Baz
Today my friend called me on skype with news too bad for her to tell me by email. Her voice was stretched and tense with suppressed tears. Bazz had died overnight in a car accident.
My first thought was that it wasn't an accident. It was a professional instinct, based on what I know about male suicide and the difficulty of getting true numbers given that men often die on a single vehicle accidents. He drove headfirst into a tree-it was at night, he may have been drinking, he's had accidents before... but still, I have my suspicions.
What was he like? A nice guy, but someone who struggled to support himself by doing what he was best at. He had talent-he'd studied visual arts, illustrated books, done enough paintings for exhibitions, could draw portraits and caricatures in 20 minutes. He'd done illustration work for television shows, tried to live and work in Sydney like his other friends, but it wasn't for him. He really wanted to paint full time and worked at low paid work like furniture removal to pay the rent. Eventually he quit that and tried to live off the dole whilst he painted, but he ran out of money. He gave paintings to the Glebe Point Road deli near the Toxteth for credit.
One time I was inside the deli and looked at the painting that hung there. It was a Sydney streetscape, captured that inner west/inner city terrace lined feel that you don't find in any other city. I knew it was of Sydney and I knew it was painted by someone who also loved the street life. Sydney is this great beast, you want to live there and conquer it, partake of it's heritage, it's sandstone vibe and terrace world, but you can't afford to. If you can afford to live there, you don't have time to look at the sights.
The painting had something existential about it, it was more than a technically rendered architectural painting, it captured the soul of the street and the longing of the painter who had travelled so many hundreds of kilometres from home. The painting was rendered in grey blues and I looked for a long time at it. The deli owner noticed and asked if I knew Baz. It was either him or Greta who shared the story of another customer admiring the painting but complaining it was too blue. And Baz had heard this and yelled "I painted it blue because I felt blue".
And so his time in Sydney came to an end. Friends helped man a stall of his paintings at the Glebe markets, where his postcards sold out, but only one painting was bought. That sale couldn't satisfy him because he'd now reached a stage where success in his mind was a sell out stall, acclaim, admiration and love and hours or days later his parents arrived to help him move home.
Since then? There would be talk of moving back to Sydney, visits made, business cards printed out (but with incorrect mobile numbers), drawing jobs lined up. He'd had an exhibition and had enough paintings for more gallery showings. But he didn't have a patron, someone who could fund him whilst he prepared work, buy him time to do the best quality, help approach gallery owners on his behalf. For Baz was like most of us, like more of Generation X: shy, humble, not good at promoting himself, not confident at planning for the future. He was the generation that graduated with a HECS debt and little local employment prospects. The noughties boom that saw Adelaideans make money from home renovations and resales, passed him by. He didn't have a partner paying the rent for him or helping mask the disappointments. He supported himself with jobs that were mostly manual and dead end: pizza making, delivery work and drove the perennial second hand hatchback.
I knew lots of guys like Bazz in the nineties: that period was about lack of ambition, preparing yourself for disappointment, moving interstate and sacrificing friends and family so you could start off professionally. The way it was meant to end is that you returned home a journeyman and settled down into parenthood (as most did) or you stayed in the big city and enjoyed a new media/financial career that you could never imagine in the conservative home territories (as a few did). It's no longer acceptable to be an under achiever, a slacker. It's no longer affordable to be a small scale artist and resident of Adelaide suburbs along the train lines. This is why I wonder if it was really an accident. Is Bazz a victim of economic boom and artistic oppression? I know that is a very grandiose statement to make, but I know that Bazzs talent outweighed most of the people I know getting far more of the spotlight.
My first thought was that it wasn't an accident. It was a professional instinct, based on what I know about male suicide and the difficulty of getting true numbers given that men often die on a single vehicle accidents. He drove headfirst into a tree-it was at night, he may have been drinking, he's had accidents before... but still, I have my suspicions.
What was he like? A nice guy, but someone who struggled to support himself by doing what he was best at. He had talent-he'd studied visual arts, illustrated books, done enough paintings for exhibitions, could draw portraits and caricatures in 20 minutes. He'd done illustration work for television shows, tried to live and work in Sydney like his other friends, but it wasn't for him. He really wanted to paint full time and worked at low paid work like furniture removal to pay the rent. Eventually he quit that and tried to live off the dole whilst he painted, but he ran out of money. He gave paintings to the Glebe Point Road deli near the Toxteth for credit.
One time I was inside the deli and looked at the painting that hung there. It was a Sydney streetscape, captured that inner west/inner city terrace lined feel that you don't find in any other city. I knew it was of Sydney and I knew it was painted by someone who also loved the street life. Sydney is this great beast, you want to live there and conquer it, partake of it's heritage, it's sandstone vibe and terrace world, but you can't afford to. If you can afford to live there, you don't have time to look at the sights.
The painting had something existential about it, it was more than a technically rendered architectural painting, it captured the soul of the street and the longing of the painter who had travelled so many hundreds of kilometres from home. The painting was rendered in grey blues and I looked for a long time at it. The deli owner noticed and asked if I knew Baz. It was either him or Greta who shared the story of another customer admiring the painting but complaining it was too blue. And Baz had heard this and yelled "I painted it blue because I felt blue".
And so his time in Sydney came to an end. Friends helped man a stall of his paintings at the Glebe markets, where his postcards sold out, but only one painting was bought. That sale couldn't satisfy him because he'd now reached a stage where success in his mind was a sell out stall, acclaim, admiration and love and hours or days later his parents arrived to help him move home.
Since then? There would be talk of moving back to Sydney, visits made, business cards printed out (but with incorrect mobile numbers), drawing jobs lined up. He'd had an exhibition and had enough paintings for more gallery showings. But he didn't have a patron, someone who could fund him whilst he prepared work, buy him time to do the best quality, help approach gallery owners on his behalf. For Baz was like most of us, like more of Generation X: shy, humble, not good at promoting himself, not confident at planning for the future. He was the generation that graduated with a HECS debt and little local employment prospects. The noughties boom that saw Adelaideans make money from home renovations and resales, passed him by. He didn't have a partner paying the rent for him or helping mask the disappointments. He supported himself with jobs that were mostly manual and dead end: pizza making, delivery work and drove the perennial second hand hatchback.
I knew lots of guys like Bazz in the nineties: that period was about lack of ambition, preparing yourself for disappointment, moving interstate and sacrificing friends and family so you could start off professionally. The way it was meant to end is that you returned home a journeyman and settled down into parenthood (as most did) or you stayed in the big city and enjoyed a new media/financial career that you could never imagine in the conservative home territories (as a few did). It's no longer acceptable to be an under achiever, a slacker. It's no longer affordable to be a small scale artist and resident of Adelaide suburbs along the train lines. This is why I wonder if it was really an accident. Is Bazz a victim of economic boom and artistic oppression? I know that is a very grandiose statement to make, but I know that Bazzs talent outweighed most of the people I know getting far more of the spotlight.
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