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By Doris McIlwain
Cultures embroider themselves using pictures, metaphors and phrases
that hit a chord. Within this embroidery
the smart and savvy cultures make room for their own contradictions. Some creative people and traditions give
voice or form to representations of those contradictions. For instance the
‘sacred clown’ of some Amerindian tribes, the court jester or the architectural
follies of some European circles (Cline, 1998).
Weapons of mass distraction.
Cartoonists historically have had this role, of exploring loudly the
contradictions to dominant, polite culture. As Cecily does. Cecily explores what “goes without saying”,
what is left unspoken - the tacit rules of culture. You are not supposed to
think about your favourite TV show starting in five when your beau or belle is
taking off your coat with reverent romance. But Cecily does. Having made the humble gesture of telling
people not to bring gifts you are not supposed to regret that gesture. But Cecily does. Cecily does.
We speak of genius rather than perversity or eccentricity where a
person’s private obsession hits a target which others have use for, where there
is the “coincidence of a private obsession with a public need” (Rorty, 1989,
cited in Cline, 1998, pg 115). And
Celia’s private obsession, now uncannily public in Cecily, has hit a chord in
New Zealand a chord that is now resounding across the Tasman. Cecily has landed.
“The satisfactions of this make-believe world may not turn the world
around but they can radically alter our own position in the world.” (Cline,
1998, pg 96).
We know ‘somehow’ what it is cool to show and what to hide. In response
to the cultural milieu we find ourselves soaking in, we hide personal
intensities and uncool sentiments- modern indecencies really. The cultural have-to’s can be quite heavily
scripted and programmed. Yet remarkably
we don’t always notice them. Until that
is we hear the siren’s call of Cecily. Cecily is the voice and face of an arch and
humorous dissent, asking “Might there not be another way??????”…Sipping
martini’s in the bath and chatting avidly on the phone Cecily was not entirely
sure that children would improve her lot.
She has all the virtues. Charity – she listens at the dentist’s,
humility – she asks you not to bring presents, practised social lying – the
assumed face of delight at getting a… horse model [!], decorum - in taking off
[at least] some of the face furniture.
But she also embodies the unsung virtues of a personal intensity:
spontaneity, excess, the rampant pleasures of solitude as in the dance of the
patchwork quilt where Cecily transcends space and time, or the excess of a
personal pleasurable absorption a kind of alone-while-in-the-world…the abandon
of Cecily dancing to imagined encores and the encouragement of receptive
audiences, she dances herself into a frenzy.
She chimes the small alterations in being that come from giving
ourselves over to a moment’s intensity.
You may think that it makes no difference just to hold back, or diminish
felt intensity, but that is potentially to miss the transformation of one’s
position in the world, to perhaps miss the smile that carries you through.
Celia creates a model in her cartoons, a larger than life way of being
other. She supports our desire to
embrace the uniqueness and idiosyncrasy in ourselves and in others by making us
laugh at the rigours of polite conformity.
And by reassuring us that by becoming more intensely ourselves we will
also find greater shared connection with others.
In these times of [somewhat paranoid] hypercompetition where success
masquerades as completely required even for survival, where notoriety is as
good as fame, we can win through bluff, pretence and lies. Yet Cecily thinks even backing a favourite is
unfair and goes for the outsiders.
Unable to start her computer, she dusts it. Her bluffs so thin they invite discovery, and
a shared sense that for many of us, this is how it is.
In an uncertain, insecure world of shifting, seismic complexities, we
try to pare away what is given, apparent, taken for granted…to find something
else to satisfy our (face it) desire for frivolity…for the odd carefree release
from the grind of reality. Or to face
reality with enough verve and laughter so that it releases its manic hold on
us. And this is an endless balancing act
between release and reality. We search
beneath the customary for fresher strata of our mental lives.
Celia’s images have such freshness they make us feel that we could
start anew after dipping into them – in a minor or a major way. Find a new life, a “life that would be [more]
our very own, that would belong to us in our very depths” (Cline, 1998 pg
112). That’s a good thing to have
springing at you from the leaves of your calendar or from your tea towel.
Cecily’s blind attachments and innocent fervour chime against a certain
cut-and-thrust sophistication that is also her…her innocence is also her
revolutionary edge…she is not compelled to see the world our way.
Cecily is uncanny…that which should have remained hidden is now meeting
the light of day. The homely seen in a
strange new light. Your fleeting
thoughts beam back at you from the newspaper.
Cecily has been the darling of New Zealand. She’s been in the Listener, a regular in NEXT
magazine, The Christchurch Press the Waikato Times. Being a modern girl she has also splashed out
into fabrics and cards, diaries and linen.
My excitement is in seeing how she takes to her new cultural
playground. Given that there are things
in general and things specific to any culture, I’m keen to see what Cecily
makes of Oz. My faith that she will make
the Tasman crossing with panache – with aplomb and without seasickness comes
from my faith in and admiration for her creator Celia - a robust and
light-hearted genius. I’m sure Cecily
will make a feast (for us all to share) of the least pangs of culture
shock. I’d like you to join with me in
launching Cecily and welcoming Celia Allison to Oz.
References
Cline, Ann (1998) A Hut of One’s Own: Life Outside the Circle of
Architecture. The MIT Press, Cambridge Massachusetts.
Can land hold you? 
I wanted to dash into the sunset, fall wherever the light
falls, crash like the waves, decay like the old wooden shop in Orepuki – my
timbers going gray with rain. Crepuscular light seems most painterly – the
land, already a canvas – the purples and pinks of azaelea leaves – impossible. The spun sun is a tangle of bracken grass growing on the fencetop and the
stately stillness of evening in this vast house-turned-gallery on the edge of
town with seats in formal gardens, left for contemplation. Yet I do not sit.
