'TINDERBOX'

The drought and dry grasslands combined with overgrown National Parks and bush lands contributed to the terrible fires in Australia recently.  Gum trees are very combustible and once the fires took hold they fueled it to incredible heights with the oil in their leaves.  The Indigenous people managed Australia by slow burn methods and it was only when the newcomers altered the environment that the huge wildfires began.  We need to listen to the old ways and put them back into use again with slow burning and not locking up National Parks and never cleaning and clearing the undergrowth in them as we have been doing.  In this painting the landscape is dry and the bush is waiting menacingly for that first lightening strike or match, a terrible combination. 

"DROUGHT LANDSCAPE'

Acrylic on canvas 24 inches x 24 inches- although we have had rain recently the drought has gone on for many years and is still ongoing in lots of areas.  At it's height there were  areas I had known as a child as lush pasture lands that were bare of grass, just dirt from the air as far as the eye could see.  The creeks in the landscape like dark fissures in the earth.  I actually cried when I saw photos of where I was born and the state it was in late last year.  I don't live there any more but my soul belongs there, in the creeks and paddocks and the brown winter grasses.   

Writings from Momento Mori - Remember You Must Die (Part 1)

In 1996 my husband, Bryan, died.  I use the word 'died' as opposed to 'passed away' or 'lost', for to me, at that time, his death was thing of violence visited upon a lifetime spent as loving companions.  I had no choice in the events that overtook me and my life was turned upside down by his  departure.

I was suddenly 'alone' in the deepest sense of the word.  I felt, at that time, that there were no maps or markers to show my way in the strange new world I found myself in as a 'one', nor did our culture address the issues of death for the survivor, preferring instead to turn away as though they might become like you, and catch your 'affliction' perhaps.
In 2001 I was offered the opportunity to undertake the exhibition titled 'Momento Mori - Remember You Must Die".  So began a year long journey of investigating the cemeteries and funereal cutlture of the Tweed Shire. 

As I sit here tonight writing my "Artists Statement" as the work I am doing draws to a close.  I am plagued by all the usual doubts that visit as an artist prepares to bare their soul to the viewing public.  Have I addressed my brief correctly?  Have I made works that will touch people as to the enormity and complexity of such a subject?

An accident in the kiln has shaken my resolve and perhaps destroyed the visual language I was creating linking the processes of grief. The accident itself is almost like the destruction of death.  It mocks me now in moments of doubt and at other times the shattered sculpture speaks softly to me of the impermanence of life and there is, in fact, a certain stark and torn beauty in the partial form that has survived the kiln's flame.  It almost reminds me of my journey through grief, torn apart but still surviving.

MOMENTO MORI - REMEMBER YOU MUST DIE

2002 - Momento Mori - Remember You Must Die - Tweed River Regional Art Gallery - solo artist in exhibition.  Funded with grant from NSW Government.  Piece from exhibition.  65 cm tall.  Lustres and gold leaf, stoneware fired.  Private collection.

PAST LIFE IN CERAMICS

I started my creative life as a potter, throwing mugs and jugs and casseroles.  I was at one with clay and could not wait to get up each day and go to the studio.  I moved into making art pieces and some fourteen years later was producing pieces such as the one in the photo.  I fell in love with lustre work and gold leaf and worked only in black glazes thus being a foil for the light that was brought into the pieces by the gold additions.  I showed in galleries and exhibitions from Brisbane to Melbourne, was a finalist in the Fletcher Challenge Award in New Zealand, was published in Craft Arts and in a book of modern craftspeople.  My works are held in public and private collections.  It was a busy and satisfying journey.  I stopped at one stage for four years and on the death of my husband I moved back into ceramics.  I loved the lifestyle and the incredibly talented and interesting people I met.  I had been born with an extra rib in my neck and it caused me much pain over the years and finally I sold the kiln and moved into textiles.  It is all just a journey really, a grand adventure, no matter what the media one works in.  I still dream some nights that I am over the wheel and the clay is running through my fingers. 

MORNING WALK

A morning walk through bushland near where I live resulted in finding Wattle flowers and I brought some home to mono print onto fabric.  I chose one of my hand dyed fabrics that reminded me of the glorious yellow of the wattles in bloom and mono printed the found pieces onto the surface in fabric paints.  I quilted it closely in lines in varying directions to suggest the light falling through the leaves. 

MORE LANDSCAPE MONOPRINTING

Working the paint up in translucent layers to suggest the wearing of time on the landscape.  This is from a mountain on Cooplacurripa Station in New South Wales.  As a child I drove through this station to get to the coast from Nowendoc, once a fortnight my father would take us to get supplies and the road through this station was the shortest route to the coast.  In fact it was a long journey of some two and a half hours . I was always fascinated with the bare hills that spoke to me of something ancient and primitive, laying in the landscape like huge monoliths.  I have tried to capture that feeling in this piece.