Friends of the Armchair Traveller

"The Art of War"                                                    ART OF WAR from Tom Cowan on Vimeo . Matchbox Paintings from WWI. This collection of war paintings printed onto matchboxes was offered by the props man when we were filming the feature "LIFE CLASS 1920".   The art was relevant to the story of war trauma suffered in a small rural town and the healing effect of art. The movie is about a somewhat shell-shocked French artist who tries to introduce life drawing to the village in 1920. So I thought I might use them as a preface to the movie. As it turned out, I didn’t use them in the edit and only remembered them recently. They seemed so interesting and beautiful that I decided to put them out in this video.  I don’t know who the artist was or their place in the art of the war. Perhaps someone will come forward with informati...

Eat. Sleep. Dive.  A simple, monastic existence for 15 days. Breakfast at 7.30am, freediving from around 10.30am to 2.30pm, return to shore, wash gear, rest and recover and maybe do some shopping in the local markets until dinner at 7.30pm. In bed, exhausted by 10.30pm. Next day, repeat. No TV, no newspapers, no social media. The only variations to the schedule were breathing and strength exercises and some pool work. The staff of Bali Reef Divers Resort were more than happy to let us drop a weight belt to the bottom of their 2m pool and do static breathholds with reflections of palm trees dancing on the surface above. This was our life in Tulamben, Bali over two weeks in July-August 2023. The diving was spectacular. Breath-taking. Mind-boggling. From six or seven metres of visibility in Port Phillip Bay to 15 – 25 metres of viz off the north-east coast of Bali where the water temperature was between 26 and 29 degrees every day. From shivering in 9 – 12 degrees on land and wearing...

On Monday morning I was sitting at my computer and listening to the radio when I received an email from my friend Richard which introduced me to artist Lloyd Godman and his beautiful Tillandsia sculptures. I've already sent out an email to all our friends on this subject but I forgot to mention that it coincided with another event on the radio at the same time. Floating wetlands! You all probably know about floating wetlands but I had no knowledge of them at all. They have much in common with Tillandsia varieties which can flourish in many environments without being attached to the soil.  So I really enjoyed finding out about both of them during the same couple of minutes in my lifetime. Also because I love the experience of coincidence. The radio chat was between Virginia Trioli and a guest who was chatting about floating islands for the Yarra River and Port Phillip Bay, about their value and issues relating to them. Here's a few images where they are situated in the Yarra R...

  Many years ago over a period of 5 years, I made 3 short films which were intended as companion pieces: "My Belle" "Hey Marcel..." "Queen of the Night" I had always hoped that one day I would show them together as a "triptych" in a public space, but that never eventuated.  I did realise a sort of unification of the three under the heading " TRIPTYCH" when I remastered and released them on DVD via Artfilms . Recently I decided to create a short experimental version which would present the three separate films as panels on a single screen. Finally, forty years since I created these films, I have realised that dream with a lot of help from two people in particular. First, Bill McDonald who composed the music for each of the three original works. I was very lucky that Bill was introduced to me by our mutual friend Robert Ratti, who also starred in "Queen of the Night". Bill's music for the three separate films fitted them li...