I’m fundraising to support families facing childhood cancer
I’ve created this page because I want to make a difference. I’m inspired by the work that Redkite does and wanted to support them by raising funds through my event.
Help me help them by keeping an eye out for The Great Kite Auction website which will go live on October 27 https://hopeflies.isobellecarmody.net.au/the-kites-news-events/
It will be launched along with my new book at an event in Brisbane. From that date, we will unveil One kite a day on the website, with an interview with the creator. Once all the kites are visible, we will open the auction towards the end of October. Please Help us help kite by publicising the website and the event and Talking about the kites created by 30 wonderful Australian children's book illustrators and artists. The more people support Redkite, the more they can support children and families, so please share the auction website with your friends and family! Thank you for your support, it means a lot!
Please check out the blog posts and gallery below to see the kites and follow along
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‘The Nameless Girl’ – Shaun Tan
Tuesday 26th Nov
Shaun has had his work translated into an abundance of languages, adapted into plays and orchestral scores.
He has a subtle knack for subverting the familiar and through fantastical narratives bringing an audience on a journey back to understanding with a renewed perspective of the world.
As the son of an immigrant father and an Australian mother, Shaun was naturally positioned as the outsider. Although, he found his diminutive size to ultimately be more othering than any racial element.
Growing up in Perth he would wander the stark suburban streets and take short cuts through the bush. At school he quickly worked out that the best way to connect with his peers was through drawing and humour.
‘I liked that it was both homely and a bit desolate – very long stretches of empty, wild, sun-blasted beach, and huddled against it a warm community of middle-class suburbanites he said. ‘At least this was my experience.’
Shaun is pretty reluctant to claim drawing as some luminous and elite thing reserved for him and a chosen few.
His childhood friends were really the first to assign him the title of ‘the good drawer’.
The question ‘when did you start drawing’ elicits his favourite response: ‘When did you stop?’
He points out that most children, given a pencil, intuitively gravitate towards drawing and writing. He just never stopped.
That said, Shaun was raised in a richly creative and artistically supportive environment. His father was an architect and designed their house, which Shaun’s mother then built with him. His mother was also skilled at seeing the forms that made up the things around her and and translating them to the page.
Later, Shaun discovered that she had always held a dream of becoming a Disney animator.
He remembers making kites with his father: ‘I first learnt about kites from my Chinese Malaysian father,’ Shaun recalls. ‘He used to make them from bamboo grown in the backyard with rice paper stretched over them. I remember especially him lightly spraying the paper with water to tighten it like a drum over the frame. They were very light and difficult to balance.
‘I think my parents had a big influence on me, not so much in teaching me anything artistic – I rarely recall lessons in creativity per se – but in patient persistence, the joy or getting difficult things right, especially those things that might at first seem a little pointless.
‘As kites wonderfully are.’
His first commissions were adorably for his father and later on, more seriously, for the canteen ladies, for their new burger creation ‘The Space Burger’. From there, he sent a drawing to the ‘Aurealis: The Australian magazine of fantasy and science fiction’ and had his first cover proudly published at 15.
Shaun had developed an interest in fantasy and science fiction, not so much for the genre components but because they alluded to a potential multiplicity of worlds. He was raised during what some might call a sci-fi/fantasy gold age, viewing the freshly released ‘E.T.’, ‘Blade Runner’, ‘The Dark Crystal’ and ‘Mad Max’.
The stories he finds hopeful and uplifting are somewhat unusual.
‘Oddly, it is pretty dark or bizarre stories that lift my spirits,’ he said.
‘I was originally drawn to the idea of being a writer after watching episodes of the original Twilight Zone as a kid. I liked the often disturbing, mind-bending endings. As an adult I like books such as Cormac McCarthy’s ‘The Road’ which could also be considered dreadfully depressing.
‘Why do they lift my spirits and give me hope? I think it’s that they handle disturbing and troubling things and try to find goodness in them, and there is something honest and a bit relieving about this. That by making art, telling stories, walking through these bad dreams, we can hold onto some positive meaning.’
As the TV played ‘The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms’ casting black and white shadows on young Shaun and his father’s face, he had a revelation about ‘creatures’, an all encompassing term for any strange being. Shaun’s adult work has led him, and his devoted readers, through many surrealist daydreams. This is because Shaun has the wonderful capacity to see how strange the world around him is; In fact, how strange he is, and everyone else too.
‘As a child I longed for snow,’ he said. ‘In Western Australia. Wasn’t going to happen, but I dreamt about it all the time. Mum would sometimes defrost the fridge though.’
Through his perceptive lens, Shaun is able to tackle socio-political and historical themes in beautiful and clever ways. His short story, ‘Alert But Not Alarmed’, is a lovely representation of a very serious topic approached with humour and humanity. The government sends missiles to each occupant in a suburban area, and as a national security measure, they are to repaint them grey once a year. Over the years residents start to paint them other colours and patterns, even decorating them seasonally.
This story is reminiscent of the powerful images of the 1960’s anti-war protests, in which flowers were placed into the barrels of soldier’s guns. It is a diffusing of violence and tension with a gently comedic juxtaposition of flowers and guns, in this case, baby pink missiles, chalk drawings and Christmas lights.
Another theme of this story, that is found in other works of Shaun’s, is the impersonality of bureaucracy, its complexity and distance eventually rendering it meaningless.
‘The Lost Thing’, ’The Arrival’ and ‘Cicada’ are all infused with this idea.
Shaun also loves to incorporate symbols into his work. ‘The Arrival’ is a magnificent example, because instead of familiar symbols, it is entirely made up of his own imagined symbols. He also creates is own typologies constructed of known letters re-structured to appear foreign. In doing this, he ensures the audience of The Arrival will experience the world as the main character does – as an asylum seeker.
‘Eric’ is a more light-hearted exploration of similar themes of differences across cultures and pluralism.
Shaun explains that he does not begin a project with a fully formed idea. For him drawing is how he thinks and the process needs to remain open and receptive. His stories are purposefully suggestive and invite readers to imagine their own reasons and backstory for events. He himself is often unsure of the exact meanings and motives.
Now, Shaun lives in the inner suburbs of Melbourne where he loves the diversity, and the freedom for people to explore their individuality.
‘I miss some of the wildness of my childhood landscape, but this place has its own kind of poetry and there is a nice sense of community here too.’
There he is presently engrossed in a few different projects.
‘I’m painting landscapes and working a little on a TV adaptation of one of my books, which is an interesting process. I’m also thinking about a graphic novel involving a girl raised by non-human beings, something I’ve been sketching for years, just trying to draw it together into a coherent story.’
‘My kite represents the nameless girl from The Red Tree in a state of blissful flight.
‘Years ago, when I was illustrating The Red Tree, I had a sketch of the central girl in that story turning into a plane or a kite, and drifting away; also watching herself drift away like this, in a kind of blissful state that may or may not be reachable. I’m not sure what that meant entirely, which is part of the appeal.
‘It’s a character I have not painted in a long time, and so nice to revisit.’
The kite’s tail is inspired by a kite flying experience with his brother. ‘Once our kite was followed by a swarm of bees, sidewinding through the air for ages, perhaps attracted to the bright red tail on an otherwise dull-looking kite. This memory informed the red tail on my own kite here.’
If you would like to hear Shaun talking about his art and inspirations, follow the link below to a really good interview.
https://www.google.com/search?client=safari&rls=en&q=youtube+shaun+tan+talking&ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:c3f63096,vid:3S3v4RVOkXo,st:0
by Adelaide Stolba
‘Song of my Ancestor’ – Sally Rasmussen
Monday 25th Nov
Sal was born in Worimi country, Forster, where many lakes merge back into the sea.
Although she now lives in and adores the country and vibrant art community of Yass, she still feels profoundly connected with her birth place, and the natural cycles and connectivity represented by lakes returning to ocean appears in much of her work. She grew up between the turquoise waves, skipping over rock pools and investigating their contents.
‘I love the changing of seasons,’ she said.
Sal did a Bachelor of Arts from ANU, with a focus on textiles, but the long hours spent exploring outdoors and her admiration for the natural world remains at the heart of her artistic practice.
She works with a plethora of materials, all recycled/reclaimed and naturally produced fibres, including but by no means limited to: hemp, bamboo, copper wire, polished flax, silk, raffia, seagrass and bamboo.
From these, Sal weaves flowing and organic shapes that connect and diverge with a living delicacy.
Her work is particularly mesmerising, because a love and understanding of nature shines through. Her pieces truly appear as naturally arising structures.
‘I love most the connection you have with people [through creating art], the act of making and speaking in a visual language.’
Sal’s work is on display in Tyger Gallery in Yass.
Her physical works are gorgeous but they also extend beyond themselves, casting alluring shadows. Sal is keenly aware of light and shadows and often works with this second form in mind.
Her pieces range in size, with some larger works measuring up to a metre in length. Reusing, rediscovering discarded materials is extremely important to Sal, as she wishes to preserve the environments we call home, and pay tribute to the land and its available resources in this way.
Her pieces are highly reminiscent of the shapes that occur in traditional indigenous artworks, that exist to tell stories of the land and conserve its knowledge. Weaving is also a traditional practice that appears in indigenous art forms.
Alongside her own art, Sal is currently one of the team members, ‘tigers’, at ‘Tyger gallery’, a burgeoning space in Yass that supports local artists and hopes to foster community and accessibility in art. Sal is the manager there, and is a big part of the warm and welcoming atmosphere. Sal’s beautiful smile and peaceful energy is a bright and uplifting presence in any room.
‘Now, I hope for kindness in the words of another “Always try to be a little kinder than is necessary.” — J.M. Barrie’
Stories or books or films that have lifted her spirits or made her feel hope are ‘Dark Emu,’ by Bruce Pascoe, ‘Braiding Sweetgrass,’ by Robin Wall Kimmerer, and ‘The Tishkin Silk Series,’ by Glenda Millard.
Sal has no kite stories of her own, however she describes herself as an ‘avid bird admirer’.
Her kite thus depicts a majestic black cockatoo spreading its wings in flight. This particular bird has a lot of love and history behind it for Sal.
‘My mum died nearly four years ago and when her spirit left this world a black cockatoo cried out above the hospital where I was with her. I like the idea of flying a black cockatoo kite to meet her spirit.’
The origami cranes that form its tale were made by her daughter Sage, and Sal sees them as a sign of hope.
After the completion of her lovely kite, Sal will return to working on her newest creation, by chance with similar ideals espoused by the ‘Hope Flies’ project.
‘I am working on a piece called glimmers – the simple act of seeing hope or joy in small moments in your day. I also look for that glimmer of change.’
For Sal, art is a way to express her deepest truths and her soul.
‘Its like a best friend that lifts you up, and allows you the space to be unapologetically you.’
by Adelaide Stolba
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‘Hope’ – Gus Gordon
Monday 25th Nov
‘Growing up on a farm was wonderful,’ he said. ‘I learned about work ethic, teamwork, and how valuable a healthy imagination is.’
At school he was a daydreamer, his attention always darting somewhere far away.
He was the one that was always drawing, which meant he got pretty good!
Eventually, after working on cattle stations for a while, he made the decision to attend art school in Sydney. More than eighty books later, he moved up the coast, with his family. There, they carried on Gus’s family tradition, as books encroached on every surface, hungry readers eyeing them from doorways.
‘Somewhere Else,’ pictured above, won Gus the Speech Pathology award.
‘I currently live in Yamba on the north coast of NSW. It’s a beautiful small holiday town,’ he said.
‘My favourite thing is watching the whales travel down the coast with their newborn calves in October. That will never get old.’
Gus got his start as a cartoonist for various magazines and newspapers.
