Not so long ago, the arts were part of everyday life. Dance, making music, creating beauty in everyday objects, clothing, houses – and having time for story telling – kept culture alive and maintained life balance. Personally I feel this separation creates much mental, physical, emotional and spiritual sickness. All our family are creative - maybe from our beginnings in being cash poor, so having to be resourceful and adaptable in life, as generations had been before us. Farming though was about working, so the arts were purely a leisure time activity. As a grown up, the arts became part of my healing journey... No matter what colour or culture we are, everyone has intergenerational pain in varying degrees.
Unexpectedly my own journey to empowerment was through the vehicle of Flamenco. At a crossroads in life, this dance demanded of me that I had the right to be seen and heard. The footwork and passion of Flamenco was a healthy way to express pain and release anger, and also to give time to self to hone the discipline required. I feel very sad that dance has fallen out of fashion as it's normal and natural for us to move to music and this is so good for brain function, for balance, for physical activity ... don't get me started! I'll add some links soon.
Most little kids are natural artists and creative spirits, often dancing, drawing or making music. We had a lot to do with music in the local brass band growing up, and years later we all still play music. Mum's side of the family grew up on their farm at Yornup and had a family verandah band. Neighbours would send in requests and could hear the music wafting across the paddocks :)
A project I'm still working on is the painting of my Native American Tipi. A large tipi for workshops and overnight accomodation, I bought this from 'Tipi.com' and the order went through when there was a huge snow storm in America. Luckily, Rissa, who handled the International orders, lived not far from her work, and snowshoed out as it was the only way anyone was able to get around at that time! Watch this space for more pics....
After completing an Education degree at uni as a mature student, but realising this career was not for me, there was no question what I wanted to do and that was to study art. Childhood and drawing had been buried under many years of working (as is common with many of us). From day one I felt I was home! No struggle, panic or pain as in the teaching degree. It was a great way to plunge into the depths of art, history, theory and practice and to fast track knowledge. I found I'm a maker rather than a painter.
Here is a woven tea cup from fruit tree prunings and willow (many hours of weaving on the 4 round trip bus journeys from home-uni-home).
It's called 'Womenspace' and is about our first inter-generational holiday with Mum, my daughter and I. We met in Melbourne and stayed at YHAs, intending to have our meals there to keep costs down more, but we had such a great time exploring and food-ee-ing around Melbourne, the only thing we cooked at the YHA was cups of tea! Was a beautiful holiday.
Always looking for practical art assignments, my uni sculpture project was making a gate using relics from the family farm scrapheap, welded to a structure made from star pickets. I hadn't used a grinder or mig welder before and welding with mostly cast objects, a challenge but a great way to learn on the job. Tacked together for marking, the gate is a tribute to the people and horses who worked the land a generation ago".
Learning about 'Ephemoral Art' or Site Specific Art' at uni, led to coordinating a project through the local Landcare group to promote community cohesion, connection to nature and environment, with Land Artist, Elaine Clocherty. More of Elaine's art can be seen here Site Specific Land Art | Elaine Clocherty The project, over the autumn/winter of 2018, not only addressed my own passions of community wellness and reconnection to environment, but was a great opportunity to work with Elaine - developing a total respect for the intricate work; patience in holding the vision and in collecting tiny nature materials - to the completed work. Amazing stuff! Since then I've been involved with several other projects with Elaine and the community of Land Artists in the south west.
The Facebook link in the making of the Land Art in Manjimup is here: Community Land Art Project in Manjimup | Facebook
Comments