I've been travelling to Hobart pretty regularly since November 2003, mostly to make
art. Last week I finally got to show my work in Tasmania at
CAST gallery.
When I was down there last week I had a very odd realisation- Mt Wellington was my first "Mt Fuji". It's shape is completely different but the way it's celebrated in art history and how you watch it is similar.
From the moment it greets you as you come over the ridge from the airport it shapes your experience of the city and the weather.
You search for views out of hotel windows, friends balconies,
check its peak to gage the weather,
admire its many moods.
I'm not the only one who has had this association. Below is a electrical street box near Parliament House.
Perhaps my attraction to Mt Wellington had primed me for my Fuji obsession and certainly if I lived in Hobart I would want to at least have one window that had a view towards the mountain (although not in the valley of South Hobart where you are in the shadow of the peak and some houses do not get any direct sunlight for six months). Also, I keep saying one day I will climb from the base to the summit- instead of the usual walk across heathland.
My story with Tasmania is starting a new chapter as I will mostly be travelling to
Launceston for the next 6 months and after that I hope to have a break from the south and spend some time in the dry centre, or wet north.
Just like it says in Nihon Hyakumeizan:-
ReplyDelete"A mountain watches over the home village of most ... people. Tall or short, near or far, some mountain watches over our native village like a tutelary deity. We spend our childhood in the shadow of our mountain and we carry it with us in memory when we grow up and leave the village. And however much our lives may change, the mountain will always be there, just as it always has been, to welcome us back to our home village...."
... or home Hobart, as the case may be.
From some of your previous comments I understand that you are based in Switzerland? I guess you can't escape mountains there. Most Australian cities are based on the coast and are mountain-less, maybe some cliffs dropping into the ocean but generally flat. I know when I visit a new part of Australia that is flat and open, I start to feel at home. When I can feel the dome of the sky my spirit soars.
ReplyDeleteI had to go to Japan to start loving mountains.