cyclone Yasi – our story – Page 5

Caterpillar days for clarity

Art and deadlines must mix when exhibiting, and yet arts practice doesn’t always want to conform to a deadline. It takes time to sort out creative thoughts, and most artists need ‘daydream time.’ In this time we appear externally to be doing ‘nothing.’ We pace, weed the garden, in my case watch the Ulysses butterflies and cockatoos fly past in the late afternoon. No one can rush me, not even me. Internally in daydream mode artists are shaping, creating, moving, transforming and generally trying to surf the waves of creativity into a cohesive piece to share with others.

Everyone works differently to a certain degree and I started out with the impulse to photograph a journey- either back to normality or as faraway from cyclone Yasi as possible, I don’t think I knew at the beginning. However now as I reflect on my processes I was attracted to joy, light, nature, happy people, glimmers of hope and the rebuilding of lives and our towns. Sequences of events, like regreening, and Prince William stepping out of a helicopter to meet a crowd evolved around me and I captured them as best I could with my camera. I was open to events around me that seemed to plot a journey through creativity, gardening, people and much more.

Above is a picture of my planning table, taken this morning. I am making my final selection of photographs and words ready to print it and mount it all. I have not been able to rush this process but left my table sitting last night like a slow cooker meal. Today the clarity is on its way and I then need to head off to the printers in the next couple of days to bring it to the boil.

Blogs can be approached in the same way as I describe above, for they need not always be fast, quick draw and contemporary. They can have that dreamy, reflective – approach that show the passing of time has mellowed their words.

On the flip side of the coin is the need to meet deadlines, to forever dream and never put pen to paper, or photograph to print and frame is to be one who only speaks of creation without ever completing. Day dreaming for me however needs absolute calm, and quiet – and space. It’s like a caterpillar needing a cocoon to become what it is destined to.

Interestingly, yesterday when I was in the midst of playing with thoughts on my planning table, a kind soul came to let me know there were caterpillars outside that I might like to photograph. The sign of someone who knows the heart of me well and yet I haven’t known her long at all. Although I can’t contain my love of photography and it bubbles out to both old and new friends, so she had observed me on clean up day at the school when having a break from weeding chasing butterflies, well trying to be still and chase them with my camera eye and had logged it in her memory bank. She also knew I had a good camera. I hadn’t been out to explore the day so much as I was stuck at that planning table – I had forgotten to give myself true daydream space. The little ‘daydream’walk to video and photograph the caterpillars gave me some peace and calm and it was soon after this that I was able to pull my thoughts on the upcoming Smile Within Exhibition into a cohesive shape. It’s all about learning to trust the creative cocoon, but also trusting how to build it.

Experiences of Epiphany – in the ‘Big Smoke’ Part 3

Brisbane March 2011 037 — West End Markets – June Perkins

Saturday Morning 10th March

The morning of the aftermath presentation arrives and my friends ask if I’d like to go to the West End Markets before my talk. It seems like a good idea to quell the nerves.

It is something to behold though, we arrive to a mellow saxophonist sitting by the entrance. The car park is almost to capacity but we are directed to a spot near an oval and park a short walk from the stalls.

The market itself is a sea of people. We are moved on a wave of humanity and have almost no individual identity. Stopping to look at stalls is a mild relief but hard when you want to hop back on the wave and move. It’s crowd surfing on the edge for someone who now has the soul of a country girl.

My hosts are apologetic saying they usually come later and it’s not quite this fast moving sea. They are tired out by the moving wave. I stop to find some material made flowers, and the seller of these is a very arty looking young lady who also has an array of colourful scarves. I will place one in my hair as goodluck for the looming presentation.

I keep my wits about me, to make sure my son is not swept away by the wave. Karen orders some pumpkin and curry puffs for a small snack.

We head off to where there is usually music, but instead there is a loud performance and a couple of people are in what appears to be a television studio on the go. It could be pantomime, I am not sure. We don’t stop long. It’s not our cup of tea.

Soon we escape though and sit under a large avenue of trees and Daryl dives back into the sea to grab coffees and a hot chocolate for us.

Karen tells me that she grew up in the country too, and isn’t that keen on the state of the market today; they like to come when it is less crowded. She tells me about other markets in the area and their character.

Daryl tells us about the trees and how they had been roped off for a long while to recover from all the trampling on the ground near their roots andthe disease they had. Many trees have been lost. The hope is that the break from people and treatment will assist them to survive. I share a little of our lost trees in Tully and the cyclone hit areas. So many humans love trees – and associate them with memories. I wonder what happened to the lost Kauri Pine out the back of our old place in Feluga. It was so tall and so attractive to birds that nested there. Now it’s just a photograph. I wonder if the wood was put to good use.

My son chatters as well, about all the things dear to him and what he’d like to do for the rest of the trip. He is keen to go to the movies that evening or afternoon if we can.

Soon we are away again, back to Daryl and Karen’s for a brief break before heading off to a café near the Queensland Museum.

They drop me and my son off as we are there early to prepare before the talk – and they will return later. We are at The Café waiting for Miranda, Scott and Solua to arrive. We seem to be first on the scene. Whilst we are waiting we notice people hiring picnic baskets and going and sitting on the lawn to be served as if they are high class society people with butlers.

Miranda arrives with her brother Roly – and we take a table ready to have a last minute discussion before we head off to the Museum to present. Scott and Solua are not far behind and discussions begin.

I ask my son to photo document, and he takes to his task with relish. I realise how much he has been watching me take photographs. He is not at all scared to take on this role.

