My mother would never have termed herself a ‘creative’. Yet our house was filled with generations of creative artefacts, embroideries and tapestries that she and my grandmother and great aunts had made. That creativity runs through me as I today I see my daughter taking up the mantle, my granddaughters as well. Creativity is a spiritual connection that connects us to ourselves and the cosmos.
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 .
In the 1980’s there was a global alternative living movement. We believed we could create so we started with whatever materials were to hand. Leaps of faith are bold. They move us forward into creating our dream life. As Goethe says boldness has genius, power and magic in it.
I am preparing my Dare to Create course, gathering inspiration, hunting and gathering from life experience as ideas turn into actions. Being creative is a little like being a weird little beast. You are inspired by seemingly random things which later turn into works of art. Its about follow small intuitive steps steps and trusting the creative process.
Some people say you need a lot of space to create in. That’s great if you have that. I have a lovely studio bench at home, but what I love the best is my portable studio. It’s my constant travel companion.
This Australia Day I reflect on how art and artists can change people’s thinking. That small ideas, small gestures of hope contribute to the greater collective consciousness. Like The Vigil, which as artistic director of the Sydney Festival, Wesley Enoch says is an event “to reflect on the state of our nation in a way that’s not divisive or argumentative.”
I’ve never really had new year’s resolutions. However this year I am making an effort to eliminate the word ‘just’ from my sentences. This one little word ‘just’ is yelling at me! Stop using me, it says. Don’t be afraid to be bold. Stand in your power.
I believe that all change starts with one person. When we become happier within ourselves, more creative, more grateful for our lives, we are able to share this joy and happiness with others. So the ripples spread and we might touch one person, in turn they touch another and so change spreads, one person at a time.
Lives lost, houses destroyed it has been a week of extreme temperatures and catastrophic fires in Australia. Driving through smoke in Nowra, our car covered in sooty ash, we escaped the bushfires in southern NSW. We were lucky but thousands were not. There is no escape from climate change.
What an amazing transformation year. Travel, exhibitions, learning to trust in myself and take daring steps. These are the hallmarks of a year that has changed my life and given me a clear vision for 2020.
So this is (nearly) Christmas)and everywhere we look there is chaos and disaster. How to hang onto hope in the these tumultuous times? Make art like there’s no tomorrow.
