 1On a whim she took to her wings she looked through the eye of a fish at things "Look you!" she said "Yonder I wish to journey, it looks mysterious and, topsy-turvy" *to take wing - to fly off suddenly: to depart without warning * look you! - please observe what I am saying |
|---|
 2Upon the whole, seh was on the case, she held her ground and trained her gaze. She tried in vain to place a grid upon the things she said and did. * Upon the whole - taking everything into consideration * To hold her ground - to maintain ones authority or influence |
 3She aimed her pitch and sang in the ditch, then talked to the horse with patted remorse. "Take to your heels, see foreign faces; the lines will fall in pleasant places". - to take to one's heels - to run off - the lines... pleasant places - I am fortunate in my worldly surroundings |
 4Paint stripped back, from here she knew that, soon she would unship her oars. Her breath evaporating, a scotch mist lay waiting, along the sheltered shores. - to unship the oars - to remove the oars from teh rowlocks - a scotch mist - a drizzling rain |
 5The rubicon she faced hid the future, frozen 'neath the eaves of the forest The doors she had chosen. - to cross or pass the rubicon - to take a decisive step to venture on a great and dangerous undertaking (The Rubicon is a small river separating Republican Italy from Cisalpine Gaul) |
 6A year or two, no, only two weeks, The travelling lady was out of the woods but still she shrieked "T'was not a cupboard love of a curled darling but a nostalgic flame for a long lost dove!" Or so it seemed at the time. - out of the wood - free from danger - cupboard love - affection springing from an interested motive - curled darlings - petted and pampered young men - flame - a sweetheart |
 7Her prospect bent through rocky face between the fallows pitched by space and so she cleft and beat the hoof at hack and heck: alone - aloof - to beat the hoof - to walk - hack and heck - profusely |
 8She wandered into Lombard Street a china orange amidst the attic-salt and bowls of porridge "Look, it is the shallowest sea I have seen in ages: Do you feel it as jelly or layers of pages?" Her query not heard from the bath-tub she rose translucent and no longer patient. - Lombard street to a china orange - something very valuable staked against something of little value - Attic salt - wit or refined pleasantry |
 9Painting the town red in a colt's tooth dress, old stones worn with smiles and wool-gatherer's vests. She thinks of the calm river filling with leaves and the shoe-polished hillside brown-scented with teas well, vineyards, rows of trees: Will they remember me? - Painted red - given over to merriment and high jinks - To have a colt's tooth - to have juvenile tastes - Wool-gatherer - one in an absent-minded state |
 10At the first blush all seemed too much she might never had known what a sight of things she did own. "Carry me to the station" she cried pushing her hair to one side - At first blush - to look hastily for the first time - A sight of things - a great number of things |
 11She sees with half an eye she smells with one nostril she measured noses at the hostel They saw eye to eye while the sand ran out and after a while they started to pout. - To see with half an eye - to see with great ease - To measure noses - to meet - To see eye to eye - to have the same opinions on any subject - The sand has run out - the appointed term has come to an end |
 12I see her on the horizon eating bread and sewing interfacing. Stark evening night baking sillouettes of industry. She is thinking: "A rolling stone gathers no moss, so I must take time by the forelock!" leaping upon her chariot horses one black, one white she rode off into the sunset. - To take time by the forelock - to act promptly - A rolling stone gathers no moss - a person who is always shifting about makes no money |
You and The View: 12 Eye Exercises
Centennial Park, Sydney 1994
A series of interactive sculptures take the viewer on a walking circuit through many of the park's richly constructed landscapes.
The idioms in the poetry and materiality of each work, evoke the quintessential 'Journey', of being in a new place, of the ups and downs and transformations that make up travel and relationship to various places.