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Little Women  

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The chair

It’s a chair for the lady who has left her writing for a moment - not for the audience - they can sit if they want - but to do so would come with a sense of transgressing.

 

... can I?... should I ?... enter her private study... read the letter she is writing - I know I shouldn't... even treading on the rug feels like I’m breaking bounds... and her chair is so delicate...

 

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Proper rites

"One must observe the proper rites", says the wise fox to the little prince.  And what are the proper rites when you enter another’s private space? I ask this because I need to know as I am entering their private realm ...   even if they are all dead. 

 

Still... I wonder... what does her kitchen look like?

And her laundry, and garden, and pantry - oh to hell with it - the whole house.

And I'd like to read her diary.

                                                                                            

 

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Transgression

Last year I received a rather angry email from a friend who had been to the exhibition Drawn into the Unknown and had looked through some of my books that had been placed in a stack as a sculptural object. She was upset as there was no instruction as to whether she was allowed to do this and she stopped looking because it felt too intimate.  Have I done something wrong? She asks.  

 

She'd been drawn into the unknown and didn't like it much.

 

 

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Boundaries

Did I upset her? - I don't like upsetting people - and it's the most sensitive who are most distressed when they transgress... when they transgress.

 

Well, whose problem is this?

Is this a problem?

I'm not clear. 

My problem? 

Her problem?

What is the problem?

Oh yes - my problem - I don't like upsetting people.

 

And we do like things to be clear with proper boundaries - my Western roots are in the absolutes - it's a cultural condition.

 

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Ambivalence

The woman who is dying is told she is not dying, she is living - have hope.  In this way, hope turns her from the here and now toward hoping for the future - hoping for more time - and when she doesn't see more time - despair.  

 

And though she is dying - it is true she is also living.

Well, which one is it?

 

He advocates for ambiguity - Being in a state of unknowing if that is the state you are in.  She advocates for this space also - fosters it - nurtures it as a space that harbours life and true enquiry.

 

I can smell the sickness of my cultural condition that perpetuates and propagates absolutes through every aspect of living and dying. 

 

Once again I commit to not knowing.

 

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Knowing Not Knowing

"She slapped my hand as I looked through the journal, I argued that it was not behind glass and others have been looking...  I thought it would be alright... it's your work... I can tell by your tail... couldn't you do something to let us know we can touch?"

 

I could 

I could put a sign or gloves on the table - instruct the audience on how to approach the work - but then - it ceases to be her writing table and becomes a table for the audience, and that changes everything:  A proper table suitable for any and all readers - a proper chair suitable for any and all readers - a properly bound journal suitable for any and all readers.   The life removed - the unknowing gone - all laid out nice and accessible - and she - as she nearly always is, becomes once again... invisible.

 

 

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Invisible women

Henry's gift of the Allport collection brought the Allport women’s stories to light.  

 

Lily’s art was recovered from his shed - apparently Henry didn't think very much of it - neither did his father who helped finance Lily’s life’s pursuit even though there was not "the slightest probability... she would become sufficiently accomplished." 

 

And Lily's grandmother Mary:  migrant, artist, intellectual, wife and mother - her diary an invaluable record - painter, miniaturist, sketcher, etcher, lithographer, engraver and teacher. Gillian Winter says "Australia's first professional woman artist".  What is it that makes a professional artist?  And I'm impressed - a member of what is now the Royal Society of Tasmania - a woman in such a society - unheard of - except for here in the colonies.

 

Breaking boundaries - Mary Morton Allport - my deepest respect to you.

 

 

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The chameleon

The poet Mary Oliver did it - made an Australian farm girl fall in love with the fox.

Mary Morton Allport planted the seed

For a night I was she - the vixen - in my velvet finery, with ears, paws, fur and tail.

 

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Breathing

The air in here is heavy and oppressive - a childhood feeling remembered.   I want to breath - open the curtains - let the light and fresh air in - hear the echoes of daily life from the kitchen - see the woolen nighty thrown across the unmade bed, smell the stench from the chamber pot, touch the embossed wallpaper, drink from that crystal glass, sit in that chair...

 

 

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A living thing in dead people's place

It's a chair for the lady who has left her writing for a moment - she's not here - you can look if you dare.