May 2024

Season: Autumn

Sadly my father in-law lost his battle to cancer early this month. He passed away peacefully with his wife, boys and brother by his side. It’s hard to believe only 3 weeks prior he had driven up and stayed with us, he went down hill so quickly.

We have spent most of the month in Melbourne staying close to the family.

Visiting the property if only for a day trip has been incredibly healing. We went for an incredible 2hr walk on the Goldfields track, I can’t believe it’s taken us this long to explore it, the track is just up the road.

As Autumn is coming to an end there’s a lot to do in the garden. There’s been many trips to the burn pile. It feels good to do a days work, it’s physically hard but really satisfying especially as you fill the trailer. Soon we will have a massive bonfire.

I still get such a thrill finding magnificent reflections of gum trees in our dams, my camera is full of images. Most of my paintings have water and reflections in them too.

My work:

I’ve just completed week 10/12 of CVP Art2Life. We are in the middle of creating a series of three 30x30cm panels incorporating all the principles we have learnt in the course. And guess what? I hit a wall. I felt overwhelmed and pressured to perform (totally self inflicted) so much so that I froze and could not paint. I allowed my fear and anxiety to take the reigns (sorry Liz.) Elizabeth Gilbert writes in Big Magic that we should acknowledge fear when it arises, allow it to be present but not take the drivers seat.

Thankfully the team at CVP calls out this kind of behavior and are full of encouragement. Reminding us to be playful, experiment and to find joy being present in pushing paint and mark making. Trusting the process means letting go of perfectionism or needing some kind of outcome. This task is an opportunity to practice the principles we’ve been taught. Design, value, colour & texture.

Over the years I have got better at spotting my fears. The alarm bells went off when I realised I was trying way too hard, spending too much time on a piece without giving myself distance. I would overwork the piece and then completely wipe it away. A lot can be said for taking a break for a few days and returning to your work with fresh eyes. I was holding too tight, I wanted a quick fix. I was ignoring the brief and ended up in a complete frenzy. The images below are some of the passes I’ve made to date. You’re meant to make many layers (passes) but not fall in love too quickly.

So I took the week off. I got outside and walked. I looked for wise words from other creatives. Sulieka Jaouad has a wonderful substack newsletter, ‘The Isolation Journals’, I find her words around meeting fear and staying on track in your creative practice particularly helpful. I started to meditate again. I went to see a movie, ‘Perfect Days’ it’s about a janitor in Tokyo who in between driving to jobs listens to rock music from his cassette collection. He lives his life in simplicity and appreciates the small things which are available to all of us, if we bother to look, listen and be present. It was the perfect reminder, to be grateful for ‘perfect days.’

You’ll have to wait until next month to see how the paintings ended up.