ADAPTABILITY, RESILIENCE, CREATIVITY in ACTION: 'Escape Artists' PostMistress Press Anthology

Help an Artist Anthology Collective Publish A Ground Breaking Book

Ruth Skilbeck PhD founded PostMistress Press after a living and working since the 1980s as a freelance writer,  art writer and arts journalist, in Dublin, London and Sydney, and after ten years as an art media writing entrepreneur as founder of Arts Features International, her sole trader writing business which started in Sydney in 2003.

In a time when the media publishing landscape was rapidly changing, and universities dissolving and merging art schools; after the media research centre she had worked at as a contract lecturer for one year was closed down, and mainly because she had to leave Sydney for reasons beyond her control, which ended her career as an international contemporary art writer, she decided to do something to try to create an alternative way of living as a writer, and if she could make it work for herself she wanted to try to find a way to reach out to and also help other artists, writers and philosophers, to publish their own works. 

She has several books that she has written or almost finished. Rather than sending them out to mainstream commercial publishers, she found out how to use the new digital publishing software, organized a successful crowdfunding project for her first novel The Antipode Room: Australian Fugue1, and buoyed up by the support she got, she published her novel, on Amazon- as a paperback, and as an ebook. 

She has now advanced in her skills and design capabilities, and has published an abridged edition without the real life case studies of fuguers (Missing). She has published her musico-literary studies book, The Writer’s Fugue: Musicalization, Trauma and Subjectivity in the Literature of Modernity in hardcover. She is about to publish it in paperback in an updated edition, which responds to the discovery of a James Joyce manuscript with notes for his fugue in “Sirens”, in Ulysses, which she analyzed in her PhD. Using Joyce’s notes she has written the first known long analysis of the fugue in “Sirens” applying this research. This is going to be available later this month.

'Escape Artists' PostMistress Press Anthology: Resistance in New Publishing

 

Meanwhile, over the past two years she has been working on an anthology project, gathering works by thirty-three artists and writers, to publish in the inaugural PostMistress Press anthology, named Escape Artists. This anthology represents the founding pillars of Postmistress Press and the philosophy of its founder: Adaptability, Resilience, and Creativity, as a form of resistance to attacks on the arts, and survival.  

To fund the publication she has started up a crowdfunder with the goal of raising $7000 to publish the book as a paperback, as well as an interactive pdf. on which to play several songs and sound art tracks that are in the diverse inter arts collection of works.

 Cover of the Anthology, cover art by Ruth Skilbeck

The Escape Artists Range From 'Prominent' to 'Promising' 

 

Some of the artists and writers in the anthology are very well known.

They include Elizabeth Farrelly, author, and architecture critic, Christopher Barnett, self-exiled poet and dramaturg, Rhyll McMaster, poet and novelist, Guo Jian, exiled artist, Fan Dongwan, artist, William Yang, photographer  and storyteller, Ghassan Hage, anthropologist, Elizabeth Gertsakis, artist, Richard James Allen, poet, Mary Lou Pavlovic, artist, Floc’h, artist, Christen Clifford, feminist performance artist and New School lecturer, Vee Malnar, artist.

Others are younger, and publishing their writing for the first time.

The works range from essays, to poems, to travel writings, to photographs, to film stills, to paintings, prints, song lyrics and songs, electronic music, PhD chapters, cultural theory, to a short play and a novella.

There is something for everyone to enjoy and find of interest in the anthology.

Have a look at the details of the anthology and contributors at this link, and see how you can support the anthology and become a part of this project. All those who donate to support the publication will have their name in the Acknowledgements page. There are also limited edition art prints, discounted editing packages, and book club memberships as rewards for those who donate.

 https://pozible.com/project/postmistress-press-anthology

In Political Context: Researching my Irish family memoir in Newcastle - the plot thickens?

By Ruth Skilbeck in Newcastle

After writing some notes on my court case progress, yesterday (my car fine which I have been writing about here, connected to my coverage of the Sydney Biennale Boycott) I now have some more time to add the very latest news about what is happening in the wider context of Newcastle local politics, and the ongoing corruption inquiry by the ICAC which in the past two weeks has seen Newcastle Liberal MPS and the Lord Mayor Liberal Jeff McCloy stand down after they have all been found to be corrupt and in collusion over illegal property development plans and deals, which has also, it has been revealed also in the last two weeks, now been revealed to have smeared former Newcastle Labour MP Jodi McKay and cost her, her seat in the NSW Parliament, as the result of a corrupt ‘dirty tricks’ campaign against her as she opposed the plans of Buildev to install a coal loader terminal on the Newcastle Harbour rather than a container terminal that she supported, a plan that has been in place for a long time and is preferred by the state government, but which was opposed by property developers who stood to make 100 million from installing a coal loader (to the great detriment of the health of the local community research has shown). This was revealed in the ICAC this week.

