Flow
Clare Britton, Visual Artist
I’m in the middle of the bridge that crosses Gooliyari/ the Cooks River- a grey area between the suburbs of Marrickville and Earlwood. Bidjigal Country. The structure underneath my feet is a conglomeration- steel, concrete, and bitumen that’s come from somewhere else. Swallows are diving over the muddy water. They’re making little arcs to their nests under the bridge. The blue on their backs is shining. It’s spring. The river is thick, brown and full of sediment. Today is sunny but over the last week, there has been so much rain that the roads have looked like rivers. The stormwater is still working its way through the system. There is a mound of sediment I can see that has made a muddy island in the river. The water’s surface tension is dancing around the hotspot of the sun as it moves slowly moving out to sea.
Flow.
The gesture of the tide coming in and out every day changing more slowly than we can perceive. This tidal movement is like practice, like breathing. You go to your studio, rehearsal room, or desk, and you try, and you keep trying.
Then there is the chaos and beauty of rain in the catchment. Sometimes streams entirely disappear if there is not enough water, when the conditions are right, the puddles connect. Rainfall events are the part of flow that we are not in control of.
The city is a complicated catchment area, and a lot of things end up in the river that aren’t meant to be there. Being able to distinguish between what's for me and what isn't, is a skill I've had to work on. It's still not a perfect system. When we go out with the Mullets for river clean ups there are sometimes dolls or bikes or pieces of packing tape that are supporting so much life that we leave them there.
Flow, to me, is balancing, the things that you are in control of, like working on your skills and developing daily practice and the things that you're not in control of, like opportunities.
Being outside, eyes on the river, is a beautiful place to hold all that together and let it go.