[STAY GOLD series]
Acrylic on canvas, unframed
61 x 76cm
April 2018

The paint is metallic in places (hair, roses, nails) and changes in different light which explains the three photo variations in colour and tone. Photo 1 is by a professional photgrapher, photo 2 is in daylight, photo 3 is after dark.

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COMMISSION

GRAPHITE ON FINE ART PAPER

Anastasia is a big Michael Hutchence fan! Her loving mother secretly commissioned a fan art illustration as a Christmas gift she could take back to her London home while she studies abroad. As you can tell, she is very excited to own her first piece of original art!

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The sound of the early nineties lingers on for me this week with the sudden and sad death of Dolores O’Riordan, aged 46 (The Cranberries). I can’t separate the pain in her voice from how I felt at that time – 1993 into 1994 – when Mum was slowly losing to breast cancer. Going back to those songs will always be a portal to memory. Dolores, I’ll be dreaming my dreams with you. RIP.

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BREATHE series

[Shirley Manson as a mermaid.]

Acrylic on canvas (unframed)

30 x 30 cm

Thou Art Mum exhibition GRIDS, 2 December 2017 – 31 January 2018, The Vines Cafe, Diamond Creek

I painted Shirley Manson as a mermaid caught in a net after hearing her discuss feminism (equality) and the idea that there is a global movement towards eradicating women’s rights.

Today’s world is quite different to the one I thought it would be when I was studying at uni in the Nineties and listening to Stupid Girl, a song about female empowerment. Twenty years on I feel angry and helpless about it, floating and drowning in my usual mermie way.

SNARE is an exploration of the daily fight for rights by women in a society which is more caught up than ever in the superficiality of what women look like and not the importance of what they are made of.

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I WILL PREVIVE [A Side Serve Of Stones] diary extract, 26 August 2017

N-N-NINETIES OUTRO series (2017)

“Gonna get up, gonna get up, gonna get up… Walk right in, walk, walk, walk right in… Cause you ride on time, ride on time, cause you ride on time. ~ Black Box.

Me got a final call from the tummy hospital this morning. I know, again! I was genuinely surprised. It was Dr. G. calling. He said, “Sista! Looks like the Melbourne coastguard has located a black box about 100km south of your house. It was lying at the bottom of a hot spring on the Mornington Peninsula. Peculiar, innit?! Well, they’ve opened it up and guess what? It’s got your mojo in it. You’d better go and get it, sista!” What news! And RIGHT ON TIME, too, because by strange coincidence I happen to be spending the weekend at aforementioned Peninsula Hot Springs with some of my Pink Hope mermie-sistas. What are the chances??? I didn’t plan the date of this jolly jaunt but guess what? The numbers say it’s the first anniversary of my preventative mastectomies. So what are the chances? I’d say slim but possible because there is nearly always a silver lining. Today I finally get to feel all those things I’ve been denied for so long: joy, relief, celebration and a new normal.

This is the last page in my story. It’s been hard but easy to tell, lonely but connected, dramatic but repetitive and boring, crazy but sane. I am not going to preach to anyone but I encourage you to remember to look after your physical health and, more importantly, your mental health. They are both so precious and you don’t know just how precious until the day they’re not quite right. But you can definitely come out stronger and more determined than you ever thought you could be when you were stuck deep, deep down in those dark moments without your mojo.

So I’m ending the story’s soundtrack with this 1989 song which, now I remember, is sampled from disco’s very own “Love Sensation”. Makes sense. It seems like a natural year to finish in… on the brink of those teenage years, still childlike but about to come of age. Self-love, self-observation, self-preservation all complete one year on! Job done, y’all. Jump around!”

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I WILL PREVIVE [A Side Serve Of Stones] diary extract, 22 August 2017

N-N-NINETIES OUTRO series (2017)

“I wanna give you a place to release your feelings, a starbeat rhythm with a standard meaning, a word and a message with a lot of emotion, with total dedication and a lot of devotion (I wanna give you devotion). ~ Nomad.

