Who is Canberra? Yes, we really do mean who rather than what because Sean Costello of the indispensable Capital Yarns (his online and zine fictional yarns about Canberra, inspired by Canberrans) has invited people to imagine Canberra as a person.
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We will return to this fascinating exercise in a moment after observing that whoever Canberra is, he or she is likely to suffer from that peculiarly Canberran condition, the BTE (Big Thing Envy) syndrome.
Average Canberrans (those of us, most of us, in touch with our inner bogan) have always envied those places graced by a Big Thing. We envy Coffs Harbour its Big Banana, Glenrowan its Goliath-sized Big Ned Kelly and (sigh) go green at the thought of Meninidie's towering Big Scotsman playing his behemoth bagpipes. Meanwhile our city's governors, blinkered aesthetes, strenuously deny us the joy of anything colossally kitschy.
We mention BTE Syndrome because Bendigo is as we speak blessed with Seward Johnson's monumental sculpture Forever Marilyn. Normally decorating Palm Springs in the US (after a guest spell in Chicago) the work honours the most famous of all Monroe images. It is that moment in The Seven Year Itch (1955) when a street air vent plays erotic havoc with her dress.
Fortunate Bendigo, to have this kitsch masterpiece on its first ever excursion beyond the United States! It is eight metres tall and weighs 15,000 kilos and came to Australia with a sea voyage taking 33 days. It is decorating Bendigo to coincide with Bendigo Art Gallery's sparkling Marilyn Monroe exhibition presented in concert with 20th Century Fox.
Progressive Bendigo! Thrill-seeking Victoria (for the state government supported the voyage of Forever Marilyn to Bendigo). Would a proposal to bring Forever Marilyn to Canberra have had a snowball's chance in hell? Surely our bean-counting fogeys (perhaps forming themselves into a Complaints Choir for the purpose) would have complained about the project's cost.
Marilyn Monroe continues at Bendigo Art Gallery until July 10.
Meanwhile, it emerges that while this is the only Big Marilyn in Australia, there is a Quite Big one (she it sitting atop a pole) at the Fredo Pies bakery shop at Frederickton near Kempsey in NSW. Does any well-travelled reader (for Frederickton is off the beaten track) have a high-res image of Frederickton's treasure they can send us?
Now, putting aside frivolous depictions of women and turning to serious ones, we point to today's column's other image, Caroline Ambrus' Self Portrait.
This very beautiful but also nightmarish painting is one of several Ambrus works in a new exhibition Consequences that opened on Thursday at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre. It features the work of Lucille Carson, Judith Collette and Caroline Ambrus, friends from their student years at the Canberra School of Art in the 1960s and 1970s.
Caroline Ambrus' paintings in the show are the realisation of work she started more than 30 years ago.
"They were raw, unfinished works, which hinted at traumas I tried to forget," she says. "I put them away, not knowing what to do with them. Then this year memories re-emerged after family reunions and the past became fresh again. I resolved to complete the unfinished paintings and to express how I really felt about being a victim of domestic and family violence."
She knows some will find the images confronting but believes that at this time in her life she is prepared to be frank and talk openly about the victimisation of women.
This columnist has spent decades urging Canberrans to stop only ever painting chocolate boxy images of gum trees and parrots and to paint about the real world. This exhibition is refreshingly parrot free. The Tuggeranong Arts Centre assures us that: "The intention of this joint exhibition is to provoke audiences to re-engage with ideas we often neglect to address".
Consequences continues at the Tuggeranong Arts Centre until June 18.
And while we are probing like this for the essence of Canberra (always this column's mission in life) we come back to Sean Costello of Capital Yarns. http://www.capitalyarns.com.au/
He testifies that "At my recent Suitcase Rummage stall I invited visitors to tell me how they would describe Canberra as a character in a book. I had some incredible responses, which really gave me some food for thought for future Capital Yarns stories."
"I tried to encourage entries with a mocked up Canberra doll on hand, complete with local teams' colours. Interestingly, Canberra seemed to be described in equal measure male and female.
"Virginia won a free Capital Yarns book with her entry: 'Canberra is like the younger brother, who is a bit shy but secretly creative'."
Costello muses that, "I hadn't ever found myself thinking of Canberra that way, but I suppose we are often the quiet little brother at the Australian family dinner table, fleetingly displaying our true creative flair".
From other entries he found that many of us believe shyness a Canberra quality. Tabitha imagined Canberra as, "An introverted friend who enjoys coffee and art galleries." Shane thought of Canberra as "A shy teenager with overbearing parents".
But Sharon had Canberra as "a cheeky child, a puddle-jumping, sunny, wondrous itty bit of a thing".
Perceptive Isabelle saw our city as "the quirky cousin at a family dinner".
Quirky readers are invited to send us their descriptions of Canberra the person.
