Artists of Australia
Inspired by the colour and texture of the outdoors -
Inspired by the colour and texture of the outdoors -
Does your garden influence your work – either in what you create or how it affects you? My garden is a way of me getting therapy to unwind. I need it I find to ground myself. I love to get out and potter around and even to make pots of succulents. I put in little rocks and feathers and things I find on the beach – it brings me a lot of joy. I hold back a bit as I know I am renting here and its so hard to move heaps of pots. I feel like this view is my garden and that huge tree is amazing. I will go and sit under it sometimes and it is so calming. Living with it is actually very grounding – it makes me stop and listen to myself. It is really massive with great buttress roots. I could sit here all day and look at the view Last year Covid hit and then I got Ross river fever which threw me out last year. I was teaching some people at home but Covid affected it so much. When I got over Ross river fever I needed a kick start so I did the 'Artists Way for' 12 weeks and it really motivated me and got me to take action. One of my self dates / self care days from this course was going to the Lennox Gallery and that was when I met Jen. She sent me the info on the gallery and that is how I came to exhibit there. It is a great book to read and follow. It took me 3 months and I worked flat out to put the exhibition together. I was exhausted but it was quite a success and I have got more work from that. I decided to focus the exhibition on the beach so that is why I called it 'Byron to Ballina'. Do you have a favourite corner in your garden? It would have to be here looking out at my view - but I also really love my little corner near the front door. As I come home it is a light filled spot – an oasis with all my pot plants – a little conservatory – somewhere you can take your shoes off as you come into the house and sit on the bench. It is a great spot and the plants there seem to love it. What is your favourite plant or flower? I have to say the frangipani and they are beautiful to draw as well. I love the white and yellow traditional ones – they are so pure. I can’t walk past a tree without picking up a few and putting in water for the day. I did a series of large proteas and I love Australian bush flowers, in fact I even had them in my wedding bouquet. I had Flannel flowers, Waratahs and Proteas. I am really quite drawn to them as well. My mum had the greenest thumb – she could put anything in the soil and it would grow. Like her sewing she was very natural and organic. Her garden was amazing – almost to the point of being overgrown, but lovely. My mum was an artist and in fact still paints at 91. My sister is also an artist living in Taree – she is a portrait artist. My dad also dabbled in paint. My great great uncle was Charles Dixson - and his father was Henry Dixson. They were famous maritime painters in England in the late nineteenth century with artworks exhibited at the Royal Academy and some paintings still held in the National Maritime Museum. We – my sister, my cousin who is a historian and I - are putting together a traveling exhibition called 'The Descendants of Charles Dixson' and hope to get it into the regional galleries. Charles is probably best known here for his painting called 'Landing at Anzac, April 25, 1915' which is hung in Federal Parliament buildings but he has other pieces at the War Memorial as well. How does the act of ‘making’ relate to your personality and who you are? I can’t imagine not being creative as part of how I make my living - it is part of me. Even as a kid my biggest dream was to make enough things to fill my room! I was always making something and mum was fantastic, as she was a great sewer, and she would help me make these huge puppets. I love to solve problems and my art is part of that. My brother bought a van and I offered to do it up for him – Pete my partner is creative too – he makes tables and does art photography and film making. I had great fun doing up that van. Tell us about your career journey to date – did you always want to be an artist? I studied art at school in the western suburbs of Sydney where I grew up. I knew that when I Ieft school I wanted to do something creative so on the day I left school I enrolled in the local Tafe - but my mum said 'oh no you have to do secretarial' but that was the course I went back to do later on. I did go to secretarial college but I never stopped being an artist as I only did secretarial for a while - I’m thankful I can touch type at least. I started ticket writing at 13 alongside my sister when she was 18. I then also taught it at Tafe for 10 years. So I guess I have been an artist all my life.– and then I moved to the Central Coast when I was married with children. I did 5 years at Tafe, when the kids were little - it is now called the Sydney Gallery School. I ended up becoming a sign writer and a ticket writer and that was how I used my creativity for 35 years and ran my own business – a long career and still do a little of that. I went to Tafe about 18 years ago and started painting at home amongst my sign writing. Once I sold a bit more, about 15 years ago, I realised I could do it. Graphic art ran alongside my art – I was traditionally trained in all the sign writing but it has become more digital over the years but I prefer painting. When I moved up to Ballina I owned a shop in Ballina Fair called Gekko Arthouse, which was also the name of my sign writing business. We sold a variety of home wares but also my paintings. I went to Florence and did sculpture a summer school for 6 weeks a few years ago which was fantastic. Everything you learn adds something. I have always worked in acrylics but I have recently been studying with Ben Smith and he has taught me in oils which is so different and another good addition. I have also done a fair bit of pastel work and water colours and I love Ink – in particular Quink. It is beautiful to work with and you can use it like water colour. Could you talk us through your creative process? I like to sketch and plan out my work. I like to do 4 or 5 thumbnail sketches and I might use photos taken on walks - then I manipulate them on the computer in Corel. Then I draw from that image and I will paint from both images. I do find I often change it a bit as I go – a lot of my work has sketching marks over the paint to keep it loose – I like to use Inktense over the paint. I use a lot of water and inktense over the top. I like to try different things – I will work on about three pieces at a time with a similar palette so I can get the backgrounds done but then I will get to a certain stage then concentrate on one to finish it. Otherwise I get too scattered with it. I do prefer to work large – which might be caused from all my screenwriting. My partner Pete makes most of my canvases and frames them for me. What has been your most crucial tool to grow your creative business? My website which I set up and have had for 15 years. I am loving adding in the blog to it and I got interviewed for a podcast which is on there. What has been the most challenging lesson learnt since you started your art? Believing in yourself and not doubting that your art is good enough. Sometimes the piece I don’t like is the first one to sell and that everyone loves the most. I also tend to paint a lot of work for a designer for instance for a commission but I know if I try to restrain myself too much it doesn’t work. If you get stuck in that perfectionism you can’t keep going – sometimes you have to let things go even if only 80% happy. What’s been the best thing that has happened to you since you started I think when you walk into a house and see a piece of yours on the wall and they are still in love with it. You see it, and even forgot you have done it, but you feel so great. Also spending time talking to people about your art at markets or galleries it is lovely to encourage people and discuss art. I used to run a Thursday night in the shop a sketchfest and we had a number of people who loved to come to that. My sister has had the Other Side Art Café in Taree and now it is the Other Side Art Retreat. I can see myself moving back to Taree in the not too distant future. Do you have any advice you might give your younger self? Don’t not be an artist – paint for yourself and trust that you can make a living out of it. You think it is impossible, but you need to make room for it – I jumped in head-first to this exhibition and I think I learnt a lot from this. You have to paint what you love. I journal every morning and I have been empowered by it all. What are your top tips for a great garden? Plant what you love!! I do love a veggie patch and having things growing to pick out of it- I think Basil, Rocket and Parsley are my main things I like to grow and pick all the time. We had a huge wall with posts and potplants in our old house and almost made art out of it. I had a huge sculpture in the garden as well. Do you have any projects coming up you would like to talk about I would like to work towards another exhibition with my sister; daughter and my niece and Pete and call it “The Fab Five’ and maybe have it at my sisters gallery in Taree or a shop front. Pete and I work quite a lot together over time – we make a good team.
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I am passionate about creativity - and I also believe that creativity comes in all forms. For some it is gardening - others its knitting, weaving, ceramics, collage, painting, jewellery making and so much more. For me it is the fact of creating that is important and appreciating it all. Visiting Pauline was an opportunity to chat to someone who also honours this in others and in fact has created her own space in Ballina to sell both her work and others in a space called Creative Artisans Gallery. As all artists know it is so hard to find places that will accept and sell their work - particularly new emerging artists/ craftspeople so it is a delight to find someone who has created a 'not for profit' opportunity for them. Pauline herself makes some extraordinary fine work from painting on porcelain to very fine beaded work. Does your garden influence your work – either in what you create or how it affects you? I think it is the serenity it gives me most of all - I can sit here looking over the lake with a coffee and work for ages. I also sit out on the verandah– depends what I am doing. At present I am working a lot on fine glass beaded earrings which is means very small beads. I love fine work - I also create soutache (Soutache is a narrow, flat braid in a herringbone pattern usually used as the trimming of drapery or clothing. Soutache bead embroidery utilizes the **soutache cord** differently by stacking the cord in multiple layers and stitching them. In soutache bead embroidery, the soutache cord can be curved into different patterns, not only creating a stable base for adding beads, but a stunning piece of soutache jewelry). My jewellery takes a while to make – depends on how smoothly it goes and one tiny piece can take up to a day to make. My grandmother was a dressmaker. She learnt in Malta and and came to Australia and worked in the ‘sweat shops’ on the machines in Sydney in the 1950’s. It was probably hard work but I think she loved it as she got out to meet other people. My grandfather was an electrician working on the ships and submarines. My dad could turn his hand to anything – I think it was the era – you had to learn to mend and create new from old. I think it is an art we have lost. Mum knitted and crocheted – unfortunately they are both old now and don’t do it anymore. Mum would love working in the garden but dad is more practical and likes veggies in the garden too. Do you have a favourite corner in your garden? I love the little courtyard behind the kitchen which is a little suntrap and I have fish in an urn so I go out there every morning to feed them and there and lots of pots with flowers in there. It is a lovely area and I can look out from the kitchen over it as well. What is your favourite plant or flower? I like carnations – they are quite an old fashioned flower – I think I love the scent. I am very susceptible to flowers that smell too strong but these have a subtle scent. I think if I had to choose a colour today it would be cerise carnations but I do change my favourite colour all the time. As you can see I don't have any carnations in the garden though - but I have some beautiful purple orchids. How does the act of ‘making’ relate to your personality and who you are? It keeps me sane! I work on fine things and always have done fine work – even the ceramics were too thick for me and that is why I went on to work on porcelain. I can focus on it - my mind is always running a million miles a minute and this slows me down and is like a meditation and it slows me down. For me it is relaxing. Tell us about your career journey to date – did you always want to be an artist? I went to school in Western Sydney suburbs and I did art in kindy and I remember it like it was yesterday – I went to a catholic school and the nuns were requesting pictures to send to a missionary in the Congo. I painted two nuns sitting in a canoe silhouetted and it got picked to be sent over there and I remember that so well. Art wasn’t a big thing encouraged in my school – not like today. My granddaughter has skills in art I believe. I didn’t know I had the ability to paint until later in life – about 10 years ago. I went to work after school and wanted to work in computers but I couldn’t get in so I started accounts work. I then started a craft shop in the 70's when I had my girls. It was tiny, but I loved it so much. Didn’t make