Looking in a magic mirror....
It all began when I led a workshop in Melbourne.
It was for a lovely group of people called Feral Queer Camp who were meeting to think about “what makes performance queer; how we talk about queer performances; how we make performances; and, above all, how we might develop a network of queer thinkers”.
They were lovely to be with, and someone came up to me at the end and asked if I’d let them paint my portrait.
And I said yes, as you do, and we had some lovely meetings, and they took photographs, and then I went home.
And then this amazing picture arrived.
It’s very clear that the artist, C Tynan, is exceptionally gifted.
You can find out more about their work here:
And it’s remarkable that I should have been able to share their work this week.
Somehow, for me it’s turned out to be a big week for portraits.
On Wednesday I sat for Fionna Carlisle
And on Friday for Joyce Gunn Cairns
Meanwhile on Thursday, Fiona Robertson came for her tea. And she painted a beautiful watercolour portrait of me quite a few years ago.
And that’s made me realise, a bit to my astonishment, that these amazing artists are not the only ones.
There’s Pauline Lockhart, wonderful actor and black belt in taekwondo; Scottie Anderson, a genius in stage management; and Dot Tritschler, gifted author and sock knitter…and Neil Montgomery who’s such an incredibly good artist and photographer…
And I want to pay tribute to all of them, because what they do is truly miraculous.
Sitting with Fionna and then Joyce this week I was struck all over again by the incredible skill involved.
Conjuring up a human face with pen and crayon and brush and putting it down on a blank piece of paper.
And doing more than that: giving a sense of a person.
And that I should be given that: someone else’s take on me and who I am. That is the most astonishing gift.
Dear Mr Burns said:
“O, wad some Power the giftie gie us.
To see oursels as others see us!
It wad frae monie a blunder free us,
An' foolish notion.”.
Because we don’t really see ourselves when we look in the mirror.
At least I don’t. I see the bags under my eyes, the size of my nose, my double chin…
I see someone I try to forgive and put up with and make the most of.
But I don’t think I see me.
Certainly not the power I see in this portrait.
Queen Jesus says:
“We all have a light inside us. And sometimes it’s very thing we’ve been taught to be most ashamed of.
And if you have a light, do you hide it in a closet?
No. You bring it out into the open where everyone can see it.
And be glad it exists to shine in the world.”
I think we often do hide our light, just as we tend to hide our power, because we are afraid.
I was afraid and ashamed of myself for so many years.
And maybe the power of the picture comes from the fact that it is the creation a queer/non-binary artist painting a queer/non-binary subject in a way that to me both references a queer artist of the past (El Greco), sines a light on a better future and acknowledges the power of both our presences in this present moment.
I think it’s miraculous.
The only way I can understand it is to see it as somehow analogous to what I do when I create a character.
“Create’ is not quite the right word. It’s more about opening myself up to someone, and feeling what they feel, thinking what they think, and listening to what they have to say.
And then writing that down. Writing that down in a form that an actor can make use of it, in a way that moves the story on, and an audience can relate to it.
So the characters in my play are both me, and not me.
Or maybe not me and me…
It’s all very mysterious, and I can’t claim to understand it; but I suspect that a portrait is about the artist as well as the sitter…
And the picture is both of the time when it was made.
But also of the moment in which we see it.
And humans reaching out to us and to each other over space and time…
And that is the most beautiful thing.
And how much we need that. That vision of our shared humanity.
Thank you for reading.
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This is a Mille Feuille of a piece ! Loved it x