(#8) New short fiction: The Sixteenth Brolga
A painting on canvas becomes a painting on skin - a fairy tale about transformations
Hello dear Joy Risers,
Sending this issue to you today gives me a very particular kind joy: this is the first time that I’m sharing new fiction with my community of readers here. I hope that in the busy-ness of December and whatever hemisphere/season you’re in, this story can sit with you in a frosty-windowed, cosy cafe, or under a blooming poinciana tree, or on your commute, or on the couch under your favourite blanket, or on your beach towel with the surf behind you.
The Sixteenth Brolga is an original fairy tale that I wrote at the end of last year. It was originally commissioned by one my favourite galleries in the world, QAGOMA, to coincide with their 2023 blockbuster summer exhibition, Fairy Tales, and was published in their exhibition catalogue book. Now, a year later, I am thrilled to share it here with you in this month’s edition of Fevers & Enthusiasms.
In this issue you’ll also find Wild Geese, a collection of things that have been calling to my heart lately, including a poem I think about every day, an app that’s helping me to better manage anxiety and worry, what I’ve been watching that’s fed my heart and soul, and more.
There is so much asking for our attention all the time - thank you for sharing your time with my words here and supporting my work.
If you are [creating] without zest, without gusto, without love, without fun, you are only half [creating]. For the first thing [an artist] should be is-- excited. [They] should be a thing of fevers and enthusiasms.
- RAY BRADBURY
The Sixteenth Brolga
The briefing that I received from QAGOMA asked me to write a creative piece reflecting the exhibition’s exploration of three of the major themes found in fairy tales:
Into the Woods (possibilities and dangers),
Through the Looking Glass (fantastical, parallel worlds),
and, Ever After (love, in all its complexities).
I knew instantly that my creative piece would be a fairy tale set in the gallery itself, centred around my favourite painting that hangs on the walls there - an artwork I love so deeply that a couple of years earlier, I’d had it tattooed on my body.
You may already know and love this painting too: Sydney Long’s Spirit of the Plains.
My tattoo inspired by Syd’s painting by the inimitable Samantha Smith.
A painting on canvas becomes a painting on skin… Writing this fairy tale gave me the chance to explore in words how being in the gallery feels, and the power that art has to transform all of us. In our own ways. The process of writing it was surprising, beautiful, exciting, and so satisfying, watching as, draft by redraft, the story revealed itself in its layers and wonders. The Sixteenth Brolga is very close to my heart. It’s such a delight to share with you.