I describe myself as a creative

What does it mean to be a creative? To live a creative life?

For me, creative thoughts fill my head much of the time. Those, and thoughts about people and their stories. I see art everywhere as I spend time each day in nature noticing things. Like pops of red as sun filters through the bush, hitting certain leaves or bark at an angle, drawing my eye. Scenes that teach me things, like, how a splash of colour in a couple of spots is key to lifting or bringing life to a scene. I wonder in those moments how I might render that in paint. When I sit to paint it kind of explodes onto the page. I will have scoped the spot be it landscape, or setting up a still life, for a while before finding a composition. I am not conscious of any rhyme or reason. At some point during the painting I have a moment when I think it’s going to be crap but it usually comes together in the end. I paint in one sitting.

I grew up in the bush on the Northern Beaches of Sydney. Most particularly Allambie Heights and Frenches Forest as a young child. The bush was a playground, and my sisters and friends and I were free to roam. The northern beaches and waterways were a constant source of joy. Swimming races at Dee Why Pool every Saturday morning. Afternoons after school at Fairlight Pool. Water skiing at Manly Dam. Fodder for a young girl who would go on to dabble in creative pursuits, and to seek out the natural environment for her general wellbeing. My tonic.

(One of my father's artworks)

Witnessing my father paint shyly yet consistently in my childhood may have given me permission to create. He’d perch on the water’s edge on family holidays and produce a beautiful delicate half drawn half painted image of a favourite spot. Small works. Everything he touched he did with an artistic flair, including his handwriting in letters. He’d make birthday cards for close folks featuring quirky ink and wash sketches and calligraphic messages. Everybody loved them. I was noticing. I have a project in mind to collect as many photos of his work as I can from those who have kept their treasures over the years, along with his poetry. His creative legacy.

Although I was a bright student, doing well in Art, English and Maths at school, I didn’t have a career in mind. There was not the pressure then that there is now to go on to a tertiary education and become something. Although my two closest in age sisters did. A teacher and a nurse. I was busting to get out and live my life. I hit the ground running, becoming engaged soon after turning seventeen, then breaking up soon after starting work when I realised there was a lot of life out there to be lived and I was way too young to be making such a permanent long-term commitment. I headed overseas for an eight-month adventure.

When I returned to Australia study was still not on my radar. I didn’t begin tertiary education until I was in my mid-twenties, initially at private drawing and stained-glass classes with Paddy Robinson. I was in love with all this learning and creating and Paddy encouraged me to go further. I booked in to a Diploma of Visual Arts at Nepean College of Advanced Education where she was the stained-glass teacher. My other subjects included etching and painting in oils.

My study in these things ended there, but my love of making and creating has never left. I’ve made lots of glass windows and lamps. Mosaiced several floors. And in more recent years turned my focus back to painting. When I painted two paintings at an art day at our local hall in twenty-sixteen, I surprised myself. My sister, also a creative was there. She said, “You’re channeling Dad!” The images on my cards are the result of the past eight years of painting, etching, printing and ceramics.

My creative pursuits didn’t end there. In the past twenty years I have built a mud house on the headwaters of the Clarence River. And completed a Bachelor of Arts in Writing. I am in the process of writing my first memoir.

For me, living a creative life is innate. I don’t put pressure on myself. I trust the process and am generally happy with the results of my efforts. Creative time, like time spent on my surf mat in the ocean, is time when all else falls away and I dwell in the moment. I have learned not to edit myself as I go – but just to be in it, to enjoy it and to trust the process. Time well spent. I am never bored. Maybe a little chaotic. Maybe too many unrelated projects underway at the same time. Surely I am on the spectrum somewhere. So, I surround myself with other creatives, and so I am in good company. I feel grateful to have creativity in my genes and in my life.