But it was when he was offered his first illustration gig for a book called ‘The Trouble With Parents’ by Dianne Bates that his career as an i8llustrator really took off. It was a chapter book, so he contributed classic little black and white watercolour drawings in his own particular style. Gus has an instinct for comedy and so these types of books were a breeze for him as requests flooded in.
Notably, he illustrated the ‘Tom Weekly’ series by Tristan Bancks.
Unfortunately, since he was very good at this, he quickly became pigeon-holed and that was the only type of work that seemed to come his way. He grew frustrated and felt stuck. He was a natural at presenting irreverent, more juvenile stories, Gus was craving to go deeper.
Gus loves to surf and to eat good cheese, he has an optimistic, cheerful soul and in many interviews he tends towards humour. All this makes him very engaging, especially for kids. He knows just how to hook them and reel them in, with silly details and tangents. Of course, as an avid reader, Gus is, well, pretty well read! He’s interesting and curious and there is a lot more to him than meets the eye.
‘I just want to keep improving as a person,’ he said.
The brilliant Herman and Rosie, pictured below, won Gus a CBC honour book.
‘’Kaizen,’ is a great Japanese term for getting better every day. I’d like to think we could apply the same word to us all globally. We really do need to get better.’
Gus had always been interested in beautiful children’s books embedded with quintessential human messages of belonging, friendship and adventure. He points to Kenneth Grahame’s Wind In The Willows’, Gene Zion’s ‘Harry The Dirty Dog’. He also mentions some other works that have lifted his spirits in the past. ‘The movies – Amélie, Shawshank Redemption. Books – Captain Corelli’s Mandolin by Louis de Bernières, The Hobbit by JRR Tolkien.
Roughs for Gus’s about to be released graphic novel.
His desire to undertake more complex issues as a creator led him to embark on his second complementary career as an author. He started with a short book for toddlers, titled ‘A Day With Noodles’, which was shortlisted for the Speech Pathology Australia Book of the Year Awards. An encouraging start!
As with his illustrating, he got better and better in the doing. Many of his other works have gone on to win awards, they have been published in 20 countries worldwide, translated into several different languages and even adapted for the stage.
After his successful transition to both writing and illustrating his books, Gus has been able to delve into some of the more tender facets of the human spirit.
Below, a sneak peek of Gus’s forthcoming graphic novel ‘Into the Bewilderness.’
‘Wendy’ follows a thrill seeking chicken who, realises the value of home and family through distance and the trials of fame. In ‘Finding François’ we follow a little Parisian pig who discovers the healing powers of time and new friendship. In the ambitious ‘Herman and Rosie’ we are introduced to an oboe playing crocodile and a jazz singing deer. These two find connection and solace through their love of music in the folds of a capricious big city.
Gus is able to draw out surprisingly touching and profound stories in his environment, whilst maintaining fun and excitement.
The twist for Gus, is that all his characters are animals! He takes lots of inspiration from children’s own story-telling abilities. Their innate simplicity and directness is something Gus strives to emulate with his own writing and in his ‘naive’ drawing style. He loves to hide things in his stories, taking inspiration from Richard Scarry. He also uses multi-media to bring his pages depth and character.
When it comes to his own childhood longings, he says: ‘I wanted to grow up. I obviously didn’t think it through.’
In this statement Gus encapsulates his wonderful skill for combining the cleverly comedic with the covertly poignant.
‘I loved flying kites as a child, and I recall with great fondness holding a kite that I could barely see, high above me in the wind.’
For his own kite, Gus has portrayed a slightly frazzled looking woman, reading a book titled ‘Hope’. I imagine this could really be any book. It’s a reminder to keep searching for hope no matter the circumstances.
‘There is so much pain and conflict in the world right now, and it’s easy to forget that we all have our own battles close to home in our personal lives. Without hope, there is not much to live for, so we need to keep searching for those things that allow us to move forward in the best way possible.’
At the moment, Gus has just completed an exciting forthcoming release, featuring a bear: ‘I have just finished illustrating my first graphic novel, ‘Into the Bewilderness,’ and am currently working on the roughs for a picture book with a much-loved author.’
by Adelaide Stolba
‘The Night Fox’ – Isobelle Carmody
Monday 25th Nov
Isobelle is a passionate believer in the eternal importance of art and its ability to propagate the best of human nature.
Born in Wangaratta she could have scarcely imagined the places she would one day go. Now, she is able to dream of travelling to locations she has often already seen, perhaps only the Antarctic being an exception to that, for now…
Below Isobelle speaking at a special event at the Australian Embassy in Japan, to introduce her to the publishing world there.
She is a born story-teller, always animated and rather dramatic, with a somewhat self-effacing flair for humour. Of course, she has also had a lot of practice.The eldest of eight, she became story-teller in chief for her cohort of siblings, if nothing else, but to keep them quiet and still for a bit. This later translated to the page, as a method for her to process various heavy life and world events.
‘It was a refuge. It was where I went to think about things and nobody could bother me. I could pull the wall down, and no one could get to me there. I was very good at shutting out the world once I went into my stories. ‘
She famously began writing her first book, ‘Obernewtyn’, when she was a teenager. It is a powerful collision of nuclear anxiety and the nuclear effects of a parent’s death. In this book, and its resulting series, the writing of which has accompanied her throughout many life stages, Isobelle explores questions of human morality, environmental destruction and belonging. Her characters mirror her own identity, often feeling like outcasts with a strong sense of justice.
As a voracious reader, Isobelle can tear through multiple books a week. She takes particular inspiration from the multi-dimensional world building of authors like Ursula Le Guin and Tolkien. Due to this pace of consumption, she has a ridiculously over-developed vocabulary, which results in a deliciously rich and descriptive use of language. She is also likely the person in the room to whom one might turn to, for the definition of a word.When it comes to illustration, she notes Tove Janssen’s Moomintroll books, Edward Gorey’s quirky art and ‘The Mouse and His Child’ by Russell Hoban with its illustrations by Lilian Hoban, as formative favourites.
Isobelle gravitated towards the fantasy and sci-fi mediums as a way of thinking about the real world which she often found troubling. ‘I took my thoughts and questions into my writing.’
‘To begin in undertaking a PhD, I was looking for a framework for my own lived knowledge and some kind of gravitas when I was on a panel with people who were labelled realist writers and academics, I wanted to slug back in their language to say what I wanted about what I do.’
In her PhD, Isobelle interrogates the capacity of fantasy as a lens through which to examine and process real emotions and events. ‘I love genre writing, but I don’t set out to write to a category. I use the tools that work for me. Sometimes the tools are those of the fantastic and sometimes they are realist tools.’
For Isobelle, each work begins with a question or raft of questions, and writing is a way of engaging these questions.
‘I think if you look at any writer’s body of work you can see that underneath they’ve got one or two questions they’re answering over and over again.’
Over the years Isobelle has essentially been in pursuit of understanding human morality, with a focus on finding the courage to engender and seek kindness in a confusing and dark landscape: ‘What is goodness? How can I be a good human being?’ This has lead to a substantial focus on activism later in life. She has been particularly outspoken about Australia’s offshore detention of asylum seekers. For a period she would go out, daily, to stand for an hour somewhere with a handmade sign protesting and informing about the government’s treatment of people seeking asylum. With this small and gentle action, Isobelle hoped to stir conversation and connection with passers by, perhaps especially, when they disagreed with her message. In recent years she has developed an interactive installation around this period, titled ‘What Would You Stand For?’. A moment from one of these installations is even featured on one of our other kites, created by Sara Phemister.
https://www.instagram.com/reels/audio/3464589787153335?igsh=M2RiZ3NhcnQ4NHJh
Becoming an illustrator was something that came later in Isobelle’s career with the creation of the ‘Little Fur’ Series.
It began long before that in the private arena as something she did for her daughter, in the form of little hand-bound booklets often following her daughter’s toys on their adventures. Isobelle regards her venture into illustration as a sweetly unprecedented gift, that has become a solid part of her portfolio, with an additional series titled ‘The Kingdom of The Lost’ under her belt.
Isobelle says that winning the CBC Book of the Year in the Younger Readers Category for the first book in her second illustrated series, Kingdom of the Lost, meant much to her because the award is given as much for the art as the writing. ‘That was the moment I felt I could truly think of myself as an illustrator as well as a writer.’
Over the past ten years Isobelle has become interested in graphic story telling. She has already collaborated on a graphic novel with artist Daniel Reed titled ‘Evermore’ and is presently working on a graphic novel called ‘Saltsong’, with Paul Summerfield. (Both men are artists and kitemakers in the ‘Hope Flies’ project!)
Above, Isobelle working on the storyboard for her graphic novel, up at a mountain retreat for graphic story writers/artists she arranged for her Patreon supporters.
Her own kite is a tribute to one of London’s urban foxes, spotted one very late on a night walk to a friend’s house in Muswell Hill. Foxes are a recurring image in her work, suggestive of what is wild and untamed, yet able to co exist with even a civilisation and species trying to eradicate it. Supremely adaptable and yet also vulnerable.
‘I had my 30 makers, but one of the original kite artists became very ill. I found another maker happy to do a kite, but it struck me that this might happen again and so I decided to make a placeholder kite, just in case. Then another kite maker dropped out very recently because a kite escaped before arriving at its’ makers address and he had no time to paint a replacement,’ Isobelle said. ‘Again I found another kite maker, however she can’t complete hers in a second, and the final two kite articles are yet to be composed, so even though mine is actually the 31st kite, here I am.’
‘I had never painted or drawn on canvas, so I used gesso to make it whiter and a bit smoother then I tried out a little stroke of pencil to see if I could rub it out. I could and that made it a lot better because when I illustrate I draw over and over the same thing until I get a shape that pleases me. It is not about perspective but about characterisation, whether of a character or a setting, which for me, is almost always another character whether drawn or written.’
To create her fox, Isobelle applied her favoured hatching technique over a combination of vivid orange water colour, pastels and drawing ink. The fox has wings, formed of interleaved feathers of sheer fabric in an earthy tone, and a lush fox’s brush she created forms the kite tail. She admits to finding the task of being a kite maker far more of a challenge than making the thirty (one) kites in the first place. (You can read about the kite making in another post on this site.)
‘It was hard to think of myself as an illustrator for some time, because I had no training, then it dawned on me that I am also an untrained writer. I learned to write by doing it, and it is the same with illustrating.
‘Of course the art community is incredibly generous with equipment, ideas, suggestions and encouragement.’
Below, drawing with Tony Flowers at Bologna Book Fair.
Below Anne Spudvilas sharing knowledge and art experience with a group of people on a Mountain Retreat with Isobelle.
‘I have been enriched creatively and personally by half of these incredible kite makers!’ Isobelle laughed. ‘It may be that the nicest thing about becoming an illustrator that I am now part of this generous, talented fellowship.’
Isobelle drew her fox over and over until she got it to fit nicely into the kite shape, then used fine-line felt tip pens to draw in the background. ‘Actually about thirty of them, because the canvas was so rough that it wore them out very quickly. It wore the lead out of the pencils too. I was sharpening every other minute.’
In her opinion, her fox turned out to be a wolf-ish kind of fox, but she decided it did not matter since she thinks of herself as a foxy kind of human. Her title is a tribute to that long ago urban fox, running along the middle of a street at night.
You can join Isobelle and others for monthly workshops, Mountain Retreats and find out what she is doing next, by signing up to her Patreon site.
https://www.patreon.com/c/user/about?u=18489457
by Adelaide Stolba
‘Freedom’ – Bronwyn Bancroft
Monday 25th Nov
Bronwyn grew up the youngest of seven children, in a small town and with little external distraction. She often spent her time immersed in the natural landscape.
