We moved some stuff around to find a spot for the tree and she went a little mad and had to climb over, sniff, and thoroughly re-investigate the entire lounge room as a result. 🙂
Whilst older than Tiger, Cleo still has her kitten moments. 🙂 Recently she found my toe separator (used for when you paint your toe nails) and spent a good 20 minutes pouncing on it and tossing it about, and then pretending to look innocent when I went to see what she was doing…
This year it’s become a bit of a tradition with some of my friends, we get together every so often and bake potatoes in the fire. Everyone brings drinks or toppings for the spuds. The taste is fantastic, they are creamy and smoky and delicious! Today we also did baked bananas with chocolate sauce, and it isn’t a camp fire without toasted marshmallows. I am so very busy at the moment with work and study and volunteering, art projects, the blog, and all the reading and writing I do. Taking a whole day off to put out chairs and set a fire, water the garden, find room in the fridge for the drinks… it’s so peaceful! My skin smells of smoke, there’s leftover tabouli in my fridge, I’ve lent a book of poetry to a friend who’s new to poems, and all is right with the world.
Tea light candles in glasses to light the table I’ve put under the apricot tree:
I hope you’re having a relaxing weekend too.
As you can see, I loved the massive stone sculptures. The countryside is harsh and wild and stirring.
There’s surprising beauty:
And interesting galleries to visit:
Or if your tastes run in a different direction: a Mad Max exhibit:
and at The Tourist Lodge this January, there will be poets by the pool.
What more could you ask for? Email me if you’d like all the details. 🙂
I’d love to see Auslan or at least the basics being taught in schools. Many of us will experience some degree of hearing loss as we age, and already knowing the rudiments of sign language would help us to maintain communication. Some people experience hearing and sight loss, Auslan can be signed onto someone’s hand to overcome these significant barriers to communication. Knowing the basics also helps to connect with the Deaf community and include them.
I’m writing pretty cautiously because issues around rights, culture, choice and communication in the Deaf community have become pretty hot topics. There’s a lot of strongly held beliefs and politics that I am not in a position to make an informed call about. I am aware there’s been a lot of conflict and tension between Deaf people and medical professionals, and that sadly, the Deaf community seems to have a poor reputation for being unfriendly and elitist.
My background is chronic physical illness and mental illness. I have personal experiences in areas like the difficulty of having an invisible disability, the stigma of ‘madness’, the shame of trauma and abuse… my lovely Grandma was legally blind so I grew up attending craft groups at the RSB with her, I’ve spent a couple of years in a wheelchair when I was very unwell myself. I also used to babysit a child who had an intellectual disability and I did work experience at the special school he attended. I’m pretty passionate about disability issues and I have pockets of knowledge, but about other disability areas I’m quite inexperienced. I have very little contact with the Deaf community, but on the street where I live now I have a Deaf neighbour, and I’d like to be able to communicate with him. He came around one evening to let me know that I’d left my car lights on, and we wave at each other but I’m embarrassed that I can’t ask him how his day is or if he’d like some mandarins from my tree.
This class has been the most wonderful introduction to the Deaf community. The instructor is Barry, you can see him here on the home page of Deaf Can Do. He is wonderful, very friendly and funny with fantastic communication skills. I’ve so enjoyed this class I’m considering taking on Auslan as a second language. I bet there are some Deaf folks out there who could do with some good mental health information too. It does help to remember that behind arguing and politics are people, and that few of us like being defined by our ‘group’ – however passionate about it we are – to the exclusion of all else.
So, if you’re looking to learn something new and stretch yourself a little bit, consider this class! And while I’m spruiking for the WEA, Lee Pascoe, international hypnotherapist, will be back again to do three classes in January 2012. I did three of her classes at the beginning of this year and found them very helpful, I’d highly recommend her. She’s a wonderful woman full of vibrant energy.
A little story to finish on… I’m doing Auslan with a friend who attends the voice hearer’s group Sound Minds with me. At the first Auslan class we were looking through the notes and saw an instruction that we were to ‘leave our voices at home for these classes’… that gave us a bit of a private giggle!
