Collection-Beauty on the Coal face/ image title-Longwall

Before we go any further, I guess it is my "obligation" to anyone who stumbles upon this blog,to tell you the reason d'etre. The quest has been to rediscover beauty, real beauty, in any form, size or shape. Unless you have been living under a rock for the past 5 years, you would be aware that Australia is experiencing a 'resource boom". China has been crying our for coal.Progress, the insatiable consumer,has made a country wealthy.

But at what price? Envronments have been ripped apart and spoiled, cities have experienced unfathomable growth spurst at a huge cost to the established social structures, and areas of abundant beauty have become ugly, delapidated antheaps, trying to cope with the influx of working class labour, the extra infrastructures, and all the associated issues a growing population with different values bring. There is always the good and the bad, the positive and the negative, the black and white. The beauty is still there. The locals just need to look for it with a different perspective.

" With the advent of the coalboom, the impetus and social aspect of living in paradise, has become gloomier and gloomier, especially for those who have lived here for decades. Instead of a baby boomer society reaping their just rewards for having stuck it out, having given to the community for years and years, with the firm hope of a positive growth towards something a little more cultural, cosmopolitan, and friendly, the influx of vast amounts of people on the lower end of the socio-economic scale, has halted this dream dead on its tracks. A new generation of " not so cosmopolitans' has taken over the majority, will settle, and the region's future will be with them.Society caters to it's majority.Where does that leave beauty? Where does that leave paradise?'

So here I am , in paradise, trying to find a reason to stay.
Weighing up positives and negatives.Trying to rekindle the inspiration.
Can I find it in Art?

"The mining boom has cushioned Australia from the Big Crash, riding on the back of it's resources. Wages have increased dramaticaly in certain regional areas, adding to increased consumerism and investments. Whether this will be sustained when China pulls in its belt, remains to be seen. The coal regions appear to be the best regions to be in during this time of trouble".

I have prospered from the positive effect, no doubt about that.

It is difficult to see past the sea of tattoos and bald heads, and to find lyrical repose from conversations which deem 'f..k and c..." to be standard inclusions in a one line sentence, but I promise--I WILL try to see the beauty, and not sound biased. You see- I live here, and I AM a local. And it was not my dream to live in Boganville!!

Where the F..... is the beauty?? ( as the new majority would say)

Hopefully in the art which I will share with you today, as a reminder that real beauty cannot disappear. It can alter, and morph, and be altered in effect only. If you have temporarily lost the art of appreciation,check out the Earth's Graffiti for yourself and get inspired again.