Following on from last month’s poetry theme, and given the relentless rain that has fallen (is still falling) in both NSW and Queensland these past couple of weeks, I’ve been thinking about a Dire Straits song that was always one of my favourites – Why Worry? The chorus goes like this:
Why worry?
There should be laughter after pain
There should be sunshine after rain
These things have always been the same
So why worry now?
When I was much younger, often reflecting on the unfairness of life, I would switch those lyrics around (and change ‘should’ to ‘will’): There will be pain after laughter; there will be rain after sunshine.
But all I’ve been singing to myself during this big wet has been that third line of the chorus: ‘There should [will] be sunshine after rain.’ Because there will be sunshine, sure as night follows day, and floods follow drought in this beautiful, often harsh country we call home.
Summer is over again for another year, and it was one that I’m sure saw as many wet days as clear and dry ones. If it wasn’t wet, it was humid – often both. But on some of those lovely days I was able to spend a little time in various parts of Ku-ring-gai Chase National Park, taking lots of photos to use as references for the series of paintings I’m currently working on – Local Gems. They’re going well, but the watercolour paper I’ve been using has remained damp with each painting I’ve finished, because all the rain has created so much dampness, in everything.
The painting above (Blue Doors) is one I had hanging above my piano for a few years. It’s always been a favourite (because apart from the five doors being such lovely subjects, the blues I was able to mix are just gorgeous). A while ago, however, I decided I could part with a few pieces I’ve held onto, and this was one of them. It was sold in the recent Northern Beaches Rotary Auction and Exhibition, and as a result, I had a surprise email from someone I’d been at teachers’ college with in the early 1980s! Linda had bought my painting, not realising it was me and mine, but wondering if it might have been. It was lovely hearing from her, and knowing that she now has my Blue Doors!
As well, a number of my paintings are still hanging at Savills in Lindfield, and will be there for another week or so before coming home again. I’ve also been getting entries organised for the Ku-ring-gai Art Society’s Autumn Exhibition, the Epping Arts Fair and Sydney’s Royal Easter Show (this year celebrating its 200th anniversary!). ASMA’s ‘It’s all in the detail’ exhibition is on in Armidale until the end of the month, and I’ll have work at Marie-France again from the end of April.
So on now, or coming up soon:
‘Chattels’ at Savills, 9 Lindfield Ave, Lindfield, NSW (opposite Lindfield Station)
KAS Autumn exhibition, at the Gallery in the St Ives Village Shopping Centre from Monday 14 to Sunday 27 March
ASMA ‘It’s all in the detail’, at the New England Regional Art Museum, Armidale, NSW until Sunday 27 March
Epping Arts Fair, Edmund Barton Centre at Epping Boys High School, 213 Vimiera Rd, Eastwood, NSW, on Saturday 2 and Sunday 3 April.
Sydney Royal Easter Show, Homebush, NSW, from Friday 8 to Tuesday 19 April
‘Local Gems’ at Marie-France, Philip Mall, Kendall Street, West Pymble, NSW from Tuesday 26 April - Tuesday 31 May
Until next month.