It’s taken me a couple of hours of reading through forums to work out how to embed the newsletter on this blog, but here we are! You can also go directly to the document here to download it, print or email it if you wish. Please feel free to pass it on to anyone who may find it of use. 🙂
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So, there you go. I think I’m just a glutton for punishment, making extra work for myself! I’d love to hear any feedback or constructive criticism you may have about it. 🙂
There’s an Art Exhibition coming up soon, Peter Goers will be opening the Diamond House exhibition Shine on you Krazee Diamonds on Nov 25th. The art work will continue to be on display for another two weeks. I think I’ve one work in this, but things have been a little hazy with the details so I’m not making any promises!
See What’s On for all the details. 🙂
I hadn’t realised until this course just how much event running I’ve been involved in! I’m the primary event person in my family and social network, every year Christmas and Birthdays etc tend to fall to me. I’ve also been involved in some biggies like the school formal, theatre productions, engagement parties. In fact I gained a reputation for being able to work with people, produce the spectacle and stay in budget. My big weakness to date has been the paperwork side of things as most of what I’ve been involved in has been informal and running to a very tight budget. Things like grant applications haven’t been on my radar. But, I enjoy writing, and if I can master the transition in style from poetry to essay – the former came naturally to me, but the latter took serious effort – then I can learn the language of proposals and applications.
These are very exciting skills to be learning, not only for use in my creative projects, but also for the development of further resources in mental health. That’s a very exciting prospect and I’m keen to take things further and also try to make sure the resources I’m involved in now are sustainable over time. These are key projects I’m very passionate about and committed to, and it’s clear to me that at this point I need to be able to drive and manage them at least until I’ve found existing compatible projects to nest them into or some way to ensure they keep running. It’s an odd quirk of life, but currently art is my ‘day job’ and peer work my unpaid indulgent hobby!
Earlier this year I was invited to go to Parliament House with a small group of people, talking to a committee who were part of an Inquiry into Mental Health and Workforce Participation. I shared my personal struggles with trying to engage higher education and work once I’d become unwell. Afterwards, myself and another Peer Worker who’d attended, Lisa, sat down and wrote an article about the experience for the MIFSA newsletter. You can read it here. (various of the projects I’ve been involved in are mentioned in that newsletter, you can read about them or see some of my artwork on pages 1, 5 , 6, 11, and 12)
It was an exciting opportunity to be able to say what hadn’t worked, what the obstacles to education and employment for me have been, and to suggest things that would help me to overcome these obstacles. My story was picked up by the Sydney Morning Herald, who wrote this article. That was quite confronting and left me feeling a bit wobbly and exposed. I was pleased however that it seems the way I’d framed my experiences and the words I’d chosen had impact and meaning. We also wrote a follow up letter to better address some of the great questions we were asked. This is what I shared:
I’ve had a long difficult road trying to continue my education and gain employment. At times it has been so demoralising and discouraging I’ve been at a loss to work out how it was ever going to happen. The chronic stress of seeking work and not being able to gain it was extremely debilitating. I’ve also struggled to remain engaged with university and each time I’ve been forced to withdraw the blow to my confidence has been major and taken a lot to get over.
I became very unwell in the first year of university and all my plans fell apart. I was unable to stay at uni, dealing with severe undiagnosed physical illness and mental illness. Without a diagnosis or support for my condition I was required to look for work. I spent about a year actively job hunting and was turned down for everything. The change in my hopes, from having an excellent academic record and sights set on postgraduate work, to applying for jobs pushing trolleys and being knocked back was devastating. My self worth plummeted. My academic successes so far actually played against me in the job market, at the one job interview I secured I was told they had no intention of putting the time in to train someone who would only be off to university in a year or two anyway. I promised I wouldn’t, at that time uni seemed as unattainable as the moon, but it made no difference. Trying to downplay my academic focus in my resume left me with very little to show my work ethic and good character. I started a small home business that failed, and then a second that never got off the ground. My health spiralled and my world collapsed.
