Nature

As a recent arrival to Victoria from Christchurch, I’m still a little apt to think of natural disasters; and this morning, as I sat in the silent, serene Mount Macedon gardens of Tieve Tara, I couldn’t help trying to imagine the place razed to the ground by bush fires.

This is exactly what happened on February 16, 1983 – Ash Wednesday - now one of Australia’s most well-known bush fire events. That tragic day, fires swept across Victoria and South Australia, killing 75 people and causing widespread property-related damage – in Victoria alone, that was estimated to be over $200-million in damage.

Most of Macedon and much of historic Mount Macedon (northwest of Melbourne) and just 20 minutes from where I’m now living, was razed to the ground, including many heritage listed 19^th century mansions and famed gardens.  Tieve Tara was one of those.

Originally part of an extensive property bought by W. Christian in 1854, it was purchased by George Grantham in 1907 and the original house was built on the present site. It then passed into the hands of C. Arthur Cooper in 1937, before it was destroyed by fire in 1962. A new home was built and that was destroyed in the 1983 Ash Wednesday blaze, just after it had been purchased by John and Dawn Wade.  

They rebuilt and stayed at the property until the current owners, John and Judith Brand, purchased it in 1995. They’ve made extensive alterations to the partially destroyed gardens and with its majestic old trees, huge garden beds, ponds, lakes, walkways, bridges and bog gardens, it’s now one of a number of Mount Macedon gardens often open to the public.

It’s a peaceful place now but this morning when I visited, I couldn’t help reflecting on the brutal potential of Nature.  The Christchurch earthquakes have shown me that none of us is ever guaranteed complete protection from that brutality. We may enjoy the beauty that surrounds us – and we’d be silly not to – but it’s a fragile façade.  We never know when things will alter, when our lives will be changed forever.

We all bounce back of course - eventually- but it seems important to me to remember Nature’s tragedies, if only to all-the-more appreciate what surrounds us.

Tieve Tara is now heading into winter. The last of the golden and scarlet leaves are clinging to the skeletal tree branches and it’s quiet, still and damp. As grand as any garden is though, I often find that the true beauty sits within the details – the curling birch bark; a rippled trunk; a forgotten bird’s nest high above; the magpies marauding the strawberry tree;  the stark reflections in the still lakes; one golden leaf on dark , wet twigs, determined to be noticed.

www.gardensoftievetara.com.au

Painting Trees

Cast paper torsos - one of the last major cast paper works I completed. Exhibited at Fisher Gallery Auckland and Sargent Gallery, Wanganui in the late eighties.

The last time I exhibited any artwork was at the Australian National Library in Canberra in 1986, as part of a New Zealand book arts show.

That was 31 years ago!

Then I switched to a full-time career as a freelance journalist/author and while book arts have continued to be a passion, I've never painted  since the 60 or so solo and group exhibitions I took part in all those years ago.

Now I'm facing down that yawning 31-year gap, wondering how to take the leap from 'art-before' to 'art-now.' As I set up my new studio space, I've felt inadequate, overwhelmed and more than a little bit terrified. I sit before my blank canvases and I wonder what to do.

I wonder if any idea I have, has any merit at all.

I wonder in fact, if I have completely 'lost my touch.'

Eucalyptus bark

So paralysed had I become that I decided to start painting trees - not pictures of trees, trees literally. Real trees. It seemed appropriate given my fascination with Australian eucalyptus, with the vivid colours of the Australian landscape and with Aboriginal art. 

So a few days ago, I dragged a huge 10-foot eucalyptus branch into my studio and I started painting it - totem-like. No plans, no expectations, just the child-like joy of rediscovering colour, pattern and texture in paint.
I  never imagined I would feel the exhilaration of painting again so soon. But it was there, hiding under all the nervous energy, the pathetic inadequacies and the fear of making the wrong brushstrokes. I feel like I have unleashed something that has been dormant for far too long.

I've quickly been seduced by possibilities and in between Australian paperwork, I am continuing to play with paint - to watch, to think, to read. I'm waiting quietly for things to happen in their own time. I'm letting ideas 'incubate.'

