syzygium suborculare - red bush appleThis year....
has seen a cosmic shift in the practical day to day world....last year i was teaching in the school system, delivering art lessons to the masses of children who would rather be playing computer games! I learned how to make up silly songs on the guitar and be weird enough to get by, but even my fiery passion for art did not enthuse.....
so this year....i am embarking upon what initially seemed like a journey away from the old 'institution'...how ever out of the frying pan into the fire as Tolkein would say. I got a scholarship last year to do a 'Masters' by research...i was thinking wicked...i can play, research and make art, what a life! To a certain extent it is that but the old familiar feeling of prison sentence is looming again on the horizon....
So here I am...I remain enthusiastic and have a fantastic project, I am researching PLANTS of the pan-tropical region...artists who use them, ways to play with them, what colours to glean from their juice and all the rest....
the reason behind this is quite simple....over the years of living in Darwin, I have always searched for a reosurce identifying what plants give colours, what you can do with what....but to no avail...seems like the time is right to investigate.
I know a little but not a lot.... I am inpsired by two amazing women...my old auntie from wulkabimirri, who taught me how to look and see, and India Flint....who taught me that anything is possible with a bit of sense and magic!
So I am playing with plants and drawing, making, dyeing, painting, learning, smashing and reading an awful lot. Some i read isn't awful...soon i get to go out and boil the billy. Any one want to come???
