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I’m swimming in the art life here in Melbourne, drawing and painting every day usually for 5-8 hours of flow. Penny Farthing, my local favorite coffeeshop/art-office, always has light & friendly chatter floating around, big windows, kind staff. It’s a good life in the art space, where eye and hand get to be best mates and the world falls away to focus on lines colors shapes. Concentration takes me inside the living shapes I’m drawing to feel their dimension in my body, more than just under my fingers on the page. Scowls haven’t found me yet – working for hours on a single line or the lightest shading or Where’s Waldo-esque detail, only to erase it when a new relationship on the page takes precedence, leave only peaceful happy feeling that the more I draw, the better I know how the world and all its little details work, from the inside. Kind of like reading a book, painting seems to extend my sense of humanity, and enthrall me the same way. This doesn’t get boring! All I really want to do is more and more and more of just what I’m doing. When I’m drawing, I only regretting that I have to stop to go home for dinner (though dinner is always fun at our house) when it’s dark out. The simple focus of life here helps me live this meditation clearly.
But only part of art life here for me is about the depth & awakening that happens in my own quiet process; the other part is all about people. Friends & passersby at the coffeeshops and art markets where I’ve been selling prints (highly unprofitably thus far, I must add) are keen with their feedback. They help me realize that art is a way I can share my view of the world with others who see what I mean. I’ve loved language through my entire life, now I’m expanding my lexicon of communication to include line & color. Australians have pointed out that my paintings show a fresh lens on my local subjects, and seem to see my paintings as distinctively, appealingly American – one fellow last weekend described them as “cinematic” and said, “that looks like a place I want to go, and it’s right around the corner.”
The art life is definitely not lucrative work – Melbourne readily supports the arts by hosting lots of art markets that spread good vibes, but the appetite for buying art seems even smaller – or more saturated – than at home. This makes it easy for me to keep focused on my real motivation: the process which I love, the product of individual pieces which communicate with others, and the long term Open Road book project which is a more developed narrative for an even wider audience. Now I see that the Open Road for me really is about lifestyles of both organic growing and art – that’s what’s on my road!
Melbourne is a city that makes it easy to enjoy an artist’s life. There are festivals and dance parties and quirky creative events popping up all over, sharehouse culture to keep life friendly (and cheap), lots of opportunities to get the art out, and general good will that keeps chins up. Good quality of life.
Coming home to a busy sharehouse of friends (Prue, Julia, Mark), who bring more good folk home for lively dinners and local romps, has made it a warm winter. Our hearth has been marshmallowy – on my honor, I swear that Prue can rival ANY Eagle Scout in her marshmallow-roasting skills. And Julia really knows how to put on the dancing shoes. Now that summer is dawning, we’re testing our ping-pong skills in the spacious shed/deck/rompus-room out back. Bumps come up, but that’s life and we’re in it together, in a friendly way.
Nozomi, Eriko, and a new friend Midori have all agreed that I’m part Japanese, which thrills me. Those girls are SO filled with a sense of inner strength, fun, wisdom, brave adventure – they’re a blessing to have in my life and our journeys together are just beginning. We all love to eat (although I’m the biggest one in the lot), and we have weekly dinner dates, sampling great food around Melbourne. Thank you dumplings!
We’ve also had some adventurous excursions out to the “bush” for roadtrips, camping, and even a bush-dance. Koalas (those trees in the pics are filled with koalas!), zip-lines, dosey-doeing, life music, dancing happy and free, exploring Victoria beyond the big city.
My favorite urban garden is still just a short cycle right down the street from my house at graceful CERES. Life is always beautiful at the Community Environment Park that includes farm, organic café, market, community bike shed, heaps and heaps of educational programs for school groups and adults, festival and lovely grounds for romping. We harvest glee for worms, papermaking, understanding our eco-footprints, etc. among rambunctious kids & lovely staff. I feel lucky to be part of that family as a teacher, and also participating in the weekly markets and seasonal festivals with my stall selling art prints…including a print of CERES herself (some have suggested they’d nominate me as a Where’s Waldo illustrator after seeing the CERES painting… ;)).
While I’m 100% glad to be right where I am doing what I’m doing now and looking forward to further pieces of travel, I also find myself thinking sweetly of home more often, and aware that Beantown is a place that sustains me like no other place I’ve found. Being away for this stretch, I realize how much I especially love the diversity, curiosity, and life of the mind that exist without trying back in our fair city. Real cookies, Red Sox, cheap pints, and crisp autumns are also signature New England yankee novelties dear to my heart – who knew how rare?! Recently I wrote a list of favorite things to do in Boston/Cambridge for a Melbourne friend who set off for three months on the Cape – the list turned into an 8-page Word document! She said it read like a love letter to the city.