A Life’s Journey
Recently my husband Anthony celebrated a ‘significant’ milestone birthday, and my children and I decided to organise a special gift to mark the occasion. He is a lover of indigenous art and has huge respect for Aboriginal culture and country. So, after months of searching, I found the perfect indigenous artist to paint a specially commissioned piece of artwork that represented Anthony’s geographical life journey in WA, around Australia, and overseas.
After weeks of corresponding with the artist, providing her with details and stories of various aspects of Anthony’s life, the day came when the painting was finally finished and I was able to collect it.
It was one of the most beautiful paintings I had ever seen, and with so much personal relevance and meaning, it was one of the rare moments in my life where I was quite literally rendered speechless when I set eyes on it. In fact, there was a good few minutes of silence before the worried artist had to ask me what I thought of it, and before I could form some words and tell her that it had simply taken my breath away. The beautiful thing is that it had exactly the same impact and effect on Anthony when I finally presented it to him on a night I will never forget. It was a night and an experience that, through all the uncertainty, stress and chaos that COVID had brought to our family, will be a highlight, and a special, beautiful memory that I will take with me from this upside-down time in all our lives.
The reason I share this story with you is because of the two big lessons I was reminded of during this experience.
The first was the importance of making and cherishing the beautiful, joyful, heartwarming experiences that come out of times of crisis, uncertainty and darkness. Life is rarely black and white, and it's the glimmers of light and hints of rainbows amongst the storm clouds that we must always look out for and hold close to in order to sustain us during hard times.
After I had recovered from the shock and delight of seeing the painting, the artist and I spoke for some time about her technique, process and reasons for why she had painted certain elements where she had. There were two parts of the painting - one to the extreme left and the other to the extreme right of the canvas - that she said were representations of aspects of Anthony’s life that she was not allowed to paint in detail.
At first, I didn't understand what she meant. She went on to explain that indigenous artists are only allowed to paint the country they come from, or had permission to paint. So she was able to paint aspects of Anthony’s life that took place in both Yamitji country, where she was from, and Noongar country, where she now had strong ties and had been given permission to paint. So the years he spent in Queensland, New South Wales and the UK were parts of his life she could only represent, which she did with such beauty and sensitivity. Similarly, our ‘tomorrow’ as she called it - the future path that Anthony’s life would take, which was as yet unknown - was something she also did not as yet have permission to paint, so that was represented in a similarly beautiful way.
So the second lesson I was taught was that the respect for not only country but an ancient held belief that one could only depict, represent, convey and speak of land and stories that one had intimate knowledge of. This is something we could all do with remembering. For me, it was a humbling reminder of the richness and wisdom of our Indigenous brothers and sisters, and a lesson that our society needs to follow as we increasingly become a population ever more willing to judge others and assume to understand experiences that we simply know nothing about.