It’s my first day (as I see it) in my new ‘home occupation’ as a fully devoted fine artist and I choose to sing these wise dance-hip-house words by an early N-n-nineties nomad. ? I’m singing them at the top of my big mouthed voice on a podium in the dark with flashing strobe lights all around. And it all makes total sense to me!

I’ve got no more medical appointments to go to, no cold Reservoir to drive to, no people to chat to in the home office but I do have this and it’s my arty biz mantra, “Stories & Memories”. I think you know how it goes.

Last night there was a program on TV called ‘This Time Last Year’ which I actually had the chance to be on. I’m just imagining now how this past year would have translated into televised viewing if I’d taken part. Hahaha. I have to laugh otherwise I’d have a breakdown! Somehow I think the story is better told here. So, here we go… forwards, onwards, upwards into nostalgia! I wanna give you devotion!!!”

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I WILL PREVIVE [The Book Of Baps] diary extract, 1 June 2017

HOMEGIRL HOUSE PARTY series (2017)

“I took a seat in the waiting room and Annie then Michael then Phil played in the background on Gold FM. Déjà vu? Almost. All the signs seemed good on my unscenic drive there through the blurbs: sunshine on a rainy day, a broken carpark barrier and a cheery receptionist who laughingly remembered my begging performance on the blower. Ha! Hide.

Five days on, Dr. Gallstones appeared to still like me and he cut straight to the chase announcing, “I’m putting you down for category 1 urgency on the public hospital waiting list.” (Dear sweet God, THANK YOU!!!) Then he said, “This is my best recommendation for a YOUNG MUM like you.” Oh, how I laughed in my head. (Sad face on the outside.) Did he not recall my vintage was ’77, and not ’87? Either way, we were straight back to ways of seeing, especially as SUDDENLY I could also see printed signs slagging off my health insurer all over the waiting room. The language of signs is always there. You just have to make sure you are reading it! (New health insurer recommendations for a young mum like me also warmly received.)

So the worst case scenario is a one month wait. S’ok, I’m really good at waiting. Reeeeeally, really good! And if the pain is terrible in the meantime I will just go to emergency at exactly the same hospital anyway and implement plan C. The first day of winter does not look too shabby after all but I can not fully explain the mental tripping involved in this recovery period. High then low: REPEAT. That whole ‘how long is a piece of string’ thing. It’s paralysis. I am looking forward to actually advancing in life instead of continually meeting myself coming backwards. I am looking forward to doing my natural thing and getting back on the paints. I am looking forward to talking about something much more interesting than myself one day soon. So here the people’s homegirl. It’s Heather Small. She colour my life.”

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I WILL PREVIVE [The Book Of Baps] diary extract, 29 May 2017

HOMEGIRL HOUSE PARTY series (2017)

“You were always on the run, never still.” Something else Mum wrote to me. I think that’s about right. I used to run everywhere as a kid, right up until running cross country in my early teens (early 1990s). There is cinefilm that exists somewhere of my childhood where I am mostly a speeding blur that cuts across the frame. Hard to believe now but s’true.

Competing at cross country in a British winter was not the most fun thing ever for a sun loving lizard with poor blood circulation: cold, wet mud, bloody scratches on legs from the brambles, a red raw face and wobbly thighs from the freezing wind, hands blue and dysfunctional. Right up there with playing Goal Defence in netball in fact, brambles aside! P.E. people stick you in that position if you have tall girl syndrome. You soon come to realise: hate, hate, hate! So then I stopped.

