The world contracted during lockdown. The intimate details of our home and families were brought into focus. Our distracted eyes which were used to being constantly stimulated by sights, sounds and information overload were deprived of the passing parade. Suddenly we had the chance to observe some minute details, some fleeting movements as we sat at our desks in our homes. And so the birds which surround us and live within our domestic scene were on stage. They were noticed in a way they never had been before. Yet the contrast between their lives flying free and ours locked in, living at work, could never have been starker.

The rainbow lorikeets, chirping and tweeting, the minors watchful, the blackbirds warbling and the wattlebirds as they swooped to protect the nest. They appeared in our line of sight like never before. So as we come out of this period of sensory deprivation, the designs of StMarque are celebrating birds. The black cockatoo is taking flight above the joyous colours of the flowers and the sprays of leaves. We didn’t know this at the time but there is an amazing indigenous story about these birds.  According to Wikipedia, there is a ‘traditional story from western Arnhem Land (which tells) of Black Cockatoo and her husband Crow, who are Bird-people, sprouting black feathers after becoming afflicted with a sickness from across the sea to the north. In fear of being buried underground, they transform into birds and fly high in the sky.’*

So our first St Marque car could not have been more appropriate for the times and yet we hope St Marque can help us to celebrate the release from sickness and the express the joy of feeling of flying free into a more creative 2021.