Its been another tumultuous week. The news from around the world has been horrific and political decisions in Australia leave me feeling despair. I have found myself focusing on peace and returning to circles of paper. Many of these circles I made during the 2020 pandemic as we were all forced to find sanctuary within our homes. I now find comfort in them, an emptiness of space that empties my thoughts.

The week before I had been stitching paper doilies. This week my small forays into the studio have found me contemplating all the offcuts from that tiny project I had just finished. The cyanotypes I had made on circles of white handmade paper were now beautiful and blue, some didn’t quite turn out but could still be used as layering.

Now I brought these onto my table to sit and contemplated how I could utilize them. There are a few group exhibitions I want to participate in, 20x 20cm artworks which people can purchase for Christmas. Making small works was an achievable goal.

As I was making work for my Dispatches from The Arctic exhibition at the beginning of 2023, I made far more works than I needed for the exhibition space. The rejects had been wrapped up and stored away. They were the perfect size but time and fresh eyes had done their best to show me these were not really up to standard. I still liked the handmade paper wrapping I had done on the canvases. Time for them to be repurposed.

Once I brought them out and put them on my work table, I could see they were the perfect size to express new perspectives on life I have gained over the past months as I recover from my knee surgery. I have been forced to find peace within my interior landscape. I can now express some of that peace visually.

The blue colours of cyanotypes are so seductive, drawing me in to a central point, a portal of mediative contemplation. These works were glued, not stitched. Smoother than my more textured papers. Nothing to hinder sliding into a vortex that strips off the extraneous thoughts to allow entry into nothingness. Blue and white, grey edges. A blue sky or snow on a winter landscape.

The tiny flower motifs from my garden are like snow flowers, a reminder of hope in the darkest winter seasons. They bring me joy when I gaze on them.

Two of the other cyanotypes included pieces of sky from a jigsaw puzzle I had used during the pandemic as well. These pieces also carry the essence of peace. It can be seen as the ultimate puzzle challenge. How to find peace in the chaos of these times.