Gabrielle Brinsmead

We’ll meet again, years far from now

We’ll meet and talk; and share what’s been

Our own adventure in this shaky breath

Of our old Universe,

We’ll meet again

We’ll meet again, when our good stars align

When Death is clear, perhaps a future life

When we are ready to return to Source

Ever one soul, I know

We’ll meet again

-Ilaria Bruck

The mother of Moses sets him adrift in a basket of reeds. God protects and transforms. Which one of us walks in a way that is worthy? The mystery and magic of bulrushes, the Bible, oddly delightful memories, tying binds, new life.

I am on the tram, traveling to yoga. I look over the shoulder of an elderly woman and am struck by the phone-moniker of her interlocutor: My Lovely Daughter.

I think of my own lovely daughter, riding around Melbourne with her friends in a riotous game of train hide and seek.

I hope and pray that she arrives home safe and happy. And she does.

Christ bears five wounds. There are five pillars of Islam, five Olympic rings, five vowels in the English language and five elements. Lucky people have five fingers on each hand and each foot. Five is a prime number, a Fibonacci number and the hypotenuse of the smallest integer-sided triangle.

Inception. The first day of the year. Fervent prayers for health and for home. Fat, flesh-colored roses. Lichen, gnarled gum leaves and insistent wind. These joys, while we discuss parties to which we are no longer invited and which we no longer wish to attend. Resolution after resolution, including: to no longer be afraid of the sun, or of being alone, to forgive, and to allow myself the luxury of feeling forgiven. To progress with more joy.

One by one, lights appear from neighboring homes. Rain clears away, leaving a Prussian blue sky streaked with stars. Families prepare to eat the least meal of the day, before going to bed and to sleep. And so do we.

8 by 12 centimeters

Oil on paper

Some art teachers have too many rules. Don’t use black. Don’t use white. Don’t use too much paint. Don’t use a small brush. Don’t use a big brush. Clean your brushes and palette with this and not that. Don’t stand too close to your easel. Don’t stand too far away.

My feeling is that there are not many iron-clad rules, apart from don’t eat your paint. It’s a creative process. Some things work, some don’t. But if you follow someone else’s rules all the time, then it’s not really creative.

In this painting, I apply thick, black paint with a short brush and am mesmerized by my results.

Oil on paper

30 by 40 cms

I hide in this body. I hide in food. I hide in glory, and self-abnegation. I hide in wine, in love and in lust. I hide in children, in bottles and exhaustion and nappies. I hide in dogs and cats. I hide in Pakistan. I hide in books, and the never-ending busyness of universities and courses.

It’s an easy game for you, finding me, overturning my fragile barrows of dreams, and laughing, but kindly.

I try hiding in paint, but the paint speaks, sings: holy, holy, hallelujah.

Brush in hand, I give up. Lord, here I am.

Oil on paper

30 by 40 centimeters

I am what I am, resistant to the process of refinement or domestication. Forever a diamond in the rough. It turns out, I deeply identify with rough. Know it, love, understand it.

Oil on paper

30 by 40 cms

I saw an angel standing

In the sun, and she said

Love is in the air, and marriage, joy and rejoicing (after shipwrecks

Litter the coast), and

 roses and magic beans

Planted by the great, good God: all shining.

I

Am a clean, bright, light, white

Spirit who listens and speaks and lustily sings:

King of Kings, and Lord of Lords, forever

And ever, and forever amen.

Oil on paper

21 by 30 cm

Oil on paper

12 by 30 centimeters

However highly you think of yourself, you are more magical and magnificent by far. You have hands and feet and entrails and a face and a heart; you can laugh and cry and hope, fear, destroy and create. You are an entire planet, guarded by angels and guided by stars.

Oil on paper

8 by 12 inches

Wherever love and memory lingers, so also do thorns and prickles.

Oil on paper

21 by 30 centimeters

A sharp, wild wind is tearing through my tiny garden, tossing around twigs, leaves and dirt, and howling through a tiny crack in my patio door. It’s an ill wind that blows nowhere, but what will this one bring for us? My hopes and prayers are for health, wealth, new friends and joy.

12 by 16.5

My first completed painting in Melbourne is a triumph over adversity. Since we have moved to a tiny townhouse, I have to paint in my garage. It is very dusty, the light is poor, it is too hot or too cold, there is a car in the middle of it and it is also where I wash and dry the clothes.

More difficult than any of these factors is the shortage of time in my new home. I am running, running, running against the clock all day and at night, when I put my head down on to the pillow, it surges with ideas, plans, schedules, to-do lists and fears, so that sleep comes reluctantly.

When I was young, time and life had a different texture. Eating a banana or an ice-cream seemed to stretch out for hours. Walking to the shops was an event. Reading in my room was an experience so intense that it seemed to be outside of time. Now time runs faster and faster, so that my entire existence feels like a second or a minute.

Shortage of time, particularly towards the end of my painting session, fills me with an almost crippling sensation of panic and terror. I want more time, time that I cannot have. All that my painting needs to say, to create beauty, and peace, and a connection with spirits, and hope, even against hope, needs to be done with almost brutal rapidity. This painting is a message to myself: the time I have is enough to accomplish what I need to accomplish.