Make a Date (with yourself)
Not quite Sydney Harbour - ferries in the harbour at Istanbul, Türkiye, 2011.
I’m dreaming of ferry rides and wine dark seas. The five bells of Sydney Harbour and an artist date on the Manly ferry.
There must be some ancient seawater coursing deep in my ancestral veins. I love all things nautical, from sailors’ knots to red spinnakers billowing in a stiff breeze. Yet it is ferries that I love travelling on the best. They seem very democratic and have a sense of purpose, plying their way across waters to service island outposts.
My first ferry travels were travelling from Townsville to Magnetic Island in far north Queensland during my teenage years. I loved that sense of travelling out of time into a magical subtropical world of rocky coves and sandy beaches. Fast forward to when I was 22 years old and took the ferry to Santorini and Crete. Long journeys, rough seas but a wild sense of adventure travelling to parts unknown.
I’ve returned to Greece many times since then, including a memorable trip travelling from the Turkish mainland to Chios and Lesbos. I was making daily collages on shipping tags that were easily portable and writing short haiku type poems to accompany them Here’s a couple I wrote about ferry trips from those journeys.
5-7-11 Leaving
on a night ferry
leaving Lesbos; hills cascade
into the bright sea
2-7-11 Hellas
on a small ferry
plying Homer's wine dark seas -
sunshine and sardines
Next week I’m off to Sydney for a few nights to share my love of ferries with my (nearly) 12 year old granddaughter. We’ll be catching the MFF Manly Fast Ferry which has a little bar/café inside it and I’ll be dropping off my artist book Post Operative to the Manly Library for inclusion in the Northern Beaches Library Artists’ Book Award. Already I’ve planned another trip to Manly for the opening awards night in April.
In her seminal book The Artist’s Way, author Julia Cameron maintains that all artists should go on a weekly artist date to keep their inspiration alive. While I continue to write ‘morning pages’ as a valued tool for daily reflection, sadly I haven’t maintained a regular practice of taking myself off on an artist date.
Intentional and preferably alone, these dates are designed to take you ‘out of time’, allowing you to be led by playful, self nurturing adventures, even if it is only to the beach by yourself or a bookshop.
I was speaking to a couple of artist friends the other day and one of them took herself off to the creek to spend a day lying under the shade of a tree with a book. Another has booked a ticket to a Cyndi Lauper concert, taking her nine year old self with her to rekindle that joy she felt listening to a playlist from her childhood.
For me it will be two trips to Manly, one next week and another in April when I will stay the night in an apartment all to myself. I know there will be icecream or gelato (or both) on the first trip, maybe even the second. I too am taking my younger self off on an artist date to fill the wind in my sails. Expect more boating inspired art in the near future…
On board the ferry leaving the island of Thassos, Greece, 2018
Proof of life - date stamped pic of me on board the ferry from Thassos to Kavala.
