February is a time for the fading summer light in the southern hemisphere. When Lunar New Year ticks over and the school year commences. But despite these markers of newness, the last days of summer seem reluctant to quit. 

Cicadas still serenade the sky and long afternoons stretch on into evening. Love is in the air and a renewed sense of creative purpose, too.

I remember that “back to school” feeling so vividly. A mingled sense of both melancholy and excitement. A giddy enthusiasm for the year ahead and all that it might bring. 

A similar feeling washes over me now, upon returning from a holiday. Or, indeed, from any opportunity to switch off and slow down. These recharge moments seem to have the effect of reigniting creativity and realigning purpose. 

They help us to tune into our dreams and watch them coalesce into new stories. To find our voice. And to muse on our subjects—those which spark purpose. So that we might better express ourselves in service to something greater.

In her essay Some Women, Joan Didion poses the question: ‘If Robert Mapplethorpe’s “subjects” here are women, what then is his subject?’ To which she responds: ‘His subject is the same as it was when his “subjects” were the men in leather, or the flowers, or the Coral Sea on a low horizon. You don’t know why it’s happening but it’s happening.’

‘I was a Catholic boy,’ Mapplethorpe once told the BBC. ‘I went to church every Sunday. The way I arrange things is very Catholic. It’s always been that way when I put things together. Very symmetrical.’=

February is a time to reflect on our own creative process and where our purpose resides. This month, Kathryn Carter muses on the notion of creating for a cause in her poem Mandrakes—an emotional response to the challenging times we have faced of late as creative and sensitive souls.

We sit down with LESSE Founder Neada Deters to unpack the creative worlds of Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe, through the lens of Just Kids.

Meanwhile, this month’s Inner Seam column explores the ancestral spirit of Australian Made fashion and how family businesses are helping to keep this corner of the industry alive. 

All of which serves as a powerful reminder to create for a cause. To sing for your supper. For songbirds always eat.

Rosie Dalton