much from it, and it was a lot of work, but it was huge fun. I guess I was always drawn to creative pursuits. Not long after that we moved in 1987 and came up to live in the Northern Rivers. I used to be on the committee for the Trinity Art festival and in charge of bringing in artists and artisans to do demonstrations in the hall. A friend of mine is a china painter and kept encouraging me to come and learn. So I eventually went for half a day a week and I started learning and just loved it – it is quite an unrecognised art form here in Australia. with very few people specialising in it. I started doing different things with lustres and experimenting and the teacher really led me along. She does incredible work - her name is Louise Hopping. It isn’t like painting on a canvas as there are so many steps to get to the end result. You can’t put a paint on top of a paint and you need to keep it down to as few firings as possible. Now I do a lot of the beading work and enjoy that – I get my beads from America usually as I can’t get all the colours I need here. I would have loved to source them from Japan but they aren’t supplying them and now I can’t get much from USA either. From my painting course we went for a week-long course in Bowral and learnt different styles of porcelain painting and I also learnt jewellery making there. That was when I started learning about porcelain jewellery which is also fascinating . My pendants sell well but I think people think earrings might break – I want to make a few more things to hang on the wall. I love texture and that is why I add things to my work- so it looks alive. I opened the Creative Artisans Gallery in 2014 with a partner with like-minded ideas – we made things so looked for a place to sell them. Council was happy to have us there and have been very supportive. We like to support local artists and craft makers. I think we have a great mix of things in the gallery – we have people coming in all the time and even artists come in to see what other artists are doing in this area. I think being in the same boat has helped me to create this Creative Artisans Gallery and make it work successfully. It is a 'feel good' shop – people enjoy coming in. Could you talk us through your creative process? Pinterest is a great inspiration for me for my jewellery and it starts off the creative process for me. I have heaps of ideas waiting – there are so many things I want to make. Sometimes a stone will start off my creative process on a piece like this moonstone I have here that I am working on. I use Swarovski crystals and pearls in my work – and it can sometimes just grow organically. I just start to play with a piece, and I keep working on it till I am happy with the result. I don’t sketch things first – with beading though you need a graphing pattern so that you can work it out. I have spoken to Kim Toft and I love her work – she has given me permission one day to look at turning some of her fish paintings into jewellery. I love the vibrancy of her work – fortunately she likes my work so hopefully it will work out. What has been your most crucial tool to grow your creative business? The Gallery has given me more incentive to create – a place to put my work out for people to see and buy which is a lovely thing. What has been the most challenging lesson learnt since you started your art? Probably how to paint on porcelain – it is not easy. It is hard to get it really even – I had a year break and when I went back I finally cracked the knack! It is like anything it takes a lot of practice. What’s been the best thing that has happened to you since you started Meeting similar like-minded people – it has been a gift and a way to meet some lovely people - we chat about creativity and I love that. I am the owner of the Creative Artisans Gallery and it has been going really well this year and I am working on a website now for it as well. I find visitors might well buy things from the website that they saw while visiting the Gallery. I have assistance in a number of areas of the Gallery from people who have joined the group. We also have workshops that some of our artists run for the public. Do you have any projects coming up you would like to talk about We are part of the Quota club and we have a table for the shop and offer to people who want to participate – it is in August. There is also the Hospital Auxiliary at the Ballina racecourse that we have a presence at displaying some of the art from the Gallery. We also go in with the CWA when they have their event in December. We also donate to Rotary and I always want profits to go to a charity in the area. Follow Creative Artisans Gallery on Facebook Website https://www.creativeartisans.org.au/ Melissa lives in a lovely little wooden beach house in downtown Lennox Head - it is so full of character, incredible art pieces and interesting curios that you could spend hours just looking and chatting about their stories. Of course it is not just her home that is fascinating but also the lady herself. She has done so much and lived such a wonderful creative life. Melissa is still really busy with a new exhibition opening in April at the Lennox Gallery in the main street. I love her etchings - and I have also been on one of her workshops where we were taught the fascinating printing process called Gyotaku which is a Japanese process of printing fish. In total contrast she also is a sculptor and creates beautiful works in stone and marble. Join me now as I chat to Melissa about her art and her garden. Does your garden influence your work – either in what you create or how it affects you? Yes, that is quite interesting - I was thinking about what theme to use for my next exhibition I am working on and a friend mentioned that my work in the past has been about women and gardens. In fact, a lot of my earlier work was. So I thought yes, I will revisit that. I have gone back to using my garden with its flowers and vines in the etchings I am doing. So definitely I am very influenced by my garden. Do you have a favourite corner in your garden? I am in the process of changing the front step area coming up into the deck in front of the house. There is a table there on the side that is my stone carving area where I do carvings of the smaller stones. I can’t work big like I do in New Zealand so that is a cool little area. I had a huge frangipani that used to hang over me there while I worked but it died. So currently I am recreating that area and that will be my favourite space. Right now the end of my deck at the front of the house near the grapevine is my favourite spot. It is a wonderful little hidden area. What is your favourite plant or flower? I would have to say roses – when I had my studio down in Riley’s Hill and I had a wonderful rose garden. In California they grow really well near the beach and even in New Zealand they do, but I can’t get them to work well here. I love the David Austin roses as the smell is important for me. I did map the whole rose garden out and had trails through it – I went for the beautiful fragrances. The Just Joey is just a fantastic rose – I miss my roses. How does the act of ‘making’ relate to your personality and who you are? I am quite happy on my own and I think that is part of what being an artist is about – that world I love being immersed in. I cant imagine I could have been anything else but an artist. Tell us about your career journey to date – did you always want to be an artist? I grew up north of Boston and lived around Philadelphia up to the end of High School then went to a private art school out in California. Art is huge in my family – my grandparents were both artists. My parents appreciated art and there was never a question that both my sister and I wanted to go to Art School. On the other side of my family there are musicians, opera singers, writers etc so we are a very arty family. I was allowed to do what I wanted. I also attended a Junior College for a while in Oakland California near Berkley where I took Printmaking and Jewellery. In the end I couldn’t afford both so I focused on print making. We later moved to Idaho and I enrolled in University there. I fell in love with printing and never stopped. My professor at Boise State University worked with Mauricio Lasansky - who was an Argentinian phenomenal print maker who I was in awe of. He created a lot of series on the war and humans in general. Some of his series where about the Catholic Church and are massive in size – I love figurative work. George Roberts was my professor and I was his teaching assistant for a while. He wrote the original book on non-toxic print making– so I was fortunate as I had an incredible background in printing. I was also a carpenter’s helper on the maintenance crew at the University – the only girl allowed to do that and all the time I was making and selling prints. My boyfriend at the time was a bronze sculptor and I have always loved sculpture too – I used to make a lot of things – assemblage and collage. I only started my stone carving about 8 years ago in New Zealand when I was living there in Taranaki in New Plymouth during the late 80’s. I met many people living there including a lady whose partner was a well-known stone sculptor. About 8 years ago there was a sculpture society offering classes, so I took them and got hooked on carving large stone figure sculptures. It’s a lot of work and I wish I had started 25 years ago. Now I can’t get back there of course – I used to go quite a lot. I was in an International Symposium at the start of 2020 and then came back and of course can’t go back at the moment. Could you talk us through your creative process? It is a funny thing I don’t do a lot of research and I don’t like to be influenced by other people’s work. I love to go and see other work in galleries, but I don’t go in search of anything. I also work better under pressure as it makes things come out intuitively. I don’t plan things, but I draw a lot. I love that time first thing in the morning as you are waking up, I often get my best ideas then. Images come to me or titles or things I can work from. I sit down with my sketch book and draw stuff out and I then draw it again on the plate. I draw it backwards of course – I usually draw backwards now anyway knowing I will want it to flip with the printing process. I do lots of etching, but I also love monoprints where I use many layers to create the effects. I have been thinking of going back to doing more abstract prints. I have a press in my art studio behind the living area – I have a larger one out in the other area and a small one in the bedroom! Plus, a press in New Zealand. I used to make large print runs up to about 2000 with runs of up to 100 but now I keep them really small. In those days I had so many galleries I worked with – now I only work with a couple. I lost interest in the commercial end of it all as I am not motivated by money – I just want enough to cover my costs. I need to work and create, and I do exhibitions so selling is a lovely bonus. What has been your most crucial tool to grow your creative business? I guess my brain in that I have to listen to it or else I end up the creek. My brain never seems to stop. What has been the most challenging lesson learnt since you started your art? Probably the most challenging is to always be honest and true to yourself. I think back to when I was creating a lot of prints and needing the money and I think I got quite jaded at that time needing to be commercial and not creating what I really wanted to. You need to be honest about art. I am really enjoying this current series as I feel so comfortable with it. I like the thought of creating this series of women doing gardening – my first exhibition in the 70’s in Idaho was called ‘The Planting of Gardens’. I hope the images come out well. I am drawing at the moment and then next week I will be creating the plates. Most are about A4 in size, but I am drawn to creating long thin etchings too at the moment. What’s been the best thing that has happened to you since you started I am incredibly humbled that people buy my work then take it into their homes and love to look at it. To do something that is important to someone else and knowing they love it. It is an unexpected perk – I need to create anyway but it is a lovely thing. I have so much art and other pieces in my home and they all have a story - I love my home and all the pieces I have around my living room. Do you have any advice you might give your younger self? I would maybe say buckle down a bit more – I was very wild! I would also say travel more. But if I hadn’t done all I did then I wouldn’t be where I am now. As you get older you realise you are running out of time, but I guess that is life. I would go into bars when I was 18 – I couldn’t drink but I would go and draw the musicians while sitting on the side of the stage. My best art teacher ever made us, for one whole semester, only draw people who were moving. We also had to walk while drawing and draw animals. I found musicians and dancers a good thing to go and draw. He would come into the classroom and put paper roll around the walls and start at one end and talk and demonstrate as he walked around and finish at the end of the paper with his demonstrations. What are your top tips for a great garden? Move your plants around until they are happy! But also talk to your plants and visit with them to keep an eye on their health. I feel so bad for my lemon tree at the moment that go ravaged recently. Do you have any projects coming up you would like to talk about I have an exhibition with Lesley Ryan in mid April at the LAC called ‘Les and Lis’ and another in August at the Serpentine Gallery in Lismore. Follow Melissa on Instagram at etching.studio. Below