After stopping I would say that I started running in my head. Yep it’s a jungle in there. Why do I think so much? Too much. Way too much. It can be exciting but it’s tiring, too. A mental workout every day and around the clock. The upshot is I’m driving myself crazy from overthinking in the house of pain. I’m sick of being sick. I’m sick of being stuck. I’m sick of being me!
But it is nearly over and there are just two more sleeps until tummy fix. Baps are doing great, really great. Still tight but great. On Saturday night I thought to myself, “What are you waiting for? You should be up and running! The bruising won’t change anything. Get on your tummy and sleep on those things before you really can’t again for a while.” So I did! First time in 10 months!!! Hip hop hooray! Oh my god. It was totes amazeboobs and my mind ran away straight to my wildest dreams. How’s that for Monday motivation? So here my all saintly, artfully dodging homegirl. It’s Melanie Blatt. She twenty four seven.”

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I WILL PREVIVE [The Book Of Baps] diary extract, 21 May 2017

HOMEGIRL HOUSE PARTY series (2017)

“Yesterday was a pretty good day for my body. A fixed eye, tonsa energy from the steak and wine and hardly any trouble from tummy. Tummy was pretty happy. The sun was shining (more of my medicine) and was warm enough to make a Brit hit the streets bare chested (erm, no, not me). For being two weeks off winter Melbourne could certainly not be sniffed at.

Winter is a funny business here. It’s short but long all at the same time, and the temperature of a British autumn. Australians start wearing woolie hats at around 15 degrees (ho, ho, ho – so naive!). The nights draw in, the days get colder and I wait for Christmas to come. Without fail it doesn’t come and then every year without fail I wonder why I didn’t book a toasty beach holiday to break up the long haul. Déjà vu this year for sure. Sick and broke.

I’ve talked about “beachfix” many times before – it really is my go-to when I need a reboot. Yes! I only moved 12,000 miles away from home to get more of the stuff! It’s my happy place and I don’t get there nearly enough. Admittedly an Australian beach is intimidating with its lurking hidden dangers under a cancerous sun, and so swimming in the sea is nothing like taking a dip in the warm dirty Med or the dagger cold waters of the British Channel Islands (I can still remember everyone else gaily splashing in to just a few degrees in the water off Herm in the middle of summer. Erm, no, not me…). No-one can deny the beauty of an Aussie beach though. It’s a national treasure taken completely for granted by the home grown.

Now that I can swim again I know I want to see even more of la plage. Bring me my mermaid tail at once! (I’ll have to get fitted for new grabby starfish.) So here my homegirl, the Patron All Saint of Bikini Midriff. It’s Shaznay Lewis. She take me to my beach.”

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I WILL PREVIVE [The Book Of Rocks] diary extract, 3 December 2016

AND GOD CREATED FRENCH WOMAN series (2016)

“The art of communication is not the most straight forward thing. It’s hard enough to understand each other in our native language let alone in another. All those nuances and double entrendres make it a minefield for misinterpretation.

I don’t think I will ever be English-French bilingual. Fluent oui, bilingual non. My parents decided not to bring me up speaking both languages. Dad was worried it would be confusing and I would end up as master of none. For me, that approach is a big regret. My French was at its best in 2000 after four years of study and some immersion in France. When you dream in another language you know you are getting close but after a decade Down Under and only SBS exposure, I can say that my French is pretty nul. I miss it.

I would watch Julie Delpy in some youth TV drama after a day at the beach in the south of France in the summer holidays. (You can actually learn a language by watching TV alone, you know!) Later she rocked up in the English speaking film Before Sunrise with Ethan Hawke. Friends of mine loved it: the pair talk all night long until sunrise (c’est fantastique!). Julie wrote a lot of her own dialogue in English. But I didn’t really get it: all this chit-chat and no action. Quoi? Je ne comprends pas! Maybe I need to revisit 1995 to understand it better? There are 171,500 words in English and only 100,000 in French (looks like Shakespeare did a better job than Molière) so let’s keep on talking because apparently if you talk out loud to yourself you are meant to be some kind of genius.

Obviously, today’s sunny Saturday vin blanc is Foreign Language by Flight Facilities.”

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