‘I could sit for hours on a rock and be mesmerised by the reflections on the water, or the blue dragonflies dancing or the bright sun filtering through the elevated canopy…These early impressions have stayed with me all my life and have opened my imagination to a world of beauty.’
From this childhood fascination with colour, shape and movement I can see Bronwyn’s artwork situate itself within the broader context of the Australian landscape. She always sees what she wants to paint before she picks up her medium. Bronwyn can be seen working with acrylics, and most often on a large scale. She has built up many ways of articulating her shapes on a page with her own mark making techniques. Once on the canvas or page her work is characterised by mesmerising and complex patterns, organic formations and a spectacle of colours. These artworks have an inbuilt sense of movement indicated by the varied patterns and speak to a deep knowledge and understanding of country passed down through generations of people. Bronwyn’s geometric and contrasting colours are reminiscent of Kandinsky, whom she references as a major influence for her:
‘I was enraptured by the mathematical meanderings of Kandinsky’s delightful mind. His creations spoke to me – not with words – but with paintings that floated like a symphony of light and colour, shapes, juxtapositions that collided in extraordinary mathematical compositions.’
This painting above is called Meet me at Mountain.
Something about Bronwyn’s work brings to mind the multiplicity of colours and shapes we cannot interact with through the five basic senses at our disposal. These mostly limit us to one version of the world. Bronwyn’s creations seem to peer through this illusion and access multiple planes of perception and understanding. Books like ‘Patterns of Australia’, ‘The Art In Animals’, ‘Coming Home to country’ are a few magical examples of this phenomenon.
Bronwyn’s artistry is largely inspired by the intrinsic urge to explore and share her heritage and love for the surrounding natural world. In accordance with a favourite saying of hers, Bronwyn has lived many lives:
‘If you only have one life, live three.’
For Bronwyn, art is an unavoidable force in her life, she creates because it is an innate part of her and so she must. She has created shimmering, sequinned, hand painted garments, written and illustrated over 48 books extolling the beauty and intricacy of the Australian landscape and its inhabitants whilst tirelessly advocating for Australian Indigenous artists.
As part of her advocacy Bronwyn works with numerous organisations providing her expertise as an artist and activist. One of her dearest pursuits is as one of the founding member of the Boomalli Aboriginal Artists Co-operative (est. 1987). She has been the Co-operative’s volunteer senior strategist since 2009. Much of this work revolves around creating space and support for indigenous artists to showcase their work as well as to be fairly compensated. Bronwyn is passionate about artists rights especially relating to copyright.
In interviews Bronwyn often emphasises the importance of creating for oneself and not letting outside influences lead one to stray from from their own artistic journey. Bronwyn has always been careful not to seek fame, feeling it dangerous for one’s authentic practice to become desirous of praise. Praise, even more so than negative judgement, can become a brightly coloured lure beckoning the naive artist from their honest path. Bronwyn summarises this dual need for a platform as an Indigenous artist within the universal artist’s cry for independent creativity, left unadulterated by public fancy:
‘I don’t want to be public property, I just want to be able to participate.’
Throughout several decades Bronwyn has painstakingly created the space where she can devote the majority of her time to her art and freely say ‘no’ to pursuits that do not serve the ideals she strives to uphold.
Aside from personal expression, art is part of a great educational tradition, particularly in relation to Bronwyn’s Bundjalung heritage. For Bronwyn art is a natural vessel for knowledge through which she hopes to promote interest and understanding of Indigenous histories paired with a respect and appreciation for one’s native environment. Throughout her career she has remained dedicated to educating and creating change through art.
‘Similar to my father, I have always maintained that education and access to it is an equaliser.’
To learn more about Bronwyn and her art and other activities, visit her website at https://www.bronwynbancroft.com/artworks
by Adelaide Stolba
‘Flight of Fantasy’ – Paul Summerfield
Monday 25th Nov
‘I often think of my somewhat free childhood in Mt Barker. Bike riding adventures, friends houses on the same street, climbing high trees, cubby houses, visiting friends’ country properties, making hay-bale fortresses and exploring dams,’ Paul reminisces.
Some of my favourite memories are of surfing and going to the beach in Coffs Harbour.
‘I rode my bike everywhere and it gave me and my friends a lot of freedom.’
An admitted workaholic, Paul is always whittling away at something. Alongside his more personal pursuits, community oriented projects and collaborations are one of Paul’s lovely strengths.
A restless convivial creator, Paul can often be found working in different cafes around Canberra. He is also happily collaborative and has become a pillar of the arts and broader community in Canberra since his arrival in 2003. Some notable contributions include murals for Canberra Hospital and Garran primary, and branding for the National Folk Festival and Floriade.
Paul with his kite, awaiting its transformation.
Paul has a soft spoken, peaceful disposition, presenting as a daydreamer, always following the threads of his imagination into the clouds.
‘One of the most beautiful things I’ve seen is something which can be seen everyday – the rhythm of the wind moving through the world, the shapes of clouds and the patterns in the sky.
‘I see beautiful things every day in the world around me. I think noticing small, beautiful moments and things is something artists do.’
‘I often have shower daydreams,’ he said.’ I might dream up a process, or a work, or an idea, and it spreads its wings in my mind and encompasses my being, until I can put it down on paper or digital canvas.
‘Sometimes I feel like I’m channeling ideas from somewhere else.’
Paul’s artworks are like inter-dimensional portals, housing many narratives and tangents.
They are often designed on a grand scale, every inch intense with detail. As he largely works digitally, his computers and tablets are often overheating, complaining at the scope of his projects. Due to their scale, viewing Paul’s work as a mural, or wrapped around the circumference of a bus, is particularly satisfying.
Close up, it would be easy to feel one has stumbled upon an alternate, fantastical universe that one might possibly be able to enter. One of Paul’s intentions is to present people with an opportunity for escapism on paths through every day life, a moment to let the imagination breathe and expand.
‘My art is storytelling,’ he explains. ‘I want to allow a viewer to collaborate in a narrative by finding their own meaning in my visual forms and imagining their own worlds through my works.’
Paul is inspired by both cityscapes and nature depicting many of their commonalities and intertwining shapes. He references his stay in Tokyo as particularly inspiring, paired with the rainforests of his youth, this fits his recent description of his art direction as ‘solarpunk’. This is a concept that continues to appear in his work.
‘In my up-and-coming exhibition in March next year, titled Botanical Systems, I am exploring the systems around us in the natural world, but also linking them to machine-type systems.’
The artworks are multilayered, many organic and industrial shapes coexisting and blending, often in brilliant technicolour. Some examples include: ‘Cosmic Forrest’, ‘The Linn Garden’ and ‘Photogenic Atoll’.
‘This inner world building that happens when you read stories lasts longer than any film for me,’ Paul said. ‘Scenes from films like: Her, Ghost In The Shell (anime), Blade Runner 1&2 made an indelible impression. Seeing how futuristic earths are portrayed, really sticks in my mind. Films like these have inspired me to try and bring a metropolis’ to life with my 2D digital paintings and illustrations.’
You can see Paul at work in his studio, taking about his art, in a little interview I (Adelaide) did some time ago, by following this link (and after skipping the annoying ads): https://youtu.be/ngYEDGy4upY
The choice of a digital medium aids in this gradual layering, leaving room for adjustments as each work progresses. With the zoom capabilities of a tablet Paul sometimes finds himself working for hours on five centimetres of a canvas, becoming so involved in the process, that he forgets the actual proportions of a piece. Awe-inspiring works like ‘Oceanic Metropolis’ and ‘Magnificent Futures’, are wonderful examples of this, with mind-bending amounts of intricate detail.
Paul has a playful side, too. He admits that he loves to hide things in his artworks, and revels in the thought that a viewer will find something new in the artwork every time they approach it.
Paul also likes to merge oceanic and forrest themes, with repeated images of trees stretching out and whales swimming through the sprawling networks of branches. In his work ‘Ancient Ceremony of The Longest Day’, trees morph into jelly fish, roots mirroring tentacles and vice versa. Though Paul has a real love for Canberra, he sorely misses the ocean.
‘Canberra is a big city with a small city mentality,’ he said. ‘I like that you can choose to walk instead of drive, I like that riding a bike is easy. I like feeling a part of the Canberra art scene and community,’ Paul said.
‘I don’t love that we have to travel two hours to get to the ocean, though. Having grown up by the sea, I really miss it, and yearn to be able go to the beach anytime. Maybe that longing is what makes me create works about sea creatures and ocean-like places.’
Discovering Paul’s love for the sea, it is no surprise that his kite has become a fish-like entity, with a thick mane of rainbow scales and flowing ribbon tendrils.
‘This kite would need a gale to lift it into the air, So with that in mind, I named it, Flight of Fantasy,’ he laughed.
He remembers with pleasure that his parents took him to kite festivals and once, he was given a kite for a birthday.
‘It was a two string freestyle kite and pulling along the beach, I remember feeling that freedom of controlling the kite and also of feeling my feet digging into the sand and the wind through the vibrations of the strings. Zipping it down close to the sand and feeling the pull of the wind was really exhilarating.’
Now that the kite project draws to an end, Paul continues with numerous other endeavours: An illustrated cookbook job, merchandise and poster artwork for the National Folk Festival, two different illustrated storybook collaborations which are in various stages of production and his next solo exhibition in March 2025 in Canberra.
He also creates puzzles and calendars featuring his art. You can see more of Paul’s work and buy prints of it on his website.
https://www.psummerfield.com/
by Adelaide Štolba.
‘The Strange Truth’ – Cat Sparks
Monday 25th Nov
Cat’s curiosity and creative breadth has led her down a multitude of diverse paths.
Aside from writing, she has traversed the world as an archeological photographer, supported fellow genre writers as a publisher, and photographed and danced for climate preservation as a radical activist, to name a few.
Throughout her diverse and extensive career, she has also appeared on a variety of festival panels and produced numerous sci-fi anthologies, such as ‘EcoPunk!’with Liz Grzyb and ‘Agog! Ripping Reads’ as well as over 90 short stories and a fantastic speculative fiction novel titled ‘Blue Lotus’.
‘When I was five, I wanted to be a vulcanologist and I still have the volcano book my parents gave me,’ she laughs. ‘Took a wrong turn somewhere. So many regrets…’
Cat is sharp and witty, and possessed of a steadfast zest for life and a seriously adventurous spirit – asked what she would like to do in future, she said without hesitation, ‘To visit outer space.’
Above, Cat stopped on the side of the road to get bleached kangaroo bones she wants to photograph.
Unlike many creatives, who tend towards introversion, she has a consistent, life-long appreciation for the creative communities that have become her home.
She has an unquenchable interest in being part of the world and is always moving amongst fellow creatives and activists, involved and engaged. You might find her taking photos at an Extinction Rebellion protest, working at recycling/reusing initiatives like the amazing and sadly extinct ‘The Green Shed’ or founding an independent publishing press with her partner Rob Hood, known, during its life time as ‘Agog!’.
She insists that much of her accomplishments have come through dogged force of will rather than reliance on innate talent. Hand in hand with her energetic capacity for life, comes a hunger for knowledge.
This drive has increased exponentially since the commencement of her PhD in 2012, now completed. During this process her research skills were thoroughly honed.
Most of all, Cat is concerned about the future of our world. She speaks with poetic eloquence and urgency of the climate crisis and the role of climate fiction in illuminating current, contributing socio-cultural issues. She conveys vital and complex information with a dry sense of humour and the kind of raw honesty and emotion that comes from heartfelt investment.