are a few of her wonderful pieces. Jen lives in a townhouse in Lennox and her balcony - where we sat and had coffee - truly feels like a treehouse with the Poinciana tree outside above and below us. It is the perfect spot to spend a warm day with breezes coming in and a beautiful outlook with birds all around. While her garden is still under construction due to her just having bought the home, she has some plans in mind which I am sure her very friendly chicken will ‘oversee’. Her mum worked at the Botanical gardens in Christchurch so I am sure she will create something lovely. Jen makes beautiful jewellery from both silver and gold and incorporates many varied stones. A lot of her work is strongly influenced by the local plants in the area. Does your garden influence your work – either in what you create or how it affects you? Not my garden I am afraid – well not yet anyway! But I have always been an outdoor person. There is a lot of nature in my work and we go ‘bush’ a lot and I look at seedpods and leaves and how palm fronds cross each other. Any piece of nature is an inspiration to me – I am always looking at the ground. My mum worked at the Botanical gardens in Christchurch where she was a botanist of note. She also worked overseas in the UK in Kew gardens and used to see the Queen mother walking around with the corgis. She said she was very friendly and chatted to her and mum even got a handbag and note from her! So my mum really loved gardens. I grew up in Christchurch. Mum had a native garden and it was quite wild – she never liked things in neat rows. She didn’t like flowers so much as the foliage and textures and the different greens. My grandmother had great veggie gardens in New Zealand too. My mum drew a lot – being a botanist. She also volunteered at the Herbarium out at Lincoln University. Do you have a favourite corner in your garden? I think it is definitely up here on this balcony looking out - it is like being in a tree house and my pots of succulents here I love too. This is such a great tree that I look into, it is stunning – in flower it is covered with flashes of orange which sit on top of the leaves. It is never completely bare of leaves and we do tend to live out on this patio deck. We eat out here and it is quite special. What is your favourite plant or flower? I think I really love Magnolias . When in Italy I still remember finding this amazing tree which has never left me. It had flowers as big as a bowl and it just grew wild there – totally white. I love how varied they can be. I am also really into succulents at the moment too as you can see from my pots. Do you have a favourite garden? I have some friends in Kyneton - north west of Melbourne - and they live in this amazing little stone cottage with two whippets - and their garden is just stunning. It has topiary but it is not just lines - it is really flowing and natural with lots of texture and beautiful climbing roses – not formal at all. There are really big vistas and long lawns. But as well as this I love the wild areas of Australia - I think I just love the bush in my heart. The studio where I worked in Byron - Hammer and Hand - has now relocated to Bangalow. It is in the Arts Precinct and is tiny and really mainly a gallery now - not a big workshop. It has just one bench that we can work on when in the shop. It is a lovely area to be working and selling in. How does the act of ‘making’ relate to your personality and who you are? If I make a decision I just want to go for it so I am very spontaneous – this means I am not good at the planning details. I might tear off with an idea and then realise that maybe if I had thought more about this I might have done it differently. So, my pieces tend to evolve because I run with an idea. I don’t sketch my work first – I solve the problems along the way and that is my personality too. I think I am impatient, but that is ok - that is part of the process too. Tell us about your career journey to date – did you always want to be an artist? I went to school in Christchurch and didn’t really do art at school – my mum and sister could really draw well and I couldn’t draw at all. So while I was creative and could make stuff I couldn’t draw. I tended to think I couldn’t be an artist – but I did heaps of evening art classes like Clay Sculpture and Anyone Can Draw (except Jen). Then in 2002 I moved to Auckland and didn’t know anyone well but vaguely knew one person from work. We decided to do a weekend workshop and went to learn how to ‘Make a Ring’ and then I couldn’t stop!! I did night classes – at that stage I was working as I had studied neuromuscular therapy and had my own clinic for quite a while. Then we moved to Brisbane then I went to the Brisbane Goldsmith school as a hobby. Then after having Bella I didn’t go back to work but went back once a week to the school. When I moved down here I bumped into a friend of my husband's who said there is a place looking for someone - and that was Hammer and Hand. I didn’t feel confidant enough to call them. But then someone stopped and talked to me from Hammer & Hand - it turned out that they remembered me from the Goldsmith school so I found the confidence – I think I was really meant to go there. Then it has kind of gone from strength to strength. I have always read a lot of books on jewellery making and the more I made the more I sold. I then started off selling through some galleries and quite a number of small shops. Then I joined the LAC when Mark was looking for people to join and that has really grown a lot too. I always liked making things but I never dreamed I could make a living from it till I started at Hammer and Hand and people kept buying my stuff – I was amazed and now I can make a living making pretty shiny things!! Could you talk us through your creative process? I usually have a stone as a starting point - or else I cast a piece of something and I start playing. I move things around and then something will start forming in my head – it starts my creative process. I lay things out instead of drawing and sketching my designs. I might order in a number of stones if I am working on a series or a collection – or if a number of stones come up. I buy from either the States or in Australia. I have had a few series like the Seed Pods and Gingko leaves – then I have the works with stones in them – then I do still make some earrings from the old tea caddies. I had a lovely tin in the back of the cupboard and thought I should use that somehow – and now I source really old tins from wherever I can. Etsy has a great vintage line now too. Some people think if you don’t have an online website presence then you aren’t a proper artist. I don’ t have a website, but I do have Instagram and a Facebook site. I am lucky that I have galleries and shops for people to see my work even if it is all on consignment. I have pieces in Mallanee, Tweed Gallery, Ballina Gallery, Hammer and Hand, LAC in Lennox and Yallingyup WA. I do get contacted online – Instagram works really well for me. The Gingko earrings can take a long time as they are all made from scratch - it is an involved process with a sheet of silver where I cut the shape out from. Then I solder the ear wire on then I spend quite a bit of time etching the lines on both sides. Then I stamp it and crimp it and do the hook etc. As everything is hand made - even the cast pieces of the seed pods - they are all slightly different and all take time. I hope to do some sand casting soon too. Being handmade means that they are all slightly different. People like that they are made just by one person – me!. I work in silver and gold – I am about to send some gold seed pod earrings off to Mallanee. Anything I make can made in gold or silver What has been your most crucial tool to grow your creative business? I have to say that I am always learning - but I couldn’t have grown my business without Instagram and some galleries. What has been the most challenging lesson learnt since you started your art? That you just never know what is going to sell! You can put something out that you think is fantastic and nobody buys it. Or you don’t expect things to sell quickly and they jump off the shelf! You just can’t pick it. Also, the learning experiences I had in the start with some galleries. What’s been the best thing that has happened to you since you started? I think that it happens time and time again when people buy my work – it is always a total thrill that someone wants something I make. It makes me so happy and terrifies me at the same time. We all have the imposter syndrome – a friend said to me have you sold $100,000 worth of jewellery? And I stopped and realised I had – that was special! Do you have any advice you might give your younger self? It will all be ok! I had no idea what I wanted to be – I tried so many different careers and studying – nothing ever felt quite right from teaching; IT work; to office work to neuromuscular therapy - but it never quite ‘fed’ all of me. I always felt a little lost till I started making jewellery and I found my ‘bliss’. I realised that this is my happy place that fills me rather than draining me. I get so lost in it that I have to make myself take breaks. What are your top tips for a great garden? Get the experts in! I have a really small garden here and since we have only just bought it I still need to get it going. I put in what I like. I love the smell of gardenias so I put them near the bedrooms so I can smell them. I have just started planting Philodendrons out the front and I look forward to building up a nice garden. They had horrible red type mulch and I am replacing it. So plant what you love and mulch well! Do you have any projects coming up you would like to talk about? The exhibition at the LAC Gallery is starting on 11th December for a couple of weeks and we sell all our works for $300 and under. You can also see my work at the LAC Gallery as well as at my Instagram Jenbanksjewellery and at Hammer & Hand in Bangalow. Maria lives down the end of a cul-de-sac on a really pretty block of land with lovely trees - and horses and sheep in neighbouring fields. Yet again I discovered a stunning studio away from the house but Maria also has a really huge room off her home that she uses as an additional studio / gallery area for when she is exhibiting. Everywhere you look in her studio and home there is art! For those who know Maria they already know how prolific she is, and I visited just before her annual sale started and was therefore able to see the vast spread of her work in the gallery area. Maria explained that her painting journey started off when her children were small, and she began with Folk Art. This gave her a number of skills including brush loading and control and colour mixing. At that time, she was part of the Queensland Folk and Decorative Painting Society. It was a few years before Maria began moving into other painting styles as, in the beginning ,she found it a little daunting – almost hard to believe when you see her many works on display today! Does your garden influence your work – either in what you create or how it affects you? I have always loved flowers and always have flowers in the house. We have been in this house nearly 20 years . We lived in the studio while we built the house which took 18 months. The garden perimeter was planted with natives and there were taps all around the garden but the rest we had to plant out. I created it mostly from cuttings and seeds. I do paint plein air sometimes. For my first venture I decided to go off by myself and camp to paint. I had just started landscapes and I didn’t want people to watch me, and judge me, so I took off to the other side of Kyogle to a place called Running Creek. I camped at Andrew Drynan Park - a little place with toilets and about 15 bridges that zigzag across the creek along the road on the other side of the border ranges. I camped there for a couple of days and painted. I don’t think painting ‘plein air’ would suit beginners as things change so quickly in the landscape - you need to understand colour and know how to mix it quickly. Do you have a favourite corner in your garden? I think here on the side of the studio – blue is my favourite colour. I also have lots of blue glass and pottery. I nicknamed myself ‘Bower Bird’ as I collect blue things. I do try and put blue everywhere in the garden – the Agapanthus here and I have Dogbane which is smothered with purple flowers. I also have a Sage bush which has blue flowers - as well as a Tibouchina that is a bush version with many little flowers. What is your favourite plant or flower? The Magnolia - I think. The Little Gem Magnolias I adore – I have a couple at the front of my house on either side of the front door. How does the act of ‘making’ relate to your personality and who you are? I know that I have a diverse practice. There are times I can focus on something more detailed, but I only work on one thing at a time. If I have done something quite difficult and time consuming, then after that I will paint something where I literally splash paint around and just play. I don’t like to work in series – I am rather random – you never know what you will get from me! I have resigned myself that I haven’t found a style – I am so influenced by so many things and I want to be good at so many styles like landscape, abstract, flowers etc – I would like to do it all well. But maybe I will never do it really well - but I will do it well enough. I think that is enough and part of who I am. I am like my dad – near enough is good enough. There’s always going to be someone better than you, but we are all trying to be better. I think teaching has taught me more about art. Students take you off in different directions and you need to solve lots of different problems – like how to mix a certain colour. There wouldn’t be as much motivation to paint without teaching – I feel a motivation to produce work to show my students that I am still learning and producing. I go and study with a number of teachers – I call it my-self funded hobby. My teaching has always been there to pay for my tuition in many mediums. Back from my ‘folk-art days’ when I taught that style. I think decorative painting led me into my painting of today. I felt I just painted in a ‘craft style’ but after going to a ‘real’ painting class I realised I knew a lot more than I thought I did. So somewhere along the line I decided I was like what Margaret Olley said – ‘I am a painter not an artist!’ I try to be as versatile as possible and I think that is why people like to come to my classes. I have stopped a lot this year, but I do still have a class at Riverbend at in Ballina. My studio is now just for myself for the first time ever – it took me a while to realise I could leave it all out (paints etc) and feel comfortable in that space. Tell us about your career journey to date – did you always want to be an artist? I have always drawn and been interested in art . I still have a painting I did of a horse in my early teens. They were very important to me during my childhood. I didn’t really enjoy school that much and was horse crazy I did study art when I was at school in Ballina. Up until about year 10 they didn’t really teach you how to paint – we did a lot of study about the history of art but no real study about how to paint. After school I worked with my parent’s business – Vados - in Ballina. They built it up from a tiny business when they moved here from Holland. They were in the migrant camp for 6 weeks but because dad was a carpenter we were sent near here for work – I was born here. I worked for a while in the office and in sales then I married in 1981. I was in the fortunate position that John had a great job. When we got married, he said well we have a house why don’t you quit work and so I went to pottery and weaving classes and kept dabbling with my folk art. It was fantastic as I tried a lot of different hobbies and craft. I like renovating furniture and my dad was called ‘Mr Fixit’.. I can’t throw things out - I look to improve and make them better – just like my dad. He is 99 and still fixing things! I have been fortunate that over the years I decided if I wanted to improve, I must go and learn from the best. I found out that you need to find a teacher who will progress you past where you are now. I found these at the Grafton Art school where I went for a few years in a row - as well as to the Bathurst Art school during university holidays. I had some great tutors like John Wilson; Herman Pekel ; Ros Psakis; Leon Holmes; Kasey Sealy; John Lovett; Lyn Diefenbach ; Colley Whisson. Each was entirely different – from landscapes to portraits and water colour. It is all about adding to that repertoire of skills. There are so many different methods to learn about including ‘plein air’. I think my main love is oil painting - even though I paint mainly in acrylic right now. I find they loosen me up as I can’t get as much detail. I think my work is becoming looser over the years. Could you talk us through your creative process? Somebody once said to me ‘If I fail to plan, I plan to fail’ and I have to start with a plan for my painting. I sketch all my works first – especially if it has to look realistic. It is even more important if it has perspective. Then I draw it on the canvas – or if it is really complicated, I use a grid or a projector to put it on the canvas. Sometimes I will paint organically but it really depends on what it is. I paint mainly from photographs, but I do enjoy plein air painting - and sometimes I even paint from my imagination! I might mix an imaginary background with a photo in front. I think it takes a long time to learn ‘taste’. I think I also realised that it takes a ‘wow factor’ to make a painting work. I’m always attracted by light and shade and I have always painted to please myself. I had my gallery in Ballina for two years from 2012. I found a shop that was derelict in Kerr street and realised I had always wanted a little gallery. It was an old shop with a very old house out the back – so I asked if I could rent it till it sold. I ended up feeling so comfortable there that I ran 6 classes a week out the back - and I always had a new painting every week in the spotlight in the window. Through this I sold a lot of work – it was a great time really – even though it was started in order to help me to recover from depression. I had been suffering quite badly with the ‘black dog’ – it took me a long time to realise what it was. Now I realise that it is better to talk about it. I realised that I didn’t want drugs to help me through it, but I needed to keep busy and work it out myself. A doctor told me exercise and keep busy – keep out of my head. This was a motivating factor in getting the gallery and keeping busy. The building sold and I was devastated at the time, but it was time – my parents needed more help and so it all worked out at the right time. I needed that gallery for those two years. I learnt so much during that time. The work was all mine - so it was a personal gallery. What has been your most crucial tool to grow your creative business? The gallery - where I learnt about marketing myself and talking to people about my art. I had a strategy while there - if I had a little painting that I wasn’t sure about I would feature it at the door and it usually would sell. Everyone has different taste and you never know what people will like – I have about 40 paintings that I haven’t hung in this display, and I might put those on the bonfire. If you are going to be a professional artist, you need to be ruthless, I think. What has been the most challenging lesson learnt since you started your art? There is a lot of grace involved in teaching. When your students become very good you have to be ok with that. I have had students beat me in competitions and that is great. I am very proud if they win something. What’s been the best thing that has happened to you since you started? This week has been pretty good selling 4 paintings. I think it is always a huge ‘kick’ when someone wants your work on the wall. I prefer to win a People’s Choice prize as that's who buys the art - not the judges. I won The Bentley art prize one year which is a nice accolade to have. I sometimes think about stopping painting and travelling more or going to spend more time as a grandparent. I wonder if it is time to change - but then I am not sure who I would be without my painting. Do you have any advice you might give your younger self? Go hard – be determined. I didn’t get serious till later on. I taught all the years - virtually from the start and I have students now who have become great friends. So have faith in yourself earlier and if that is what you want just ‘go for it’. Opening the gallery was the best thing I ever did as it gave me a credibility I never had before. It was such an important place for me to be at that time. What are your top tips for a great garden? I like blues and white – I made a decision not to include much orange or red. I think it is important to plan the size of plants, take into consideration where the sun is across the day and getting it to work for you. Also, if you plant in red soil like Alstonville then things grow very well. If I see plants that I like then I ask for cuttings - so my garden has mostly grown organically. The little riverbed and bridge were planned, of course, and I put in the agapanthus and roses for the white and blue cool colours. Do you have any projects coming up you would like to talk about?
I am part of the Open Studio Trail on weekends of 28/29 November and 5/6 December – website info http://www.os-bbb.com/ and I will be running my own show same time . If you would like to see more of my work online you can follow me on my Facebook page mariasfineart and also on Instagram mariaheatonart Sigrid lives on a hill away from the crowds and has a beautiful little studio on a hill overlooking the valley. It is perfect as she is inspired by nature for her work which has a strong focus on Australian native flora. While her garden is still developing and growing you can see how stunning it will be with the amazing variety of natives she has already planted. I have to say I am getting serious ‘studio envy’ from some of these lovely studios I have been discovering on my visits!! You can really feel how the countryside around Sigrid strongly influence her beautiful works. She is currently working mainly on large canvases using oils as well as enjoying working with thick impasto.. She achieves translucency in glass vessels in her paintings - as well as capturing the delicacy of our Australia flowers alongside their nuts and bark. Sigrid’s current work has a strong focus on the need for our lands, gardens and habitats to engage with the natural environment and the ancient wisdom in caring for the lands and the peoples – many of her works have an underlying message about the disconnect between the old and new knowledges Does your garden influence your work – either in what you create or how it affects you? Definitely as I paint it all the time! I have a bit of a thing about Callistemon (Bottlebrush) and I think I have planted every colour except yellow. I also have got some of the local Mount Warning orange ones which are quite special. Most of the shopping for natives has been through friends or Mullum native nursery (which has now closed) -or the Burringbar nursery. I have just started to get some seeds and I am going to try my hand at growing them from seed. We have such a large garden that this might be a more cost-effective way of achieving what we want. A beautiful garden around me is paramount and I have had a mass of flowers and leaves this year that I have painted from. I love the leaves with a beautiful scent. I have an Eucalyptus cinerea here I love - and my Banksias are gorgeous. A lot of my current paintings feature our flowers -or some from the neighbourhood. Having the flowers around and to be able to potter around in the garden is amazing. We are planting our garden to keep the view – you can see Byron Lighthouse from here on a clear day. Being so high we can sit on the deck and watch the clouds in the valley – we have planted the gardens to bring in the birds. It was an overgrown cow paddock for many years but now we have little birds – Pardalotes, friendly Magpies and a flock of Black Cockatoos – up to 54 in the flock. My studio is called 'Gyrayir' which means Yellow Tailed Black Cockatoo in the local language. The day we moved everything into my studio we had a flock flying around us. Do you have a favourite corner in your garden? It depends on the day as I have many. I love the koala sanctuary of the Gum trees that are growing and love that we have created this space. The native trees like Banksias etc that are really coming on now - and then the Kangaroo Paws up near the house are just lovely at the moment. We have been putting lots in for the birds and we also have native bees in a couple of hives in our garden. I love to walk around the garden at the end of each week -and look at how it is growing. I love the bush tucker trees like the Lemon Myrtle and Aniseed Myrtle that tastes like Black cat lollies. What is your favourite plant or flower? I love the Banksia – they are incredibly sculptural and the Hinchinbrook Blue Banksia I am quite obsessed with at the moment. I have planted one just outside of the studio. I think I love the Banksia because every part of the plant - from new flowers through to the old seed pods are amazing. (Pic is view from studio door) Do you have a favourite garden? My mother’s garden is spectacular – her gardens have always been amazing. She loves flowers and you can always pick a bunch from her garden. My mum has moved from Western Sydney to Banora Point and has a little garden, but it is overflowing with plants. She belongs to three garden clubs. My grandmother, who I spent a lot of time with, used to do a lot of gardening with me. I can remember being quite young and drawing and colouring in a trunk of a tree and arguing with her that the trunk shouldn’t be green as I thought it should be brown. She made me start to look at nature around me and realise that not all trunks are brown. There are so many spectacular gardens that I have known. I love the plant selection down at the Habitat shopping area in Byron – the plants are wonderful there. How does the act of ‘making’ relate to your personality and who you are? I see other artists doing sketches and trying things out, but I like to get a 1m square canvas and just go for it. I think part of it is having an idea and working through it and changing it as needed. I can see the image in my head before I start. I might write down ideas, but I often never get to them! I know what I want to do on the day, and it evolves, and very often it is a story. I am envious of those with neat ideas and palettes - but that is not me. I think I am most passionate when I have the story in my head, and I am weaving it into the painting. My current series is about land management. monoculture and the desecration of sacred sites as well as the new way we have been farming. I don’t think we need to stop but rather to be more mindful and bring the older knowledge into the modern way. It needs to be more respectful of the land and it’s needs. I think I will be working for a while on this theme as it is important to me. Tell us about your career journey to date – did you always want to be an artist? I studied art at High school in Western Sydney but not beyond that. I always