This column always throbs with joy when local artists find fine inspiration in the native flora of the ACT (instead of in the annual bogan horror of Floriade).
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And so, throbbing, we point to ceramicist Cathryn Franzi's exhibition, opening this week, of, among other things, her work (pictured here) 62 Orchids, Black Mountain.
Some of you, devotees of the arts and of this column, will remember how in 2012 she created some striking works using – boldly and beautifully – flowers of the Correa "Canberra Bells", the inspirational choice (made with this columnist's inspirational help) as our Centenary Flower.
Now, concluding her PhD program researching ways to represent the Australian flora and environment of the Canberra region, she has made these works depicting and celebrating the 62 (yes, 62!) species of exquisite native orchids growing on Black Mountain. They are part of the catchily titled 2/2015 Visual Arts Graduate Season exhibition running from June 4 to June 13 at the ANU's School of Art Gallery.
And while on the subject of artistic inspirations from the bush of the bush capital, we find the world famous "Powl", the Powerful Owl of Turner, continuing to inspire poetry. We have previously published verse it has dictated to its admirers, and here is some more, this time dictated to Michael Evans of Garran. Students of the giant fowl will know that while it has yet to carry off a Cavalier King Charles spaniel, it is killing possums, sometimes attractively dangling their half-eaten corpses on branches of trees near the Turner Bowling Club,
Possums think they're quite alright
Hid in darkness of the night.
They forget I have these eyes
That can penetrate the darkest skies.
Swooping low beneath the trees
I can smell one on the breeze.
Ah! There he is, the cunning dog,
Squatting near a hollow log.
Too late! He tries to dive inside.
I have him by his hairy hide.
Some may think I'm just a sinner
But who gives a hoot – I'm off to dinner.
Mention above, with a shudder, of Floriade, brings me to a vivid impression I have just brought home with me from Norway's capital, Oslo.
As reported, Floriade is only to bugger up Commonwealth Park for one more time (visiting the park today you can hear the park's trees, the breeze in their leaves, rejoicing that the tyranny of Floriade will soon be over). One proposal is that after this last one-site Floriade there could be a dispersed Floriade with Floriadey beds of flowers arranged throughout the inner city. This is what's going on, as you read this, in springtime inner Oslo where there are super plantings of brightly coloured tulips wherever one strolls.
Wondering why this looks so gorgeous while Floriade looks so ghastly, I deduced that Oslo's grand, CBD beds of flowers arranged where citizens go about their everyday gambolling don't have the arch artificiality of Floriade's one-site theme parkery.
Another thing that makes Oslo's massed tulips work is that, usually, tulips of just one radiant, spring-welcoming hue are massed together. Aesthetically, this is very pleasing, whereas Floriade's promiscuously mixed multicoloured beds create the floral equivalent of the patterns of the worst Hawaiian shirts.
But back to Canberra, the Oslo of the south, where members of the Kingston Barton Residents Group are reported by this paper to be aghast at reports that Manuka Oval (in our picture being visited by a dignitary) is seeking exemptions from light and noise restrictions. Oval managers want to be able to stage events that last later and make more noise than is at present allowed. Even stagings of grand opera have been hinted at.
The group has issued a succession of formal complaints over local community angst about goings-on at the oval and is bristling with extra angst over the possibility of things getting brighter, later and noisier.
"[The proposed amendments] would allow Manuka Oval to host numerous events . . . hosting these events under concert-like conditions will have an impact on the amenity of surrounding suburbs," group president Rebecca Scouller has said.
Some of us who love cities will wonder if there is not more to rejoice about than to whinge about living within earshot of a great venue. The tumult of a crowd of thousands gathered in an arena for a great occasion is, for those who have the ears to hear it, a thrilling thing, and part of the spine-tingling music of a true metropolis. The roar of the floodlights, the smell of the crowd.
It is part of the nature of cities, real, broad-shouldered cities, that they make some noises; bustling, clanging, busy, boisterous, industrious, lusty, life-being-lived, city noises. A deathly quiet city, the dream of so many Canberra FWWs (first world whingers), the sour folk who complain about every noise from the call of the koel to the clatter of the SouthCare Helicopter as it goes about its work of saving lives, is an oxymoron. A deathly quiet city is as oxymoronic as a deathly quiet symphony orchestra.
Why is it that Canberra's residents' groups only ever make whingeing noises? Why don't they break up the monotony of their high-pitched whining noises by issuing the occasional heartfelt statement (just one a year would make a difference and give them some credibility) about how glad they feel to be alive, to be living where they reside, in a metropolitan paradise that is the envy of 99.9 per cent of struggling mankind?