‘I am either known as a science fiction author or ‘the lady who posts all those bird photos on socials.’
Cat’s writing falls into the category of speculative fiction and climate fiction. Through a dystopian/futuristic lens, Cat explores societies current challenges with the added benefit of hindsight. This genre can be controversial, being a collision of many contentious areas. Science Fiction as a whole has often been diminished and climate change, if even acknowledged as real, can be difficult to maintain eye-contact with.
Cat attributes her love of and respect for speculative fiction to the fact that, growing up, her family did not perpetuate the ingrained distinction between science fiction and other literary forms. She remembers growing up on ‘Doctor Who’, ‘Star Wars’ and Frank Herbert’s ‘Dune’. She attributes ‘Dune’ particularly, as having such an impact on her that it forever altered her perception. Naming authors like Kim Stanley Robinson as inspiring figures for the genre Cat herself is a fierce advocate for the value of science fiction in helping inform our present and thus inspiring new approaches to the future.
‘Science fiction gives us an opportunity to think through and experience various possible scenarios and re-evaluate the present,’ she says. ‘Climate fiction particularly, asks that we proceed in a way that does not sacrifice humanity’s future for any one individual’s present.’
‘Art, to me, is aesthetically charged communication; making something new that (hopefully) emerges as more than the sum of its parts.’
Even as Cat emphasises the importance of community in her own life, she also regards it as essential to navigating the climate crisis as we lurch forward unpredictably on the paths we have paved. When speaking of her debut novel ‘Lotus Blue’, Cat points to the number of characters as a response to the ‘ the tired trope of a singular hero.’
‘A heroic single hero is unrealistic, because significant and lasting change comes from networks of many small actions across time and space,’ Cat says.
Cat’s novel ‘Lotus Blue’ presents a post-apocalyptic future in which semi-sentient machines roam a desert-like landscape. This speculated future delves into the intriguing and unsettling concept of future humans who have lost the knowledge of how technologies work and so have little control over them.
You can hear cat talk about her book here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JNWfTC4u7nc
Like her writing, Cat’s photography captures layers of culture and change. Many shots focus on urban surfaces with overlapping graffiti, remnants of old posters, stickers and peeling paint. These images combine quite delicate, ragged textures and loud, garish colours into snapshots of time passing. Cat’s kite has the same quality of overlapping images and textures.
The photograph above, like the bird images in this story, was taken by Cat, and depicts the tail end of the 2021 riots in Hong Kong.
‘We are living in a period of rising climate crisis and other associated existential threats to life as we know it on the only habitable planet we can be certain exists,’ Cat said.
‘My kite features lines torn from vintage fairy tales collaged with plastic from damaged cars and other random bits and pieces (if you look hard you’ll see a tiny compass!). Fairy tales teach us that no matter how dark and twisted the forest, there is always a pathway through.
‘Our job is to find it and in that endeavour I see hope.’
Cat is a woman who does not just talk a good talk. She acts. She is a staunch and agile member of the DiscObedience Group in Canberra that dance as a form of protest – you can see her and some of the DiscObedience dancers on December 6 at 6.00pm at Smith’s Alternative when she and Isobelle talk about the intersection of art and activism.
Above, Cat and the DiscObedience group, dancing to raise awareness of the need to act now on climate change.
Cat’s father was a painter, and his beautiful landscapes now adorn the walls of her home, along with a great deal of other art. She was brought up to notice colour and shape in the world her writing is often simply working to describe internal images.
Cat has always been very aware of her surroundings and of changes in them that mark the passing of time and sociological change. ‘I grew up in Waverton on Sydney’s lower North Shore, a light industrial area that has since been completely drained of original character. Our family home has been replaced with a Mcmansion and the car park up the road is filled with boats.’
These days, she lives in Canberra, the unassuming underdog capital of Australia, cradled by beautiful, verdant mountains. She moved there with her partner, award-winning horror writer Rob Hood, and two feline overlords, nine years ago, to close the gap between them and their colourful and artistic social life, and came to love the city.
‘Canberra is a surprisingly fabulous city: high quality contemporary amenities, yet the trees are full of birds and kangaroos hop down the streets.’
Right now, she is thinking of a second novel while readying herself to prepare an exhibition of her photographs. ‘I am attempting to write another novel, however this year has proved to be horribly distracting.’
Asked if she had any final message, she said, ‘For the love of literally everything, can we please start taking the climate crisis seriously?’
by Adelaide Stolba
‘The Resilience of Poppies’ – Inda Binda.
Monday 25th Nov
‘The best thing about where I live now in Riyadh is the kindness and generosity of its people,’ Inda says warmly.
‘Back at home in Meanjin/Brisbane, I most appreciate the outdoors – our forest reserves, the beaches on the coast just a couple hours’ drive away – the magical garden we are so blessed to have at home.’
Inda came to writing and illustration later in life. She had always dreamt of pursuing art in some form, however the omnipresent belief that art and science were not compatible, kept her from realising these dreams.
‘I love that I now have new ways to express myself and to convey messages or emotions, and its impact is immediate. I’m still growing as an artist, but I’m very glad I started!’
Fortunately, as a proudly self-proclaimed nerd, Inda also had a keen passion for science, so, her initial career choices were equally as fulfilling and only serve to strengthen her stories with a unique perspective.
In her book, ‘How To Measure The Ocean’ Inda introduces the subject of metrology in a fun and engaging way, by considering how one would measure the ocean. Her books often aim to spark curiosity in this simple but effective way.
Inda uses the likenesses of her three children to represent the inquisitive readers visiting the beach. She is able to illustrate the oceans vast depths with reference to the many different sea dwelling animals and hint at geometry through the curvature of shells. Basing the characters on her real children through little details helps bring out individual quirks and personality. Additionally, Inda used to be an avid scuba diver, so, she is able to render beautifully ornate underwater scenes, showcasing the splendour of the biome.
This book also has a deeper message about the interconnectedness of life hidden within the bold blue words…
‘We lived in the capital, Kuala Lumpur, but made frequent trips to my grandparents’ home in the rural areas or ‘kampung,’ When I was younger.
‘I really loved the hot, humid weather (not such a fan of it now!), the unbelievable nature and of course, the food!’ she said.
‘We are very lucky in Malaysia to have all the conveniences in the cities but also plenty of chances to escape to beautiful islands, tropical rainforests and places where the pace is a little slower.’
Once her first child arrived, Inda’s world seemed to open up and the strict lines between science and art began to fade and blur. She says:
‘The most beautiful thing I have ever seen is the smiles on the faces of my children’
Inda began to see the world through her children’s curious and innocent eyes. She felt refreshed and inspired to finally start investing time into an artistic career. She built up the courage to attend a workshop at her local library titled ‘how to write a picture book’ and never looked back.
She craved to give her children stories that could illuminate the hidden depths of the world around them, and promote discovery. During a trip to Malaysia to visit family, Inda decided she would write a book for her daughter celebrating their Malaysian heritage, this later turned into her second book ‘Night Lights’ illustrated by Lesley McGee.
Another nod to her family life, is the wonderful ‘The Month Makes the year’, a sweet picture book that explores Ramadan through the eyes of a child.
Like all of the kite artists, Inda is an admirable hardworking and highly motivated individual, and when she sets her mind to something it is hard to imagine her not achieving it. Since releasing her first book ‘Salih,’ illustrated by Anne Ryan, and co-incidentally launched by Isobelle Carmody in Brisbane, Inda has been a part of creating, if not sole creator, of six books – all whilst working as a part-time surgeon!
Inda is also heavily involved in activism and art activism, which naturally infuses her kite design: ‘The genocide in Gaza and the ongoing occupation of Palestine is forefront in my heart and mind, and has been for over a year,’ she said.
‘This kite – like many of my other works of art and writing – is inspired by the resilience of the Palestinian people, who have opened our eyes to a world that tries to put power and profit over people and planet. I’ve chosen to decorate my kite with poppies, a symbol of resilience and sacrifice, and the beautiful sunbird which is the national bird of Palestine,’ Inda said.
This theme was already present in her first book, Salih, where the main character had been forced to escape his war-ravaged home, and must now carry his whole world on his back, like a turtle.
Inda is driven by overwhelming compassion for those in similar conditions and hopes to promote kindness and peace through her work.
‘I’m one of the co-founders of Coffees For Gaza, a collective working together to raise funds for families in Gaza. We’ve also just launched pre-orders for “Tabkha” – a book of Palestinian recipes written by Mona Zahed, mum of 4 from one of the families we’re supporting, from the tent where they have been displaced. The recipes are illustrated by 20 of us from the group, in different artistic styles. The book is available to order worldwide at http://www.coffeesforgaza.com. We are so incredibly hopeful that it will touch the hearts of many readers and that Mona’s recipes, that were rescued from under the rubble, can be revived in warm kitchens all over the world!
Inda’s love for the arts community is expansive, and so she also runs an online book club called ‘Stretch Your Shelf’. Everyone is welcome to join! All through November they are dedicating their reading to Palestinian writers. These politically charged situations in which the human element is obscured, often invokes in us a sense of powerlessness, but Inda believes we can reclaim our power through the precious resource of our communities.
‘Many of the acts of solidarity I’ve seen happen over the past year are featured in my upcoming picture book to be released mid-2025. “Our Voices, Together,” written by me, illustrated by Syd Fini, and published by Hardie Grant. The story tells of a military assault on Gaza nearly three years ago, one of many attacks on a besieged civilian population over the past decades.
‘It is a young person’s anthem of solidarity for children in war zones, and talks about how the community can act to speak up against injustice. You can speak up in the form of the written word in a book or on a held-up sign, or through art on walls or kites, it can be in the form of protests or songs, petitions and marches, all striving for a change that would see children protected and free.’
‘To me, this is hope.’
‘The Wish Cat’ – Cathy Larsen
Monday 25th Nov
One might picture this pursuit filled with well-meaning, possibly uncanny valley attempts, politely smiled at by somewhat put-upon mall-goers, however Cathy was already a surprisingly developed realistic portrait artist.
‘As soon as I learned how to draw, I couldn’t stop. Christmas and birthday presents were always books or coloured pencils,’ Cathy said.
In an interview on LANCE TV Cathy speaks of her mother teaching her at about two, how to do stick figures (which Cathy says was the limit of her artistic ability) ‘She gave up when she saw me draw a bucket with an ellipse.’
This little vignette speaks to the potent entrepreneurial spirit that has carried Cathy through a rich life of artistic endeavour.
Cathy has done everything from creating a home-made magazine at eight, titled ‘The Weekly Flower’, to co-running an LGBTI sci-fi club known as ‘Spaced Out’, to organising a Melbourne folk music club.
Of her childhood, she says, ‘My dad worked for the Commonwealth bank, so we were transferred about every few years. So I was always ‘the new kid’.
‘You learned lots about how different people lived and got to see new places, but it could be quite lonely. I had nine different schools in three different states.
At one point she lived in Longreach remote central western Queensland.
‘It was the late 1960s there was no TV,’ she remembers. ‘I was very much a loner and I read everything I could get my hands on. I read all the biographies, and even the encyclopedia! Then the council opened a new library and I discovered C S Lewis!’ Cathy said.
Asked about her flower magazine, she explained that shecreated a nursery with about 80 plants under the tankstand at home, and would create a weekly gardening magazine with gardening tips and illustrations.
‘We had a wonderful vege garden and were totally self-sufficient.’
That self sufficiency might be why, at 15 years old in the mall in Armidale NSW, she started doing portraits commercially.
‘I gained permission from the council to do this and would roam the mall asking if people would like their portrait done, then sketching on the spot.’ The money earned went to buying books – like ‘Lord of the Rings’, and ‘Steppenwolf’. My dad and my brother were into Sci Fi and fantasy books, so I read lots of those.