wanted to do art – I went to a technical school in Sydney. My best friend and I wanted to do the welding course and we topped it because we wanted to beat the boys! We had to fight to get on that course. But we couldn’t keep going with it after school. I have just started a course now with to get back into doing metal forging and sculpture. My mum for my 18th gave me an easel and paints but I never thought I could live off it. I have always had a set of paints and done lots of workshops – lots of sculpture and jewellery making etc. I always did some form of drawing and painting but its only in the past 6 or 7 years that I knew I wanted to get into it properly. Creativity is always there - if that is how you think - it will affect all you do. Could you talk us through your creative process? It comes together in my mind and then I will go looking for what I am after to put in the painting. I might go to a scrap metal place and look for things. For a recent piece I wanted something colonial and battered and I got it (teapot) from the tip shop. Then I found the rusty barb wire which I already had and decided I would use the Bloodwood Gum flower. Then I decided I wanted a cold cement slab to place them on. After that it was all about working out where I wanted to put the pieces on the canvas. (see pic of piece in gallery below) I will take photos as I will often come back days later to complete - so I do need photos of the flowers of course. I usually work on only one at a time. I like to finish a piece before moving onto another. I think space is a thing for me too as I work on large pieces. I might start the day on quick small pieces, before working on a large piece, just to get me going. What has been your most crucial tool to grow your creative business? My partner – she has really helped push me and given me the time and space to achieve my art practice. She is really supportive – even pushed me to have my own studio here. For instance for the Open Studio she put my name up and sent off my work for me – she markets me way better than I could. I sell on Bluethumb as well as Saatchi art and Art Lovers which work well for me What has been the most challenging lesson learnt since you started your art? I think it is that when you enter competitions you don’t always manage to get in. Then you start to wonder if you're just not good enough. Then there are others like The Other Art Fair that I got into. It is good to sit back and think - am I doing this because it is a story I am connected to and the process of painting? Or is it because I want the recognition and someone else to say it is good enough to be there? That has never been the intention. But selling is fantastic too – a few times people have bought my art and sent me a picture of it on their wall and a lovely letter. What’s been the best thing that has happened to you since you started? I think the space I get into – both the studio and having the time to paint is amazing. I love the creative space I can get into here and I love the time I have had this year since working from home. Covid has let me spend more time here and I have been less stressed from all the travel. Do you have any advice you might give your younger self? Probably to stick to it and do it more consistently from when I was younger. I feel that now I am on this growth journey that I wish I had started sooner. It would have been great to have been on this journey all the way . Also to save more money for good quality oils! What are your top tips for a great garden? Love! Absolute love and looking at what will grow in the soil where you live. We started off with the trees at the top and a veggie garden and we have put in native herbs. This garden is less than 12 months old, but the plants are loving it. I think it really is the passion for the garden. We do a heap of weeding and we love to wander around on Saturday to look at what we can pick from the garden and cook that night. Do you have any projects coming up you would like to talk about? I am part of the Open Studio Trail on weekends of 28/29 November and 5/6 December – website info http://www.os-bbb.com/and the Other Art Fair in March next year. The virtual gallery will run for 6 weeks afterwards. Then weekend after Open Studios is the Design markets in Bangalow. I don’t research anyone before I visit them as I feel then I come to the chat with a totally clean slate. It is therefore always wonderful to discover all the different layers that make up an artist. Tanya is fascinating – she has already done more in her life so far that would be hard for two people to achieve. She is not only a fascinating artist, but also an academic of substantial experience (PhD International Relations (University of Southampton), MA International Studies (University of Warwick), BA Hons History (University of Exeter)) Tanya is also a senior fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute. Her research focuses on understanding the dynamics of nuclear weapons proliferation, and on evaluating diplomatic efforts to reduce the risks of nuclear war. She has also lived in a number of countries before arriving here in Australia. I found all this out when I visited her 3 acres of green ‘heaven’ in Bangalow. She has an impressive garden, a delightful dog , lots of chickens, an Airbnb and a hardworking husband. Her art in total contrast to her work is really ethereal, almost dreamy and quite beautiful. As someone who knew little about encaustic work before this visit I was fascinated by the hours and layers needed to create just one piece of work. A lifelong photographer she currently is capturing her passion for wildlife and in Australia. She obviously finds great peace and tranquillity in nature and capturing its beauty to use in her artworks. Does your garden influence your work – either in what you create or how it affects you? Our garden brings the birds who are one of my main inspirations – I am obsessed by birds and Ausralia has the most incredible and colourful birds in the world. I love parrots as they are so intelligent and we get a lot here – the Rainbow Lorikeets; the Scaly Breasted Lorikeets; the Eastern Rosellas (which I think are the most beautiful birds in the world); Galahs; Corellas and the Black Cockatoos. I think birds suit encaustic which feels misty and dreamy – almost fragile -and this suits birds that are so fleeting, here one moment and gone the next.. If you can capture that in encaustic that is amazing. Encaustic was developed by the ancient Greeks and the Egyptians used it in order to enhance the embalming methods so they could paint a perfect likeness and then preserve the painting. It preserves it and the pigment doesn’t break down. You have to get the right ratio of beeswax to hardening agents because otherwise it never fully cures. The surface changes with the light and time – when first done it is misty and it gets clearer with time. It can look ceramic if you don’t polish it and it stays quite misty but if you keep polishing it then it becomes glassy over time. I go off in the Land Rover and take my wildlife photography. The most recent one was to the Nymboida river and I did a series based on the birds there – titled ‘Out On The Edge’ . In it the birds are quite small and right on the edge of expanses of water. I think water suits encaustic as it is so reflective and shiny. I have enjoyed that range which is selling well and I will continue with it. I am going to do a whole series on flowers, native grasses and butterflies from around here from photos that I took during the Covid times. If you get the right time of year and the right light sometimes it just all comes together – even the weeds were beautiful. I have just finished a big project for the UN and I now have the time to work on my art. When all the exhibitions were cancelled it was awful as suddenly the planned schedule changed . I went to the Other Art Fair last year which went really well but suddenly all future plans were gone and now suddenly my art was going nowhere and no one could see it and there seemed little point in keeping making and stacking up artwork. I decided then to work on creating my photographic series that I use for inspiration - as it was about me going out into nature for the photography - so now I have lots of stuff to create new series from. Do you have a favourite corner in your garden? I would say my hammock overlooking the Banksia as I love watching the birds there - and also on my Bali daybed looking over the valley where I have my breakfast daily as I watch the birds in the Bangalow Palm and the Lilly Pilly – there is also a Pink Flowering Gum over there that the birds love. What is your favourite plant or flower? The Pink Flowering Gum – I am obsessed with it as a flower. I have done a piece with Blue Faced Honey Eaters in the gum tree - and I can’t wait to do just the gum flowers when they bloom again. I am going to plant three more this year. The one I have had been quite stressed as it got a borer and it is rather old now. I don’t want to be without one. We didn't have a lot rain last year between September and December and it got rather stressed then. Do you have a favourite garden? My mum’s garden which was an English cottage garden just outside of Henley in the UK. She still is obsessed by it even though she is now nearly blind. She still gardens and can just see colour and some movement and it still makes her happy. She was designing quilts and tapestries etc up to a couple of years ago. My one sister lives near her and she is technically brilliant in craft and that’s her thing. My brother is a wood turner, like my dad, who creates amazing art from wood. My older sister has an incredible eye for interior design. None of us studied art but we are all creative – my mum studied art and she taught us lots and inspired me a lot. She can work out any problem coming at it from a different direction. How does the act of ‘making’ relate to your personality and who you are? I'm quite an obsessive personality and not a multitasker. When I do something I am 'all in' and as a result of that I find it creates anxiety. I find that in my creative process – because it is quite technical and needs full concentration - it allows me to let go of that side of my personality. I find I need to control my environment but in my artwork I can’t fully control it - so it makes me 'let go' and it forces me into a meditative state without really trying. I can be obsessive about it then without being anxious about it and it lets me be in my ‘happy place’ all day in my studio. I know I am very sensitive and feel a lot of 'angst' about a lot of things. Because my work in International Politics really explores the darker side of nature - in a way my art is an escape that allows me to be obsessive as well. This is definitely a healthy way escaping that fulfils that need in me. The process suits me more than any other style I have tried over the years. I am detail orientated but I am also quite impatient as a person – for instance I liked oil painting and I really liked the technical side of things - but it is too slow for me and I get frustrated, Encaustic is very fast. Each stage is fast even if there are about 20-30 stages. Tell us about your career journey to date – did you always want to be an artist? I was born in Malaysia and then grew up in Nigeria – my dad was an entrepreneur with 4 kids – he was an engineer and loved to travel. My dad then decided when we got older I should take my schooling more seriously and my sister and I went to Switzerland to the end of school then I went to university in England. I did a lot of art at school – my mom was an artist who did batik and was always experimenting with different types of art techniques and she had a real eye for art and interiors. I was fascinated by art techniques but unfortunately at school because I was academic I was encouraged to follow that. While at Uni I would run my art business making hand painted clothes to pay my way through Uni. I painted them with fabric paints inspired by famous artists and paint a whole outfit for instance in the style of Monet. I also always kept up my photography when working and travelling. I did fine art photography – street photography and landscape as well. After my Phd and coming to Australia I started to really enjoy the wildlife – in 2003 we were in New Zealand near Christchurch and I loved that. The earthquakes were too much though and our whole neighbourhood was damaged and so we decided to leave after a year and that was when I came to Australia. I feel that I am lucky as I have the best of both worlds and I am privileged as my job is now done remotely since Covid. I am part of a UN dialogue at the moment and supposed to be going to Geneva in a couple of weeks but of course that won’t happen. So I will have to be travelling again but not right now. Could you talk us through your creative process? First stage is going out into the garden or nature and take the photographs – then I edit the photos to make them suit the encaustic - as not all will suit it. You need a particular type of scene and the colour range and dynamic range have to be right – the contrast has to be right - lots of things must be perfect in order for them to work. The shading must be right it needs to be light and bright with depth. So I do a lot of editing in Lightroom. I love this creative and technical stage. Then I print this out on a big colour printer with heat resistant inks which need to withstand the heat and fire that I use with the waxes. The photo is printed and then I need to bond them to the surface and weight them down using a special heat resistant glue. Then I trim them up. I always have two or three pieces going at the same time as these phases take time. Once you have