gives visitors the chance to experience something a little unusual. The Spray Tunnel is a short tunnel along the pathway of an historical railway line that was used for the transportation of ore from the nearby Spray Mine. We follow signs along the one-way loop track that follows part of the old railway line, including what is now called the Spray Tunnel which the carriages used to travel through as they transported ore to the smelters south of Zeehan. The road is very rough and badly eroded in some places so we had to travel quite slowly over much of the road that leads through the bushland to the tunnel.

Macquarie Heads

After we had spent time at Henty Dunes we travelled over to Macquarie Heads which is the entrance to Macquarie Harbour. The road is sealed as far as the airport but after that it was quite rough. The area is a popular spot for camping. We walked out onto the beach at the Heads which is close to the beginning of the amazing Ocean Beach that we had visited earlier in the day.

Seeking Layli in the dust at Henty Dunes

We had arranged to meet our friends, Hadie and John MacLeod from Bracknell, at Henty Dunes. We planned to meet at 3pm to say some prayers and share some Baha'i scriptures at this amazing site. The Henty Dunes are giant 30 metre high sand dunes that extend from Strahan along the coast for approximately 15 km. They have formed over the last 10,000 years and they continue to change as the result of the effect of waves, vegetation, humans and the Roaring Forties - ferocious winds named after the 40 degree latitude where Tasmania is located.

We spent a couple of hours walking and climbing on the dunes as well as having some time in quiet meditation.

Ocean Beach

We decided to visit the amazing beach known as Ocean Beach. The beach is over 30 km of white sand that stretches as far as ones eye can see. The waters that shape the beach are part of the great Southern Ocaen. Ocean beach is Tasmania's longest sandy beach.

Strahan

We kept travelling until we reached Strahan. Noel ahd prepared a delicious picnic lunch so we decided to head for the Esplanade to find a picnic table by the water. We were very lucky as parking was difficult to locate but we found a parking spot quite close to a nice picnic spot. Although it was windy and a little cooler after having been in the car for a couple of hours, it was a very pleasant spot. Later we drove around the Esplanade to Regatta Point which is the terminus for the West Coast Wilderness railway tours to Queenstown.

More of Lake Rosebery and Mt Murchison

A little further down the road, just past Tullah we stopped again briefly to photograph another section of Lake Rosebery as well as Mt Murchison.