I would write stories and illustrate them for English.
‘I was a library monitor and I would handletter the award inscriptions in books. I also studied classical singing,’ Cathy said. She also is her own canvas being an accomplished make up artist and cos player. Below you see her as Dr Strange.
It was in Mildura Victoria, that I first studed graphics, which opened a whole new world up to me! I was hooked on design! And of course she has since undertaken complex cover design for huge names like Tim Winton, Graham Base and Li Cunxin.
‘In 1978, I came to Melbourne to study Graphics at Prahran. That didn’t work out so I worked in design for silkscreen printing, ran a folk music club, drew portraits in markets and shopping centres and did signwriting until I returned tostudy and graduated from Swinburne Graphics in 1985. My aim was to get into publishing,’ Cathy said.
‘The first publisher I approached was McPhee Gribble. I did freelance design and illustratioin for them. Noteable titles were Peter Cundall’s ‘Practical Australian Gardener’ and Tim Winton’s ‘In the Winter Dark’.
Penguin Books bought out McPhee Gribble and I was later hired by Penguin to be a book designer. I was part of the Penguin books family for 22 years. Notable books are Graeme Base’s ‘Dicovery of Dragons’, Li Cunxin’s ‘Mao’s Last Dancer’ Geoffrey Blainey’s ‘Short History of the World’, and of course especially Isobelle Carmody’s “Obernewtyn Chronicles’’
Cathy is particularly proud of her cover design for the most recent Obernewtyn Chronicles covers. ‘I was briefed to design this series, and I did what I was asked, which I thought was dull, so I presented my own left-field solution after hours … I loved isobelle’s books and wanted to give them the best covers possible,’ Cathy said.
‘I created a customised visual brand for Isobelle’s name by combining two fonts together and adding flourishes. The illustrations are a dream-like combination of photographs and illustration, expressing the character’s journey, layered in Photoshop and each having a distinct colour cast and mood.’
The covers of the seven book series are softly wrought, the placement of animals and characters, as well as the individual colour palettes selected for each book evoke the grand and fantastical journeys taking place within their pages.
Every aspect of Cathy’s book design is negotiated by her: ‘You are solving a visual problem posed by the brief.’
Whether the brief requires a painting, drawing, photo or some combination of forms and techniques, Cathy is able to produce or source these herself.
She remains a fine artist alongside her more technical graphic design skills, and she works hard. She can be focussing on as many as eight books at once, so there is not always time to read the whole book. She explains that over the years she has learned that reading the entire book can, in some ways, make the cover design more difficult. ‘There can be a drive to fit everything on to one surface,’ she said.
She has learned that it is best to maintain simplicity, creating a general atmosphere as well as leaving some hints and impressions of the greater story and world, to be discovered later by the reader. In Cathy’s hands a book cover becomes an invitation.
‘I live in Ballarat now, with my three Siamese cats, lots of plants, and everything Japanese. I still love art, books cinema, cabaret, gardening, Asian cooking, silver jewellery and eyeliner ;-),’ Cathy laughed.
Cathy’s kite merges her talent for drawing animals, font design and multimedia. The kite pictures an ethereal winged white cat, with real feathers, on a stunning cobalt background.
The words ‘Love’, ‘Healing’ and ‘Hope’ float around the edges, while the back is a startling red, for those inclined to look behind the scenes.
by Adelaide Stolba
‘What Would You Stand For?’ – Sara Phemister
Monday 25th Nov
Sara has raised children, become an essential part of the ACT community, and preserved hundreds of every-day moments in oils.
Most recently she completed the accompanying illustrations for the newly-released picture book ‘Molly and Maple: The Guide Dogs Who Changed Nettie’s World’, by Barbie Robinson.
Sara is a uniquely warm and welcoming person who manages to approach life and the people she encounters with so much bubbling good humour and compassion, that her uplifting view of the world never ceases to create ripples of kindness.
She does not fit the traditional obsessive artist archetype: brooding, pensive and entirely wrapped up in their own work, yet her life and art do tell a story of gentle obsession. Sara pays reverent attention to all the micro details of every day life. Every part of her world has significance. Walking through the gate to the garden, which sprouts iron dandelions, created by husband and fellow artist Al Phemister (also part of the Hope Flies project!) and great banks of real wildflowers she has planted with care, is an enchanting experience. Passing along the winding stone path, one can almost hear the fairies conspiring in the Elm trees.
The bright green house at the heart of the garden, is adorned outside and inside with art, on all surfaces, even under foot.
‘I do love where we live. It is not just a house to me,’ Sara says. ‘It’s the stories it holds. I feel like it’s almost my second skin. I love the big trees and having the river there. I actually physically love the house as well.’
Her home is so much a part of her and her art that for a recent unique exhibition of her work at the marvellous Tyger Gallery in Yass, a good portion of her furniture was transported temporarily to the gallery, at the suggestion of her daughter. It was a fabulous idea and the exhibition was fittingly called ‘At Home with Sara’.
In the art there are many repeated symbols, roses, blackbirds, black labradors, Nick Cave and Sara’s two children. These same children and other loved ones have enthusiastically bidden by Sara, made their own marks.
‘I encourage the people I love to graffiti my house,’ Sara laughed. ‘That way I have a little piece of their soul as mine to keep!’
There is a celebration and a rejoicing in small things, every item specifically chosen. In this way Sara seamlessly blends life with art. She also compulsively memorialises her life through photos and artworks, her paintings translating as a detailed visual diary.
Sara prefers to work predominantly with oils, often on board. At times she also dips into watercolours. Preceding this, are many daily sketches, produced with a few skilful pencil strokes.
Most often she focuses her tools on the various details of her home, and the people and animals that pass through it. The artworks habitually move through themes of family, hearth, home, love, vulnerability and domesticity. Sara is particularly in love with primary hues.
Looking at Sara’s paintings, we come to see her world through her eyes, humble daily objects and interactions suddenly transform into beacons of prosperity and peace. Though, Sara’s artworks are indeed very heartwarming, she also has a penchant for mischief and fun, which comes through most often in paintings of her beautiful black Labrador Beppo.
In one of these portraits, Beppo sports a particularly cheeky grin, mid tail wag, it bears the title ‘Beloved Delinquent’. (You can see Beppo supervising activities and get a glimpse of the very special house in the Making the Kite article on this site.)
Asked about her inspirations, Sara is inspired by an ever- growing list of artists, but she mentions two in particular.
‘My favourite book that I re-read regularly, that always fills me with hope is ‘The Little White Horse’ by Elizabeth Goudge,’ she said. ‘Then there is a song, that Mikelangelo has – ‘The Sun Will Shine In’’
The many artists’ work in her home are organically absorbed into her work so that her paintings often take the form of love letters to her favourites objects. For example, a piece titled ‘Home Gallery’ shows a little corner of her home, which including her daughter’s photography. However, there are a few artists that have imbedded themselves into indelibly into her life and practice. Amongst these in particular are Nick Cave and Van Gogh. Many of Sara’s landscapes pay homage to Gogh’s wavy cypress trees, with similarly undulating clouds. One of her favourites of Gogh’s is ‘Green Wheat Field’.
Sara’s paintings also depict Nick Cave over and over. His gaunt and moody face on a T-shirt drying in the sun, his book leaning amongst others on a shelf. With overlapping loves, this same shirt appears on her son (Jack), in another painting.
She says songs are particularly inspiring to her. ‘Especially all of Jack’s (her son) and all of Nick Cave’s.’
Through these artworks one gradually begins to follow the lives of various objects. The candle holders, reappearing items of clothing, jugs, plates, migrating furniture and much more.
One of Sara’s favoured nooks, is the little window seat in their dining room. ‘It used to be a chimney and that room did feel a lot like a cave [laughs]. But, when the kids were little, Hannah was such a reader, and I said to Al, maybe you could fashion a window seat. She did used to always read there, which was beautiful.’
When it came time to make her kite, Sara couldn’t help but think back to an exhibition titled ‘What Would You Stand For’ curated by Isobelle Carmody.
‘I remembered there were two kids there and the way they engaged with Isobelle was just so beautiful. So I’ve actually captured a moment from that night. This little kid had just made a sign that said ‘yes for peace’, and Isobelle’s sign was propped against the wall. Their shapes were so lovely. I really did actually want to paint Isobelle. Even at the beginning, before I knew what the imagery would be, because I feel like she is fundamentally one of the most hopeful and optimistic people I’ve ever met. She creates things that do fly.’
During this interview, Sara mentions various animals, particularly the dogs in her life. Before we started our interview, she was humorously self-effacing, wondering whether her answers would be interesting enough. To illustrate this, she references a possible answer to one of the questions, that being her only real childhood wish being for a dog. I knew then, it would be easy to form an article around her. The purity of a dog seems the perfect representation of Sara’s understanding and love towards things some might dismiss as mundane.
‘I remember one dream so vividly,’ Sara laughed. ‘In it we went to the RSPCA, I was five and we got a sausage dog and I was so happy. Then I woke up and realised it was a dream and I was absolutely heart broken. So, my parents took me to the RSPCA and then I got my first dog Goldie. She was a dainty, golden labrador.’
by Adelaide Stolba
‘Flying Gecko’ – Lucia Mascuillo
Monday 25th Nov
For their daughter’s fourth birthday, Lucia Mascuillo and her husband presented their daughter with a handsome owl-printed kite.
Later, on a very windy day, Lucia found herself running after that same kite, now escaping over the open ocean with her daughter crying out fearfully from behind her. Lucia is a good runner, but she was no match for the kites prowess that day.
‘…whether she got distracted or just wanted to test the consequences, she let go of the string,’ Lucia remembers. ‘The kite flew away towards the sea.
‘It kept flying away, finally free from human hands, becoming smaller and smaller on the horizon until it disappeared in the direction of a pink building in Palm Beach.’
And so, the distraught and windswept family swiftly bundled into the car and sped off to track the wayward kite. It was soon found enmeshed fortuitously in an electric line. ‘I knocked on the door, explained the situation (and at first, the owners were skeptical, thinking I was trying to sell them something). But when they saw the kite still flying, they helped me untangle the string and returned the kite to a little girl with a big smile. From that day on, she’s held the kite handle quite firmly.’
Lucia has more than 30 books behind her as well as several intriguing lives. She speaks in a lilting Italian accent that melts all worry away and finds pieces of hope and peace in the words of someone like Wisława Szymborska, a polish poet who captures the simple pleasures of life couched within eternity in a comforting and somewhat pragmatic way.
‘For myself and the world around me I hope for understanding of what truly matters in life, that’s all. And to remember, as the poet Wisława Szymborska said, that “nothing’s a gift; everything is borrowed.” In the end, we must give everything back.’
In the same vein she also enjoys, ‘My Neighbour Totoro’, a film by Hayao Miyazaki and one of her own collaborations ‘Eat My Dust!’ Written by Neridah McMullin, telling the story of Jean Robertson and Kathleen Howell.
Lucia began her life in Livorno, Italy.
‘I grew up in an apartment in the centre of a busy town in Italy with no parks nearby,’ Lucia said.
‘My favourite game was playing Lego with my little brother. Japanese anime series of giant robots were popular at the time, so we used our limited variety of Lego City pieces to build robots that could stand and move a little bit. Our imaginations filled in what the technology lacked.’
In Italy Lucia exercised her love of science, studying and then working for some time as a biologist, however this lifestyle gradually paled and grew tedious, due to its repetitive nature and lab setting.
