Year in Review 2023
Oh what a year!
Reflecting on change
It’s hard to remember everything that happens over 12 months. This year as I reflect on another momentous year I know it has been different. I have felt different, learned to embrace change and that has affected everything accordingly.
I was due to begin my Masters Arts & Place program in the UK in April and knew this would mean a withdrawal of sorts in order to concentrate on my studies. My art mentoring business which had been growing steadily for three years had been a great source of joy, connection and inspiration especially during the pandemic. Yet I sensed that I needed to refill my cup before I could continue.
While study and travel motivated me to go to the other side of the world, it was in many ways an inner journey. At the end of 2023 I have emerged stronger in my art practice, knowing that living as an artist means embracing all of what you do and being open to change. Here is my take on the year that was…
Exhibitions & Experiments
In January I started the year once again with an exhibition, called Paper. It consisted of some of the desert paper artworks as well as new experimental mixed media pieces on hessian dipped in paper pulp made as a response to the 2022 floods. These were exhibited at The Centre gallery in Beaudesert, Queensland.
Continuing in the vein of experiments, I tried my hand at sailing, thinking that perhaps I might join in a sailing expedition in the Outer Hebrides while in the UK. Alas my memories of sailing were made when I was 16 and unfortunately fifty years later my body was not as supple. This experiment was a happy failure.
SOLD! Spinifex and Kangaroo Grass, The Centre gallery, Beaudesert, QLD.
A happy sailor, destined to stay on land.
Preparations & Resolutions
I spent February preparing for travel and resolving all the artworks I would need to have made for my solo exhibition Ice Stories: Dispatches from the Arctic which will be exhibited in the Uki Post Gallery in February 2024.
I also resolved to give up my daily art practice which I had been doing for the past 10 years. It was no longer stimulating my imagination and felt like a burden rather than a joy. I had only done this once before in 2016 for six months when I was undertaking my honours studies. It did leave me somewhat anchorless but also I felt free to experiment and embrace new creative ideas in my upcoming studies.
Floating, Drifting, Melting (detail) 2023. One of my Ice Stories series.
One of the last daily collages from February 2023.
Packing & Unpacking
What to pack for a year away in the UK? In March my husband and I laid out our two suitcases and two backpacks in preparation for travel; one suitcase to fill with all the camping gear we could carry for the unknown life that awaited us in the motorhome.
The other small suitcase was to be filled with tools for art as well as artworks that I hoped would be accepted into upcoming exhibitions. All the clothes had to fit into our backpacks! I packed and repacked at least ten times. I was excited but also extremely nervous. Was this a crazy idea or me trying to justify travel (again)!!!
I also packed away all the (now) framed artworks ready for my exhibition in 2024. Now we were ready to fly…
Boots made for tramping in the UK.
Corinne from Two Seas Creative framing with my artworks for the Uki exhibition.
Arrival and Departure
We arrived at Heathrow airport late and jet lagged, trying to get to our Airbnb so we could be near the station for the morning train to Mansfield in Nottinghamshire. The next day we caught the train and arrived in Mansfield to collect the keys to the motor home. Alas, alack, we were so tired we backed into a tree. Not an auspicious start to the adventure.
Once away from the urban centres we felt a bit more at ease travelling into the English countryside. But that first night was soooo cold with only the light blanket we packed in our suitcase. The next day we bought a doona (they called the duvets in the UK) from the charity op shop and kept warm.
There was so much to learn about life in the motorhome. Like remembering to fill up the water tank, turn the gas on and off and empty the toilet. However by the time we got to Dartington in Devon where we would be camped for the next six weeks, life settled into a familiar rhythm.
Studying again was challenging yet inspiring, especially with a friendly group of fellow students. I ordered cyanotype and had it delivered so I could begin responding to the site for my MA Arts and Place. Arriving at a new place you see features in the landscape with fresh eyes and I found myself back to my first love of photography and blueprints.
The only blanket packed was this Mexican blanket. Cups of tea kept us warm!
Back to studying again and perusing the shelves at Dartington library
The Blues
May continued to be a cold month and my body was still adjusting to the damp of a UK spring. My knees ached from the walk up and down the hill from the campsite to the studio each day. I dreamt in blue as I created cyanotype prints on flatenned out cardboard boxes we had to hand and experimented with shadows created by scrunched up paper.
The art was fun to make but I was ready for a rest. We had two weeks before the next residency started in Oxford so we explored the countryside on route which gave me a chance to recoup and rest before the next project started.
Cyanotype print on a flattened out paracetamol box.
Rural campsite view from the motorhome kitchen window.
City and Country
The MA Arts and Place program was a varied series of field work residencies including urban, themed and remote residency experiences. In June we began the urban residency through OVADA artist space in Oxford. Summer finally arrived so we had two weeks of warm weather and I was able to cycle from our campsite to the studio in a T-shirt!
My project became about development vs protection of green spaces. I leant my support to the Friends of Iffley, a small group which was campaigning to save historical meadows from proposed housing development. Together we devised the Feet First project, chalking peoples’ feet over the course of a day on a laneway that walkers and cyclists use adjacent to the meadows. We created an ephemeral artwork of over 200 footprints on the lane.
On the bikes at Ovada studio, Oxford.
Feet First campaign, Iffley Meadows, Oxford.
Wales and Scotland
In July we travelled from Oxford through Wales and up to Scotland where the next artist residency was to be held. Highlights of this trip included viewing the voice paintings on glass plates created by Welsh singer Margaret Watts Hughes. These are housed in the Carfarthfa Castle Museum and Art Gallery in Merthyr Tydfil. Read my blogpost here.
