People pass like ships in the night, occasionally holding up their glasses in salut as they sail by into the darkness.
Sometimes they stick around for a while, help to pass the time.
But as the time passes you realise that the vision you long and pine for, that thing that keeps you going is sitting on the horizon like a trick of the eye. These people who help to pass the time, make time pass...
I am building a gallery, and I approach it like any other artwork. Because it is in itself. It speaks, it breathes it takes shape and grows. I mold it with these two hands, I gave it birth and now I watch it grow. It was a vision and now it is a reality. I have myself invested in it, more so than I have in anything else.
I am the Owl. And my gallery is my Pussycat.
It's taking more strength for me to keep going than I thought it would. I guess I never thought it would be easy, but in the words of Mz Crow- no one said it would be this hard.
Personally I mean... no one said it would be this hard... I guess because those who would have said probably thought it was all just another thing I wase talking about... "one day I will do this...".
You give up your life of nothingness, and all those nothing friends... by which I mean all those friends who liked to wade with you in the shallow pools of nothing much... and as you step into the skin of the man you always longed to be, the man you always thought you where... they just seem to drift away.
But slowly other people come along. People who like the new you, the driven, motivated you. The you with a purpose. But is that me? I question it so much.
I have this dream for the space- the gallery. That it should be somewhere that is all about the art, whatever that should be, and letting artists express themselves, and letting there creations live and breathe and take shape. And for them to make money from this, to find a market, to mold their dreams into something that they can live on, and love doing. So that they can go on creating, and turn into great, inspirational artists. The artists they already are inside, but so that one day the world can see this. And eventually, one day, I will have done my bit towards creating a culture in Melbourne that has nothing to do with sport. Not a sporting culture- but an actual one.
Where is the Ausie fair go when it comes to artists?
I say to my friend, one of the ones that stuck around- this is too much for me. I was not made to carry this weight. Surely someone else should be doing this. Who am I? Why did I think I could do this?
He says to me- maybe you can't, but no one else is so you may as well try.
I guess a part of me drifted away with those lost friendships. Perhaps it was a me of a time and place, a skin that was comfortable to sit in for the first part of my life, and like any lost childhood I guess it is natural to morn it's passing. But I often find myself longing for simpler days.
This brave new world now is a world of success and failure. Mostly success I must say up till this point, but still it is two steps forward and one step backward. Most of the obstacles happen in my own head, and the more I see this the more I realise that we live in a world of open opportunity. These riches sit on the shelf and just wait for someone bold enough to reach up. These perceived forces that pull you down and stand in your way are mostly constructs of ourselves. There is no great oppressor but ourselves.
We are both the man and the one that dams him.
The we that is the western world. The we that was born into privilege.
But what should we do with that privilege? Send it back out of guilt, or some lost feeling of obligation to those who do not have?
I feel this pull. This - I am not worthy mentality that so riddles the socially aware of my generation. But what should I do wit these feelings on unworthiness? To me it seems like just a slap in the face to all those who long for it, to not accept it with open arms when it is just handed to me purely for the country I was born in.
Besides, there are too many people in this world who would not have these qualms. Who would bight, kick, tear, scream and wrestle their way to the top, only to look out for their own when they get there.
The left ranks of our political system is riddled with self doubt and introspection. Because this is where the morals lie. But to see beyond yourself... look through the mirror and cast your reflection onto the world- this is when greatness is achieved.
Jesus... where did I go there? Lets keep in mind that all I am building is an art gallery!
But it will change the world. If only in the smallest little way.
As I sit here, sipping my vodka and coke, the grooves in my hands clinging to the plaster and paint of todays renovations, thinking about the various projects already underway in the gallery, and the ones coming up, thinking about the routine of my life- vastly different to the one I had, thinking about the amazing people I have met over the past few months, the artists who have changed my art, the business people who have shaped my vision, the family members who have swelled with pride, the friends who have stuck around and give me their embrace, my psychologist who smiles and nods at my progress, and tells me I may not need medication after all... After all this...
And I think... My world has already changed.
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