So now rather than taking down my post of yesterday, I will add to it, weaving in the details that I have been reading about in the Newcastle Herald, and online.

It has been a while since I wrote about my ongoing research into my family history, on my long-lost mother’s side, which is Irish.

This will form the content of my next book, and more, but for now I cannot resist sharing what I have come across today completely by chance and serendipitously as all of this research into my mother’s family has been.

For a start, last night, I had a dream… of my mother and myself in The Old Manse, the old Georgian manse my family lived in for three and a half years, in the green fields of Country Antrim in Northern Ireland, before we moved to Australia in 1975.

Then today, following up on my legal case to do with the car (which I have written of on this blog) and making my appeal to have my case heard (which was granted) I walked past a very interesting building on the other side of the street to the Court House where I made my appeal. A tall blue painted stone building, in a state of faded elegance. My eye was caught by a heritage plaque almost on the level of the footpath, which I bent down to read.

It was very blustery weather, with a high wind blowing salt spray from the ocean at the far end of the street and I was almost blown over as I read the history of the building, which is on the site of the old “Sessions House”.

Clutching onto my scarf, I read that the Sessions House was a two-storey building that from 1822-1890 had served as Newcastle’s first Court House. I was fascinated to read this, as I thought my ancestor Cyrus Matthew Doyle had been amongst other things a local Magistrate who would have served in this very place, where I was standing now. Then I read that the same building was the first Post Office in Newcastle, from 1828, it served as a temporary Customs House from 1839. In 1859 it became a Presbyterian manse.  I was staggered to read this, as I live now in an old post office, the first post office in Adamstown, in Newcastle. I lived in an Old Manse in (Northern) Ireland, which was haunted.

My ancestors on my mother’s side came from Ireland, and as I have said here on this blog I have found out that the original ancestors who came from Ireland were political exiles, Rebels, from the 1798 rebellions.

I was quite shocked to read of this building’s history, and the odd resonances with my own places of abode, as I walked around the corner to the seafront and had a coffee at the Estabar overlooking the stormy seas as I mulled it over. I read the Newcastle Herald, more stories on the ongoing Independent Commission against Corruption Inquiry into corruption in Newcastle, and collusions between property developers, and politicians.  This has seen in the past two weeks, the Lord Mayor of Newcastle, a property developer, Liberal Jeff McCloy, and Liberal MPs in Newcastle – Mr Tim Owen disgraced Liberal MP for Newcastle, and  Mr Andrew Cornwell disgraced Charlestown MP- found guilty and of one (Owen) accepting illegal money including from then Mayor, Mr Jeff McCloy, a millionaire property developer described as a “walking ATM” who gave people (Tim Owen) tens of thousands of dollars in brown paper bags, and two (Cornwell) lying to the ICAC under oath (giving false evidence). I read. I read about the current corruption inquiry into a scheme that would have made $100 million for development group Buildev (largest shareholder Nathan Tinkler- also before the inquiry) installing a coal terminal on a harbourside site that the government has long said is preferred as a container terminal, and which is cited in a ‘dirty tricks’ campaign to smear sitting former Newcastle Labour MP Jodi McKay in the run up to the election in 2011 for her opposition to the coal terminal, which has great opposition in the Newcastle community (It would be a major polluter and very injurious for health of the local community). This was run through the Newcastle Alliance bank, ‘dirty tricks’ that drove MP Jodi McKay out of her seat in the NSW Parliament. (I remember the pamphlet that was delivered to my house in Newcastle before the 2011 elections “Stop Jodi’s Trucks”). This was all with the support of MP Darren Williamson who spent all day in the ICAC witness box on Wednesday.

Then I returned to Adamstown on the train, a wonderful evocative train journey from the historic Newcastle Train Station, which was built in the nineteenth century and is one of the things I like most about the city. And which extraordinarily is now under threat from property developers, including those who are being investigated in the ICAC inquiry.

“Buildev is alleged to have illegally funded the FedUp! election advertising campaign run through the Newcastle Alliance. [That was against then Newcastle Labour MP Jodi McKay]

Buildev also made a series of illegal donations to the campaign of Ms McKay’s Liberal rival, Tim Owen, allegedly including $35,000 via the Free Enterprise Foundation that was channelled through the NSW Liberal Party, and payment of the wages of Owen campaign team member.”