In 2007, Lucia followed her husband to Australia and began to send out some of her illustration work. She had completed a course in Florence where they had seen potential and encouraged her. Lucia soon received an offer to illustrate a book and began building her portfolio as a working illustrator. She never looked back.
Lucia enjoys expanding her tool set, however she most often uses watercolours, pencils, collage and acrylic to create. Her characters are often stylised and never fail to be dressed in vibrant, memorable attire. Her art works are subtly recognisable through their often greenish, yellow hues with gorgeous, finely drawn shading.
Lucia also has a striking ability to depict weather that wonderfully supports any story she chooses to take on. For example, the change to sudden rough storm in ‘Come Down Cat!’ written by Sonya Hartnett, and the calm yet thrilling dawn in ‘Eat My Dust’ setting the atmosphere of fresh and daring anticipation, before two women set off on an historical race.
Some other lovely collaborations include: ‘Dragon Folding’ with Christopher Cheng, ‘Olive’ with Edwina Wyatt and ‘Go Home Cat’ with Sonya Hartnett. These are mostly quite traditional in style and tend towards fairytale, however some more abstract, folk work is included in the poetry collection ‘Moonfish’ by Harry Laing.
Lucia is very much at home in Australia after almost 20 years, however her Italian cultural roots remain strong and I wondered how much they still influenced her.
‘My best childhood memories come from my grandparents’ house in the countryside,’ she said. ‘We visited them regularly on weekends, and in summer stayed without our parents. It was wonderful—freedom to run on the lawn, play with mud, discover plants and insects in the garden, and splash around with all sorts of colours. My nonna (a former teacher) always had activities for us to do. I remember catching fireflies to place under a glass in summer, pressing grapes to make wine in autumn, and gathering chestnuts in winter to roast in the fireplace.
She goes on to speak about what she loves most about living in Australia.
‘I love being outdoors when I’m not at work, and here on the Gold Coast, there’s everything I enjoy.
‘I live in a quiet, green suburb, with pleasant weather in every season, and both the beach and the mountains are just 20 minutes away. Most importantly, the people are incredibly friendly. Coming from Italy, we found it fascinating—and a bit surprising—that we can accidentally leave the garage open in the morning (it’s happened a couple of times, maybe three!) and discover in the afternoon that nothing has been taken.
‘On top of all this, I feel so lucky to live in a country where creatives are respected and can make a living from their work.’
When it comes to being a full-time artist, Lucia says somewhat mischievously: ‘What I love is having time to think and plan, Scheduling holidays when everyone else is at work, visiting galleries, libraries, reading books, and saying, “I’m at work.”’
Lucia’s kite is drawn in acrylic paints and Lucia’s trademark green and yellow. Though robust, the kite remains lightweight through the use of foam, in case anyone wants to let the little creature roam freely in the skies or, just to hang it with ease.
‘I went with one of the cutest, funniest animals I know: the gecko,’ Lucia said.
‘I love geckos. Maybe it’s because they remind me of my childhood, when summer evenings were spent watching geckos catching insects that flew around the lamps. Or perhaps it’s the gecko in my studio, who announces the evening’s arrival and reminds me it’s time to stop working.’
Lucia explained that the design was inspired by the flying dragon lizard (Draco volans), which has a colourful flap of skin extending from its throat that lets it glide from tree to tree in Asian forests. ‘For the tail, I cut small foam pieces and attached them to a matching wool thread to create a sort of 3D effect. I added big eyes, a wide, toothy smile, and some pearl stickers to complete the look.’
‘Plan B’ – Daniel Reed
Thursday 21st Nov
Dan grew up in Melbourne’s outer east, in Boronia.
‘It is a suburb that tourists drive through on the way up to the spectacular Dandenong Ranges,’ Dan said. ‘In itself, it was pretty unremarkable, but I only have fond memories of my time there with friends and family.’
‘When I go back now I am struck by how green it is. Huge trees everywhere but within a suburban setting. Big eucalypts on nature-strips and in people’s backyards which you can see from great distances.
‘I don’t think I noticed them when I lived there, but they are really striking when I arrive from where I live now. The air feels different too.’
Dan and his wife and children now live in Preston.
‘Sarah and I wanted to be ‘closer to the action’, and that was as close as we could afford, so we moved to the inner northern suburbs in our twenties. There is lots to love about living here, everything is so close and accessible.’
Dan illustrates the worlds of other writers but also ventures far from home with his own graphic stories that explore fantasy and sci-fi genres with a mix of dark humour and original concepts.
Dan has a unique and exquisite illustration style that is highly detailed and full of character, and as such, he is a sought-after collaborator with other writers.
One of his projects was a collaboration with Isobelle Carmody to produce the post-apocalyptic ‘Evermore’.
Isobelle loved working with him and later invited him to produce posters futurising four research sites in country Queensland where she was conducting post graduate research with young people, looking at the future of their towns. She credits his marvellous posters, created from a series of bad snapshots she had taken of the four towns, as being so attractive that not only did she draw in many young people, they are still hanging in pride of place in the libraries and public offices of those towns.
Lately Daniel has been working with film makers, developing scripts into graphic novels such as the epic crime thriller ‘The Boar’ with Lee Roy Kunz, and the claustrophobic horror series ‘The Chain’ with Sean Webley.
According to Dan, any day that he is earning a living making comics is a good day as far as he is concerned and he has no plans slowing down any time soon.
While we still make the most of it, our interests have changed a little since we moved here, different things have become more important,’ he said. ‘We’ve got a bushy corner in our backyard that hosts native birds at different times of the year, incredibly that includes a ‘rufus wagtail’ that has stopped over for a week or so, 2 years running (google it, they’re incredible), occasional pardalotes too. I tell everyone I talk to that I grew 24kg of tomatoes here last year, so that must be something that’s important to me as well …
‘What I love most about being an artist is that the more art you produce, the better you get,’ he said.
‘This is particularly true of technical things such as composition, anatomy and mastering different media, where the improvement is objective. It’s also true of things like: evoking reactions or creating atmosphere, where the improvement is less tangible but definitely still there. Working with different writers and film makers has also helped me improve my particular style of story-telling.’
Dan said he loves the actual working process of drawing, where the non-language parts of your brain takes over and images appear out of the initial mess of scribbly lines. After a thousand separate (seemingly subconscious) aesthetic decisions something you value sits on the paper in front of you, often looking back at you.
‘My kite design is a reference to the book Isobelle and I worked on back in 2014, ‘Evermore’.
‘I was fond of the characters ‘Rose’ and Enzo’ by the time I had finished it, so it was great to revisit them. Princess Rose was trapped in a tower, trying to escape her mad father, the King of the post-apocalyptic world of ‘Evermore’.
‘The premise of my kite image is that this could have been a potential escape ‘Plan B’. Instead of climbing down from the towers dizzying heights, Rose and Enzo wait for the next gust of wind, taking flight on a kite made out of rags and scraps of fabric.’
Currently Dan is working on a couple of different comics for different clients.
‘Both are heaps of fun and are keeping me super busy, not sure how much I’m allowed to say about them. One is a superhero genre comic, which is something I’ve never tackled before. The other is much more cartoony, for a younger audience.’
‘I only recently finished issue 3 of my own comic series ‘The Mycelium Complex’, it’s a sci-fi/ time travel story that works on the idea that time is a species of fungus. People are like mushrooms living above the ground, while below the ground (in the Mycelium Complex), their histories and lineages twist, loop and branch as fungal hyphae strands. You don’t need any advanced technology to travel through time, you just need to access ‘The Mycelium Complex.’
Asked about his hopes for art and the future, Dan said pensively, I was selling my books at a convention recently and a young guy in his twenties sought me out to talk about his dilemma. He showed me some of his surreal AI generated art and explained to me how much better it was than the art he created himself. He showed me that too.
‘While I could see what he meant, I had a much more positive feeling looking at his own ink line drawings. They were a bit amateurish, reminding me instantly of the art that first got me excited about local comics. Back in the late nineties I discovered local artists in the ‘Silent Army’ and ‘Tango’ anthology books. They had such an edgy, handmade, punk sensibility that I was hooked. I loved how willing people were to pour their guts out onto the page, completely unfiltered and unrefined. I still seek that sort of thing out. I love the peculiar focus of a stoner drawing what comes to mind, or anyone naively putting a lot of time and effort into creating a comic/piece of art. These artists imbue some strange life into their work that is absent from some more polished artworks and definitely absent from AI generated images. Strangely, AI generated images have helped me understand this.’
‘The Mycelium Complex’, ‘Evermore’, and many of Dan’s other books are available at danielreed.bigcartel.com
‘Hope is the thing with Feathers and Wings’ – Erica Wagner
Thursday 21st Nov
Erica Wagner is an artist, publisher, and much loved creative consultant to storytellers, and recently she has illustrated ‘Hope is the Thing’ written by Johanna Bell.
This was awarded the 2024 CBCA New Illustrator Award and the book was also was the winner of the Picture Fiction category of the 2024 Wilderness Society Environment Awards for Children’s Literature.
For over three decades, Erica edited and published many ground-breaking and award-winning books for children and young adults, working for Penguin Books Australia, Allen & Unwin and co-founding Twelve Panels Press.
Passionate about illustrated storytelling in particular, Erica co-facilitated the inaugural Octopus Story Camp for Top End writers and artists in 2019 with Johanna Bell. As well as generating several published works, Octopus also led to Erica illustrating her first picture book. She has just completed the artwork for her second, ‘The Colt from Old Regret,’ by Dianne Wolfer which will be published in April 2025 by the National Library of Australia.
‘I’ve pondered about which books gave me hope but in many ways it is the act of reading that lifts my spirits and fills me with hope. When I engage with the words of a writer I love, on the page or through my ears, my imagination fires up and I feel alive, engaged, curious, provoked, thoughtful,’ she said.
‘Some key books I’ve worked on are imprinted on my memory, books like Melina Marchetta’s Looking for Alibrandi, Isobelle Carmody’s The Farseekers, Maureen McCarthy’s Cross My Heart, Boori Pryor and Meme McDonald’s Maybe Tomorrow.
‘I love books that don’t hold back exploring the full drama of being human – Helen Garner, Elizabeth Strout, Kate Atkinson, memoirs like Gina Chick’s We Are the Stars and books that explore our inner lives: Hagitude by Sharon Blackie, everything by Marie-Louise von Franz, Women Who Run With The Wolves by Clarissa Pinkola Estes; the brilliant nature writing of Helen Macdonald; books about creativity like What It Is by Lynda Barry and so many poets: Ali Cobby Eckermann, Kristin Henry and of course all the mysterious fairytales in their original non-sanitised forms,’ she said.
‘l also return to books I read as a child like The Wild White Stallion by René Guillot, The Incredible Journey by Sheila Burnford and Tove Jansson’s Moonin series which I didn’t read as a child but read aloud to my son and daughter.’
Erica grew up near Port Phillip Bay in Melbourne, often walking along the beach with her little dog, and swimming in the sea, where she longed for a horse and adventures.
‘I did try and fly kites there too, not always successfully,’ she laughed, though she said that living next to a park, she has had some success with flying kites with grandchildren.
‘I’ve lived in the inner north of Melbourne for the last twenty four years and I love it for its diversity, its eclectic eccentricities. Our little pocket is blessed with generous, creative neighbours. Of all the places I’ve lived in and around Melbourne it’s here that I feel I can be most fully myself.’
When asked about the most beautiful thing she had seen, Erica spoke of her son and daughter when they were born, her grandchildren, the enormous skies of Australia’s outback, the incredible birdlife and rock art in the north of Australia
‘What I love most about being an artist is that feeling of ‘hello, you’re back – I’ve been waiting for you’ that happens when I step into the studio away from my normal life,’ she said.
