Show me the Monet

So Monet looks like a big grumpy bear. Who knew? Who knew the man that painted sublime pastel landscapes infused with light, light, light would look like a grumpy Walt Whitman brandishing a squint and a paint palette. I know this now because I got to stare at a wall sized reproduction of a black and white photo of the man in his studio, as I stood in line for wine and snacks at the Art Gallery of NSW, which is currently hosting an impressionist exhibition – Monet and various support acts. There is also a video here.

I went with a friend, Mountainspice, who lives a fair way away, whose partner kindly spotted an event in the paper that he thought she might like, and cut it out for her. It was fun going out with her in the city without her kids, felt like teenagers rushing to catch the train to get there on time.

It was hot. Hot and humid.

Even though I stood perfectly still and didn’t otherwise feel hot, a small droplet of perspiration ran slowly down my back as I stood in the main open area of the gallery watching the speakers we’d come to see. In a very crowded room. So busy that the cloak checker said ‘we don’t have room for bags!’ and gestured impatiently at crammed lockers as if it was an absurd and unreasonable request when I tried to check one in.

Then again it was hot.

Nice to see so many people in a gallery. My friend suggested it was probably close to a thousand there for the talk. I didn’t count but she might be right. Hundreds at least. And not just any hundreds but hundreds who have turned up to see cute, earnest, frank and clever greenies talk. Bless them. Bob Brown and Peter Cundell. For those who don’t know, Bob Brown is a Green Senator here in Australia, and Peter Cundell a television personality from a well known gardening show, as well as a peace activist, gardener and general well loved personality. I reckon Peter is half of the colourful and kind old couple you’d have loved to have living next door when you were a kid – who would serve you iced tea in the garden and tell you tales of the old days, and let you dig or hold squirmy handfuls of earthworms and probably send you home with a few lemons or a bunch of camellias for your mum. Bob is the man you’d secretly like to marry if he wasn’t partnered up, gay and likely too cleanly historico-political and slightly forestly ascetic for your indulgent lazy pop culture city ways. Robust, resilient, warm guys with integrity and passion. Men you’d be proud to have as a friend or relative, who you’d trust to make good, balanced, and humane decisions. Who you’d let housesit, or lend your favourite book to.

Even if it was hot and we were standing up the back because we only just got there on time.

Of course the upshot of hearing two speakers, standing up, after a day at work and a rush to get there was that at the end we both needed a little sit down, and found ourselves at the bar/café for a little refreshment. The upshot of which was that we found ourselves still there gas bagging as the gallery came to a close, and the security guards came around giving people five minute pack up and start leaving now please warnings. The upshot of which was I didn’t see Monet. Except on the wall, in a photo. I certainly didn’t get to see his waterlilies. But it is open a few more days, maybe I’ll go back and try again in the day time I'd also like to see Half Light, an exhibibtion of Aboriginal artists using photography for portraits.

Also – Mountainspice wanted me to tell you that she got horrible blisters. New shoes I think.

Big in Japan

Bob talked about the successive periods of cosmological, geological, biological and psychological evolution that has resulted in humans being where they are right now, in this place and time, with the (to our knowledge) unique position of being aware of the impacts we make and being able to change them. He talked about trees and politics but generally what we spoke about was the big times we face and how really, we are at a fork in the road between me-culture and materialism on the one hand, and caring about all other people on the planet and other living beings too. And you know, like really how can we possibly explain to our great grandkids that we knew what needed doing but that really it was all just a bit too hard politically, and inconvenient to do it so we chose to spend money on arms but let kids starve to death; and squander the earth’s resources and head for overshoot instead (my paraphrasing). He talked about joy, and connection with the wild living planet, and of being inspired by nature (like Monet) and seeing the whole picture in a microcosm, and of looking for the light in the gloom.

I sighed a big sigh of happy sad relief when I heard him talk, and did lots of that quiet small nodding that you get at these events. I thought ‘I wish I could call you up for pep talks when I need reminding of all the things I care about’. I thought ‘you are just like Obama but for the trees too’. I thought ‘I really need to leave myself some post it notes at work that say “why do I bother? Because people don’t have clean water and we are still logging old growth forests and if India and China consume like we do we’ll need three more planets.” so that I remember and don’t let myself slide in to the day to day drearies of specific project gripes or petty ego stuff or general career malaise and uncertainty’.

Listening to him I felt like a revolutionary, a vessel for cultural change, a visionary in a small but keen sea of fellow visiony folk – not just an office drone with flaring doubts about her to do list system, mild and lingering doubts about her inability to specialise in a discipline and intermittent doubts about her choice of office footwear or hair style. I realise now that it’s so important to reconnect to that when your initial wide eyed wonder and zest for change-making, your single-minded ‘I want to help save the world’ fervour gets perhaps a little dusty after a decade of report writing and admin and committees and circular decision making and the random vagaries of end of year budget decisions and realising how slow deep change is, and how hard our world views are to see let alone explain to others or rethink. Plus postmodernism and doubt – always being able to see the other side to things. Plus fear of being branded a shallow un-nuanced uni-dimensional radical. Plus fear of being a so tied to any movement that you can be criticised along with it. All of these mediocrities and hypocrisies cloud the view and obscure the beautiful, inspiring panorama you climbed to see in the first place, leaving you kicking at the rubbish on the path instead and muttering cranky things.

Peter talked about his childhood and of art and colour and train rides and carrots. He was cute. He got more laughs.

They were both so positive, I think this was the most striking thing about them as two people who have had their share of setbacks and hardship along the way, but have stayed true to themselves. Which Monet was said to have done too, given that his work was apparently (so Bob tells me) derided horribly by the local European art scene (until he was big in Japan and the USA, and they figured maybe they were missing something), yet he preserved with his unique vision, and kept working despite going against the grain of what was popular.