Integrating art & life

This is the year I have given myself permission to design the life I want to lead my way and to encourage others to do the same. As I do this I become clearer in how I want to work, what I want to create and how important travel and adventure are in keeping my inspiration alive.

I look back on a year of art and travel and the opportunities this has provided to bring others in my mentoring groups along with me. My zoom rooms became windows into the world of artist residencies as I connected from far flung places in the Outer Hebrides, Iceland and even from my hotel room in Greenland.

Here’s what it looked like…

Projects & Proposals

In January I brought our joint exhibition Occupy to the beautiful Small Works Gallery in Murwillumbah. My co-exhibiter Samantha Tannous and I had a series of workshops planned to hold in conjunction with the exhibition, but due to Covid restrictions, she couldn’t drive north. We cancelled the workshops but I went ahead with the pop-up exhibition.

In January I returned from ink images to paper collages for my 2022 daily artworks and also held a short online course Projects and Proposals which helped people craft their artists statements and exhibition proposals. At the end of the month I heard that my own grant for Birds Hut Residency in the Blue Mountains was successful.

Number of exhibitions = 1

Grants & Travel

I learnt in February that two of my applications had been successful. My project Stone Stories received a Create NSW grant and I was accepted to exhibit in the Uki Post Gallery in February 2024. YAY!

I had to change my travel plans and bring forward my trip to the UK to comply with Covid restrictions in Scotland. I flew out the last week in February and two days later the floods swept through the northern rivers region of NSW. I watched from afar the pictures of waters rising around my home town of Pottsville, not knowing whether our house was spared (it was). Reading the first hand accounts of people stranded on roofs and rescued by flotillas of volunteers in boats and kayaks, brought home the enormity of this record breaking flood. It became the focus of much of my art making all year.

I also got to spend a bit of time in London and Devon and met up with some amazing artists. I even got invited to spend a couple of days in the Brothership Studio in Hertford where I made a series of map collages (pictured).

Number of successful grant proposals =1

Island Hopping

March was a month of wonder and exploration as I embarked on an island hopping tour through the Outer Hebrides with my friend Carol Robinson. Carol is originally from Murwillumbah but moved to the UK for a year. We landed in a Cessna on the beach at Barra Island one of the southern islands of the Outer Hebrides and ‘island hopped’ through Eriskay, South Uist, North Uist, the Isle of Harris and finally to Isle of Lewis. 

Along the way my eye was drawn to take photos of all the abandoned stone houses on the islands, many had only their stone chimneys still standing. They became the first images I printed when I arrived at my artist residency at the Island Darkroom on the Island of Lewis. I created argyrotype prints about the rock cliffs and landscapes of the islands and the abandoned stone houses that were a feature of the landscape.

On the ferry to the island of Eriskay I met pro-ageing advocate Siobhan Daniels who was writing her book about living life in a motorhome and travelling through the UK with it. She was to play an important part in my life many months later…

Number of Islands visited in 2022 = 11

artist Residencies

At the beginning of April, I finished my artists residency at the Island Darkroom, feeling pleased I had ‘trusted the process’ and made a series of argyrotype prints and mini artist books referencing shelter and dispossession. I then took myself off to Shetland to explore more stones. I had really wanted to experience the Shetlands influenced of course by the moody music and drama in the BBC series Shetland. The wonderful surprise was going to the island of Yell where one of the Art from Your Heart members lives, meeting her and also meeting and interviewing Shetland Gallery owner and artist Shona Skinner.

At the end of the month I found myself just north of Glasgow undertaking a 10 day artist residency at Cove Park. This gave me the extra time to resolve some of the work I had started in the Hebrides as well as starting some paper-making vignettes which I continued developing in my residency in Iceland in May.

Number of artist residencies in 2022 = 3

RETURNING TO ICELAND

May was when I undertook my second artist residency in Iceland, this time in Stöðvarfjörður in the eastern fjords. Although I had done some preliminary research about the area, nothing could have prepared me for the majestic craggy mountains and rock features of this relatively isolated landscape.

I spent the month at the Fish Factory Creative Center, exploring the amazing stone gardens in the town and Petra’s Stone and Minerals Collection museum. This landscape suggested cyanotype printing, utilising the same solar printing technique as the argyrotype prints, but with a blue colour. Using this process I was able to combine text about the landslides in Iceland and the floods in Australia in the context of my Stone Stories project. I experimented with postcard size artworks and moved onto large sheets of rice paper, learning to adapt and be inventive when it came to washing out the chemicals without tearing the paper. I posted up this process as a Youtube video, Cyanotype Adventures.

Number of cyanotype prints made = 25

ferry adventuring

In June I embarked on my biggest adventure yet. I have always wanted to travel to Greenland, but it seemed too far away. Ever since I had experienced glacier melt in Iceland in 2019, I was curious about what this looked like on an epic scale. I flew direct from Iceland to Nuuk then caught the regular ferry north to Ilulissat. I love ferries and boat travel, especially when you wake up to icebergs for breakfast. I felt like I was bearing witness to a culture undergoing rapid change and major climatic impact while still in the grips of Danish colonisation. Read my take on it in the Front Line.

Two weeks was barely enough time to get a sense of Greenland, then it was back to Iceland where I had a few days before I flew to London on route home. I decided to go west to the Vestmannaeyjar Islands for another ferry adventure. I booked a couple of wild rides on a rib-safari boat for puffin spotting and a quad bike tour of the volcanic lava fields. I realised that I had manifested many of my dreams to come true!