The kite theme – Hope Flies – seemed made for the picture book I illustrated – Hope is the Thing by Johanna Bell. So I riffed on the cover illustration of the girl’s imaginative flight with her collaged companions. Birds are such a powerful symbol of hope as they travel between the heavens and earth, showing us so much about resilience, adaptation, survival.’
She first primed the canvas with gesso, then painted it with acrylics and cut out the shapes she wanted to use to make the picture.
‘My collage material comes from old work, piles of life drawings, landscape sketches, still life compositions – abandoned or discarded – as well as plain painted backgrounds, monoprints, and fragments of text from books and journals. I paint the backgrounds loosely, using colours that evoke places I love: the wide-open skies of central and northern Australia, misty mountain forests, wild burnt coastlines, tender sunrises, dramatic storms and sunsets. Onto these colour fields, I place torn and cut shapes, looking for angles and contrasts of light and dark, thick and thin, rough and smooth, curves and straight lines.
‘I draw birds in action and trace their shapes onto the back of the old artworks, so it’s a surprise when I turn the cut shape over. I tear a painting I remember doing on a riverbank in the Kimberley, a leaf print from my garden. I cut out shapes with nail scissors and scalpels. I search through piles of paper that have come from all over the place, from long ago paintings and sketchbooks, for just the right scrap of rough moody colour, the right bright red.
‘As a creator, I’m greatly influenced by the many inspirational children’s book illustrators I’ve had the privilege of working with over the years including Leigh Hobbs, Chris McKimmie, Ann James, Anne Spudvilas, Greg Rogers and so many more. I remain in awe of brilliant creators like Patricia Mullins, Jeannie Baker, Shaun Tan – and constantly return to books from my childhood like Uhu by Annette Macarthur-Onslow and the work of Brian Wildsmith and Eric Carle.’
Asked what she hopes now, for herself, the people she loves and for the world, she said, ‘I am hoping for a huge shift, politically, psychologically, structurally, environmentally, that will enable all people on earth to be who they are, to fulfil their potential, to live in peace and care for our precious earth and all its creatures.
‘For me it is about connection. When a work speaks to me – a painting, a poem, a piece of music, a performance – I feel my soul open up to something deeper than the surface of life,’ she said.
You can find out more about Erica at: www.ericawagner.com.au
‘Mermaid’ – Kathleen Jennings
Thursday 21st Nov
I draw in everyone else’s books, where I can, and when I can’t, I tell my own stories, stacking as many little enchantments together as I can — in fact, my first short story collection, Kindling, came out this year.
I’ve also just finished a creative-writing PhD at the University of Queensland, researching methods of creative observation.
I think the most hopeful books I’ve read are the ones that make me want to get up and walk around and do things. The genre doesn’t matter so much — Diana Wynne Jones’s books, or some Dickens equally make me feel that productive restlessness, a need to go do something about whatever it is.
I grew up in Western Queensland on a cattle property. It was a beautiful landscape: silvery grass and silver-gilt light and trees like iron bars, and I read so many stories through it. In fact, although I haunted it with alarming things, the first chapter of my Australian Gothic novella Flyaway is very much an ode to that place.
‘I love the way Brisbane can feel like living inside a Tiffany lampshade — all endless hot glowing colours.’
Asked what the most beautiful thing is that she has ever seen, Kathleen sighed.
‘Oh, such a hard question!
‘Something that has never left my mind is one of many places in Dartmoor. After scrambling through woods, you come to a shallow, tree-shadowed stream. There’s a steep rise on the other side, with an ancient stone stile. On either side is an immense old tree, and the light falls on them so that one is the colour of charcoal and the other the colour of bone.
‘What I love most about being an artist is climbing into the worlds of books, and running around drawing on the walls,’ she said.
‘With making the kite, I am sure I distressed Isobelle because I kept delaying the start. This was because I had SO MANY ideas and techniques I wanted to try, and fairly limited time.
Compressing the time further meant I had to choose a technique I had materials for and practice in.
After overthinking it much too long, I started a page of quick and scribbly sketches in my notebook, finding shapes that felt like the prompt (ideas of hope and flight) and fit the outline of a kite. The mermaid used a classic whiplash shape that featured in a few of my ideas, and which lends itself well to ideas of flight and weightlessness — and also the friends I was with liked that one best (good art direction is always invaluable)’ Kathleen said firmly.
The technique, although paint, is adapted from my silhouette work — use a strong shape that would read clearly in outline, cut into it with white for the background.
Asked if she had any memories associated with kites, Kathleen said, ‘A few years ago, I had the opportunity to do some kite illustrations for the delightful Story Bank museum in Maryborough (home of PL Travers who wrote Mary Poppins).’
You can sense what a dreamy imaginative child she must have been, and she confesses to wishing for doors to enchanted worlds.
‘Right now, I’m working on a number of illustrations for authors on projects yet to be disclosed. But I’m also working on some ornamental paper-cut silhouette illustrations for my next novel, coming out next year, and on the second draft of the book after that,’ Kathleen said.
‘I’ve been reading a lot of mid-century mysteries, so now I’m trying to interleave them with at least a few fantasy and gothic tales — stories in the genres I work in!
‘To me, art can be many things. An expression, an impression. Things that cause you to feel, or come out of feelings, or are keenly observed, and so forth.
Kathleen said she strives to capture movement and a sense of story — possibility, hope, curiosity, questions, or anything not quite answered, something for the viewer or reader to fill in
by Adelaide Stolba
‘Artefact’ – Jess Racklyeft
Thursday 21st Nov
Jess’s studio is currently located in a peaceful old convent just off the bustling Merri Creek waterway in Naarm/Melbourne.
A little way down the street there is a lively inner city farm, where Jess often escapes for her meal breaks:
‘I am joyously now having picnic lunches with the lambs,’ she laughs.
The natural world being one of Jess’ biggest inspirations, this lovely haven nestled in the inner suburbs, is the perfect place for her creativity to flourish. Plants spring up with reckless abandon in every one of her books, knitting scenes together and framing her character’s stories:
‘A tree fern and eucalyptus forest fill me with joy. I do also love our inner city suburb feeling like a country town. I walk everywhere and know a lot of the residents of our hood!’
When asked to describe the most beautiful thing she has ever seen, Jess goes straight to a solitary, peaceful place in nature:
‘20 years ago…dawn over a snowy mountain, rising above a lake. I cried. It was insanely magical. I was all by myself and I knew I would remember it forever.’
This scene makes me think of Jess’ illustrations in the book ‘Iceberg’, written by Claire Saxby. The book embarks on a poetic account of the arctic life cycles and rich biome all watched over by a newly formed iceberg. Jess manages to fill this inanimate formation with poignant personality as part of the greater arctic ecosystem. By the end of the book the reader finds themselves feeling awe and appreciation for these mobile homes.
As an extension of the natural environment Jess also adores animals and frequently centres them in her books. She expresses the progression of pet ownership in beautiful terms when asked about childhood longing:
‘As a kid I longed for a dog! After many years of begging we did eventually get one, which wrapped our hearts in bows – but also broke hearts into many pieces when he passed away.’
Similar to ‘Iceberg’, however entirely created by Jess, the book ‘Australia: Country of Colour’ carries the powerful message of conservation. Its abundant pages explore countless Australian plants and animals in a romp of colour infused information. Jess’ particular love of colour, lead her to approach her subject matter from a colour angle. Through this ambitious work, Jess hopes to instil curiosity, love, respect and the instinct towards environmental preservation in her readers. She urges us gently, to engage more deeply with our surroundings, pushing our experience of something as omnipresent as colour into a more active role.
The colours of her childhood remain with Jess very strongly. The white sands, the bright turquoise sea.
‘Perth, West Australia. I loved growing up beside the sea in the windswept sand dunes and spending many hours in the sea.’
Jess feels the world through colour and is skilled at expressing emotion through this dimension of an artwork. Her own choices of palette are most often merry, whimsical and relaxing, ranging from eye-catching bright colours to more soothing toned colours.
A number of years ago now, Jess sought out Anna Walker as a mentor (Anna is another artist involved in the Hope Flies project!). Naturally, Jess’ work is somewhat reminiscent of Anna’s own style. Both have a very whole-hearted approach and employ delicate watercolour and experimental textural work. Jess tackles each project slightly differently, trying to learn something new every time. When working on the artworks for ‘Iceberg’, she collected things from around her house to play with different textural potentials: paper towels, sponges, rags, pieces of material and old paint brushes.
Jess speaks with self-effacing humility and has a clear reverence for her peers.
In an interview she speaks emotively about attending a conference in Bologna when she was still on the selling side of publishing. After days of wall to wall meetings, she was given an unexpected 30 minute recess. She ran straight for the illustrators exhibition. Whilst walking around and taking in all the wonderful art, she suddenly began to tear up. This physical response, was like a suddenly irrepressible expulsion of an underlying and spiritual truth, that, due to various insecurities and pressures, had been held at a distance since childhood. The next time she was there, she wanted to be here as an illustrator.
These days, Jess sees her years on the various sides of publishing as a valuable insight into the process of creating and marketing a book, as well as aiding her in building a strong work ethic. Now she is all artist, juggling illustrating, running an Etsy shop and designing cards and jewellery for various clients. Jess clearly found her home in art:
‘Art is everything: art is my happy place, voice, inspiration, peace and place.’
In her kite, Jess works her usual layering magic, patterns and toned colours, a handsome violet cat, and stealing the show a proudly bedazzled snake:
‘I recently visited the Pharaoh exhibit with my kids at the NGV and was blown away with the huge array of incredible artefacts (while also thinking about the injustice that these pieces have been taken so far away from where they laid for so long). I loved the way animals had such a spiritual significance, decorating jewels, earthenware, tombs and so on. I twisted a serpent around a cat for my artwork, in a wild medley of colour and patterns.’
Use the little anonymous looking link below to see a little video of Jess working on her kite:
Jess thinks back to her childhood once more, finding some fond memories of other kites:
‘Back to my early Perth days and that relentless wind – my parents were keen sailboarders but when they had enough of that, dad would break out his “stunt kite” – a huge dancing beast of a kite that would lift us off the ground with its force!’
‘Right now,’ Jess says, ‘I am working on several books, some are quite challenging which I am enjoying. I am also reading a very sad book, beautifully written and watching trashy shows while I cook dinner.
‘Everything in balance!’
Asked about her hopes for the world, she says her hope is for a healthy environment, for peace and respect for all people, and great kindness (which really covers all these things).
You can watch Jess make art and find out more about her writing by following the link below.
https://www.instagram.com/jessesmess/reel/C_wcQuxiUVw/
by Adelaide Stolba
‘Fidel’ – Judith Rossell
Thursday 21st Nov
Judith has produced books for a range of ages, from toddlers with the tactile pages of ‘Play with Your Plate’ to the page-turners of the ‘Stella Montgomery’ series.
She has held several disparate posts, ranging from hardware assistant to CSRO research scientist, eventually graduating to children’s illustrator. Although scientist and children’s story-teller may seem about as different as it gets, Judith observes that an artist and a research scientist both have to approach their work with the same creatively receptive mind.
Judith grew up in an outer suburb of Melbourne as part of a family of four children.
‘I liked the birds. There were trees all around our house, with lots of birds and possums.’
Growing up she loved to draw and read, always escaping into strange and dangerous lands one way or another. Her main advice for young readers is simply to read lots and widely. She works away at her own ideas at a steady pace, saying that to be a good artist or writer one must begin with writing or drawing anything at all and then simply stick to it.
For Judith, perseverance trumps perfection every time.
