Year in Review 2024
Cyanotype blue was the signature colour for 2024
This has been the year in which I ran until I stopped. A year of recalibration. Starting at a fast pace finishing my Masters in Visual Arts, I then raced off to Japan to beat depression. Wintering in Tasmania at an artist residency in June I reflected on the role art plays in my life and in society.
Then I was forced to stop as I recovered from knee surgery.
Dare I say it, 2024 was the biggest, most challenging twelve months I’ve experienced for a long while. All the ‘things’ I thought were important faded into insignificance as I came face to face with my own vulnerabilities. I learned to stop planning, to go deeper, to be still and silent, to trust and accept what I could not change. To worry about the state of the world yet know that my best response was to find peace within myself so it could spread outwards.
Here’s how 2024 panned out…
Beginning and ending
January : Starting the new year with a trip to Brisbane with my granddaughter, gallery hopping our way through South Bank to finish at Max Brenner’s chocolate shop. Yum! In January I also finished my final project for my Masters of Visual Art showing the film I made The Art of Place: Pottsville at the Pottsville Environment Centre and also at Dartington Art Gallery in Devon, UK.
Art of Place: Pottsville film showing at Pottsville Environment Centre
Film still advertising the graduate exhibition at Dartington Art Gallery, UK.
Exhibitions: mine, ours and theirs
February kicked off with a road trip to Victoria returning via Sydney for the Kandinsky exhibition at the Art Gallery of NSW and the International Art Textile Biennale to see the textile artworks of fellow artist Samantha Tannous. Then off to Gympie, QLD for the Papermakers & Artists Queensland group exhibition Paper: All Stitched Up at Gympie Regional Gallery. The month ended with my solo exhibition Ice Stories: Dispatches from the Arctic in the ArtPost Gallery, in Uki, northern rivers NSW.
Paper: All Stitched Up exhibition catalogue featuring my art work on the cover
Opening night of Ice Stories: Dispatches from the Arctic at ArtPost, Uki
Paper, Snow & Temples
March was the month I impulsively jetted off to Japan to recalibrate after finishing my Masters. I discovered that a kozo fibre ‘snow bleaching’ workshop was being held on the weekend I arrived. It was snowing and I learned how to make paper Japanese style with a ‘Su-geta’, bleach the kozo fibres in the snow and experiment. I also visited Naoshima the ‘art island’ and booked a stay in a temple at Koyasan for some spiritual nourishment. Read more here
Experimenting with kozo fibre paper in the snow at a paper-making workshop
Okunoin, the ancient cemetery in Koyasan
Sudden announcements
In April I found out two things almost simultaneously. The first was that I had been selected to undertake an artist residency in Oatlands, Tasmania in June and the second announcement was that my elective knee surgery had been brought forward to July. This meant a lot of preparation to get ready for the residency. I found plenty of old prints I could use for collaging and made sketchbooks and small canvases to sell while there.
Collages from old collograph prints on 10 × 10cm canvases
Good Vibrations sketchbook and card made from an old screenprint
Birdsong and postcards
May was the month to make postcards for the Incognito Postcard show. It was the first time I had participated and gave me a chance to keep collaging from my pile of offcuts. My film had another screening at the Bird Nerds exhibition at Small Works gallery in Murwillumbah where the gallery was filled with recorded bird song. I was joined by fellow artist Mel Bowen who travelled from Victoria with her beautiful collection of sculpted textile birds to be part of the exhibition. I bought one!
A screening of my film Art of Place: Pottsville and artist talk at the Bird Nerds exhibition
Artist Mel Bowen with a couple of her bird sculptures at the Bird Nerds exhibition
Winter artist residency
June in the midlands of Tasmania was cold. I rugged up in all my winter woolies for my artist residency in Oatlands and set off to discover the history and geography of this little town. I was shocked to learn that the residency stood just in front of the Commissariat building where arms and food were stored for the military during the planning and staging of war against Aboriginal Tasmanians 200 years ago.
Oatlands was also the only regional town in Tasmania to have a Supreme Court during colonial times. The town’s brutal history was a stark contrast to its beautifully preserved colonial buildings. My challenge was to make art that conveyed this dichotomy.
Flagstones images from the Supreme Court, Oatlands using ink and mud on paper
Colonial windows, sandstone buildings and Oatlands mud on handmade paper
Painting & preparing
In July I returned home from Tasmania, set up my easel and tried to encapsulate both the beauty and brutality of Oatlands. I added the motifs from peeling wallpaper to reference ‘papering over’ history. The rest of the month I exercised with the physiotherapist preparing for my knee replacement surgery on July 25 th. My days in hospital were a blur of pain…
A Curated Landscape, Oatlands work in progress on my easel
Smiles in the waiting room at the hospital before my operation
Journeying through pain
August came and went. I learned to walk again, first with a wheelie walker, then a stick. Writing my weekly blogposts gave me a creative focus and a way to document my journey of post operative recovery. I learnt what it feels like to be vulnerable, to be still and rest.
Out and about with my wheelie walker
Knee X-Ray with titanium implants
On two feet
In September I began walking with no support. Short bursts of time in the studio were spent making cyanotype prints which I collaged into a series of four called Finding Peace. I used my frequent rest times to search for group exhibitions which I applied to be in.
Finding Peace II (detail) Cyanotype collage on canvas.
Group exhibition Spring Showcase at Studio on Brunswick gallery, Brisbane
Printing in the sun
October brought sunshine and experimentation. My collection of paracetamol blister packs were turned into cyanotype prints. These became the inspiration for my artist book Post-Operative. I even stitched my knee x-rays into a pouch to house the book inside.
Paracetamol blister packs under perspex exposing in the sun
Deep blue cyanotypes hand stitched to include in the Post-Operative artist book
Out and about
November was busy with trips to Brisbane galleries to deliver artworks and going to the group exhibitions that I was in, including the four Finding Peace collages which were part of the Micro 20 exhibition at Gallery 3 in Byron Bay.
Artist Kathryn Iliff viewing my work Iceland: Waking to Snow on the Mountains at Et Al Gallery in Brisbane.
At the Micro 20 exhibition opening at Gallery 3 Byron Bay.
Endings and beginnings
December rolls around each year bringing a sense of completion. At the end of 2024 I farewell the wonderful online group Art From The Heart (AFYH) which I started nearly four years ago. A big thankyou to AFYH member Silvana Benacchio for skilfully hosting the monthly creative challenges throughout this year. So many emerging artists have found support and solidarity in the group and I wish them all the best in their future endeavours.
Thank-you to AFYH member Silvana Benacchio who hosted the monthly creative challenges
AFYH member Mel Bowen posted her reflections on the group. Pictured are Mel Bowen, Zela Bisset, Gail Stiffe, Kathi Passmore, Silvana Benacchio and Susan St Clair.
Looking forward
I never thought I’d be running workshops again, yet here comes 2025 with my first in person cyanotype print workshop at Oak Hill Gallery in Mornington in February. Life comes full circle as this gallery was where five AFYH members had their first group show together in 2022 and I held my first group mentoring day in another Mornington venue.
It’s so wonderful to know that many of the emerging artists I have mentored have become friends and colleagues and forged their own artistic connections together.
Thanks for being with me on my journey and reading this epic blogpost. Roll on 2025!
Oak Hill Gallery flyer for my cyanotype workshop Saturday February 8 2025. Bookings open.
