Gardenvale

 

The eye alights upon Legoland crimson tilework cobbling downward from divides, nestling on its laurels curving amiably about the highslung gutters and ageing eaves. Rooftops and cupolas and penumbrae of illustrious eucalypts meet the window vision of Jaded Bayside Commuters (JBC) semi-slumped in their select blue train seats, their eye tracing ibis-like antennae standing on one leg above jigsaws of roof corners tracking who knows what frequencies of telecommunication to their visual ends, or did once upon a time, countless screens beneath geometries of tin and tile, metal-grey and Tuscan-brown, rust-lined and lichen-patched, corrugated and crenelated, wavy and choppy. The eye is the most refined curve inspecting cubist roofscapes of the cubist age, the bayside squares of Georges Braque rampant between beachfront and ten-lane highway, those famed half-shadows sudden hard edges in relief, those multiple vanished vanishing points someplace behind solid walls abutting complexities of cut-and-paste. Rainwashed spires, rainsoaked leafage lining rainflecked guttering, raindashed aircons, raindropped wroughtiron laceworks are drying to the eye that discerns the differences after the rain. The eye registers redbrick amidst piled high foliage, mission-style chipping grey patches behind rounded wattles and pruned exotics, zigzags of units’ railings rusting under mountains of jasmine and scarlet native pea. The eye has scant seconds between doors opening airily and doors beeping shut again, to discern curlicue Victorian gothic, post-Victorian reshapes, mock Queen Anne tendencies, pre-deco daring, pre-modern modern, peeled deco stucco, charmless postmodern modern, post-deco parapets, harmless prosceniums, balcony frames, and pottery sculptures, some terra cotta. Gardenvale’s orderly mazes are spaced distinctly for good living, the eye would seem to be saying, assembled across bayside sandy soil: larger foreground, distinguishable middle ground, wherever the eye gazes towards distant rooftops of the same. Except, the mind of the JBC says, what are the lives going on apace beneath this vision of dwellings, their names, their desires, their ins and outs? The mind kickstarts imaginings of daily activity, as the carriage shifts gently into action again, wishing to step Alice-like through passing casements of dull reflection and portholes of inner glow and infrequent double-glazing row upon row and business frames with repeat lighting and repeat bay windows and Georgian fanlights, if only to catch a glimpse within, of whom? Not that the mind can, as roofscapes accelerate to be replaced with others, downpipes, solar panels, satellite dishes, offset by green firework palmtrees, powderblue gums, deleafed elms decidedly deciduous …

Braque

 I am a rainy day in Paris. Anywhere you like. But Paris will do. The clouds are the same. Edged with grey. Shaped roundly shading from grey to white. When they aren’t the deluge before us. Crowds of rain and a sudden hundred umbrellas. White is so much of grey in the rain. I am a woman. Don’t be fooled by appearances. The caption is explicit. I am straight as an easel. From top to toe my form is all front. Front, sides and back and all front. A portrait that is a still life, no mean feat. A still life that could be a cityscape of rain slowing and ceasing. When the light enlarges, you might gaze upon hillsides of white houses, square and glistening. My adjusted lean into space could bear a large canvas. Signed by someone or other in a corner. One foot seems to be for a chest of drawers. Shapely assuredly. My other foot resembles a plinth, sturdy for the task, or a catafalque. It’s something to do with the fall of shadows. I am a sounding board for a revolution. My guitar has a strong back story. Things they say about me fill books. Their words remind us of bygone years in upstairs salons and barndoor ateliers and sculptural wine-bars. Print nowadays, their words that were scintillating, capital letters and outdated fonts in faded newspapers cut up and pieced together. Enigmatic in its silence. Like the eruption of the guitar, its breezes and snaps. Its eloquence and melancholy. Silent now and huddled against newsprint, the context lost. I am more or less what Georges had in mind. His mind was vivid with ideas. Him and Pablo, they talked for years every day. What language. There is only one valuable thing in art: the thing you cannot explain. That’s Georges. Or he would say: In a painting, what counts is the unexpected. Decades pass, each pursuing their own lines of enquiry, he his and he his. Vivid ideas using a neutral palette, for Georges. The wars did something to his mind. I am listening with my eyes half-closed. To all the generations of comments made by those pleased to be fooled by appearances. To the rain desisting, resting in downlines of gutters and rhombuses of roofs and puddles of grey sky. To the Frenchman and the Spaniard enthusing in the half light for hours over effects. My eyes face on and side on and listening. To the fragments of guitar that humans will contrive. I am waiting out my time inside my frame. It’s the deal I’ve been dealt. If not for photography I would not exist. Which is a start. A ticket to fame is my role, you could say, depending on your angle. A ticket at right-angles to experience or perspective, copied and pasted. You arrive in your orderly queue, let someone in to have a squizz, at me. Silence is a common comment. Occasionally someone like you enthuses. Some read out my caption, have another look, then move on.  

Two photographs: ‘Femme à la guitare’ (‘Woman with a guitar’) by Georges Braque, autumn 1913, oil and charcoal on canvas. Centre Pompidou via the National Gallery of Victoria.