Later I reset my sights on uni and tried to get back to my original plan. The support for someone in my situation was completely inadequate and I struggled terribly. Major health problems or life crises constantly interrupted my efforts. On one occasion I had to pull out of my course because I was hospitalised with chronic appendicitis, complicated by medication allergy reactions. On another I found myself homeless a week before the exams. Each time I was forced to withdraw again the sense of failure and hopelessness was overwhelming. Finally I decided this approach was futile and setting me up to fail. I changed gears again.
The years passed and the gap in my resume became larger and larger, with nothing to show for the phenomenal amount of work I was doing just to survive. It hurt so badly to be left behind, to watch my peers complete their degrees and gain work. I felt totally derailed, I’d not just fallen off the tracks but over a cliff, and all my planning and work wasn’t enough to get me back on that track again. I watched other people’s lives from a distance, with pain, humiliation, and desperate envy.
I decided to seek volunteer work as a pathway back to improving my resume, building my confidence, and allowing me to feel useful and connected to my community again. To my surprise, I was consistently knocked back by organisations who didn’t see me as someone with anything to offer. The few who were happy to have me had rigid requirements I couldn’t meet with my health problems, such as minimum 6 hour shifts on my feet. I could donate money but not help out in any practical way.
A couple of things finally changed for me. I found MIFSA, who were happy to have me volunteer in various capacities. I decided that getting back into education needed to be tackled in very small steps, and started to work on my goal by taking up short courses with the WEA. Lastly, the idea of Peer Work was introduced so that people like myself, who are highly skilled but short on academic credentials could actually use our hard-won experience. My resume is a lot fatter, I’ve been making connections, building networks and finding out about events and training opportunities. I’m spending time now with people who think I have potential, and who also get how debilitating my invisible disabilities are. I’m finally starting to glimpse a future where someone like me, with both my strengths and limitations, has a place.
It shouldn’t have been this hard.
Wow, today we heard that someone wants to adopt my gorgeous foster cat Tiger! I’m so thrilled for him! He’s such a trooper, very stable and settled, lovely temperament and markings. He’s in wonderful condition, all healed up and fat as a pig. 🙂 He’s in excellent health, hasn’t had any issues at all except for a little hay fever on high pollen days. He’s quite content to be indoors too. He wandered out one morning when I was signing for a package, and I was able to pick him up and bring him back inside without any fuss. I’ve just dosed him and Cleo this week with Revolution flea/worm treatment. Here he is dozing on his favourite chair:
And those lovely yellow eyes:
But he’s not so keen on the flash lol:
Awww, I’m so excited for him, but I’ll be so sad to have him go! We’ve already got another foster cat lined up, a Mum cat with four kittens who needs a peaceful safe home. Cleo will be getting lots of hugs and cuddles to cope with all the change! She sleeps on my bed every night and I won’t change that, whatever happens with adorable newcomers during the day she’s got snuggles at night. 🙂
I forgot to post pictures of the gorgeous TheMHS quilt back when the conference was on. This was a great community project, I and many other people contributed a single patch each that were all sewn together into a total of six amazing rainbow coloured quilts! I’d love to be a part of more community/public art like this. Here’s my little patch, I embroidered it at a carers’ retreat earlier this year, using a line from one of my poems.
It reads the stars call to me, they sing in my bones. Here’s the whole quilt, my patch is the middle right hand side:
And here’s the whole row of three, people were fascinated by them and spent a lot of time looking at all of the panels. 🙂
And a quick last reminder, I currently have artwork in two exhibitions. The box factory one will be taken down on Friday, so this your last chance to see all 6 artworks – oils, ink paintings, linoprints, and a huge kite! And Homelessness is on display at the Diamond clubhouse until the end of November, when she will be going home with a new owner! I promise you they are far more lovely in person than the photographs you get here. Get in quick, free entry for both! Promise you’ll tell me all about it if you do make it in.
