There are few things I enjoy more than an artist’s date in Melbourne. Everything seems an inspiration: the beautiful old architecture the interesting new architecture and the ugly architecture in between. I enjoy the sauntering in alley ways and through the State Library and galleries. I love it if my day can end with a book event and I’ve squeezed in quite a few of these this summer.
I often call into the Immigration museum and this last visit I delved into the display on Bonnegilla, such a feature in the lives of some of the Estonian people about whom I am currently writing.
I had never heard of or seen the sculpture of The Reuniting Family created by Michael Meszaros. It is at the foot of the Rialto Towers on Collins Street. I was so moved when I saw this work. Meszaros has captured so poignantly the emotions of the family members reuniting after the father has “paved the way” in Australia.
We are familiar with this story yet I am struck by what happens to me when this sculptor conveys so compellingly this one family’s experience… one sculptor, one painter, one poet, one storyteller.
