Here is the full opening speech for the Quindalup Artists Exhibition. (on the night I gave a shorter version)
Opening Speech for Quindalup artists exhibition 2016
Most of us hear the call to create.
It can be immensely satisfying.
We write, we cook, we paint , make music, garden or pursue some other creative path .
But
some times our will falters.
We loose motivation,
become overly critical of our efforts,
we abandon projects or never start them in the first place.
The secret of the Quindalup artists is that we meet every week. The members of the group make the time to come to the studio/my place/ a six hour class and I make lunch.
We motivate each other – unfolding inspiring fertiliser friendships
We have a comfortable place to be uncomfortable.
The creative process can bring such joy when it is working
and such darkness when it alludes.
Putting your work on the wall for everyone to see is not easy.
It is going to be judged ,
compared,
ignored.
Some of my favourite paintings tonight have been coaxed, out of dark cupboards , rescued from from the gesso undercoat brush.
I was going to read out their report card but as they are all triple a students
I thought I would tell you a bit about each of the members instead
Alana Chesterfield-Evens – who came to the class time poor on her day off work and who now paints full time and is having an open studio at her home . Winner of peoples choice last year and sold the most paintings.
Anita- who has had long love of art that manifests in a house full of “real art’ where her own is lined up in the cupboard. ( and look at this beautiful garden painting that is A++ material) Hold up painting.
Bree Omodei- whose work is getting stronger and stronger in its gentle femininity. Sold every painting last exhibition….. 
Dorothy Davies -who has been snaffled up by the ‘studio bistro’ gallery and has now restrictions on what she can show with us. Her work is inspiring. May studio bistro steal more members!! 
Bridget Haak-ba bright light – who embraces the phrase “that art is a difficult pleasure” forever tweaking her paintings to their perfection.
Elaine Dodd .who gets awe and praise for her work -(after lunch we have show and tell of our work) and then says to me that she has no work good enough to put on a card. Hold up cards
Gerald Hutton gets a C – for attendance. He only visits us occasionally now as is is settled and motivated in his own studio creating land and seascapes that are going from strength to strength ( a + for paintings and treasurer duties) 
Gilly Collison who makes painting look easy. I love and admire her. 
Janine Gaspari has trusted and gone down her rabbit hole of art and made a unique recognisable style. Have you seen her fish with umbrellas? She is often working on commissions and has many outlets for her paintings and cards. I was very pleased that James was introduced the other day as the husband of the artist Janine. 
Jane Talbot-Ponsoby who gives more inspiration to the group than she gets. Dont ever leave us!!
Joy Watling a former milliner from rockaby road -strong drawings,strong paintings, strong woman. She is responsible for organising the painted sat dishes out side (they will funnel people in all weekend! )
Bay Collison- so positive and charming. He loves the process of painting more than most. He can always bring his paintings back from chaos and the edge and resolves them beautifully. 
Judy Mcgann – beautifully self contained and delicate sensitive paintings. Great attention to the surface. Give them a second look
Karen Johnson – who knows a lot about art and she is a perfectionist – ….watch this space. 
Kate Plant –brings great heart to the group . She regularly jumps off into the void -with great success. 
Kerry Rocchi stays true to her gentle feminine understated sensitive creations.
Ros Hamdorf – very happy the day she walked in the door. Always has great ideas and takes big challenges
Mary Meyer is a very creative member She continually experiments and keeps fresh.. She shines in the valuable feed back she shares after lunch. She is very naughty some times.
Odveig Forbes – brings concentration and love to her work. She will never put in many paintings as her family are covering their walls with them. Luckily we will always have her cards. 
Pauline Vukelic is a very valuable member of the group. We need to tie her to the table and hand her phone in at the door. There have been great promises of how after the “next big thing’- then she will focus more on her painting. What will happen when she gives it her full attention! And she knows how good it is for her!! 
Robyn Clifton- Just look at the care and love and quality that is in her paintings .hold up
Ronnie Millard- we first met in a pilaties class many years ago and she had not done a lot of art. And she is a good example of how bum on seat pays off. Taut pilaties bum. She now tackles huge challenges that scare me and flies solo now. 
Sharyn House – quality and sensitivity triple A Sharyn needs to focus more and not talk so much in class. Now this is not really the whole story -When she is painting she is extremely focused. It can take some weeks between finishing one painting and starting the next….
Michael Shaw -is my partner and not a student. Though I am always trying to train him. He is getting much fame for his coffee, bread baking skills and computer trouble shooting–But tonight he gets adoration appreciation and praise of for making our art look so good on these cards. 
Also a huge thank you you an amazing team of husbands – who lift, carry and give us their engineering skills with such good cheer
One more thank you to Lions club and especially Bob Clements who helped us set up all these stands.
I would like to finish by reading a poem
“HOW TO GET THERE
Go to the end of the path until you get to the gate.
Go through the gate and head straight out towards the horizon.
Keep going towards the horizon.
Sit down and have a rest every now and again,
But keep on going, just keep on with it.
Keep on going as far as you can.
That’s how you get there.
by MIchael LeuniG
My wish is that this exhibition inspires your own creativity
my wish is that these paintings will brighten your houses
ENJOY.