I hope you’re having a good weekend too. Enjoy some photos of flowers!
These last flowers are from our feijoa tree (also called a pineapple guava), which is very exciting! We only had two fruit from it last year but judging by this year’s flowers we should get a good crop this season if we look after it.
My new Tafe course started up tonight, it’s a subject from the Bachelor of Visual Arts degree called Small Object Making, and is basically exploring difficult materials to make into sculptures. I adore it. I could move into the sculpture department and live there very contentedly for the rest of my life. It is a big space, full of mad half finished sculptures everywhere, and the most delicious collection of expensive equipment in neat, well set out workshops. There is the bronze forge. There are tools for working metal in the metal workshop, oxy-acetylene torches, huge orange rubbery welding screens that looked oddly medical, grinding wheels, even a proper metal forge in the corner. There is a whole room devoted to clay and ceramics, where in one of the classes you sculpt in clay a life model who poses for the class. There is a wood workshop, full of lethal and fascinating wood tools, saws, drills, sanders and suchlike. There is a small class area of comfy lounges with pigeon holes of art materials and half done projects on one wall, and books and magazines for inspiration scattered all around. I could barely contain my excitement!
I also tried to get my jewellery project back but it hadn’t been marked yet. I will post pictures when I do!
For those of you who are only familiar with my 2D art forms, you may not know that I also have a passion for a type of sculpture called installation art. Where sculpture is usually about making something, a 3D shape of some kind that is then put on display, installation art is about taking a space and transforming it. It’s more akin to creating a theatre set, every part of the space is thought through. One installation artist I like is Christian Boltanski, especially his works with light and shadow such as Monuments, and Tombs.
Many years ago in school, I made two installation artworks for my yr12 project, one a pair of life size plaster people with clear perspex wings that changed colours in a light display, reaching for jewels that were suspended from plaster hands that hung from the roof. The other was a huge 6 foot long sarcophagus, complete with Mummy, from whose chest burst forth feathered origami birds that flew away through the ceiling. They were pretty awesome, I loved making them. It was very therapeutic to take over a small room at school and make it entirely my own world.
However, there’s big difficulties with this art form. It doesn’t always transport well – to put the sarcophagus on display at the Roma Mitchell Arts Education Centre I had to drive her in roped to a trailer doing 40km an hour, and then do fairly extensive repair work with silicon, paint, and hot glue when I arrived. It’s also difficult to find space to store the works, they are often built to suit a particular space and don’t work well in other environments… and they’re tricky to construct when you live in a small space and have a tight budget…
But I love it! And, as I improve my photography skills, I will be able to construct, photograph, and dismantle works more easily. So the final result may not always be an installation you can walk around, but instead an interesting series of photographs. And of course, there’s always possibilities for sculpture in miniature. I love to work with many different mediums and want to learn skills in wood, metal, glass, clay, polymers, and electronics. Getting sick and being so restricted with movement and energy I adapted and took up needlework and embroidery. Prior to that I would never have explored those areas, but now I value knowing how to sew and do bead work. I get a lot out of exploring different kinds of art.
So, I have a big decision coming up. Tafe applications close at the end of this month, and I have to decide what I’m applying for. There’s a number of fascinating Certificate 4’s, including one in 3D sculpture and public art, that are each only a year full time. (I would love to get into public art, but I’ve been told it’s very very difficult and involves a lot of paperwork. urk) There’s also the bachelor degree which is broader in scope and takes 3 years full time. I’m trying to leave open options to keep picking up all the other short courses I love such as at the WEA, and the media training I’ve booked in for with Radio Adelaide, plus I have to be able to fund all this study as most of these are pay up front kind of deals. And of course I do want to continue with psychology/social work/disability work/mental health/peer work kind of study also… Although currently being an artist, writer and speaker I feel I am being helpful in mental health, and my enthusiasm for being employed as a psychologist is somewhat waning when compared to making art to present talks about mental health like I’m doing now… tricky tricky! I’m worried about the commitment to a three year degree considering my health and my caring situation are both rather unpredictable, and I’d rather finish a cert 4 than half finish a degree. On the other hand I can work on the degree part time and I guess if 6 months into it it’s clearly too stressful I can always withdraw and apply for a cert 4 without too many issues. Dilemmas!