the bonded piece on the board you can start adding your wax layers. You have to put on about 10 layers to even get going or else you will burn through – you heat up the wax and use the fire torch to smooth it out and then scrape it back with a metal razor and then add another layer. The fire smooths it out well and you also polish between layers. Then after about 10 layers you can start playing which is where I feel I can get really creative like my canvas. I have an idea in my head what I want to do from the start – what will I want to create, what feel do I want, how much do I want the subject of the picture to come forward or recede back, how immediate do I want it to be; how do I want to change the colour or the palette; how soft or hard do I want it. Then I start on playing with it using my coloured waxes, pastels, powders, gold leaf etc and I start adding materials between the layers. I can rub them into the warm wax and not rub back and it can create an ethereal colour almost like a glaze or water colour – so it is translucent, and you add sparkle or pearl. You can leave or put another layer of wax to seal it. So you now have your image and layers of translucent colour but then if I have lost hard edges and I want them I can carve into the surface of the wax and use ink to get a couple of edges back – depending on where the light is falling – so I will get it back and add another layer of wax. Like an oil painting the final step is the light on a subject matter and that is my final step too – I use white ink or gold leaf right at the end to capture a sparkle or where the light catches. Then I put a final layer of wax and polish and leave to cure for six months. So, you have to work a very long way in advance. I love the fact I have taken an ancient art process and made it my own and I find people are fascinated by it. What has been your most crucial tool to grow your creative business? My camera. If you talk about traditional tools that is my most important. But to grow the business probably Instagram, Bluethumb, my website, Saatchi art, The Other Art Fair – but I find people need to see my art in real art through Art Fairs and Exhibitions. Online sales would usually only happen after an exhibition. What has been the most challenging lesson learnt since you started your art? I think managing my own expectations has been hard. Not having qualified specifically in art – coming in raw to art has felt hard. I feel I have to justify myself constantly and it has been a huge challenge. In my other work I have ‘badges’ of authority through my Uni qualifications and track records in universities around the world and publications - but I have nothing like this in the art world. There is a certain snobbery in art circles with people asking where you studied. I had to learn my own techniques on my own and had lots of challenges along the way. The biggest challenge has been realisation that you just can’t make it happen overnight and that it is hard to make your art sell online – just building a website is not enough to sell online - even though you need all the online presence to window dress your art. It just isn’t the right sales outlet for me. The Other Art Fair are looking to find a better way with a virtual art space that looks like a gallery and you have a video of the artist making their work alongside this so the artist can explain about their art. I'm hoping that will work well for me. What’s been the best thing that has happened to you since you started? I think feeling more rooted being here in Australia. As my work is International I have lived in many places but I felt like a fish out of water when I arrived. My art has given me a reason to be here. I find the wildlife so incredible and inspiring that it makes me feel at home. I felt like a visitor but my artwork gives me a feeling of belonging through the art community. The second thing was meeting someone at an art opening in Byron who used to curate The Other Art Fair and she told me my work would sell there - she told me to apply and got me to go. I had never heard of it before but she gave me the confidence to do it - it was really successful for me. I think it was a serendipitous moment for me. As a result of that I am now part of their network and their webinars and it is a great ‘family’ that gives support to each other. I have made friends with other artists across the country and internationally. Do you have any advice you might give your younger self? A lot!! Somebody told me once at 17, when I was leaving to study at Uni, that in your life you should do something that comes from the heart and that makes you fulfilled. Are you studying something because you’ve been expected to or do you love it? If it comes from your heart you might not make a lot of money but it means something. However, I always wanted to please so I never followed my art. I would have kept up my violin and pursued my art which was my passion. Art was always my safe and happy place. So I would say 'just do it' - don’t worry about other people’s expectations and don’t worry about ambition. If you love something you can make it work. I would listen to that advice if I had my time again! What are your top tips for a great garden? When we arrived our garden was overgrown chaos and we didn’t know where to start – it was hard and it really just evolved. We had never gardened in the sub tropics – we came from Canberra and it was so easy there as it was dry - but you can manage it easily if you can water it. Up here it just takes over – so do your research about the plants and live in your garden for a year before deciding to change it. See where the sun goes and understand the soil changes across the seasons and understand what you already have. Look at the mature things you might have and work around them. Find what will love that spot without stressing you. Some things grow like mad – we had Star Jasmine everywhere here when we arrived. We blitzed everything and as a result made lots of mistakes, in hindsight we should have just trimmed back and learnt over time. I think sometimes you need to recognise you need some expert advice – for instance I realised I needed some help with my big trees and so I got a tree expert in to help so I do that regularly now. That frees up me to do what I’m best at. Do you have any projects coming up you would like to talk about? I am part of the Open Studio Trail on weekends of 28/29 November and 5/6 December – website info http://www.os-bbb.com/and the Other Art Fair in March next year. The virtual gallery will run for 6 weeks afterwards. I want to complete my ‘Out on the Edge’ series – then I want to move onto my 'Plants and Flowers with Butterflies' series which I haven’t done before. I think that encaustic will really suit butterflies, like birds, for their fleeting, ethereal and delicate nature. I also want to exhibit my extinction series which is about drawing attention to animals that are in crisis – species under threat – so looking at Australia birds and marsupials. I’m hoping to do that at the Lone Goat gallery and perhaps do some lectures alongside that. I also want to get my International Art Fairs up and running – I would like to do Singapore and Dubai and also go back to Santa Fe. It is not cheap as you have to ship your work there, but it gets you International attention. I have had people come up and stay at my Airbnb to also look at my art which is lovely. Tanya's website is https://www.scorchingskiesart.com and her instagram is scorchingskiesart. I was looking forward to visiting Lesley as a number of people I have visited so far have studied with Lesley at some point. She is very well known in this area as a teacher of art as well as being a really fascinating artist in her own right – as well as for her remarkable fundraising events. As someone who also believes in the importance of constantly learning and acquiring new skills I was really interested to hear that apart from all her early studies she has just recently refreshed her art qualifications by completing a Diploma of Art through the London Art College as well as a certificate of Botanical Art through the Newcastle University. For those of you who don’t know Lesley she currently is busy on a beautiful series of birds and fabric – based on wild birds from this area. I personally just love her detail and depth of colour in this series. Does your garden influence your work – either in what you create or how it affects you? Some of my 'friends' visit me every day here at the studio and I have drawn and printed them all. We have a Magpie who comes and a Butcher bird that about 8 years ago were caught in a hailstorm here and they come regularly. The Magpie brings her babies to visit us which is lovely. The birds are a big influence for me and I have drawn them all - they have all ended up in my paintings or pencil works. The last thing I have painted is the Red Breasted Honey eater (see pic behind Lesley in her headshot) and I am just working on the composition of another new work. I have lots and lots of fabric collected from my travels. I buy some from wherever I go. We have travelled to Japan a few times and I am very influenced by Japanese art and material. I like that there is limited perspective in their art as well as the very fine work they create - and sometimes I use woodblock prints in the background. This influence seems to have stuck with me for a while now. I have been also concentrating on some abstract work which I haven’t exhibited – mainly landscape type pieces. I enjoy making them but they don’t necessarily sell well here. We have the highest concentration of artists in Australia living up here in our area so if you can sell art here I think that you are doing ok! It is a bit stifling in competitions and exhibitions as there are so many people chasing a few places. Most of us have the imposter syndrome and it makes it hard, but I feel those that have it probably work harder than those who don’t feel that. I think it helps you to ‘grow’ your work somehow. Do you have a favourite corner in your garden? I do love to sit here in my studio and look out the glass door at the birds and the garden there. I watched the hail the other day. The birds will come right up to the door and ask for a little feed – one even climbs up the screen for greater effect. What is your favourite plant or flower? My favourite of all are Tulips – I love the shape of them. I have a girlfriend who would turn the petals inside out and they look amazing. Second favourite would be Magnolias – I love them and wait for the season and gather them from the streets as I love to paint from the real thing – but I would also take many photos to supplement this. Do you have a favourite garden? I think my mum’s – when I was working and it had been a stressful day I would just go straight out the back and walk around the garden for a while then come back in and I would be ok – it used to be very relaxing. I loved the way she planted vegetables amongst the flowers. If I had to choose between two hours of gardening or painting there is no argument at all - painting wins every time. I like the garden to be neat and tidy and I do throw in a few seeds and seedlings and I love these blue cornflowers I have got that keep self seeding. They seem able to grow almost anywhere. How does the act of ‘making’ relate to your personality and who you are? You could say that I am a typical Virgo in that I like fine details in my work, but I can also be loose if I choose to be. I also do like to finish something before I start something new – I can’t be working on a few things at the same time. I need to concentrate on one thing and get it right before moving on and I think I am like that in all things in life. I think most artists are detail oriented as they are always observing. I am drawn to colour and I like a limited colour palette. Tell us about your career journey to date – did you always want to be an artist? At school there was no art in high schools – it wasn’t even offered for HSC. There was a competition in the Herald when I was 12 to draw Elvis and I won the competition which was very exciting. There are no artists in the family, but my dad was so impressed by this that he decided to find me a teacher. This turned out to be a girl called Pamela Griffiths, who was at the National Art School, who tutored me while she was studying. Her brother, George Gittoes, was an Australian war artist for some time. I was lucky enough to have private lessons for a number of years and I learnt a lot. Then after school I went to Wollongong and studied teaching and went into Special Education. I worked in the Deaf and Blind unit in Sydney for about 8 years then we decided to move. There was a lot of art involved in what we did with the kids and I even had one girl who ended up working for Hanna Barbera – who produced film cartoons - working on drawing the cells. I also worked for a time in advertising, working in marketing, then I worked on brochures and fliers and I also worked as a film producer part time for a small agency in North Sydney making TV commercials. I worked with the Rural Bank before they were bought out. When it ended up owned by Colonial my husband and I bought a franchise – but I was always still painting. Even when I was working long hours – mostly I painted for my pleasure and to relax. I painted or drew every day. We had a few franchises across this area but when the Commonwealth Bank bought Colonial the franchises came to an end and we were bought out. That was when I decided I didn’t want to work full time again and really got into my art. I basically retired about 17 years ago and decided to teach again and set up classes again at home. I still have a few pupils from then now. It is interesting as I