Creativity. Science. Place.
Thirty-five years ago, fresh out of Uni, I arrived in the Top End for six weeks of work. All these years later I’m still here. This not uncommon story reflects the pull of this most special place. It gets into your bones and calls if you ever think of straying. Given the choice, I stayed for the opportunities to work and explore this place of bare oceans, magnificent skies, and broad, barely peopled landscapes.
As children, my sisters and I eagerly awaited the giant box of exotic craft materials sent from Seattle by our Mum’s sister. We created away the boredom of long hot summer holidays. We learnt how to use a Bunsen burner while copper enamelling with our dad, long before our science classes. My love of art took a back seat to the high school subjects and Science degree that would bring to the fore my desire to make a living doing something related to being outside and understanding the natural world. It brought me to Darwin, to a multitude of projects working on farms, beaches, wetlands, rangelands, old mine sites, rivers, springs and groundwater. Beautiful fluid water.
As time went by, much of my professional work was about writing, and this is where my love of visual arts forced my hand into presenting words, headings and pages in a way that told the story just much as the words themselves. Showing the meaning through structure, as much as telling the facts and the stories.
Now, in the art I make, I want you, as a fellow observer, to feel the flow. I use clay, a material from the earth, to mirror the flow of water in springs, creeks and on the beach. Sometimes it can also be in the canopy of trees, or leaf litter on the ground, but somehow, there is always a curve, a movement or energy that never ends. I use glass or timber as a backdrop for hundreds of individually sculpted pieces that together tell a story of landscape, place and flow.
I’ve come to call myself an artist in my 50s, but my earlier work is always there informing what I do. I want to tell stories. I didn’t know this could be a solid, worthwhile use of my time until I saw how people could read the stories I told in clay, and how it made them feel. This makes me smile and warms my heart. Working with other artists, exploring the nature and necessity of creativity, learning the endless lessons of technique and trial and error, have truly shown me the way.
Along that way I’ve exhibited locally, regionally and nationally and was a finalist in the 2018 Waterhouse Natural Science Art Prize at the South Australian Museum. In 2019, a residency at the Territory Wildlife Park (through the Artist-in-the-Park program) presented a range of opportunities including the creation of a permanent installation in the monsoon rainforest, participation in a promotional video for the residency program and a group exhibition in the following year at the Godinymayin Yijard Rivers Arts and Culture Centre in Katherine. I received funding from Arts NT in 2019 to assist in the exhibition and transport of Top End artists’ works to Tasmania for the 15th Australian Ceramics Triennale, and in 2020 received funding for my own professional development. In 2022, a friend and fellow artist and I received funding from the Darwin City Council for a series of highly successful community arts workshops in Darwin’s botanic gardens. Over 2022-23 I had a long-term installation at a local venue celebrating the importance of community and the beauty of our local suburban environment.
All of this has shown me the deep satisfaction that art and creativity can bring to individuals and communities. It makes our beautiful, inexplicable world a much better place.