Number of boat trips in 2022 = 12

DISCOVERING NETFLIX

In July I arrived  back in the UK after Iceland, but discovered I couldn’t fly home as I had contracted Covid. Fortunately during my one day in London, I had bought a new watercolour set. I holed up in bed at my friend Carol’s house in Hertford, chronicling the Covid days in numbers and discovering the joys of Netflix in bed. When I finally arrived back home in early July, I still had the rest of the Netflix month of subscription which gave me permission to not only recover fully post Covid, but also rest after travel and jetlag. No guilt at all!!

By the middle of the month I was recovered enough to give a zoom talk to the Papermakers of Victoria. The slide presentation was about the work I made during my artist residencies on the Isle of Lewis in the Outer Hebrides, Cove Park, Scotland and at Stöðvarfjörður, East Iceland.

Number of serials binge watched in 2022 = 6

COLLAGE YOUR LIFE

In August I was delighted to hear that my friend Melanie Mowinski’s new book, Collage Your Life had just been published. This wonderful collage book is jam packed with all things collage and features a double page spread of my work and artistic process. To celebrate I invited Melanie to join me on zoom for an Inspiring Author talk which was very well received. This paved the way for several other artist and author talks in the following months.

With the winter weather I was able to finally focus on unpacking the artworks I brought back from overseas and complete a few more collages in preparation for my exhibition in 2024.

Number of author & artist talk events in 2022 = 3

SUCCESS YOUR WAY

September saw me attending two major events in Victoria. Graduates from my one of my Dare to Create and Creators Circle programs organised their first group exhibition #5 Collective at the Oakhill Gallery in Mornington. Two of the artists travelled from South Australia and Tasmania for the event and were met by several other members of my Art From Your Heart group who came to support them and cheer them on. I felt very privileged to officially open this wonderful exhibition and hope there are many more to come from this group.

The following day I held a VIP masterclass in Mornington called Success Your Way. It was my first in person masterclass in years and sowed the idea for an extended two day event in my home town of Pottsville the following month.

Number of in person workshops held in 2022 = 2

CHALLENGES & EXPERIMENTS

In October I signed up for a collagraph workshop with master printmaker Basil Hall. This was the third workshop I had done with Basil, the most memorable one was in Greece in 2011 on the island of Skopelos. Basil indulged my request to try printing my collograph on a hessian sandbag which had been used to save our house from the floods in February. I was so excited by the results it started a whole new series of sandbag experiments which will be exhibited in Beaudesert in January 2023.

While at the workshop, I received notice that my upcoming artist residency at Birds Hut in the Blue Mountains had been cancelled due to flooding in the area.

October was also when I compiled and published the first Art From Your Heart Challenge Book. Twelve artists who had taken part in the monthly creative challenges over the past 12 months submitted three of their artworks for publication. Pictured is Jeanne van Zweel with her copy of The Challenge Book. Jeanne was one of the first Art From Your Heart members I met for lunch when I arrived in the UK.

Number of Art From Your Heart members I have now met in person = 16

AUDACIOUS PLANS

November is when I cast my eyes to the following year. My big, audacious plan was to enrol in a Master course in the UK starting in April 2023. I applied and was accepted to the Arts + Place Masters program at Dartington Arts School in Devon. My husband will be coming with me for the 10 months so we decided to buy a motorhome to live in while we are there. This prompted a flurry of online surfing as to which motorhomes are best. We found one for sale in Mansfield UK. Hoping to beat the spring rush, I headed over to the UK again on a shopping trip. Dear reader, I bought it!

It was quite a surprise to realise that I was going to be in the UK at the same time as when I had booked an author talk with Siobhan Daniels, whose book Retirement Rebel had just been published. She invited me to come travel with her for a few days and we held the zoom call in her van, much to the delight of those people in Australia who were on the zoom call with us. Siobhan and I had caught up a couple of times in the Outer Hebrides while I was at my artist residency, but I never thought I would get to see her again this year. You never know what the future has in store!

Number of audacious plans = too numerous to count!

EXPANDING HORIZONS

In December I began mailing out my 2023 calendars which featured some of the cyanotype artworks I made in Iceland. I’ve been making calendars now for the past 10 years mostly for my family but also as a way to stay in touch with friends. (I’m on their wall).

It was a great joy to also attend a pop-up exhibition of one of the emerging artists I have been mentoring, Jacqueline Scott whose underwater photographs quickly sold. Jacqueline was one of 6 artists who attended my second Success Your Way workshop in Pottsville and then continued on with my Accelerator Mentoring program. It’s been a privilege to mentor artists on their own projects, to see them expand their horizons and celebrate with them when they reach their goals in such a short space of time.

Number of exhibitions attended in 2022 =15

Looking ahead

I’m planning for 2024 to be a year of adventure, study and travel. I’ll be bringing along members of my Creators Community with me to experience some of my insights from residencies and art study as well as continuing to motivate those in my Art From Your Heart group with our monthly creative challenges. Integrating all the parts of my life through creating, learning and having a business means I feel fulfilled by also sharing with others what I learn. I’m looking forward to sharing it with you too in my weekly blogposts and social media posts.

Thanks for reading this epic blogpost and Happy New Year.