Little pieces of me - the titanium knee inspired by my knee replacement x-ray
I am appreciating the strong titanium plates that now live within me. Playing with stencils of their abstracted shapes makes visible an inner landscape to explore as I emerge from creative hibernation.
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The sheer joy of washing is captured in this still from a video shoot in 2023 with fellow artists Claudia Collins and Catherine Browning with a scene from our ‘green washing’ film made in Cornwall, UK.
It is an incredibly humbling experience to feel vulnerable and unable to do simple tasks for ourselves. Ordinary activities like washing or cooking can seem impossible, yet there is joy in these routine activities which show we are alive and able to look after our own needs.
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My grandparents windup clock, daily drawing from 9th October 2015
Post operative recovery takes time and endurance. I find myself living in a liminal space where I ponder the nature of time. How to experience a minute, which seems so short yet can be a long duration when filled with pain.
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Framing my walking stick
I’ve found a new friend and companion, my walking stick. I visualise all the repetitive exercises I do during the day within the shape of my walking stick handle and draw my journey of post operative recovery. Round and round we go as my steps become more confident and less wobbly. A landscape of days and journey lines.
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Shadow self, walking (with my mobility aide)
I have worked with shadows before. Taking photographs and drawing the lines they make that are a part of the object yet separate entities in themselves. Like putting a frame around pain and learning to dance with the shadow self.
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An encounter with Zorro on the ‘Walk of Fame’, Hollywood Boulevard USA 2004.
I felt like a star having just climbed a pyramid in Guatemala and sauntered down the ‘Walk of Fame’ in Hollywood, USA in 2004. It’s a memory to focus on when I feel anxious at the outcome of my total knee replacement surgery. I dream of being able to climb up stairs again, or even go for a hike without excruciating pain.
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Beating the Blues, mixed media, 2024
When you’ve got the blues - the best remedy is to make something. Deep blue cyanotypes are somewhat melancholic, but playing around with some unresolved cyanotype artworks suggested new creative possibilities. Something new from something old, one way to beat the blues.
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On my desk - paints and brushes back where they belong next to my painting in process
When you finally face what’s holding you back, it’s liberating. My paint brushes and paints are back on my studio bench, there’s a canvas on my easel and I’m painting. Fifty years of not feeling that I could paint has meant I didn’t even try. But I’ve had years of practising as an artist to get to this point. Now I’m excitement to see what’s next.
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Successive layers of wallpaper at the Oatlands Supreme Court building
What are the most important ideas to include in an artist statement about your artwork? After my artist residency in Oatlands, I wrote how the architectural features in the town and its houses became time portals I used to enter colonial thinking. Peeling back the fragments of layered wallpapers hinted at what my paintings were about and how they responded to this historical town.
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Shine Your Light Bright. 2024. Collage mixed media on kozo paper. This piece is now in the Southern Midlands Council ‘s art collection.
Composition can be a tricky skill to master. Sometimes no matter what you do the elements of a piece won’t sit together on the paper. Do you tear it up and start again or persevere until things fall into place? Both actions require courage and both can be a way to resolve the trickiest of challenges.
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