The Studio XXVI Story

Here I am living the dream! Art has always been my true love. A worthy lover yet she has always taken a back seat. Now like Thelma & Louise we are riding together down the highway in a Cadillac whooping and cheering! 2016 rocketed me into a regular, exhibition orientated and deeply fulfilling art practise helped by having my own working studio.

My Grandmother Margaret Jean was an Oil & China Painter from Strathalbyn in the Adelaide Hills. She inspired me from an early age and I was encouraged to make art with her. She also bred sheep to make her own fleece for spinning and knitting, peach rollouts ‘fruit mushed and rolled out’, helped my Grandfather run a dairy and was a Prize winning Show cook – we still have the ‘Sim Car’ that she won for first place! I can see her legacy in my face and my love of making, crafting, creating.

Many new projects have emerged in the Studio including Duck n Weave – an Artist Collective of Secondary School Teachers. We exhibit 2 x year for Adelaide Fringe and South Australian Living Artists Festival. We meet regularly and support each other in creative process and fulfilment. You can see more about them on www.ducknweave.online. You may be here to explore our Creative Exchange which is a collaborative project is held across twelve months – we meet for three hours, ten times for the year, discussing a range of topics relating to your artwork, your aspirations and inspirations, and challenges you may be facing as an artist.

And then came Morocco….

In 2017 I was fortunate to participate in Green Olive Art’s International Group Residency in Tetouan in Morocco’s North. It began an ongoing relationship with Moroccan artisans and their families and through Islamic Arts such as embossed Leathercraft, Brass Etching, Book binding and Plaster Carving. Much with Hamza El Fasiki from Craft Draft based in the Spiritual city of Fes and also with teachers from Tetouan’s Dar Senna (Technical College) in Zellij (Islamic Mosaic) and Gybs (Plaster carving).

I was a member of the Council for Australian Arab Relations and University of Western Australia ‘Islamic Artisan’s tour of Morocco’ taking classes in Fes and Essaouria and presenting at the Australian Embassy in Rebat. What an honour!

Mizan Zaman was a project from 2018 to 2020 when I brought Artisans and Musicans such as Imad Eddine Dably from Morocco and we conducted workshops in Islamic Arts and Sufi music for over 1500 students ranging from 5 to 18 yrs old winning Council for Australian Arab Relations support grants.

A profound and life changing detour that became a main road.