'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.