When I sat down this evening to start my work on my book publication, I was for some reason suddenly inspired to look up post offices, in Newcastle, and found a link to a post office in Adamstown in Ireland. I thought it could possibly in time, or in imagination, be a sister post office to the old post office where I am living and running Postmistress Press.

I clicked on the links, and found a webpage to Enniscorthy in Wexford home of Adamstown in Ireland, and Enniscorthy Castle. I clicked on the link to Enniscorthy and went straight to the home page of the castle where the first thing I read was that it is a tourist site which celebrates and commemorates the 1798 Rebellion, hosting the “National 1798 Rebellion Centre”.  http://1798centre.ie/about

To my further surprise I read that this week from 23^rd-31^st August is Heritage Week 2014 at the National 1798 Rebellion Centre and Enniscorthy Castle.

A week in which there are public lectures about the Rebellion and its cultural and historical aspects.

On this very day, Friday the 29^th August, there is a lecture on “Weapons of the 1798 Rebellion” by Rory O’Connor in the 1798 Rebellion Centre.

Well, my ancestors did not use weapons apparently as they were exiled for life on the grounds that they were non-violent, a plea made by my ancestor Sophia Isabella Doyle and granted by Lord Castlereagh who she was related to.

He granted that Rebels who were non-violent could be exiled for life, instead of executed, and so my family came to Australia. And they were from Dublin and the countryside near the Wicklow Mountains, rather than Wexford.

I will not go into any further details here, I have relayed some of my research so far in previous entries over the last three years, and will be writing it up into my next book or two.

But this has certainly made me feel once again that I am on the right track and have somehow, in some strange and mysterious way been brought to Newcastle to retrace, and find my long lost family, and write them back into life.

What’s more I am impressed by how in Enniscorthy the historic site of the castle and the cultural history is commemorated and celebrated, in a city like Newcastle this includes respecting the historical aspects of the railway, and buildings and not allowing corrupt property development, such as revealed in the ICAC inquiry, to exploit and destroy the cultural heritage of a unique city for the profit of a few.

Ruth Skilbeck   August 29, 2014

The Old Post Office, Adamstown, Newcastle

The National 1798 Rebellion Centre and Ennicorthy Castle in Enniscorthy, Wexford:

http://1798centre.ie/about

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/2522010/icac-buildev-coal-loader-deal-

outlined/

 ICAC: August 2014 archive Operation Spicer

“THE Buildev co-founders at the centre of a corruption inquiry stood to make $100 million if they had secured government approval for the Mayfield coal-loader proposal they relentlessly promoted, under an agreement to then sell the site to Nathan Tinkler’s Hunter Ports.”

http://www.theherald.com.au/story/2303203/jodi-mckay-able-to-face-newcastle-again/

When former Labor Newcastle MP Jodi McKay was interviewed for this story it was before the ICAC inquiry into the Liberal MP who replaced her, Tim Owen, after the ‘dirty tricks’ campaign to smear her, bank-rolled by Nathan Tinkler –property developer major shareholder in Buildev- and his corruption, in the past two weeks he has been stood down for accepting illegal political donations, and corruption.

“Lord Mayor of Newcastle has just tendered his resignation in the latest fallout from the ongoing corruption enquiry into Newcastle's governance and development issues, which have seen two corrupt Newcastle Liberal MPs resign in the last three days.”  (Facebook post, August 18, 2014)

ICAC: Newcastle lord mayor Jeff McCloy quits

www.theherald.com.au

Twitter post:

         Newcastle"Corrupt" Liberal MPs quit Parliament after ICAC hearings http://t.co/qoTD3wYAMw via @ABCNews



            
Former Liberal MPs quit Parliament after ICAC hearings 
abc.net.auTwo former Government MPs quit the NSW Parliament after admitting to wrongdoing before a corruption inquiry.
















· @RuthSkilbeck on Twitter             



Ruth Skilbeck

After being fined almost $2000 for having my own broken down car outside my own house, which I had discussed by phone with a Newcastle council representative (council ranger) several times and he had assured me it was ok to leave my car there until I decided to either have it taken to wreckers, or have it repaired and re-registered, I then was given a fine of $1200. The day I went to Sydney to see an artists talk at SCA on the Biennale of Sydney boycott and I interviewed international artists (story on my blog) - returned to Newcastle midnight- by train- and found the fines. Went to court to contest- told I would have to go to court again, heard no more about it until this week - after I put the blog stories on the Biennale Boycott back up on my blog The Daily Fugue- and I was sent an increased level fine of almost $2000. This is in Newcastle, where two Newcastle MPs have just resigned following an investigation by ICAC (Independent Commission Against Corruption) where they were found guilty of corruption involving the Lord Mayor a developer who gave them money for political reasons (which is illegal). Not a welcoming place I have found for a poor arts entrepreneur such as myself setting up a new publishing house. I am now seeking legal help to contest this unjust fine.
12 August at 21:20 · Edited · Like  (Facebook post August 12, 2014)

http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-08-12/icac-former-liberal-mp-admits-giving-false-evidence/5664746

