She Remembers

Description

Award-winning playwright Margery Forde has worked in the Queensland theatre industry for over 50 years. Here Margery sits within a bower – the blue-adorned ‘theatre’ of the satin bowerbird.

Margery recently lost her beloved husband Michael Forde. For decades, Margery and Michael worked side by side, winning numerous accolades for their plays, including the Centenary Medal, multiple AWGIE awards, and the NSW Premier’s Literary Award. During Michael’s final moments on our planet, Margery sat with him in the garden, reading to him from Carl Sagan’s ‘Pale Blue Dot’. The next morning, exhausted with grief, Margery walked in the rainforest. There, she discovered a bowerbird’s bower, its finely constructed ‘stage’ decorated with blue.

I was inspired to paint Margery within her own bower, her own ‘stage’; reflecting the many theatre stages on which Margery and Michael’s stories are told. Every detail on this stage resonates with love; the daffodils, a gift from Michael every birthday; the miniature framed photograph of Michael that Margery carries with her; the precious memory of reading ‘Pale Blue Dot’. The bowerbird offers Margery the blue dot, our miraculous blue planet, where life goes on.