Walk by the sea, 12 May 2020 Day 50 of Distancing

A walk along the bike path is permitted, from Collins Point where Captain Cook tried to land in 1770, to Sandon Point south of Thirroul.  The whales are going north but although we stared at the shifting blue there was not a sign. This is a Dharrawal and Wodi Wodi sacred place where a very old burial was found in the sand dunes, leading to the forming of the Sandon Point Tent Embassy twenty years ago. It looks over to the little park dedicated to the memory of DH Lawrence who wrote his novel 'Kangaroo' living in a house by the sea.  Places are like archives, full of hidden signs, through plants, creatures and the shape of the land. People are drawn to the path in great numbers, young women striding along in tights, old ones meandering, children in prams pushed by twinkling leotards, dogs struggling to keep up. Skateboards and bikes weave in and out.  What a relief to be out of the house and moving. 

Diana Wood Conroy Walk by the Sea, watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x 21 cm, 12 May 2020

Trace, 11 May 2020

Embroidery on cloth doesn't last long when left to the elements. To find a trace of textile from the past is a rare thing, as fibres disintegrate with damp and dust. Textiles as a theme did not exist when I studied archaeology, and therefore women too were invisible in the archaeological record. Olive Schreiner wrote in 1927, "In that bit of white rag with the invisible stitching, lying among fallen leaves and rubbish that the wind has blown into the gutter or street corner, lies all the passion of some woman’s soul finding voiceless expression.  Has the pen or pencil dipped so deep in the blood of the human race as the needle?"  It makes you value the stitchery to be found at home, made slowly, head bent over the cloth. Rubbing the marks of stitching in graphite, like rubbing stone gives a haptic impression, but at the same time gives the sense of something missing or lost. This embroidery was made by an (unnamed) nun in Cyprus, on a little bag to carry bread blessed by the priest, embroidered with wheat, grapes and tendrils, ancient signs of regeneration. And hope, much needed at present.

Diana Wood Conroy, Trace, graphite and watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x 21 cm, 11 May 2020.

Purple flowers, 10 May 2020

A cold south westerly wind brought clarity and brilliance to Mother's Day. Restrictions are slightly lifted and the road is full of people walking with dogs and running in the bright sun. A knock on the door; there was a huge bunch of flowers with some small legs underneath it like an Edward Lear drawing - it was thrust into my hands and the beaming man ran into his van for the next delivery- they came from the son who has gone to live in northern NSW where he was born and grew up. Purple, the colour chosen by sufragettes, was considered in the ancient world to be the most beautiful colour because it held tones of red in its lustrous surface. Purple was the emperor's colour – and you could be prosecuted for dressing in a purple robe if you were not of the imperial class. Thousands of tiny shellfish (murex) were needed to make the dye for a metre of cloth. Looking at the deep red walls of Pompeii, the painter Mark Rothko thought that colour lifted the mind to a place beyond logic. Like those glowing flowers, suddenly appearing at the door.

Diana Wood Conroy,'Purple flowers', watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x 21 cm, 10 May 2020 

Cockatoo morning, 9 May 2020

Sometimes the cockatoos arrive in a great gang, each with a crown of lemon yellow plumes differently organised as if they each gave consideration to their own hair style. What do they see when they look at you with their deep black eyes? A poor non-bird person without the means to fly? Dedalus the master inventor made wings for his son Icarus to fly like a bird from the island of Crete to new freedoms. Intoxicated with being a creature of air he flew too near the sun and the wax holding this wings melted, so that he fell to his death. Plato thought humans had a deep affinity with the wonder of birds.  In Phaedrus he says, ‘the emanation of beauty received by the eye ‘makes the feathers of the soul prick with longing, because in its original state the soul is feathered all over’. It was once estimated, after weighing a person on the point of death and immediately afterwards, that the soul weighs 30 grams, which is the same weight as a small whorl or button. 'The soul is like a bird, and with wings the soul flies' said a museum label on some eggs found in a tomb. This is the wonder of a bird alighting near you.

Diana Wood Conroy, 'Cockatoo morning', watercolour on Arches paper, 15 x 21 cm, 9 May 2020 

Purple leaves in a Minton jug, 8 May, 2020

A sense of increasing concern about people's mental health becomes apparent, even though Australia is much better off than many countries. We've had an unrestricted and unconfined life with an abundance of choices. Now I look at old objects passed down to me with fresh eyes, thinking of how many pasts can be gathered together in one present moment. The cracked Minton jug with its lovely Chinoiserie vase and tendrils is itself a product of travelling to the 'orient' in the eighteenth century. It comes from a Scottish great grandmother who must have given a set to her daughter when she married my Australian grandfather and embarked on a long and dangerous voyage to Sydney in a blacked-out ship in 1914. The ship took six weeks in cramped conditions to arrive, with a trunk of old china and linen in the hold. And now the imperial jug can hold flowers from my garden, more than a hundred years later, with other objects from other travels. The shells are musical conches from the Temple of Kali in Kolkata. You hear the mysterious honking sound early in the morning, and it means, said our Kolkata host, "Another day has come! I am still alive!"

Diana Wood Conroy, 'Purple leaves in a Minton jug' watercolour on Arches paper, 12 x 20 cm, 8 May 2020.