New Trends in Literary Publishing- Author-Publishing in Australia

The purpose of this project is to make a limited edition special collectors edition of the novel The Antipode Room, which will be published on December 1, 2013. The aim is to make a limited edition eBook, and signed print book to commemorate the launch. This will also be the first book publication of its kind in Australia, hence the occasion for a commemorative edition.

The book began life in an MA and PhD in creative writing and literature and has since evolved into its own form. This is the first author-publisher new literary publication, to use eBook and printed book format in Australia, which aims to show other authors that this is a viable way of reaching new audiences and readers.

Synopsis:

Interweaving loss of self-awareness coupled with a strange excursion or journey, The Antipode Room, is a fugue narrative, telling of Ruby’s flight to Australia and her past lost life, it voices the main characters’ inner thoughts of: Ruby, Hugo, Ray and Margarita. She ends up on a murder charge in an Australian jail.

Innocents are often condemned, scapegoated, for crimes they did not commit, but is this the case with Ruby? Imprisoned in Australian jail she writes to remember what happened on that "fateful fatal afternoon" when her best friend violinist, Margy, was murdered. The Antipode Room is based in London, Sydney, Newcastle, forest in northern New South Wales, the underground opal town Cooper Peedy and the desert. The main character "Countess Ruby Rivers" emerged in London from an amnesiac fugue, forgetting her past, she reinvents her self-identity and her past. Her life is transformed when she meets the infamous conservative phenomenologist and professor, Hugo, who gives her Ruby Love, a contemporary art gallery in inner London. The Antipode Room is a point of departure, the space of the art gallery, it tells the story of their one-way trip to Australia on a mission to collect Australian artists for Ruby Love.

A chance meeting in a Sydney art galley, at the opening of the NEW REPUBLIC exhibition brings Ruby into dangerously close proximity to the leader of art-activists, Art Criminals, who had a mysteriously profound influence in another life; she has not been able to forget his words, and her lost self rushes back. Forgetting Hugo, she disappears with Ray.

I think you might lose yourself gazing into mesmerizing sclerophyll forests in northern New South Wales.

    Another day I might feel inclined at the low ebb before lunch, to go into my office and lock the door. Browse through my private collection; fall into images of beauty, irresistibly seductive objects of desire. Objects. I can hold within my gaze. I can own and possess in a way that’s impossible to ever possess a real lover. Make mine forever. (The Antipode Room)

The Antipode Room is 75,000 words, a medium length novel of approx. 240 pages to be published as an eBook, and printed book, with photographs.






The cover image is a new photographic work:


Blue Fugue, digital photographic montage, Ruth Skilbeck (2013)



E-Book and printed book.

Mothers, Art and the Inner World: Women Artists Reclaiming their Creative Birthright

Readers, would be happy to have your thoughts on this, whether on this site or on facebook.
I am proposing to publish a book based on the most popular article in the Daily Fugue, which is Sex, Art and the Inner World: Women Artists Reclaiming their Creative Birthright.
This article has had four times more page views than the next most popular, which is my exclusive interview based article on artists Mary Kelly and Kelly Barrie- also a very popular article, and my short article on Tracey Emin, also with many page views.
I am wondering is it because the word Sex is in the title?
And also the word combination Sex, Art? This would be an inaccurate impression in fact, as the artists are making art about them selves, and their self based experience, of their inner world, and in the examples in the article using themselves as the models for their figurative nude studies.

However some of the artists I wrote about do make art about sexuality from a female perspective, their own, for example Del Kathryn Barton and Tracey Emin. It is part of life, and the life of the inner world, that women have discussed openly in public forums and in art and writing since the women's art movement of the 1970s. It is a sign of health in a culture and society that women can do this openly, and that it is taken seriously. So that is a good reason to publish in this area.
What are your thoughts on this topic?

Meanwhile working title of the proposed publication is "Mothers, Art and the Inner World: Women Artists Reclaiming their Creative Birthright". This will cover contemporary women artists, mothers and non mothers, whose focus is on identity, subjectivity and the self.

All the best,
Ruth