In the meantime, I have materials to experiment with as part of my current subject, two projects to complete and a journal to work on. Hope your day was inspiring too. 🙂
See my next post about Small Object Making here.
This is your last chance to see Homelessness, she is going on display at the Diamond Clubhouse today, and staying there until the 20th of November, when she will go to live with her new owner. The Clubhouse is at 19 Kilkenny Rd Woodville Park, and is open Monday – Friday 9am-4pm. Parking and entry are free. 🙂 Another six of my artworks are still on display at the Box Factory in the city too, and in both cases are part of larger exhibitions with some other really fantastic artworks.
I’ve started a new oil painting. So far, it’s a hill.
I don’t know why. It started as a branch for blossoms then changed its mind and turned into a hill. I don’t know what’s going to happen next. I seem to just like hills. This is my first oil painting I’ve ever done, from last year:
I will admit, that’s a lot of hills. Will there be trees? I do like trees also. Oh the anticipation! Stay tuned to find out! :P
Both eyes are almost completely clear now and she’s much happier in general. Here she is keeping me company while I blog:
A very faithful companion. 🙂 Tiger is also going great. He stretches right out on the rugs like his namesake, requiring everyone to step over him in the hallway. He’s a big, happy, lazy cat. They’ve got themselves sorted out now, Cleo sleeps by my side and Tiger at my feet. Well, no, I tell a lie. Cleo sleeps on my book/journal/hands/pillow and then gets pushed off until she settles down to sleep by my side… Neither like being under the covers (who can blame them in this weather?) and both require the bedroom door is left ajar for easy access to midnight snacks. 🙂
Look at all the gorgeous colours! Yum yum, can’t wait to start a new oil painting now. Here they are together with my original collection, as you can see it’s just about doubled.
Always heart warming to have new art supplies. And, in case you’re interested, here’s my lovely Chinese painting pallette, all set up:
I purchased the paints very cheaply while in Singapore last year, and have designs on some more for Christmas this year. I used these together with the sepia ink for the first time recently to paint the illustrations for a talk about creativity and mental health. They are gorgeous, a little more opaque than western watercolours with lovely soft blending. These paintings are done entirely in the sepia ink, dried, and then the Chinese paints are painted on top to add gentle areas of colour.
This one depicts using creative arts to express grief, fear, anguish and pain.
Tiger is still going fine, he seems to have a remarkably strong constitution for a cat with FIV. He currently alternates between trying to play with Cleo, which she’s not in the mood for, and grooming her, which also annoys her a bit. She’s a bit sooky when she’s feeling ill, needs lots of cuddles and attention and feels a bit grumpy about Tiger giving her a good licking when she’s trying to nap. She comes up and prowls my desk when she feels I’ve been on the computer too long and paying her too little attention:
Hopefully the new infection clears up quickly. It doesn’t seem as swollen as the first did, so I’m hopeful it’s not as bad and will heal quickly. She’s very affectionate, sleeps on my bed every night, loves being picked up and cuddled, and has a gorgeous purr.
“a unique space that allows mental health consumers and their supporters a place to creatively tell their stories. It is a community dedicated to de stigmatising mental illness through shared experiences” Louise Pascale
And it’s now live, with new material being put up every day! They are also keen for people to submit to the site, so if you have a story, poem, artwork, photo, or great idea for a blog post, consider getting involved! I will be sharing some of my art and posts there, they already have some of my art displayed here, and here. The launch on Wednesday was fantastic, the digital stories are of a really high standard and are really amazing to see. I highly recommend having a look, try starting with Flannel Flower, it brought tears to my eyes. The blog posts so far have also been really interesting. They’ve been working on this project for a long time and the results are excellent.
