RIP Mollie

On Saturday morning I learned of the death of my Aunt Mollie, who was married to my mother's brother Uncle Mike for 49 years. I've delayed this post to give the news the time to travel.

There was something I didn't get the chance to do before she left us, a task written on a yellow post-it note next to my laptop these last few weeks:



"Write to Mollie" the note says. We didn't usually correspond directly, but I know from experience that newsy letters from friends and family can provide some comfort and distraction to the seriously ill in hospital. News travelled back and forth, but filtered through Mum and her brother and sister and was a step removed. It wasn't to be a farewell letter, just a bring-you-up-to-speed note about my branch of the family. Little things that might not have made it onto the family news desk. I have some regrets that I didn't get to send that letter, but she was in and out so often I didn't really believe that the clock was ticking with any particular urgency, that the time was upon us.

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A visit to the valley of the uncanny

Husband and I betook ourselves to the art gallery of WA to see the Patricia Piccinini exhibition of super-realistic creature models. Much skin, many wrinkles, a variety of orifices, stray teeth, scattered hair, and the odd freckle.

I should perhaps refer to the official blurb:

Created using a combination of materials such as silicone, fibreglass and human hair, Piccinini’s sculptures are familiar yet fantastical in their depiction of possible future species and their interaction with human beings. Often confronting yet endearingly vulnerable, her sculptures give form to her fascination with the relationship between the ‘natural’ and the ‘artificial’ while asserting the power of social relationships, love and communication. Piccinini’s work is fundamentally about the human condition, despite the quasi-human appearance of her sculptures. The artist sees them as ‘beautiful rather than grotesque, miraculous rather than freakish’.

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