Hello everyone,

I have to say that, in general, I feel very happy right now - there’s lots of little wins happening across the different parts of my little art life.

Firstly, I have recently picked up something very rare for me: client work. I have been hired to document a community regreening project for a group of public land advocates I have worked with before. This commission involves basically spending time with different people, groups and working bees to change a well-loved but over-grown corridor into something much more biodiverse, better suited for folks to use, and really lush.

It’s something of a dream gig and while I might have pitched myself for a bit less than the going rate, I think that one to two days a month for the next year I’ll be getting paid to take photographs.

It’s a great chance to also stretch myself as there will be portraiture, opportunities for creative interpretation, potentially also some video b roll I need to make. All of those are areas I could use more work in.

Secondly, Tall Poppy Press has been having a quietly very nice sales period. After returning from Korea, there were a bunch of events and stores picked up quite a few books. I then had a quiet week or two and then re-orders came. Last week, for example, I came went to my day job with $0 of store orders and came home with $1200 books ordered, just out of the blue. It’s very lovely.

One of the nice things that has happened with TPP over the years is that the store orders have grown, not necessarily in terms of getting like 25 orders a month, but rather the stores that purchase from me regularly used to buy maybe $100-200 of books at a time, now it’s more like $400-$1000 of books at a time. It’s a really cool thing to see.

Thirdly, I am HALFWAY through my substitute teaching gig. To be honest, that’s the little win. I have four very noisy and tiringly boisterous classes to teach, and I am dragging my feet every day. What can I say? It’s just labour-for-money time, there’s no passion on my end. But the pay is good and we’re getting through, so my complaining is always tempered with the ‘yeah but it’s ok’ qualifier.

Fourth, I feel like I can apply for things again. A few years ago I had this week where I received double digit rejections at a time I was also having one of the worst weeks in my day job life I’d ever had. I’d spent so long on multiple grant and residency applications and to receive them all back, while also effectively put myself out of a long-term job at a University just really stun. I decided that I’d not apply for things again until I felt I could be more ok with faceless rejection. While I’ve applied for the odd grant here and there, I’ve largely held off applying for anything more ambitious. I am sort of seeing some smaller opportunities that I think would be really, really cool, but also are not life-or-death - the sort of thing you think ‘yeah it’d be fun, but if I didn’t get it that would also be a relief as I could focus on my main things’.

There are also some nice things coming up.

If you’re in Melbourne, please stop by Same Page Art Book Fair on the 24th or 25th of October. It’s in Preston (just next to Thornbury!) at Gertrude Contemporary. I’ll be there with books, merch, a smile and maybe a baby if she’s happy there.

If you’re in Sydney, please come to Overprint Art Book Fair at Harrold Park Community Centre on November 8th. This is a fair I co-founded and co-direct and it’s something I’m hoping becomes one of the larger events in Australia, and certainly the largest in Sydney. I’d love to see all Sydney folks there.

If you’re in Perth, I’ll be at Print-O-Rama in early December, I’ll share more closer.

Anyway, off to wrap up day at High School and then head home. Much love,

Matt