always wanted to paint and draw and be creative and I have also created in ceramics. When I finished teaching, I went part time to the National Arts School and to St George Technical College then in 2018 I completed a diploma - I had been studying online with the London Art College which I enjoyed greatly. It was mostly online but then you had to send pieces over for evaluation. I saw it as a way keep myself up to date with current thinking and trends - and I think it is important to keep learning. If there is a good tutor around, I will always go for a course with them. I used to go to Grafton for the summer school – there is always something you can learn and take away from it. I always tell students to go and learn more from other teachers too. Melissa Wright does a lot of printing and I have done a lot with her. She is so experienced that I have learnt a lot from her – for instance composition that translates through to my paintings. Could you talk us through your creative process? I do tend to see a finished idea in my head first and I do journal a lot. The piece that I am starting now, for instance, is in the series that I am working on. I get the fabric and pin it to a board to get what I want from the drape and shape. This time I am using a teapot as well so I have been photographing them this morning to get exactly what I want. I also want to use the Blue Faced Honey eater as the birds featured in it - so I gather pictures of them too. I chose the bird first for this one. Then I pin the composition all over a board and move it round till I am happy – that is my preparation for painting as opposed to some people who do the same with sketches. I choose the medium depending on the subject – although I do prefer working in water colours I think some other subjects might call for acrylics. What has been your most crucial tool to grow your creative business? Melissa Wright, Mark Waller and I started the initial Lennox Art space a number of years ago and I did teach from there too. I do sell online through Bluethumb. Like a lot of artists I find it challenging to market myself – I am on Instagram and Facebook, Saatchi art, Art Advisor and Red Bubble. I do also have a website and get a number of my students from that. What has been the most challenging lesson learnt since you started your art? That you will never make a living out of it. I think you need to stay true to what you are doing, and want to do, and not compromise. It is tempting to make art ‘pot boilers’ just to sell pieces - but I just can’t do that. I’m actually having fun drawing my students at the moment – all in a different style depending on their personality and their work What’s been the best thing that has happened to you since you started? For many years I had an art exhibition specifically to raise funds for Cancer Research – last year was the first year we didn’t do it. We would auction them off and I have raised about $80,000 for this. I am really proud that art has contributed in this way. Public speaking is tough for me and I had to push through that - but I am sure all the organisational stuff also grew me as a person. Also I find that every time that you sell something it is a big thrill – every single sale gives me a great feeling. What are your top tips for a great garden? I think to be like my mum who mixed up flowers with her veggies - I think that really is a great option. My mum used to move the vegetables around in the garden and that worked very well. I have been picking more flowers recently for my flower ‘pounding’ botanical drawings. Do you have any projects coming up you would like to talk about? I have one at Lennox Art Collective at the end of April with Melissa Wright – I am looking forward to that next year. We bounce off each other well as she is a great printer and sculptor, so our work is complimentary. My work can be seen on my website at www.lesleyryanart.com Leisa lives in Lismore – once you walk through her gate you arrive in a little haven with the most productive sustainable garden I have ever seen. Simply over flowing with an incredible variety of fruit and vegetables Leisa’s back yard is brimming with ideas on how to create a garden to live off – then there is the fantastic Bonsai section, with more trees then I thought possible, grown in her handmade Bonsai pots - which are also works of art. One of the wonderful things I am finding in these home visits to artists is just how varied their skill bases are - most artists work in many mediums. Leisa has a varied skill base and works in a wide variety of mediums and sizes from life size bronzes down to emotive sculptures of women, bonsai pots and even rings. You can feel her strong passion for her message and self-expression in all that she creates. In her earlier years she created through making soft furnishings as well. I love how artists manage to bring their creativity into all sorts of other careers before they manage to find the time and space to focus just on their art. Does your garden influence your work – either in what you create or how it affects you? Having the garden definitely inspires me and makes me feel really peaceful. When I am out here it is like a barrier between the world out there and here where I create. I created most of the garden here when Covid hit and I wanted to create an oasis behind the house. When I left the Gold Coast I had already started to collect plants and to make pots for the bonsais. I moved down here and brought lots of them with me. I always had lots of vegetables and fruit trees up in Queensland so I had brought a lot of them that I had grafted. My parents had 8 acres in Mudgereeba so it was a bit of a shock to move down to suburbia. It was hard for my dog Gidget too - so we go running in the morning at about 4am before things get busy. That gives her the freedom she loves. She is a Smithfield Blue Heeler. I think having this garden affects me and it is integral now with the new range I am making of water features, bird baths, bird feeders. I use the leaves from the garden to press into the clay – like the Pumpkin or the Ginkgo Bilobo which is my favourite leaf of all. So it is integral in my art. No matter what happens out 'there' I can switch it all off here in the garden. I even have a little native bee hive here and they bring me a lot of joy watching them in the flowers I have planted for them. In my studio I have ensured all the windows open onto it. My dad had orchards and veggie gardens and my mum grew up on an apple orchard in Stanthorpe. Mom got into ornamentals and had bonsais from when I was I was really little, and I always wanted to grow them too. My mom was a potter too - she made traditional things through hand building and using a wheel. She is a teacher at Mudgereeba Potters now. In 2007 I was commissioned to make a life size horse for a client and it changed my life – it gave me enough money for a deposit for a house here in Lismore. I went to University to study Art back in 2007 here in Lismore at Southern Cross and was doing it part time and driving down three days a week. It was very hard and time consuming but I learnt a few very valuable things – like how to make moulds. I started to make the small figures that were all about dealing with emotional issues. I wanted to reproduce them using slip cast and in the holiday time I learnt how to make the moulds – and even the small figures which had seven pieces to them. There was a lecturer there called Liz Stoppes who was very generous and taught me so much in how to make moulds. Do you have a favourite corner in your garden? I think the most peaceful and joyous is in the bonsai area – they are like my babies. I often find it hard to decide which to take to the markets as they are all so individual – I sometimes need to hang onto some longer than others. I read the book ‘The Secret Life of Plants’ it goes back to the 1800’s when botanists started researching plants and how they react to stimuli and I started to look more intimately at my plants and now I treat them quite differently. I have a small She Oak out there and she is very special, and you can hug her and feel this great emotion. (see pic of it at top of blog) They had meters on the trees, and they could see them react when someone who loved them came near them. It really hurts me when I sell one to someone and I can tell they don’t actually value the tree but see it as an ornament and it might well not survive with them – they do need quite a bit of care of course. What is your favourite plant or flower? One plant I really love having in my vegetable garden is Borage. It is a herb but it has the most lovely blue flowers (see pic on left) and has great character with long stalks. The bees absolutely love it and the leaves are really hairy and it just has so much personality. They do grow like crazy, so I have to cut them back sometimes. It is such a beautiful plant. Do you have a favourite garden? I would have to say this one which is a special garden for me - having created it from nothing. I knew I wanted a sustainable garden and with planning I feel I have achieved just what I wanted. Plus it houses all my bonsai and potential plants for bonsai. How does the act of ‘making’ relate to your personality and who you are? When I was growing up I did my own thing and I loved the property we lived on. I loved the bush and I would forage and find things in the bush - maybe teeth from a dead animal or seed pods - and I would make little animals or people from them. It was self-expression and just wanting to create beautiful things from natural found objects. I loved creating things that tied into the natural environment. The figures I make were a way for me to deal with personal emotional things and a way to heal and it got things ‘out’ for me. I do get comments about the shapes and not everyone will ‘get’ what they are about. Some people even find it disturbing they don’t have arms and legs, but it is about what is on the inside not the outside. It is about the silent dialogue. Tell us about your career journey to date – did you always want to be an artist? I have a photo, I still remember it being taken, when I was about 5 and my dad had painted a board with chalk board paint for us to draw on. I had recently seen a seal and wanted to draw it. It was the first thing I drew, and dad was so impressed with it – he took a photo of me next to it and it made such an impression on me that dad was so excited. I got into ceramics because I did it at school where I studied art all the way through. I would have loved to go to Brisbane Art college - but it wasn’t possible - my parents weren’t keen to send me. So I studied Graphic Design and Fashion Design at Tafe, then I had a business called Equine Essentials. I rode a lot when we lived in the Gold Coast Hinterland and it was a very important part of my life. When the import tariffs changed overseas products came in and made it unfeasible to carry on. After that I worked for Laura Ashley and it was while there that I started making slip covers for customers and decided to start my business Leisa’s Creative Covers. I ran this for many years making custom made covers for all soft furnishings within the home. It was a one man show and really all consuming. Then mum and dad sold their property three years ago and I had found out that the products that we use within the business for upholstery products were having a very negative health effects on my body and I decided I had to stop. Could you talk us through your creative process? The most important thing I do is go to bed with a workbook – if I wake up at night I must get my ideas down. If I wake up and can’t sleep, I just get up and come to the studio so as not to waste the time. I then have the initial idea down on paper - so then I draw up a plan of action. From that I draw up sketches so I can think about preparing for the project what I might need or what I might already have to use for it. Then I do a lot of experimentation in order to see how best to make it work. I can often turn off my head and turn on my hands and they can lead me – sometimes it is best not to over think it and I just let my hands work intuitively from the subconscious. What has been your most crucial tool to grow your creative business? Self-discipline and motivation – full focus and not allowing any interruptions. I have been in galleries since about 2012 – starting with Gallery One on the Gold Coast – initially they asked if I had won awards and said go away and come back when you have. I worked hard and on a special project for the International Ceramics – I made a ‘Eleven Shades of Blue’ a ceramic dress made of many, many little pieces. I cast 4500 Australian shillings in porcelain in 11 shades of blue that went from deep indigo through to white -it is now in the permanent collection at Gold Coast. (See pic at bottom of blog of the snakeskin dress and bag made in a similar fashion) It took me ages to sew them to a silk dress slip I made – took me ages and I lost a lot of the casts as I had to drill a hole through them to sew on and lost about 15% of all of them along the way! I was using a jewellery drill but still lost a lot. It took lots of work to get the test runs and the colour worked out. I won the Award in 2012 and went back with this and other awards and they took my ‘ladies’ into their gallery. I have pieces in 19 Karen Gallery on the Gold Coast and that has worked well for me. Galleries can be very demanding – even down to insisting on the colour that they think will ‘work better’ for the area. I have also had pieces in a Melbourne gallery, but it is expensive to ship. As you know you lose about 50% to Galleries and it is hard to make much from sales through them – these days I mainly sell from my website plus markets