And snails have been crushed and into the compost heap as a matter of course.
Think of a word that you would like to
work with: love, peace, kindness, joy,
grace, rhubarb
Draw a rectangle, giving your self lots of
space around it as a border
(maybe 20×12 cm)
Divide the spaces so there is one letter
per space. When putting your letters in,
think about ‘space filling’ each box. Treat
each letter as a new adventure and yet
keeping them simple.
Don’t go left brain writing unconscious
(freehand is good)
practise using your pencil lightly – then
when you use a soft kneaded rubber you
can keep changing and tweaking your
design again and again.
Hints for Choosing Colour
Use a limited palette
Select your colours from just one side of
the colour wheel.
Use just these colours starting with the
largest areas first.
Then choose a few small areas to colour
using colour from the opposite side of
the wheel
or
use an earth pallet
browns, kahki , ochre, burnt orange brick
red.
Use colour pencils or water colour if
your paper is robust enough. I am using
Derwent Inktense pencils and Posca
acrylic pens that go over everything.
Posca’s are particularly good for dotting.
Tweaking the design with posca and
black pen can help with balance.
let me know if you get one finished!!! enjoy
All these colouring in books every where. It should have been me!! That is what i do !!
Its not too late!!!! I have been researching good quality paper and getting quotes from printers. Im leaning towards a folio instead of a book? Here is a preview. What do you think?
Just thought i would put all my recent cat paintings together. The five cat lady paintings were done close together. I think they came about because it was looking like i was going to be single again. Though it is more likely i would turn in to a chicken lady than a cat lady. The relationship is still going ….. today is a good day.
going through box’s of ‘stuff’ when moving …what to do ??
Not long after my nine year old boy died from a brain tumor, I heard that radio national abc were doing a program on ‘baby boomer funerals. I wrote and email and sent it and the next day it was read out on national radio. It was an affirming and healing thing to hear.
This was the email that I sent.
Attention re ‘baby boomer funerals’
I want to share with you my difficult, awful and rewarding experience of bringing my nine year old home home from hospital for three weeks of palliative care and then burying him.
I live on a community of shared land in northern NSW. Within a remarkable short period of time, members of our community organized permission for a cemetery to be allowed on our land.
How to describe the agony of his coffin being made down stairs as Josh was bedridden with his brain tumor growing visibly bigger every day.
A neighbor and his son made and iron cross and rose for the lid.
A Buddhist monk painted an infinity circle underneath.
His father and other loving neighbors dug the grave by hand.
The grandmothers, his father and myself, cleaned and dressed his body and packed his orifices with wadding. Using ice and mosquito net we prepared him for an open day of meditation and prayer, Children decorated him with flowers. After this he went to the town morgue for four days
The day we buried him is rich and full in my memory . Seventy of us followed the coffin through the paddocks, knee deep through the creek and up to the ridge, the trail decorated with garlands of flowers and bamboo. The cemetery was decorate with boughs of flowering gum, stag-horns and large white flag with prayers painted on it. Every one was asked to bring a stone to leave at the grave. Akabella (our local a capella choir) sang, people spoke, read poems, more singing and every one helped to fill the grave.
For me, having rituals that mean something, inviting the community in, not having one stranger involved ..has made this unbearable eve
nt a rich and full experience.
Honouring Joshua – a poem by Claire Hogan
Cicadas drone, as dense as the mist, painted behind the palms.
I feel feet on wood,
Nose of incense
and hear kookaburras and cat bird
Lewans’ honey eater.
I’m not meditating,
Im remembering the once
that I babysat Josh.
I thought, ‘what do I do with a two yr old, wild energy?
Then I went wild.
We sat on a mound of clay,
that waited for two year olds.
And threw yonnies into the new, concrete tank.
I knew that we might sully the tank.
Josh just knew it was fun!
And we played for and hour.
I sit , feet on wood.
Incensed nose.
A car bumps over the wooden bridge.
Linda cries from somewhere deep, and blows her nose.
Tazo’s nose chooses me next
we stand
I sit and pat and feel so honoured
feeling Josh’s presence
Hearing cicadas-voices-
footsteps scrunching on the gravel.
And guess what Josh?
There is no flies,
no mosquitoes. No midges.
oops.
One fly Josh,
but it flew past.
Bryan and Josh
Tazo at the grave
Josh
here is a painting based on a poem by my grandmother
Mary Lisle
it is tricky to read unless you are familiar with the poem so i have put the translation here.
It was published in 1947. Still so current today with young men wanting the excitement and promises of war…
Life was a woman to him, challenging.
A fickle lovely gypsy taunting men with promise of incredible rendezvous and tales of fairy gold where rainbows end.
She stirred the hidden courses of his blood to joy of
conquest and life surrendered to his mastery
the unaccustomed kindness of her lips, all the lithe beauty of her nakedness;
But in the crowning moment of embrace, she slipped from him, and her sister took her place-
dark death who hoods her face and no man woos.
She wound thin arms around him tenderly- and closed his eyes with her long kiss.
He never knew with whom he kept love’s ultimate
rendezvous.
Mary Lisle