I'll stick with painting 'trees' for a bit longer, as I get to know a new medium.
Because, in the mood of the change that has taken me from Canterbury, New Zealand to Victoria, Australia, I have decided to try painting in acrylics. I used to paint in watercolours many moons ago and acrylics don't seem too far removed. There are a lot of technical similarities.
So I'm stacking the odds in my favour.

Yesterday, I spent the day at Mount Alexander Regional Park, near Castlemaine, sitting in complete silence among thousands of eucalyptus trees of all shapes and sizes. As I sat there listening and watching and photographing,  I began to sense the hazy beginnings of a canvas taking shape in my head.

It's elusive still.
Abstract.
One minute quite certain; the next, slipping away, undefined, like a dream you can only half remember.
I have hope.
I feel excited.
And I think I''m going to be okay.

All I really want is to continue to feel enlivened by the whole art-making process.
I want to 'shine a light' on the dark recesses, on my inner thoughts and imaginings.
I want to produce something I am happy with.
That's all.

That 31-year gap still seems unreal in a 'how-did-that-happen' kind of way but I feel certain that eventually I will make the leap to the very different kind of artist/painter that now resides within.
My success or otherwise seems irrelevant at this point.

Change

The rural view from my new writing spot in Tylden, Victoria. Magic at all times of day.

I have been thinking about change a lot in the last ten years.

Even before the first 7.1-mag Christchurch earthquake struck in September 2010, I was restless,  looking for something new. It's not that I wasn't enjoying my life as a freelance journalist, photographer and author, I just needed a fresh injection of inspiration.

I most often found that by taking overseas working trips - usually into Asia - and pitting myself against the odds; facing down strange languages and different ways of living, and coming home inspired, knowing more about what I was truly capable of, and ready to write again, in whatever medium seemed appropriate at the time.

Then came the Christchurch earthquakes and that devastating time of change that knocked everyone in the city for a six.

It was CHANGE in capital letters.

It was change we didn't ask for.

It was change that inspired.

It was change that for me

 Forced the real change that I had been muttering about for years.

For only the second time in my adult working life - in almost 43 years in fact - I found myself in full-time employment in *an office.*

It was another major change, a new challenge.

It seemed to fit my skill set.

But after four valuable and inspiring years working for Te Runanga o  Ngai Tahu, something odd started to happen - I started to hanker after my former life as an artist.

Something stirred inside me on one of my frequent visits to Victoria two years ago and it never went away.

It nagged at me.

And when I was at a leadership course in Auckland last year, we were all asked if 'this was where we wanted to be in 10 years, 20 years, 30 years?'

And for me, the answer was a resounding 'No.'

It was the penny that finally dropped - the cue I needed to take another risk, to make another change and to return to the work that stirs my soul.

Mist rising over the lake - the first thing I see each day in Tylden,  Victoria

So here I am, two days into my new life.
I am setting up a small art studio again.
I have changed since I worked full-time as an exhibiting artist
(roughly between 1971-1983).
I will not paint the way I used to, of that I can be almost certain.
I will change mediums to begin with but beyond that, I have no clue of what will evolve.
I'm happy with that.
I'm not in any hurry.
I have no expectations.

And I will go back to writing fiction again - short stories.
I will return to writing non-fiction books.
And I will return to more photography - not that I've ever really left that behind.
I'm excited, enlivened, inspired.

As I sit here in the silence of a Sunday afternoon - Mother's Day in fact - all I can hear are the raucous sulphur-crested cockatoos in the gum trees, the bossy crows  squabbling out in the field, and the intermittent rusty rumble of the iron windmill slowly turning in a grove of nearby acacia trees.
I have time to think.
I have a head full of words.
And I'm ready to face down a new change.

I guess I could have bought a Harley Davidson, or a sports car or something, and sailed off into old age with the wind blowing in my hair and smell of grease on my clothes.
It seemed messy.
I didn't fancy it.

Instead, I chose to leave Christchurch, to leave New Zealand in fact - walking out on the life I had worked so hard to create, with just two suitcases and a whole lot of gungho spirit.
I think it might be the best change I've made in a while.