Cirrus@Austlit

'In selecting ‘stimulus’ for this third issue of Not Very Quiet (which I am delighted to be joining as guest-editor), I am mindful of the fact that the first two issues of the magazine have attracted submissions from all over the world.

'Despite, or perhaps because of this fact, I would like this stimulus to reflect an Australian sensibility, and a very particular one too.  I want to highlight the work of two Australian artists of the twentieth century (predominantly): the poet Fay Zwicky and the painter Grace Cossington Smith. Two artists engaged in the investigation of questions of individuation and belonging, spirit and intellect, light and dark, ideas of being ‘outside’ or ‘inside’ and all these terms might imply; the weight of tradition and the liberating possibilities of the imagination – explored from the very particular vantage point of urban and suburban Australia in the long shadow cast by the second world war.' ( Lisa Brockwell : Publication introduction)