SILVAE
ISSUE #1 / AUG 2015
silvae magazine is for the lost, the homesick, the blooming
forests are important to us. forests are for
getting lost, for finding yourself, for appreciating silence and beauty. sometimes they serve as our surrogatehomes,too.wewouldlikethismagazine to do the same for you and we hope that you find parts of yourself within these pages and that you realise that being lost is not such a bad thing
there are no eulogies for the vanished
by priya bryant
BEFORE you breathe. you love otters, hostels, the Jesus and Mary Chain. you crumble rich tea biscuits between your thumb and forefinger; you laugh when we scold the mess. you paint meticulous nails, and nurture snide comments. “letting go is easier than it looks.” you say THERE ARE 4 DAYS WHERE WE THINK YOU’LL COME HOME it doesn’t matter now whether I trusted you. you fell backwards anyway. AFTER crudely, you tore your edges out of every photograph – or maybe you burned? I can see your lighter-flick now. do you look at singed flesh sometimes? do you think about what it left? there are no eulogies for the vanished, only raw-pain pleas on local television. you would say that you were just stain-remover. I would say that I’ve never used the conditional tense so often in my life, you fuck
BY DAY IN DAYLIGHT, THE WORLD HAS COLOURS UNCORRUPTED BY ARTIFICIAL LIGHT BULBS, AND THEY ARE TRUE IN DAYLIGHT, EYES ARE BRIGHTER AND SKIN SEEMS TO SHINE LIKE BRONZE STATUES OF OLD IN DAYLIGHT, WE NEED NOT GUESS THE CONTOURS OF THINGS BUT GRASP THEM, CONFIDENTLY THERE IS A WORLD OF IMAGES THAT TRAVELS TO HUMAN BRAINS WITH LIGHT, AND IT MELTS AND DISSIPATES WITH THE COMING OF DARKNESS; A WORLD EASILY LOST IF NOT TREASURED. NO MEMORY CAN PROJECT IT VIVIDLY ENOUGH, IN DREAMS AND DAYDREAMS. ALL OUR ATTEMPTS AT RECREATION ARE BOUND TO FAIL, ALL ATTEMPTS TO FOLLOW THE LINES AND SKETCH SHAPES ARE DOOMED TO BECOME A SURREALIST’S NIGHTMARE THERE IS A WORLD YOU CANNOT TRACE WITH YOUR FINGERS, A WORLD YOU CANNOT SMELL OR TASTE, A WORLD AS ONE-DIMENSIONAL AS FIRST LOVE. MOST OF OUR IMPRESSIONS COME THROUGH SIGHT, MANY CAN BE SUBSTITUTED OR RE-INVENTED WITHIN OTHER SENSES, BUT THERE IS A MARGIN COMPLETELY HIDDEN FROM THEM; A SCRAP OF PARADISE: A DISTANT GLEAM IN A GOLDEN TEMPLE ROOF THAT ONE COULD NEVER DESCRIBE, A GOLDEN FLICKER OF LIGHT THROUGH LEAVES, A GOLDEN BURN OF THE SUN WE DRESS FOR DAYTIMES AS IF THEY WERE SUNDAYS, WE WEAR OUR BEST SHOES AND LEAVE OUR STUFFY ROOMS, WALKING INTO A WORLD SO WIDE AND ENDLESS THAT WE CAN NEVER FULLY COMPREHEND IT. WE RELY ON THE VISUAL BECAUSE IT’S THE EASIEST, AND MOST PRECIOUS, SO WE CELEBRATE BY MATCHING COLOURS; SHOES AND BAG, DRESS AND TIE, JEWELS AND EYES WHEN DAYLIGHT FADES, WE ARE GREY, WE ARE SHADOWS WHEN DAYLIGHT FADES, EVERYTHING BECOMES ONE, ONE, ONE WHEN DAYLIGHT FADES, WE LOSE THE AUTHENTICITY OF WHAT WE SEE, IT’S ALL CHANGED AND DISTORTED AND GONE EACH TIME DAYLIGHT BREAKS, SMILE AT THE SUN AND WORSHIP THE EVOLUTION OF YOUR OPTIC NERVES, THE VISUAL CORTEX AT THE BACK OF YOUR BRAIN. WORSHIP THE WORLD THAT CREATED YOU THIS WAY, THE POSSIBILITIES, EVEN IF IT MEANS LEARNING EVERY SINGLE DOT AND SPOT ON EVERY BUTTERFLY’S WINGS
i. according to your website, your career began when you started drawing and writing on brown paper bags and displaying them in the window at the bookstore
where you worked. but can we go back further into your past, and even your
childhood, to find the seeds, the beginnings of roots, the unbloomed buds
of your passion: were there moments which you can focus on, even now, and know that they were what began your creativity? we’d love to hear that story.
Ever since I can remember, my desire to draw and my love of books have been inextricably linked. My father was a bibliophile and he had built a completely different space off our very 1970’s brick house that was wooden and made up of various weird angles with a staircase leading to a loft. The entire space was floor to ceiling of books like 1st editions, ancient history, religious texts, weird historical journals of facts, the classics and a lot of hollywood paraphernalia and obscure paintings. Within this collection was the entire catalogue of Peanuts cartoons and I would sit in this room as a kid and read them and take in the simplicity of Schultz’s line and subtle accompanying humorous text. I would always draw, with both my right and left hands and try to write with both and sometimes simultaneously. I would sit in this room, my escape space and read and just absorb so much information, play the piano and draw. Then I found this scrap book in there and it was a collection of all my mother’s drawings that she had drawn as a teenager and they were extraordinary – so sophisticated for her age that I suddenly saw her as a goddess for having this secret talent and it was this quiet turning point for myself where I knew that drawing was magical. I was a loner as a kid, but not out of desire, and my way of connecting with people was by drawing. I would draw to entertain other kids and generally it was drawing their dreams of the future or just stuff they were excited about. I won a state art competition when I was 13 and was awarded a ghetto blaster and $100 by a famous Australian artist and it kind of encourages me that it was my path of sorts. Secretly though, I always wanted to write, I wanted to write the greatest ghost story ever and illustrate it, but they were all shit. I also wrote about trees quite a lot. Since going to art school after high school, drawing has been an almost daily practise, although in recent years, writing has completely taken over as a daily practice. It’s my spiritual practise. I draw and write to release the deluge in my psyche. I did a TED talk on my creative process and how I arrived at drawing with my left hand like a child, it has a lot to do with untraining my dominant hand and left side of my brain from institutional thinking. It is also about the beauty in the flawed line and that something magical happens when you let go of striving for perfection and just be the feeling or idea you’re trying to release. Having said this, I’m a big fan of highly detailed art and anything that shows the authentic expression of the artist. I’m not a fan of elitist creations or overly academic processes at all.
asymmetries
truths & lies birthmarks scars relationships the days & weeks luck car crashes language & translations faces you & me
HOMEMADE POP TARTS
by lucy scott