Brisbane March 2011 042 — Break from the Wave – June Perkins

To read the account of the Aftermath Presentation at the Museum click here. I’ve posted it at ABC Open. But our Brisbane Adventure doesn’t end there …

Memories of the Winds of Yasi

school yard tree - straight after Yasi — June Perkins – Trees after Yasi

This morning the wind woke me up. It’s waking up a lot of us who remember the storms of Yasi not to mention the flooding afterwards. We often get flooding up north, but the Yasi floods were full of debris, and on top of already coping with blown away rooves. Rain meant life felt even trickier for all those camping out and retrieving things from their properties and clearing roads was harder.

We know that was all a year ago, but our bodies feel and hear that wind throwing leaves, left over debris, and branches around – and can’t help but pay attention even when our minds think we can deal with it. In the same way my youngest feels thunder storms in his tummy and he doesn’t have control over it, not yet. My husband is always aware to make sure we drive when the roads are safe and to head home when floods threaten. He doesn’t want us to get stuck anywhere, and so we curtail conversations we’d love to have for longer and apologise – it’s time to go home while we still can.

It has been an amazing few days where I’ve felt the need to be with small understanding groups of people who get this feeling of slight apprehension when the wind blows.

In a radio interview I was doing I was listening to footage of our experience prior to being asked questions, and the emotions suddenly came to the surface and almost overwhelmed me. I did feel over Yasi – and had a lovely afternoon yesterday sharing stories of the brilliant events since Yasi with Emma and Leandro – and watching butterflies but listening to audio of us prepare and go through the cyclone that’s just very emotional still and it’s taking me I think unwillingly back to inside the experience of a year ago. Luckily the interviewer was so understanding as I explained how listening to that footage made me feel and was able to empathise without being trite about it so I got through the rest of the interview, partly by focusing on the stories of others and the team at ABC Open.

At a book launch True Spirit of Cyclone Yasi I notice that people are reflective, contemplative as we know there are people under tarps, and there’s so many more stories than can be fitting into the book of this experience. Launch goers smile almost hesitantly and there is much beneath the surface, but also much to celebrate. The scaffolds and clearances are still going on. Rebuilds are being halted by the rain. Yet, there is something trimphant in every time we come together and see the positive.

To understand how I feel if you weren’t in the cyclone – try going to visit the links I’ve put together in storify – Yasi in Storify – that will give you a glimpse into this experience, or buy Bernadette Lawson’s book True Spirit of Cyclone Yasi.

017 — At the Tully Book Launch True Spirit of Cyclone Yasi – June Perkins

Here is a first draft of my early morning poem:

Wind mock me with memory

shock me with sounds of past long gone

strongly felt

mysterious and hiding all that moves

Turn me inside out like a shirt put on in the dark

and placing ridges on my outer being

where everyone can see I’m outside myself

remembering all that was

Turn your clouds into rainbows

and paisly patterns of the soul

Sprinkle brilliant flecks of colour

into stepping stones to the doorway of optimism

You laugh at me

knowing I love you when you’re a cool calming caress

to humidity and blazing eat your skin sunlight

I can sense the need for poems

as floods return to places they once were

and more disasters loom.

In poetry perhaps optimism can find a place as

fickle nature takes only a course it understands.

(c) June Perkins

Wonder a day 18: Sunburst

gleam of light - mission beach — Sunburst at Mission beach – June Perkins

I looked back through my photographs of the last year to discover lots of images of light peering through trees – why do I love these little bursts so much?

They symbolise the power of light to reach out and change what you are looking at. A cyclone broken tree with a slice or shimmer of light is poetic, hopeful, and uplifting.

The sky is a place free from sad faces and sorrowful buildings – cracks and tarpaulin, tempers and impatience, it follows its sunrise – daylight, to sunset to moonlight cycle regardless of people.

Sunset still captures the heart into peacefulness even when all else is a hurried pace of coping and moving, running and packing, and moving.

Sunset over farms, canes, beach – the light and patterns of colour on the sky inviting a smile and a gasp.

Please note:

When photographing sunbursts I use my flip out screen on the nikon, just to protect my eyes.

I love sunbursts – how about you?

(c) June Perkins

Wonder a Day 11: Cricket

at the cricket- fans 2 — ~Keen Fans at the cricket by June Perkins

Today’s theme the wonders of the great game – cricket!

We were blessed to take my youngest to a Pakistan versus Australia game where Ricky Ponting scored 209. We were on a trip to Tassie to see my parents and youngest who is a cricket fanatic worked out there was a game in Hobart and he just had to be there. Tickets were secured, not to mention baracking gear.

Living far from the capital cities where the games regularly occur is one of the sacrifices of living in the country, although locally it is also a common pastime for country people, along with golf, tennis – and fishing.

So there we were at Bellerive Oval – Hobert, grandad, bubu (PNG for Grandparent), me the kids, David and their Uncle Paul watching the cricket and youngest was in HEAVEN.

Youngest is about to be of the age where he can join a team. So far he plays regularly in the back yard and ropes us all into train him up. He has already played for his primary school team and is quite handy with the bat although he can’t join the town team until he is ten.

at the cricket - brothers — ~my sons at the cricket by June Perkins

If you follow my blog you’ll know that cricket played a role in our coping with Cyclone Yasi.

The Australia versus England the sixth one day International was on and the cricket fanatics of the family were keenly following it. It kept youngest occupied to think about how Australia was doing and was as important as details from the BOM site that my hubby’s brother was giving him once our power had gone out.

This was the story we shared with Damien Martyn when he came to the Bounce Back Concert in Tully. He was very kind to youngest and signed his shirt and hat. He listened to our story with interest. He even tweeted the photograph of the two of them together, which was rather sweet.

Ah the wonders of cricket not to mention caring cricketers!

(c) June Perkins