The Wild Reed: Everglades Exhibition

The Everglades Gallery’s “Port Macquarie Themed Exhibition” (January 2-16) features works from two members of the Bayly family. My sister-in-law has a painting in the exhibition and I have three photographs.

The exhibition aims to showcase “quality artworks from local artists, showing their impressions of the beautiful city of Port Macquarie and the surrounding region.”

Over the past seven months while living back in Australia, I’ve taken a number of photos of the landscape of and around Port Macquarie. I’ve shared many of these via the Wild Reed (See posts listed under “The Sensual World” in sidebar.)

It was difficult to choose just three images for the Everglades exhibit but, with help from family and friends, here’s what I decided upon:

“Afternoon” – I took this photo during an afternoon walk in September on Middle Brother Mountain at Laurieton, just south of Port Macquarie. I shared it on The Wild Reed in unison with a beautiful poem by Rod Cameron, entitled “Afternoon”. It seems an appropriate title for this image as well – one which captures the tranquility of an afternoon in the Australian bush.

“Hidden World” – This is one of a number of photos I’ve taken while exploring the coastline around Port Macquarie. It’s actually looking down on a rock pool at the south end of Oxley Beach. The water is amazingly clear, and the patterns in the sand are beautifully intricate and mysterious. I don’t think I really appreciated the uniqueness of this particular image until other people began commenting on it.

Accordingly, I decided to forgo a more typical beach shot and submit this one to the Everglades exhibit. I named it “Hidden World” as that’s how I see a tidal rock pool. We often walk by such pools, unaware of the many forms of life they contain within them. They’re not so much hidden from view, as simply hidden from our awareness.

“The Glimpse of His Face at Morning” – As you can see this is actually two images combined to form one. The first is a photograph of my friend Greg and was taken almost eight years ago in Minneapolis. The second photo of the sky, however, was taken in Port Macquarie just a few weeks ago.

The title of this image, “The Glimpse of His Face at Morning,” paraphrases a line from “My Lagan Love” by Kate Bush. The lyrics of her version of this traditional folk song were written by her brother, John Carder Bush in the mid-1980s.

As sang by Kate Bush, “My Lagan Love” is a very haunting song – one which conveys a forlorn sense of loss. “Lagan” is an Old French, possibly Old Norse word meaning anything sunk in the sea (usually goods or wreckage), but attached to a buoy or the like so that it may one day be recovered.

Of course, in matters of the human heart, such “recovery” is not always easy or even possible. Perhaps Kate sings of a drowned lover, or of a love grown cold and which cannot be rekindled. Whatever the case may be, there is undoubtedly a haunting quality to Kate Bush’s lyrics – a quality I’ve attempted to similarly convey in this particular composite image.

Following are some images taken on the opening night of the Everglades Gallery’s “Port Macquarie Themed Exhibition.”