paintings and sketches – Gabriella Florek

Walking away from the precipice

pencil on paper, man’s best friend with a flower

Firstly, a secret: it is my birthday in a few days

Wasn’t it Cate Blanchett who once said that it is always more interesting playing a character who is clinging to sanity than one who has gone entirely mad? In my short foray into actor training I held this idea especially close. In my everyday life I am perhaps less good at following it.

I should clarify something: I rarely consider myself mad.

Most of the time, I am high functioning; I am a perfectionist; I live my life with a kind of rigidity that means even my bouts of depression seem to arrive on cue. I certainly struggle, but I like to disguise the struggle as much as possible. Some people have mused that perhaps “I am not being vulnerable”. Perhaps they have a point. But actually, in my deepest and darkest moments, I don’t feel there is particularly much to be vulnerable about. All that exists in those times is blankness, darkness and a painful nothingness that doesn’t even warrant a desperate escape from. I am so numb during those times, that acts of violence or destruction do not even cross the threshold of my brain.

So what am I disguising then, if it is not depression? I have suffered this for over a decade after all and I like to think I’m quite good at living my life with it on my shoulders.

The disguise is for something greater and scarier I think. At least scarier in my mind…

On the phone with friend in my parents garden after returning home, I noticed a small spider, no bigger than the size of my pinkie’s fingernail. It was in the act of constructing a delicate web. The web itself was as big as the hand of a grown man, but the thread which connected it was at least a couple of metres long – running from the bottle brush on one end of the garden, to the banana tree in the fruit patch. Every now and then, a gentle gust of wind would blow, and the spider would halt it’s movement, pause, take a breath and then, once the wind has settled, continue to work, as though nothing had happened. I watched this act in awe and with a kind of melancholy. The spider sensed a good time to work and build its web, even though it could have it ruined at any given moment, by any clumsy low flying bird, or a jumping cat or, god forbid, a brute and unsympathetic human.

I have no real ability to stop these things from happening. The spider’s web will not last forever, not matter how much I would like it too. But what I envy of the spider, is its ability to work fast, construct beauty, work without knowing whether the end will ever come to fruition, all in the hope that she may be able to catch something that she can claim as her own.

I talk a lot about the things I struggle with.

I talk less about the things I am good at and perhaps this is where the problem lies.

A “setback”, as big as what I have just experienced, would for many people cause them to lose a lot of time, energy, money, relationships and hope. In my case, I have somehow learnt to be emboldened by these setbacks. In fact, I don’t even register it as a setback, I register it as progress, as a chance to restart, refresh. I register it as freshly raked soil, as filtered water. Because what I have been reminded of in the last couple of weeks, is that I do have a community, I do have a home, I am loved and I am of value in the world.

And even if that value will one day cease, which it inevitably will, I can relish what I have while I have it. I can wallow in the muddiness of mess and success and pain and glory and friendship and love.

In a few days, I will be another year older. I hope for this upcoming year, this time, I will learn something slowly, in a less brutal way, in a way that doesn’t frighten others, in a way that doesn’t frighten myself, in a way that allows me to find something sustainable and less dramatic.

I’ve seen enough madness played by the great masters, the Hedda Gabbler’s, the Blanche DuBois’ or the lovely Sheba Hart’s. I know that they are not me. But I stand with them.

These women are my sisters, my friends, my mothers, my teachers. But I do not want to be them anymore than they deserve to be me.

I’m making my own gift for myself this year.

Happy birthday.

Inside

First written in 2015

Where there is little lavender, dreams grow bigger
inspired by floral dust collectors in makeshift vases
accidentally painted and stained with your name

Still life is life still

Ok, so perhaps this is cheating slightly because I didn’t paint this still life from a model arrangement – I kind of imagined it myself. I had hoped that the red fruit look a bit like pomegranate and the bottle is a little small and out of proportion AND of course, there isn’t much difference between the yellow benchtop and the yellow wall.

It would definitely be a nice challenge to one day paint what I see rather than what I imagine is nice to paint!

But all of this – is forgivable.

Tweedle dee and beetle tweedle

I sketched this beetle last summer when I was at a cafe in the city near the giant chess board in Hyde Park. I had recently picked up the print of a beetle from a young artist on Pitt Street. He was handing them out for free.

I loved his version of a beetle but I wanted to draw my own – half inspired, half imagined.

I don’t think the sketch is quite finished, but it was so satisfying and fun to draw and I’m oddly content with its half finished form. Sometimes the pressure of sharing work with someone else hinders my ability to enjoy the process of creating work in the first place. Finished products are good – but so are playful sketches.

a self portrait

I looked through the window and there she was: hair curled, hat on, blossoms protruding from her ears and pollen sitting on her eyelashes.

When I met her that day I realised I might never know what it was like to miss someone ever again. She was the mother and the gardener and the maid and the sister I had always imagined.

Somehow, in between all her coming and goings, we managed to forge a friendship of mutual respect. I was curious but shy and although I never expected for her to confide in me without invitation, she scribbled short, sweet notes for me on pieces of crumpled paper and then flattened them out and folded them before putting them into my palm.

“I can’t tell you who you are” she once wrote and I cried silently upon reading it. Later, when I was fiddling with the piece of paper, I noticed that scribbled on the back of it was another line. I can’t repeat what it said because I have long forgotten, but my chest hurt from laughing and I had to make a night time herbal tea which half knocked me out but at least calmed me down.

There she was. I saw her through the window.

The last time I needed her to be there she had already left and all I had of hers were blossoms that she discarded on the pavement. We had danced together in sleep and found each other among spirits but after she was gone it was as if I forgot my how to sing and all I had to console myself with were the bits of paper she had scrawled her uncertain wisdom onto.

I adored her but she left me. I think of her when rain pours onto the pavement but I can’t see which cloud is releasing it. And then I smile when I remember that it didn’t rain during all that time we spent together. The window I look out of now has a different view, but all I see is the shadow of her curls.