Repeat After Me

Chapter 39

Finally, there was excitement about the state slowly reopening. Clothing boutiques, art galleries, golf courses and tennis clubs welcomed the public back. Everyone had a spring in their step. All those things we'd taken for granted, all those outings we'd accepted as the norm, had become precious.

My friends from school, Libby, Luisa and I met at a café in a laneway near Collins Street. We had to log our names and phone numbers on a sheet of paper, as a condition of entry, in case of contact tracing. It felt as though we'd finally been released into a Brave New World. That the danger was over. We'd dodged a bullet. Australia was one of the luckiest countries in the world. Our government cared so much about us, they'd protected us from a catastrophe. All we had to do was download a government COVIDSAFE app on our phones, turn our Bluetooth on, and we'd all be okay.

We snapped Instagram shots of us drinking coffee and eating cheesecake. Around us, a busker played a stick guitar next to a dumpster. Someone threw a coin. Someone tossed their heart on a date. Hope was gambled. Self-respect traded. A waiter waited for clock-off time. A friend told a truth. A person littered. Everyone celebrated that the lockdown was over. Eating out was more special than ever, because it's not until you're completely deprived of something that you truly appreciate it.

Mr Colter took a small group of us year 11 art students to the city to visit the galleries. He made us look at the permanent collection rooms, upstairs, in the National Gallery of Victoria. He said, 'I know these rooms look boring to you. I know you want to walk through and see something more contemporary, more relevant, more of our times. But this is where art as we know it originates. This is beauty like nobody is making today. You must stop and pause and look. You need to know English art, Flemish art, French art, Spanish art. You need to know about the Renaissance and Impressionism. Art does not begin with Cubism or Modernism. You need to identify with what has come before.'

I looked around at the paintings hung closely to each other. These rooms had a dusty, ye olde feel, naked babies and stunned children, passive women in domestic interiors, assertive men in war situations, ships flailing in high seas. Mr Colter took a step towards me, 'Ivy, what do you think? Remember. Use your words carefully.'

I scrambled. None of this had an obvious appeal. 'The way they capture light is phenomenal,' I said.

'Exactly,' he replied. 'And even though you are doing contemporary work, you can learn from this. Look closely. Work out how they did it.'

He took a step away, and then turned back and looked at me.

'How about those life drawing classes?' he asked.

'I haven't found one yet,' I replied.

'I'll email you the details of a class in Brunswick. They should be starting up again. The teacher is incredible. I used to go there every week myself.'

And so, I finally enrolled in life drawing classes on a Saturday morning in Brunswick. The class was capped at 8 people. I was the youngest. The first time a life model stripped off his clothes, I blushed, feeling uncomfortable at my young female gaze on the old man's body. But as the hours rolled on, the body became less of a body and more of a figure, and my enthusiasm for drawing and observation became a compulsion.