The herringbone floors of my heart
There are those places that can feel like an extension of your being. That you sometimes visit in your mind when you cannot be there physically. Home, but not as we know it...
There are those places that can feel like an extension of your being. That you sometimes visit in your mind when you cannot be there physically. Somewhere that elates your heart like nowhere else. For me, the Art Gallery of NSW (AGNSW) is that place. I often think about how a public space can feel so much like home for an introvert like me. I have a strong dislike towards crowds, and although I love my fellow humans, I love them at a distance - and that has nothing to do with social distancing… just introvert distancing. These self-imposed rules go out the window with the AGNSW. There I feel naked and free, and also cosy and enveloped in belonging. Although I try to go upon opening to avoid the crowds, there are still tourists and art students and locals who walk the the halls that feel as though they are walking the chambers of my heart.
This kind of kindred ownership I feel for a building I do not own is strange at best, and when I try to explain it to the people in my life, they laugh at my quirkiness and my ability to romanticise absolutely anything. It is more than that though, the notion of a heart-home. Not a physical home where I lay my head to rest at night, but a place where my spirit can feel totally at ease, where the walls are familiar and the floors creak to a tune I can recall by memory. Those herringbone floors, older than my grandparents, that I hope they never replace.
I know there are curators who make decisions on where the paintings go but I like to think I have a relationship with the building, and that she moves paintings to see if I notice - I always do. On my last wander through, the Picasso Reclining woman on a couch (Dora Maar) (1939) was not in her usual spot. I wondered if perhaps she was taken back as it is on a long term loan to the gallery. As I moved through the grand courts and over to the other side of the gallery, I found her. I quite literally whispered ‘there you are’. I thought that if anyone were to peek into my mind, speaking to paintings, they’d probably submit me for observation.
Pablo Picasso Reclining woman on a couch (Dora Maar) (1939) The Lewis Collection L2014.6
But this is about a spiritual home, not a physical one. Although the physical space is a delight for my senses, energetically the space is a safe haven. Recently, they opened the expansion which they had been working on for years. Seeing the new building, the North Building standing in all its glass and glory, I felt a tad emotional; even more space to call home. Although when I visited, twice in the opening week, I realised that although the new gallery was incredibly beautiful and so spacious, it didn’t actually feel like my heart-home. It was like visiting a gallery on holidays. I was in awe of the newness and the intention of all the pieces and placement, and yet it was just that, a visit to a gallery. It was then it occurred to me that it wasn’t so much the AGNSW as a whole that was my sacred space, but specifically the old building that I had been visiting since I was in a stroller. I have my favourite room, my favourite seat that I plant my butt on to write on my days off, I am familiar with every corner and every crevice, and yet still get surprised by seeing new acquisitions or when the building (yes, the building) decides to shake things up and move the paintings.
So although the art feeds me, and nourishes me more than food sometimes, it is the energetic space that means the most to me. A heart-home can be anywhere, it can be somewhere you only visit once or everyday, but it has to be a place where a part of your soul lives even after you leave.
Ooh I feel homesick for my childhood art gallery now - the art gallery in Southampton, UK, where there's a room with the wonderful Perseus Series by Edward Burne-Jones. There are many other art galleries that I love, but that one is a home from home in the way that you describe here.