By Vela Noble
A lone house juts out of the cliffs on Kangaroo Island, like a villain’s lair in a James Bond movie. Its floor-to-ceiling windows are marred only by salt spray and swallow poo. The receding orange cliffs set against a fierce ocean makes for a view even the stonemason called, ‘the best on the island’. I slink down into the backseat of our car and admire the azure downhill view of Cape Jervis, where the ferry departs. Today my dad, his partner and I are driving to our holiday house for a short trip planting trees. On the North Cape of Kangaroo Island, the fields of matted grass pocked with weeds make for a melancholic landscape. Having been ravaged by decades of farming, helping revegetate is the least we can do.
My bedroom on the island has large eastern-facing windows. This gives me a view of Boxing Bay, a beach only visited by tourists willing to brave the potholed dirt road. Bleached book spines featuring nautical adventures or “101 Guide to Prepping” line the bookshelf. Dusty DVDs, mostly starring Ben Stiller, have also been faded by the elements. A box reveals an arsenal of art supplies my mum ordered online. I unearth my mum’s fancy French Sennelier watercolours. They come in a navy carry bag with crisp brushes begging to caress a canvas. Staring at these items hits a nerve, but I tenderly place it in my backpack.
That same afternoon we plant some trees. We have around sixty to get through this trip, mostly bristly casuarinas and muntrie berry bushes. I gently pat around each seedling and send a prayer into the earth. After I have done the bare minimum, I do what I usually do every trip; I wander off. I decided to make the trek from Boxing Bay up the hill to the solitary lighthouse. Passing a droopily arching tree, I tentatively open my sketchbook and bring pen to paper. The earth and sky don’t like me much. Juicy fat ants keep biting me and my pale arms are getting fried. The drawing comes out horribly, so I shove the sketchbook away. Life isn’t just tough for me, but for everything out here. We once caught a monitor lizard so thirsty that it was licking a leak in our hot tub. We offered it a drink, from which it drank like a dog from a bowl. On the North Cape, you can often glimpse the grand wingspan of a sea eagle surveying the hills in search of prey, such as mice. Echidnas are a bit rarer to spot. They must have it tough too, for they could get mistaken for a chubby mouse. Everywhere I look, there’s subject matter pleading to be painted. It’s in the flattened fields where settlers heaved limestone into neat little rows, or in the sheep skull perched on the wire fence. Around halfway to the lighthouse, I see some abandoned machinery in the corner of a field. I attempt to sketch. Yet again, something isn’t quite right. So, I tear an angry gash with the pen instead. The overcast weather rolling in urges me to slouch on home.
A storm hits tonight. The windows in my room shiver under every gale. The little sprouts we had just planted are getting a brutal welcome to their new home, but at least the earth gets a drink. Below the house on the cliffside, a grove of wizened casuarinas grow sideways as a result of with this abusive weather. Somehow, they still grow. I teeter to the toilet in the middle of the night.
My mum took charge of designing this home and her dedication is apparent even in the bathroom, where a nifty hidden wooden panel pops out to reveal storage for toothbrushes and toilet paper. She passed away in 2020 and didn’t get to enjoy that hidden toilet paper compartment. Both here and at home, there is no escaping the memory of my mum. In the morning, the sun beams straight into my slumbering retinas. I had hardly slept. Dad cranking up the coffee machine doesn’t help.
“What are you going to do today?”
“More terrible art, probably.”
“Go for a walk. Look for some sea eagles. There’s so much to do out here.”
I walk down to the grove of gnarly casuarinas. A solitary sheep that strayed from the feral herd appears in front of me. It startles, the dags on its butt dangling with every leap. I follow it and reach a sandy spot on the clifftop. These trees survived last night’s storm, why can’t I survive this?
I rummage through my bag and realise I have my mum’s watercolours. I admire the glossy hues snuggled in their metal tins. It’s as if her dreams are laid to rest in this little plastic case. After my mum passed away, I suffered a psychotic break which impaired my ability to do art. Art had been my passion. Professionals tell me it’s not damaged and I’ll get better but, I have yet to see any proof of that. Seeing the dirty sheep posing right in front of me, I can’t help but have hope. This time I don’t draw, I paint. I pop open the water filled jam jar and bring the brush to the ultramarine. The blue spills onto my page. Next is the sky that’s freckling my skin. I am not just painting, I am soaring on wings and scurrying through the undergrowth on tiny paws. Like the almighty creator, I lay down the stoic earth. Before I know it, I have a picture. Hey, it turned out alright! Above all else, I was happy making it. That evening I showed the picture to my dad.
“That’s fantastic Vela! Why do you keep saying you’ve lost your art?”
He puts it on the stonemason crafted mantelpiece, next to a bowl of seashells and under the happy gaze of my mum’s self-portrait.
It’s a pale purple dawn when we depart. The white drop cloths draped over the furniture to protect them from the sun makes the living room appear full of ghosts. We putter down the crushed limestone road, the rumbling white dust proclaiming our departure to all the thirsty lizards and echidnas shuffling in the bush. I take a final look at the wind-bent casuarinas on the cliffside. I too, feel beaten down by life, by relentless winds trying to rip me out by the roots. The trees get tougher and tougher, clinging into that poor soil. It may not be the best conditions, but when I think about the harshness of life on Kangaroo Island, I realise there’s something I can learn from it. Something in me can thrive too. The North Cape has made me just that little bit tougher.
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.Vela Noble is a South Australian artist who is currently developing her own indie games. She has many years of experience working in animation for Netflix and Dreamworks.
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