I can’t believe it is almost the end of October already. I’m proud to say that in the time since I last posted I have been making lots of fun and fulfilling things, both for my own practice and as gifts. I drew the lovely ‘Chloe’ for Luke’s aunty’s 70th birthday. She was very moved by the drawing and it is now up on her feature wall in her home, which makes me smile heaps.

Over the last month or two I have been working on a piece to be exhibited into an exhibition run by the University of Melbourne, which is where I completed my Masters of Teaching a few years back. The exhibition theme this year was ‘Teaching, Connections, Art and Life’- wow! So after weeks of deliberation and sleepless nights I created the small painting I titled ‘The Art Wing’. The image depicts the building I work in everyday at my school. The colours referencing the bush, the fires and the serenity the Art Wing gives to students in our school community. It seems this piece is not quite resolved for me yet and I would hate to exhibit something I am not 100% ready to show. So I kept making.

I then started to work on small postcard sized watercolour paper and went back to my happy place of working with text. Each artwork in the series is made with a different media that I have taught and currently teach students at school. Each artwork displays a feeling, an emotion, a response to the process of art making for both students and professional art makers. The frustrations within the process of making are the same for all of us (well at least some of us), the lack of confidence at times and self deprication can lead to ‘writer’s block’ or ‘maker’s block’. The anxiety around the creation of an artwork is frightening, exhilarating and satisfying all at once. Being creative is wonderful don’t get me wrong, but it is hard work. Self reflection, sensitivity and motivation are hard things to work with in your mind all the time.

I see the students in my classroom deliberate over an idea, drawing, writing, researching until the idea sprouts from the deep recesses of their being – and there it is I think to myself, the makings of an artist (of course I tell this too them too in a very positive way). For some/ most it is not an easy way to live, sometimes I wish my brain would shut down from idea making for awhile and give me a break. But if that happened I guess I wouldn’t be me, and that would be shit. The End!