You will be told to get a good job.
Told to work hard.
To make money.
To have a nice car, a nice house.
To be successful.
However.
You may not be told, to lie in the grass and look at bugs.
You may not be told, to sit quietly on the clifftop, feeling the wind on your face, landscape spread out in front of you.
You may not be told, to enjoy the warmth of a hug.
To enjoy and savour the gift of life.
But.
You have been now.
The yell of survival.
Too loud to ignore.
It demands attention, and gets it.
But perhaps beyond survival there is a rapturous space.
An uncluttered place to see a tree, and to feel the movement of the ocean.
Or the room to truly experience touch.
To feel clothes or satin air on skin.
Perhaps the secret to living deeply is to walk the line consciously between survival and space.
“Island Study III by Mark Waller”
The canvas doesn't lie.
It doesn't judge.
Empty space and quietness.
Pure possibility.
Until....
A decision is made.
And then it accepts without question,
Clumsy efforts to create, to document, to play.
Colour, shapes and movement all thrown together.
The canvas doesn't care.
It is unadulterated acceptance.
It has few shoulds, and few shouldn'ts.
And is always ultimately accepting of my efforts to impress,
Or dance,
Or celebrate,
Or even worship.
My flaws are less felt in that space.
Busy and yet quiet.
Sometimes the greatest moments in making paintings,
Is in the emptiness.
I feel love, very strongly there.
A tear.
Fresh.
Warm.
Salty.
Running down a temporary cheek.
An assembly of flesh and elements that are destined to disintegrate.
The tear too is temporary, and yet somehow more magical than the puny collection of atoms that created it.
Its creation was inspired by awe and born of love.
What great miracle could there be?
I used to think I was different.
And it seemed to be so.
And perhaps I am.
I’m supposed to be a grown up.
Practical and driven.
It’s what I was taught to do.
Except I never stopped looking at the fluff on moths,
And the light on a bird’s wings.
I found geckos hunting in the roof of leaf huts,
And I stared at the sky in awe of the magic of existence.
Perhaps I’m not so different.
Perhaps I simply never lost my curiosity.
Kumula.
It’s almost dark.
The tiny tangle of trees on the sandy cay is hot property.
The frigate birds wheel and turn in ever decreasing spirals, descending in their thousands into the dark folds of the mangroves.
Home.
It’s silent, eerie and mesmerising.
Hypnotic.
It seems unreal, and demands your silence.
In your silence there are the sounds of the water lapping.
We sit in awe and then in the darkness we turn to our home.
Kumula.
Leaf Hut
Woven and tied.
My basket house is beautiful.
A special leaf collected,
folded and sewn,
tied over a particular timber,
and then tied over the limbs of mangroves.
Strong.
A conglomeration of sweat, co-operation, song, and thousands of years of knowledge.
Even more wonderful when dry inside and lulled by the sound of rain.
Face pressed to the window.
I never get sick of this.
This small aircraft represents something wonderful.
It's noisy and cramped. I'm going somewhere special.
Coral, sand, water, and colours impossible to describe.
An endless chaos of greens.
Life.
And the people.
I well up tears of beauty.
People with nothing, laughing, singing, and a hint of mischief behind their eyes.
Generous and giving.
These people.
This jewel of a planet, so precious.
It never ceases to amaze.
What’s the point?
What’s the point of sitting quietly in nature?
Or on a city street - quietly watching the machinations of people and planet?
What’s the point of taking paint and a brush, and standing for hours, scraping them over surfaces until some indefinable point is reached?
Perhaps there’s no point.
Maybe that is the point.
My paintings are not pretty pictures.
They are subversive.
They can bring down walls.
In the world of busy, in the world of goals, of strivings, my paintings say “stop”.
Stop.
Be still.
And see the magnificence of existence.
Another day wrung dry.
Tired.
Sore.
Muscles used.
Body worked.
Minor collateral damage assessed, and then ignored.
The price of being alive.
The gift of being able and willing to dance the dance of life.
Another day ending.
Tired.
Sore.
Content.
Smiling.
Memories.
Everything you know will fall apart.
The car you have.
The job you go to, and the people you love.
They will disassemble, collapse, and eventually return to the stars.
Leaving you with
memories.
Make them good my friends.
My paintings are superficial.
How can they not be?
Shallow manipulations of paint, and brushes.
Simply colour, and material moved around on fabric.
Meaningless representations of objects that have been assembled over billions of years, by forces unimaginable, and time scales incomprehensible.
Sunshine, rain, a tree, and dirt.
And you.
Objects.
Seen in awe, painted in wonder, and mesmerised by existence.
And just paintings.
It’s shown to me, the miracle of a dog wagging its tail.
Of love, alive and adoring, to the stranger and friend alike.
No conditions, no judgments.
Simply aware. And curious.
I saw a baby one day.
It was a miracle.
A smile full of love, alive and adoring, to friend and stranger alike.
No conditions, no judgments.
Aware. Simple and curious.
I see me some days. Smiling, full of love.
Alive and adoring friends and strangers alike.
No conditions, no judgments.
Simply aware, and curious.
Aspiration.
Limited Edition Archival Print “Freedom” by Mark Waller
To be alive is a wondrous thing.
To be able to see a sunrise, a dog wag its tail, or dew on a leaf.
To be able to hear anything is incredible.
A bird singing, water moving, soft voices in the distance.
And to feel skin against skin, salt spray on your face, grass under foot, or love.
And then to smell freshly cooked food, a bakery early in the morning, or a baby.
To be alive is a wondrous thing.
But to be consciously alive…..
Is rapturous
Your mind is not always kind.
It will find flaws.
In you, in others, in life.
Perhaps there’s wisdom in sitting in front of a flower and watching it sing to a bee.
Maybe there is something in quietly losing yourself, engrossed.
Lost in watching the ocean.
Perhaps in those moments you have left the mind behind.
And your mind may then find the place to be kind.
To everything, and everyone.
Including you.
“Solomon’s Sunrise Study” by Mark Waller
A tide comes in, and recedes.
The rain comes and goes.
Happiness emerges and then dissipates.
Birds waken from quiet and sing.
Sadness ebbs and swells.
Joy dissipates and then returns.
Summer fades and winter arrives.
Perhaps it’s only the mind that resists change.
The strongest people are easy to see.
But it’s not their size that gives them away.
They’re often small.
It’s not the volume of their voice.
Their strength can be shown in silence.
It’s usually not their position that shows the depths of their resilience.
Toughness can be unassuming.
But yet it’s there.
Clear.
Unambiguously shown in kindness.
Kindness in the face of cruelty.
Kindness in the face of greed.
Kindness in the face of anger.
Kindness is strength.
And it is beautiful.
Show your strength.
Rain.
Cleansing, revitalising, life giving.
Vital.
Magic.
Falling from the sky, recycled over and over again.
In you, through you.
Shared with lives, over millions of years.
Calcium, Iron, magnesium, oxygen, and more.
Recycled and shared again and again.
Recycled materials, surrounding a blue orb, in the depths of space.
Now tell me that you’re separate.
If I’m to be remembered for anything at all,
maybe it will be paintings; colour, light and shapes.
Perhaps it will be for my appearance.
Robust, paint streaked and dishevelled.
Maybe it will be for my likes and for my dislikes.
My love of nature; of love.
And dislike of greed.
Or perhaps for my opinions.
Strident, loud and sometimes heated.
But truly if I’m remembered for anything at all,
let it be kindness.
