brief encounters

written 20240605, last updated 20240905.

“write about brief encounters, fleeting moments, first impressions. what do these leave behind for us?”

in the early afternoon, i made the track up to the other side of the campus, to what looked like a mansion on a hill. the building dated back to the twenties, to the slow decades that had followed the city’s exuberant foundation.

it had been a residential grammar school until the early eighties, then it had been turned into, deteriorated into an art school. there were still tubs and showers installed in the bathrooms. the school had been all-girls, so the toilets became all-unisex.

the timber floor creaked. it had almost a century’s worth of dust stamped into its grain. this late into the year, the walls were coated in graphite and ink and paint. i later learned about the big december cleanup, when students and staff would swab the walls and floor with sugarsoap, patch the pinholes with spakfilla, and finally, apply a layer of paint in creamwhite or champagne, simultaneously restoring them to white cube cleanliness and entombing the lingering grime of the year past.

eighteen, a prospective student fitting this visit in amongst the other universities and faculties, i noticed the way the radiators and lightswitches had been fixed to the walls under those successive layers of paint. truthfully, i don’t remember much else of the open day. i don’t remember which wings of the art school i visited, who i talked to, what they had on display. there were staff reviewing portfolios, but i hadn’t brought a portfolio. there might have been a print sale, but i only know this because i helped run it for later years’ events.

mostly, all i remember of it from that first visit is its timber floor and the grimy walls.

what convinced me in the end was this: it was an unseasonably warm day for august. the sky was rich blue and the wattles were already out. i came across a great row of them as i left the building, draping their branches and puffy blooms over a low stone wall. i climbed up and balanced on it for a few steps, then crossed through a gap and out the other side. i realised that if i went here. i could enjoy this part of the city in all seasons, autumn and winter and spring, and summer, when it would empty out for the break.

up to this point i had spent my every free moment practicing, studying, trying to become an artist. but nothing about the school itself compelled me on that first visit. ultimately, i think i went to art school because of wattles and warm, blue sky.

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