A quick reminder that my interview on Radio Adelaide airs Saturday morning, between 9 – 11am. As part of a stigma reduction campaign by the HCA, I’ve been recorded being interviewed about living with a mental illness. So tune in to 101.9 FM, or online to hear it!
Wow, what an exciting evening! I was presented with an award this evening at the Emerging Artists Big Circle Arts Exhibition! It was for “a work that effectively captures an idea or feeling”, and came with a bag of goodies including a deeply appreciated gift voucher to Premier Art Supplies. That’s going to fill in a few more colours for my paint range and buy some new paper. 🙂 Here she is: Homelessness.
I’m so excited! I’ve been checking my memory all evening, and I think this is the first time I’ve won an award for an artwork. I’ve taken out a couple of highly commended and sold works on occasion, but my first award! I’m so thrilled, it was the best pain relief for my extremely sore mouth after three very deep fillings this afternoon.
It gets better – at the end of the evening I was informed the work had sold! Hurrah! I’m so very pleased. I have another 6 works on display for Mental Health week at The Box Factory, entry is free and the venue is disability friendly so please take a look.
My personal excitements aside, it was a great evening, music provided by the JMG band, some lovely brief speeches, (my nervous and slurry acceptance was not among them!) and wonderful poems and comedy by Kylie Harrison. I’m really enjoying having come to enough of these events that I can find familiar faces and people to chat with now. It was lovely to see you all!
Heat set the poppy shoes and now ready for some beading when I have a moment. 🙂
And a quick reminder that I have work in an Exhibition that opens Monday night! Free entry, open to everyone. I’ll be making a huge effort to be there after my dental appointment, the woozy one who looks like she’s been smacked in the mouth will be me. Would love to see you there. 🙂
But my group Sound Minds was awesome as usual, so I’m feeling pretty good!
There’s an exciting training opportunity called SmART, for artists with a disability, or people who work with us here. Places are very limited so get in quick!
Cleo is still pretty unhappy but she’s opening her sore eye a little more so I think that’s a good sign.
My new poppy shoes are looking awesome, I’ll post pics of them tomorrow. 🙂
And, I’ve found out when my interview will be aired on Radio Adelaide! There will be one each from four of us who’ve been working with HCA, here’s the schedule:
Radio Adelaide is our local community radio station, listen in on 101.9 FM, or online here.
The Feast Festival is coming up in November, check out all the events here.
And the next MIFSA Forum is also coming up – free event – Oct 26th, 1-2.30pm on The Benefits of Mindfulness, so if you want to learn more about this technique for enhancing your mental health, make sure you RSVP to reception@mifsa.org or call on 83784100.
And a reminder that the LAUNCH of the Celebration of Life Exhibition is on tomorrow morning – see my What’s On page for all the details. Free event, everyone is invited! I’d love to see you there. 🙂
Hope you’re having a good evening too!
I’m bathing it regularly with salt water to help kill off any bacteria, and she’s being really good about keeping it clean. She’s feeling rather miserable and wanting lots of cuddles at the moment. I’m keeping a close eye on it and if I think it’s getting worse I’ll get a vet involved, but at the moment I think she’ll get over it herself.
Tiger is going really well, he’s been very healthy despite the FIV and no trouble at all. He’s a lovely friendly fellow, with a funny penchant for eating odd things! I’ve had to hide the cotton tips as he seems to think they’re cat snacks, and when he’s happy he licks whatever is nearby… the chair, pillow, blanket, or my fingers! Good exfoliation I’m sure, but I am having to use a lot more hand moisturiser!
The two have been all energised by the spring weather and when they’re not sleeping in patches of sunshine they enjoy chasing each other about the house. It seems to be pretty fair about taking it in turns who chases and who runs away which I’m happy about. They’re not closely bonded like litter-mates often are but they certainly seem to enjoy each other’s company. 🙂
