Putting the work together: an interview with Michael Wilson

Michael Wilson is an assemblage artist who has always been heavy on technique using artifacts and disassembled objects from an era long gone. He avoids plastics to make his assemblages look as though they were antiques themselves. Stuff from the dustbin, collected up and transformed. A solid piece needs to have electricity and some of them literally do. That's when a viewer’s responses can be very strong. 

How did you come to be an artist? How did you come to work in assemblage, and where do you find your materials?

Growing up In the 1960s I was influenced by my father's art and love of jazz. He was a well-known animator and artist, so I grew up in an environment that proved a lifelong Influence. Another big influence was André Breton.  More

RIP Gus Ferguson 1940 - 2020

RIP Gus Ferguson. He was one of the first to publish me and he encouraged me in my writing. He encouraged me when I started up Dye Hard Press in 1994. I published a small selection of his poems called Icarus Rising and he published my chapbook When Apollinaire Died in 1996. Our views about poetry often differed considerably, and over the past 20 years we drifted apart, but there was never any animosity and we always respected each other. Without Gus Ferguson I wouldn't be where I am today, and Dye Hard Press would have probably never existed.

Due out early next year: Outside the Cave: selected poems by Gary Cummiskey

Due out from Dye Hard Press in the first half of next - Outside the Cave: selected poems by Gary Cummiskey. Poems from 1990 to 2019, selected and introduced by Kobus Moolman. 170 pages.

 

Bemused blues

 

Half-asleep, half-awake

 

Bird before Christmas

 

Electricity

 

Chatsworth riding high on Goodreads

Pravasan Pillay's short story collection Chatsworth currently has a rating of 4.22 out of 5 on Goodreads.

If you have read it and enjoyed it, why not give it a rating or even a short review? Better still, why not buy someone a copy as a Christmas gift?

Chatsworth is available for R190.00 at Made in Chatsworth.

The return