As we spend more time alone, it starts to build a pattern of going deeper within. I can feel my thoughts drifting, emptying as I spend more time with my innermost being. For the past seven weeks I have been making circles of paper, from reds and orange through blues and greens and now emptying into white, the still centre as I’m learning to trust and let go of control.
How do we imagine the future? I have been making a new world of my own imagination, filled with rich blues and greens. I believe that we are holding the world together while a new one is in creation. We bear witness and hold hope while the world is created anew.
How carved radishes in Mexico can inspire a potato peeling art event in Australia is one of the memories I have unpacked as I prepare to run my free 5 day Armchair Art and Travel mini course. Now, when we can't travel anywhere, these travel memories give rise to new artworks made from maps, tickets and other paper ephemera collections.
While we can’t travel during social lockdown, we can armchair travel. Use this time to document your experiences during the pandemic, however gruelling it is. For it will never come again, just like I will never travel in a horse and cart again. Join me while we Armchair Travel to transform our experiences and travel into art.
With all the terrible news of escalating deaths around the world, I feel the need to go within, to remember to give thanks and to laugh. I have created a fractal map to colour in and created quirky characters with them for a bit of fun. It’s my way to revitalise my daily arts practice and keep me on track while the world spins crazily out of control.
I am creating portals, circular windows of opportunity for people as they awaken to remember who they truly are. I stitch jigsaw pieces of the world with parachute lines of safety as we drift together through turbulent clouds of uncertainty.
When we are advised to keep our distance, we need to know that human touch is possible, even if only virtually. Create though this crisis. Make a handprint to proclaim: I am here. Take a photograph of it to send to your family and friends. This is how you can connect with them, to show you care and are thinking of them. High 5 with a handprint.
How can we bring order and balance into our lives given the escalating events of a world in quarantine.? One way is to try and control situations. The other way is to surrender, to adapt in the face of an unprecedented pandemic.
International Women’s Day is a good day to reflect on fear, both as an artist and a woman. What if I fail is such an overriding fear it infiltrates all spheres of life. How do we address this, what do we do to care for ourselves and others?
Make art with repurposed materials. This art exhibition at the NGV Australia reinforces community values and shared methods of creating. It is a reminder that art can be made from anything and can be used to retell stories to keep them alive for a new generation .
