Parent & Child stencil cut out which I used to make a cyanotype print (below).
Sometimes it may take years for ideas to come to fruition. Artists need to keep hope alive so their work is received by receptive audiences, even if their art is ahead of its time. That’s why it is important to hold fast to stories of hope, to keep persevering, keep creating, keep showing up for yourself until the time is ripe for ideas to take root and flourish.
Read More
Riding to our local mobile library Bookmobile
Finding ways to personally connect your art with the public and activate art conversations can consume a lot of an artist’s time. But making art and culture accessible can be as simple as creating a pop up art event, staging an artisan market or taking your art to the streets. Have art, will travel.
Read More
Post-Operative artist book (WIP)
When systems fall into chaos, it’s time to get creative and start imaginative mapping. Creating a visual representation of how you want life to look helps bring that future into reality. Chaos and entropy are natural parts of systems under pressure and from them can emerge new order and stability. Hold that thought!!!
Read More
Footprints in snow. For a short time our lives are made visible. Photo taken on my trip to Japan.
Our lives, like footprints visible in the snow, are brief. To practice the art of living is to embrace the skills we have, to master acceptance, to change what can be changed and release unrealistic expectations. As an elder, this is an act of embodying wisdom.
Read More
Empty paracetamol blister packs and the flattened out hospital pain medication cups
We are taught to reach for perfection, yet that sets us up for failure every time. Printmaking in any form has a strong ‘perfection’ element and to make blurry prints which messy edges is not considered to be technically correct. Yet what if you reframe that idea to turn seeming failures into successes. Perhaps it is a truer reflection of living life in all its messiness.
Read More
Making pain visible - cyanotype print of blister pack tablets
When one image is not enough to tell a story, then artist books are a great way to combine pictures with text. I have been wanting to find a way to show pain through its relief and have started planning the structure for an artist book. How the materials and narrative work together is an exciting journey of discovery.
Read More
My (rejected) doily press with stitched doilies I made with cyanotype collages.
Rejection is not the end of the world, although it may feel like it at the time. Applying for art opportunities is part of the process of being an artist, whether it is for exhibitions, collaborations, residencies, grants or any other project you dream up. Not all applications are successful, which makes the ones you do get accepted for even sweeter.
Read More
Amelia Batchelor and myself with artworks visualising peace in the world, October 2020
Imagine a world of peace. On this upcoming 18th year of the lighting the Imagine Peace Tower in Iceland, I look back at my own peace activations. In 2020 I created a paper world of peace filled with green forests, clear blue waters and white polar icecaps. As I made it I imagined the activisms for peace throughout the world. Now more than ever activating peace is vital to us and our planet.
Read More
Finding Peace I & Finding Peace II - 20 x 20cm 2024
Its a challenge of our times to find peace when all around descends into chaos. I have been repurposing circles of paper I made during the pandemic when we were all forced to stay within our homes. These circles became cyanotypes, the blue and white layers become portals of peace.
Read More
Stitching layers of paper circles together - you can see the pricked holes on the outside layer.
There's a big difference between stitching paper and stitching cloth. When I'm using cloth, I connect to generations of women who have created their own clothes and 'useful' household items. When I'm stitching paper its all about the story, the art of storytelling with paper and thread.
Read More