We also detoured to the Isle of Arran, camping right on the shore of the sea watching seals and otters at play. I even went for a swim! Travelling up along the west coast of Scotland to the highlands was a joy of lochs, valleys and mountains, so that I was rested and ready for the next residency.
Sound painting by Welsh singer Margaret Watts Hughes.
Lighthouse views from the motorhome window camped on the Isle of Arran
Highlands and Poetry
In August we arrived in the Scottish highlands in mid summer for the remote artist residency in Glen Nevis. Everyone told us to beware of the midges but these didn’t really appear as the weather for much of the time was wet and windy. When I realised my knee was not going to be up to a lot of climbing, I had to abandon plans to spend time working in the Outlandia studio, a sort of treehouse perched on the side of the mountain.
My project proposal instead was about creating a poetic response to the mountains in a suite of 12 poems. I did manage to climb up to Outlandia once, but the rest of the time I spent in our motorhome or cycling into Fort William to the library researching local authors and books about the area. Read my climbing poem Angels’ Reach here.
Outlandia studio nestled in the forest near Ben Nevis, Scotland
Caledonian Return -pencil and graphite drawing. Watch the drawing video here
Football, Rebellion and Paper
In September we returned to Mansfield and sold the motorhome back to the dealer we bought it from. We now had an extra week before flying to Dresden in Germany where I was to give a presentation at the IAPMA International Association of Hand Papermakers and Paper Artists congress. We were going to explore a bit more of the English countryside before the Cornish residency, but with an imminent UK train strike looming, we decided on a trip to Ireland instead.
We arrived in Dublin when thousands of American football gridiron fans descended on the city to watch the first kickoff game of the season being played. Don’t ask me about the logic of two American football teams slogging it out in Dublin. For several days the city was jammed packed with football scarf wearing tourists - so time to head west to Sligo.
I only had a rudimentary knowledge about the Irish rebellion and their centuries long struggle for freedom. I had heard of course about the potato famine, but did not know of the terrible workhouses which populated the countryside as a result of colonial policies. Some of these workhouses are still standing. I wrote about my Irish experience in the blogpost Holes in History.
Later in the month we celebrated our 40th wedding anniversary in the beautiful German city of Dresden where I caught up with papermakers and artists from all over the world during the IAPMA congress.
Cannonball hole in the walls of the Carrigafoyle Castle, Ireland
Letterpress workshop in Dresden as part of the IAPMA conference.
Cornwall, Birdsong & Homecoming
In October we returned to England for my final themed residency in Cornwall. This was based around an abandoned quarry which was considered “contested territory”. Many locals wanted to preserve the site as a nature refuge, others were in favour of housing development. My art project became about the strange ‘entities’ which inhabited this post industrial landscape.
With this last residency finished, we decided to cut short our time in the UK due to family matters and come home early. With all the UK based residencies finished, I proposed that my final major project be based about my home town of Pottsville. Proposal accepted.
The first thing I noticed when arriving back home was the birdsong. I hadn’t realised how much I missed those quintessentially Australian sounds of magpies carolling, kookaburras laughing and cockatoos screeching. At night the endangered bush stone-curlews came out through the nature reserve to call each other and I really felt like they were calling to me as well.
It became the inspiration for my final project, to make art about the wonderfully biodiverse environments in and around Pottsville with birdsong as the soundtrack to my artmaking. My project Art of Place | Pottsville was born.
Group exhibition following our residency at CAST studios in Helston, Cornwall.
Our last Cornwall sojourn at Porthleven before heading home.
Film & Photographs
In November I began my project ‘mapping’ five sites in Pottsville within a four km radius of each other. These were the waterlily lagoon in Pottsville Waters, Cudgera Creek wetlands, the Pottsville Environment Park, Mooball Creek mangroves and the estuary where the Mooball Creek runs into the sea.
At each of these sites I documented my artmaking; working ‘in collaboration’ with nature and the sand, mud, trees, stones and water at these places. Often the marks I made were ephemeral and washed away, sometimes the papers fell apart and were reassembled to create new narratives of place. It was very liberating not to have a fixed agenda of what or how the art was made, only to document the sites and the process of artmaking as a form of mapping.
Pottsville Waters waterlily lagoon, my first mapping site
Iconic Bush Stone-Curlew crossing sign near Pottsville Environment Park
Endings & Beginnings
In December I finished my Art of Place | Pottsville book and film to send off to the UK where it will be shown in the Dartington Gallery in Devon for our final MA Arts & Place group exhibition in January. I will also screen the film locallly and give an artist talk at the Pottsville Environment Centre on Friday 12th January (see poster below).
We always try to get down to Melbourne before Christmas to see our son and his family. This year we met our newest grandchild, now six weeks old. Children grow up so quickly so this was a special family times for all of us.
Art of Place | Pottsville books ready for the artist talk and film screening in January.
Publicity flyer for the Pottsville screening of the film and artist talk.
Looking ahead
I realised I have spent the past five years pushing myself to my limits; learning, exploring , embracing life as an artist, mentor and entrepreneur. Now its time for me to stop and rest (or at least pause for a little while).
I look at all the wonderful projects, exhibitions and life changes which have happened for graduates of my courses and mentoring in 2021, 2022 and early 2023. Some have contacted me while on my journeys to tell me about exhibitions, prizes or events in their lives and it has been an honour to share these important moments of success with them.
With the resolution of my final Masters project I am allowing myself to take time off, to be empty. I know that I do need to return to some structure and will resume my daily art practice, prioritise my health and explore new directions. I’ve started by ordering Julia Cameron’s latest book Living the Artists Way to set the tone for 2024.
Who knows what the future holds? The only thing certain is change.
Thanks for reading this epic blogpost and Happy New Year.
The Road Ahead. Who knows what is round the corner?
