Merry Christmas to everyone!

 

Well here we are again at the end of the year and all out of breath and wondering what the hell the New Year will bring!? If it's anything like 2015, it will be an awesome ride!

We, the Wild Women (22 of us so far) of Arkaroola PLUS (plus 3 men now!) went into the desert once again to explore and paint and be inspired and just to chill out and be free!

Arkaroola is such a great place! The air is so different with it's decaying radio active background (I kid you not!) The area is made up of uranium bearing rocks but the slow decay is natural for man to live in and much of Australia is of course the same! We just aren't told it unless we do some research.... however, out there, it seems to bring about a healthy change and many of us return refreshed, renewed and ready to go!

This last year, although the Sturts Desert Pea was just at the end of flowering, we did manage to find a few to photograph along the way.

Maybe you can join us in 2016. We go again in May and September. If you live overseas, you can fly into Sydney and then onto Orange where we will meet you and make sure you get into a 4WD to come along! We would love to show you around Oz!

 

 

  

  

 

 

 

  

  

  

 

Another big week at Arkaroola!

Flying in a small plane out into the western deserts is not for the faint hearted, or so I found out this time around. For the first time, I actually got airsick.... not just the squeemish tummy but the real throw up in a bag stuff.... oh nightmares! I really thought my number was up by the time we got into the desert..... aaargh! The Piper Navaho tossed and jolted across the skies thrown about by hot pockets of air and small clouds..... but sigh, it was fantastic to be back out there.... once the tummy settled.

This is the 5th trek into the wilderness that I have organised for my artistically inclined friends. Twice a year, I invite people to join me in this wild adventure and it is a lot of fun. It's energetic, focused, free, exciting and inspiring..... Just to get out there in that uranium decaying background seems to reignite the soul and cal, the mind.

Flying above Lake Frome has to be one of the purest joys of life on earth. It's a surreal and majestic sight and never the same..... again this time, it lay resplendent below us swathed in layers and the palest greys and ochres, watercolour washes across the plains. It's not a well known salt lake, but in many ways, I love it more than Lake Eyre. About 600 sq kms in size, it's like being on another world.

The Yin and Yang of the Art World

Do landscapes sell? Are art buyers/lovers really interested in the landscape?

It's amazing every day, no matter where or what I go or do, I find people with differing points of view especially about the art world. I guess, really, everyone's experience is so different, so diverse, that we each have to make up our own mind in the long run.

So just thinking it through today, I realise that in my life I have over 700 paintings of the landscape hanging on people's walls and in their offices all over Australia, the US, China, Japan and various other countries throughout the world. My lifetime has been spent pursuing the essence of landscape through colour, shape, intricacy, abstraction and a variety of techniques and materials. Just this week, I have completed several pieces both large and small, and as I view my studio, there's not much in stock..... so the landscape must still be a winner for many collectors - at least in my experience!

So what do you think? Here's my latest work titled "The Ancient Ones" inspired by the many ancient rocks that continue to erode out into the Australian landscape wherever you go..... they can be found in all sorts of places but it's the remote ones I love the best! In an arid landscape, there's nothing quite like coming across a pile of massive boulders! They provide shade, colour and form, beautiful washes of colour, and they 'talk' to you! They tell the story of our fabulous place - our home - Australia!

When I look, I see maybe a couple of female figures laying in repose, maybe discussing 'life' as time passes by..... what do you see?

More on my website!

It doesn't matter what you paint, just continue to follow your heart, eyes and soul and keep painting - "Let it flow and let it go!" (Joy Warren of Solander Gallery in 2011) Thank you Joy for that timely advice. I needed to hear it then and I keep repeating it to myself each day.....

Have a happy painting day and remember, even when sales are slow, it's time to catch up on all those images that are waiting dormant waiting to be born!

Have we lost our way on this planet?

We have but one home - it's called earth..... and it's an important place because even if we could find a way off, other planets are hardly welcoming.... we still haven't found one nearby that would support life and even if it could, it would taken many generations to build the home we have here.... or did have here.... before we started to pollute and rape the earth.

2012 is surely the year for a wake up call... as we plunder the limited supply of oils, coal, minerals and metals, convert them into rubbish which we then bury back into the ground or worse, throw out to sea, maybe this year we could all take a look at our own consumption and start to think how we might be part of the solution. For me, I have cut down to a pretty simple lifestyle and this year, I am determined to not buy anything I don't absolutely need and to mend things rather than throw away.

My paintings have traditionally been inspired by our beautiful Mother Earth, the wonderful landscapes we live and enjoy and I have found great pleasure over my life creating many paintings, each one completely different to the next. The joy of being able to express myself through art has never left me.

In these later years though, I have found myself wanting to express my concern for the earth and what we are doing to it seemingly with little regard for the future of the generations of human beings to come. Here in Australia, our laws unfortunately were set in place by colonial attitudes to allow the rape and pillage of the landscape by the early settlers and those same laws also now allow us to mine the landscape to its detriment...... most people don't have the time "to give a damn!" esconsced as they are in a cheap luxury lifestyle and kept busy by an aquisitive culture that has made 'money' god.

Today I worked on a painting entitled "LAND / SCARRED" (above) which features the pindan soils of the top end of Western Australia - those luscious reds and purples of iron ore, those sensuous curving hills and there right in the middle I find myself painting a mine site..... it isn't any particular mine site, just one that I designed from the lay of the land on the canvas..... worked up from a number of mine sites that I have seen from the air in my travels. Please feel free to download it and save it as a desktop image if you would like. I doubt if it will ever sell but if I can raise some comment, an eyebrow or make someone out there think, then I have achieved much.

Stop by again soon....