Penny Mulvey
6 October 2024
More than 160 people attended Archbishop Philip’s final public conversation at Federation Square on Wednesday. Cartoonist Michael Leunig who joined the Archbishop in conversation in his very first year, was warmly welcomed by an enthusiastic audience.
Leunig acknowledged it was a bit of a shock to his system, as he is a bit of a recluse.
“This is my biggest social experience in a year I think,” he admitted to the gathering.
Leunig’s cartooning role with The Age was abruptly ended last month, and while it shocked him, it certainly has not broken the artist’s spirit.
“The work of an artist,” he shared with the audience, “this idea, creativity, is a magical idea. That 1+1 can equal five.
“It is more than the sum of its parts. Creativity is enchanting, magical or very touching.”
He reminded the audience that while revelation is important to the artist, all humans are capable of an epiphany.
“The possibility of an awakening,” Leunig elaborated, “a sense of goodness and beauty.”
Archbishop Philip affirmed the role of the creative thinker in our world.
“In a secular society, we need to rely on an optimist’s voice. We don’t hear those voices, only the strident.”
Leunig reminded the audience that we all need to keep ourselves open.
Leunig’s artwork always draws the viewer back to creation, and while he recognizes the cruelty in the world, he reminded the audience that sometimes you just have to step back and look at the sky.
In stepping back from the chaos of city life, Leunig offered the audience a gentleness, a willingness to not be perfect, and a recognition that a little flower is a miracle. He describes his work as a ‘poetic cartoon’.
“A little picture takes the terror out of the words, it becomes primal. An inner impulse.”
Leunig spoke and sketched, and conversed with the Archbishop and the audience about the mystery, the madness and the kindness of the world we inhabit.
Read more: ‘God is on our side’: Hope and renewal in a climate crisis
And as the two of them wrapped up their chat, fans of the artist descended the stairs of The Edge to tell him their stories and grab his autograph.
The gentle artist had briefly become a commodity before he returned to his bush retreat.
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