and Open Studio days. These days I get a lot more joy from bonsai pots and water features, bird feeders and bird baths – I know they will bring a lot of joy in the garden and help wildlife. What has been the most challenging lesson learnt since you started your art? Dealing with galleries - and I guess people not connecting with your art. They might like them to put in their home but just don’t connect with the concept and meaning. I find that hard as I care so much for each piece I make. What’s been the best thing that has happened to you since you started? Winning the International Ceramic award – but even better than that was getting the commission to create the Bronze life size horse in 2007. He was designed to be jumping out of the water and I had a thoroughbred that I based him on. I had a workbook and did all the plans I wanted to make all the moulds and send them to the foundry. The person who commissioned it wanted to build me a foundry, but I said it is too big a job – there were 39 separate pieces from the mould that had to be welded together over a stainless-steel frame – huge job. I had to teach myself about making the moulds. I had only made tiny bronzes up till then – these were old clients of mine and they just asked if I could do this for them. They loved the Fountain of Apollo in the Palace of Versailles and wanted something similar – I never doubted myself that I could create a horse in the same way – I knew I would find the way. We decided to start with one horse, and it ended up as just the one in the end, but it was amazing. (see pic at bottom in gallery) I am very proud of that sculpture. What are your top tips for a great garden? Work with the space you have and where the best sun is but create a haven for yourself. I love having designed a sustainable garden that feeds me as well as being great for the bees and birds – so plan it well and feed it well Do you have any projects coming up you would like to talk about? I don’t have any exhibitions coming up but I have the Open Studios in November and December which is an important time of the year for me and I will have a lot of work on display this year - it is part of the Open Studio Trail on weekends of 28/29 November and 5/6 December – website info http://www.os-bbb.com/ You can find me at the Carboot markets in Lismore. My work can also be seen on my website www.leisarussell.com.au I am also always happy to chat to anyone about a commission Does your garden influence your work – either in what you create or how it affects you? The garden - and where my studio is located in it does affect me – I look out over the garden and I can see the bush reserve beyond. I can feel the wind blowing and see the birds that come and go. Sometimes if I get stuck, I will go out the back and that helps me to find my way again. It definitely does influence me with the textures and colours. I did some Eco-printing during my last unit at University and I collected and foraged leaves and flowers from the garden for that. You use long strips of paper and then put the mordant on the paper, put the fresh leaves on it and roll it around a rusty tin and tie it - then it is submerged in boiling water with rusty pegs. It is such a beautiful thing to open it up and the surprise of how it turns out – a wonderful way to print. There is a lady in the Blue Mountains who creates in this way - but not many others in this area that I know of. I would like to get back to it sometime – I created books from them, and they were actually quite popular. It was fun as I do like experimenting. When you diversify I find it informs the main work you are doing. The print work definitely informed my painting - I think it was in the detail that I then added into the paintings. There is a 'looseness' when you print in this way which I enjoyed as well. Do you have a favourite corner in your garden? Probably the veggie garden as I look straight out on it from my studio and it is an important part of our garden. Every morning I come out and see what is needing to be picked and what I can plant next. As the kids have got older, I find we are planting more to 'gather' from the garden – we have a couple of great lemon trees that fruit well and a mulberry tree. What is your favourite plant or flower? There are so many to love – I do love the Hippeastrum (Amaryllis) which is quite nostalgic for me as my grandmother used to grow them. She had a lovely front garden and a back garden full of flowers and veggies. I have great memories of them as she had so many. Their house is still there in Mullumbimby. The Tea Trees are gorgeous - and the Grass Trees – since the fires they have all shot up into bloom this spring. I do feel the bush nearby is like my backyard and I walk there a lot. The Tea Trees at the lake I never tire of seeing – it is a favourite spot and I paint them a lot. Just outside my fence is a little gap in the trees with the tall black water reeds in a wet area there and I have painted this little section a few times. Do you have a favourite garden? I think this would have to be 'nature' out in the bush. While I do love this garden I find that just outside of my fence is probably more of a favourite. We go walking a lot and camping and its being out in the bush that I find so inspiring. I do love this garden though – we moved here 20 years ago and so it was all planned out from that time with the kids being small. The vegetable garden was always an important part of it and the pool area – then later on we built my studio where the kids sandpit used to be - and now I find we are planting more things in the garden to harvest from - fruit trees and veggies etc. How does the act of ‘creating’ relate to your personality and who you are? It usually starts off as a series that I am planning to work on – I take photos and I make sketches – but it also unfolds during the process. I try not to let it be finalised in the beginning it is more exciting that way. I think I would get disappointed if it didn’t look like the image if I saw it too finished in my head before I start - it is a loose image idea that I want. I like to paint the same thing a few times and it changes each time. My mind might be searching to make it a little looser – I like to be semi abstract. I am quite instinctual, and I think this comes into my art and how I make it. I think I am always looking to investigate, learn and find new things and I think this translates into my art. I love to look at other people’s art as well as design and fashion – I think that all makes you a more interesting person and artist. Tell us about your career journey to date – did you always want to be an artist? I studied art at school – it was my best subject alongside sport. I grew up in Mullumbimby and went to school there. They had a good art department – even in primary as they brought in people to do a variety of art - even candle making! It was great fun. Even through high school I had great teachers in art. My parents were work based and felt that I should go into the workplace straight from school. I worked at the Popular café in Mullum which was a great time for me – the family were really interesting, and they had many 'alternative' people coming in and that appealed to me. I met Christine Wilcox there when she came in with her children and then she was my teacher at University. I then went to Tafe and studied Fashion Design which was a lot of fun – I went on to design for Sarah Lysaght in Byron which was such a creative area at that time with lots of independent artists. We used to make these crazy party dresses with Lycra tops, tulle and marbling on silk at the end of the 80’s – that was wild and fun. Her dresses would be sent around the country at that time. After I had the kids I used to dabble in a bit of painting – I started doing a bit more art then I went and did classes with Lesley Ryan. A friend of mine was at University and she invited me to come and see the end of year exhibition of the Art Department – I was inspired by it and applied to go and got in! I was always interested in the creative side of things. My mum was a sewer – and she made all of our clothes from a great enclosed veranda at home. She knitted and crocheted as well. I used to spend a lot of time outdoors down at the creek there which probably was the start of my love of the bush. My great grandfather was an artist, I believe, who did landscape paintings, but I don’t know a lot about him. All my relatives made things – that was what people on the land did at that time. I think as humans we are designed to be creative and resourceful. Could you talk us through your creative process? I do plan my work, as I mentioned, to a certain extent. For instance I probably will soon work on a series based on the bush where we have just walked and camped out past Tenterfield. I will have taken photos and maybe sketched a bit – so I will have some things to refer to. I do also journal and put down ideas and colours in my book. The colours I use are really important and I like to plan them out in advance. I then would put together my canvasses and boards as I like to use a mixture of hard and soft surfaces and also a mixture of sizes. I find using boards you can scratch into them more than the canvases and that appeals to me. Then I start out drawing - but I often get too excited and so it flows onto the canvases and boards and I just start painting! I work on a number of pieces at one time as I find they inform each other, and I need to let them sit and ‘breathe’ for a while. So it is nice to work on another one and come back to them – that way they work better together. I might even paint out sections that I first loved as they just don’t seem to work in the end. The end result is quite instinctual not planned. What has been your most crucial tool to grow your creative business? Probably the first step was doing the markets – it was a great stepping-stone and it helped me along the way. Becoming part of the Art Collective in Lennox from 18 months ago has played a huge part in my art business as I now sell from there. We have just finished a two week ‘smalls’ exhibition there and it gives me a good reason to keep making more art. I like my art to be seen in an interesting space so it is a great gallery to be part of. I do have Instagram and a website that people can also see my art on. What has been the most challenging lesson learnt since you started your art? I think to not be too judgemental of yourself and your art. I think it is a bit about 'letting go' and not be too harsh – while it is good to be self-critical it can hurt you too. That is why I like to put my art aside and get less emotionally attached to it before finishing it off. I find it useful to look at other people's art as it is really motivating. I like to think about colour and really understand it – there’s so much to learn about it. I have been lucky enough to have seen a lot of Australia and love to paint its different colours - for instance the greens are so different inland from here compared to the lushness of the subtropics. What’s been the best thing that has happened to you since you started? I think being part of the Lennox Art Collective, and connecting with people and the community, has been lovely. It means I create more art. It is hard work to put yourself out there. To put your art in other art spaces (galleries) in areas outside of our area takes a lot of time and for not much return - even if the exposure is great. I do think it is good to push yourself though so maybe next year I will look at it again – Covid has definitely put a bit of a hold on all that. Do you have any advice you might give your younger self? To back myself more as a young person. I think it is important to keep some creative energy happening in all your life in some way. It is so important for mental health - and all parts of you - to build that creativity in any way in your life. Make that time for yourself - doesn't matter if it is writing, or even going for a walk and looking at the leaves or the bark on the trees – shapes and colours. It does you more good than being on a phone. Our brains need that information, not screen time, to keep us feeling the best. When we grew up, we didn’t have to deal with all the screen time but now I think we need to consciously make time for this. What are your top tips for a great garden? I think to plan it a bit - we always wanted a veggie garden for instance – so you need to know where the sun is at all times of the year. You need to understand the garden before you know where best to plant everything. We do like the idea of food from the garden so that is important for us. It is a very private block here with the reserve out the back and Aboriginal land further to the side so that will never be touched. The area out the back has tracks that lead to the beach as well as into town. I do tend to feel the bush I can see behind the fence is part of the garden. Do you have any projects coming up you would like to talk about? Well the one exhibition I have been part of has just finished at the gallery – we also have the '$300 and Under Exhibition' from 11th December at the Lennox Art Collective Gallery which is a mixed artist exhibition for Christmas. You can view my work at any time at the gallery (pop in on Thursdays to chat to Sharon in the Gallery). Online at my website https://sharonmcilwain.com or even on my Instagram sharon.mc.art |
Kay KnightsI am an Australian artist who is crazy about her garden and I'm inspired by the colours and contrasts in my backyard. I truly believe that Gardening is Art - I believe that many Artists are similarly inspired in their gardens. This Blog is for me to go and meet some of them and share their gardens and art. ArchivesNo Archives Categories |