Judith now she lives in a more central suburb and enjoys the hustle and bustle: ‘I like living in a part of the city with people from different countries. I like that I can hear lots of different languages when I’m down the street.’
There, she works under the supervision of her soft, and sweetly stubborn green-eyed cat, Myn, writing, illustrating and crafting miniature houses, some of which fit neatly in the palm of a hand.
Judith is able to imbue her little houses with an alluring sense of history, through the realistic textures and a careful choice of materials. Each creation appears as if it had been standing in a little town for years. This ability is carried through to the rest of her work, which has a lived-in feel, achieved through humour and detail.
Asked about Fidel, featured on her kite, Judith said he is now a little ghost cat, probably still keeping an eye on her from the Otherlands. ‘He was the best cat ever,’ she said.
Like all of the artists in the Hope Flies project, Judith is generous and during Covid, Judith offered a series of Art Challenges. Try one using the link below.
https://www.facebook.com/jude.rossell/videos/10221397109418222/UzpfSTUwMTA2Mzk0OTkzMDAwNzoyNzc2NDEwOTQ1NzI4NjE4/
Here is a wonderfully representative bit of text from her newest book ‘Midwatch’: ‘Many years ago I managed to escape an alligator in the palace of the Sultana of Rum by climbing atop a statue, and was then able to distract the creature by pelting it with devilled crab sandwiches.’
Judith leaves the reader wanting more of each character, fleshing them out by little references to a grander backstory. Specifics such as: Maggie was found in a mackerel box or the seagulls fighting over a heron bone nearby, gives a story substance and depth.
Though Judith isn’t too big on planning out her story arcs, she loves history and has enjoyed arming herself with plenty of solid ideas and images through research. Her books often combine a love of detective stories with historic literature.
For the popular ‘Stella Montgomery’ series she plunged into Victoriana and gothic imagery, collecting tales of old boarding schools and Victorian era people. One particularly evocative detail used in this series, is the Hand of Glory candle that starts a fire.
Judith, with a mixture of sheepishness and glee, mentions that children always regard this as an especially haunting scene.
Judith describes her own life with a similar youthful consideration to detail and sensory aspects. When asked what she longed for as a child she says:
‘I remember buying chocolate royals (the biscuit) at our school canteen for 4c each. I adored them. You smashed them on your forehead, then picked off the chocolate, sucked up the marshmallow, and then ate the biscuit. That was the way to do it. In the canteen, they came in a big catering box, which must have had about 100 chocolate royals in it, or maybe more, lined up in rows. I remember dreaming about having this whole big box for myself.’
Judith’s playful and observant perspective on the world naturally lends itself to adventure and mystery stories, particularly as seen through the eyes of a precocious child. As she goes on to describe one of the most beautiful thing she has ever seen, one can’t help but feel a story form:‘Years ago, I went on a trip to Macquarie Island, half way to Antarctica. We visited the beach where they used to boil up the penguins for oil. In the 30s, we had killed so many penguins they were nearly extinct. But now, you can’t land at the beach because it’s so jam-packed with penguins there’s nowhere to stand. And the sea was full of penguins swimming around. I could see the remains of the penguin-boiling factory, rusting away, but now it’s totally engulfed by a massive crowd of beautiful penguins.’
Also like so many of the creators contributing to the Hope Flies project, Judith is invested in environmental conservation and has aided in restoration efforts like the ‘Tree Project’. Another thing that has been lifting Judith’s spirits and planting sparks of hope is the ‘Sheldrick Trust’ whom she follows on instagram.
‘They rescue orphaned elephants in Kenya,’ she said.
‘I find it very hopeful that there are such good, kind, patient people working in the world. The keepers look after the baby elephants for up to ten years, and even when the elephants grow up and return to the wild, they often come back to visit. They come back to introduce the keepers to a new baby, or to bring an injured elephant for help, or just to meet the current orphans.’
Judith’s kite is painted to look as if a soft tabby cat has happened upon it and stopped to take a luxurious nap in the middle of its creation, leaving it unfinished. The tabby has a peaceful smile and a beautiful fluid pattern subtly shaded with red.
‘My dad was a kite-maker, and he was very good at it. He made them out of balsa wood and silk. He used to make box kites, and they would sit up in the air, just like a brick. We could tie the string to a fence and go away, and when we came back the kite would still be sitting up there in the sky.’
https://judithrossell.com/
Visit Judith’s website, to find other Art Challenges and to learn more about her books.
‘Carpet Python: connector and healer’ – Matt Ottley
Thursday 21st Nov
In the calm of his home, Matt’s brush strokes are accompanied by the chatter of birds and the murmurs of the rainforest outside.
The sounds of nature have been a recurring feature in Matt’s life. From a young age he would listen for the call of the blue bird of paradise and play with his pet tree kangaroo Penny in the small town of Mount Hagen located in PNG, where he lived until age 12.
He longed more than anything to join these birds in flight. ‘I spent hours crafting wings out of sheets and bits of wood and then a few painful hours jumping off the tank stand to test them out,’ he said. ‘Kind of weird considering I now have a fear of heights.’
Though Matt’s wooden wings didn’t bring him closer to his goal of flight, he seems to have realised a different intrinsic link with birds, that being through his love of music. Matt finds beauty and joy in music from Beethoven’s Pastoral symphony to the Melanesian music he grew up hearing.
He says of his childhood self, ‘Two things – I longed to make music and I was obsessed with birds.’
He reflects fondly on roaming the bush and constructing treehouses and kites, toying with different shapes and materials for hours. He envisioned his kite getting struck by lightning with a measure of anticipation and excitement.
After growing up with bipolar 1 paired with synaesthesia at a time when mental health was desperately misunderstood, and beginning his journey as a stockman at age 17, wrangling bulls in the wild NSW countryside, this seems to be the one excitement that Matt was spared.
Matt mentions some of his favourite pieces of media, including ‘Thunderclap’ by Laura Cumming, ‘The Book of Everything’ by Guus Kuijer and Disney’s original ‘Fantasia’ film. Matt’s love of ‘Fantasia’ seemed significant to me, both the orchestral score and the somewhat psychedelic use of colours and shapes seemed relevant to the neurological condition of Synesthesia.
Matt is open about how his conditions have given him a unique perspective. Even amidst terrifying manic episodes, when losing the ability to understand speech, colours and shapes would emerge and swirl, seeming to reconcile pain with beauty.
Matt has written and/or illustrated many books, often touching on neurodivergence, but ‘The tree of ecstasy and unbearable sadness’ seems to characterise these oscillations best.
The metaphor of a boy with a tree growing inside him bearing flowers of ecstasy but also fruits of sorrow and desolation, encapsulates this duality.
Tying all highs and lows together for Matt, is art in all its forms. ‘Art means everything,’ he said.
‘It is the thing that literally keeps me sane. In a world tearing itself apart with hatred and greed, art sometimes feels like the only redeeming virtue of humanity.’
One of Matt’s greatest aims is to facilitate understanding and empathy, for those living with mental health conditions, through his work. He also seeks to give audiences the same enriched sensory experience he exists within, now having scored many of his own books in a series titled ‘The Sound of Picture Books’.
Through this endeavour he has worked with musicians and orchestras across Australia and internationally.
Matt’s artworks are arresting and expansive, being very technically impressive as well as steeped in layers of meaning. Every element has something to say.
In an interview for Eerdlings, he mentions the painting ‘A Girl Asleep’ by Johannes Vermeer stirred this notion in him that every part of an artwork could speak to the story.
Details matter to him. When he and Isobelle talked about the name for his kite and were considering names, Matt explained that he had painted the snake in the particular position it was in to suggest the universal shape of the snake icon that symbolises medicine and healing.
‘The carpet snake is called Gabul in the Bundjalung language, and Gabul represents the connector of people and place in Bundjalung culture,’ he said.
For this reason he considered calling it, ‘Gabul: connector and healer,’ then ‘Carpet snake: strength and healing,’ before finally settling on its current title.
As a result, his artworks are often infused with metaphor and contrast – a small child beside a huge, muscular bull, a baby in pink cradled by an electric blue snake. To this end, Matt also employs warped perspectives to convey particular emotions.
Notably, his childhood desire for a bird’s-eye view, also returns, with many striking oil paintings of dramatic cloudy skies. Examples of these two things can be seen in ‘How To Make A Bird’, made in collaboration with Meg McKinley.
Matt is prolific and wildly diverse, possibly one of the virtues of his neurodivergence, and so he gives a slightly intimidating run down of his current exploits. ‘I’m working on my second symphony, I’m about to begin writing a double concerto for violin, piano and orchestra, I’m writing a novel and I’m also performing medieval and renaissance music with a fellow musician.
‘Doing the odd painting as well…’
As he works on this current project of hope, his kite taking shape, he mused on his own hopes: ‘I would love to see people become kinder and gentler…capable of having a respectful, loving conversation about these things [religion, living within our means] without people becoming reactive and angry. Humanity has been expressing its anger towards each other for 15000 years, enough is enough!’
by Adelaide Stolba
‘Windy Day’ – Ken Searle
Thursday 21st Nov
Ken Searle’s life has been devoted to painting the area where he had always lived — its industrial zones and suburban housing, and the waterways that link the land and its people.
Whether doing a large oil painting or an illustration for a picture book, Ken begins by exploring the area and sketching on site.
‘My aim is to portray place, and the people who are part of that place,’ Ken said. ‘My method is to walk into a painting, letting the area itself shape the form and content of my portrayal. As I explore, I sketch on site — selecting material, editing, and composing as I look at things. Sometimes the on-site sketch will be the finished artwork, but often I return to the work later in the studio, and recompose the elements.’
Ken has been a full-time artist since his early twenties.
‘In 1976 I began exhibiting at Watters Gallery, East Sydney, where I held 18 solo exhibitions before the gallery closed a couple of years ago,’ He said.
Ken has works in the National Gallery of Australia, the Art Gallery of South Australia, the National Gallery of Victoria, and the Art Gallery of New South Wales as well as regional galleries and private collections.
‘I first worked as a book illustrator in 1993, when I produced the cover and twenty black and white line drawings for the novel Lucy in the Leap Year, by Nadia Wheatley, an Honour Book in the 1994 CBCA Awards,’ he said.
Over the period 1998-2001 Ken and his partner Nadia, worked as consultants at the school at Papunya, an Indigenous community 250 kilometres west of Alice Springs.
He said, ‘Every term for four years we spent three or four weeks in the community, helping Anangu staff and students develop a variety of Indigenous curriculum resources for all stages of learning from pre-school children to the initiated young men in the upper secondary area of the school.’
One of the resources was The Papunya School Book of Country and History, later published commercially by Allen and Unwin (2001).
Ken was the designer for this book, as well as facilitating the illustrations done by over forty Anangu staff and students, and doing some of the illustrations himself. The Papunya School Book of Country and History won a number of awards, including the Eve Pownall Award in the CBCA Awards 2002 and the History for Young People section of the NSW Premier’s History Awards for 2002.
‘Nadia and I subsequently collaborated on Going Bush (Allen & Unwin, 2007), produced in collaboration with sixteen primary school children,’ he said.
Going Bush won the Wilderness Society Picture Book Award 2008 and was shortlisted for the Human Rights Award. Nadia and Ken also worked together on Playground (Allen & Unwin 2011, Winner, Australian Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing, 2012) and Australians All (Allen & Unwin 2013, NSW Premier’s History Award).
‘I mentored Indigenous artists Mary Malbunka (Pintupi, from Papunya) and Alfred Lalara and Alice Durillo (Warnindilyakwa, from Groote Eylandt) in the process of illustrating their bilingual picture books, which I designed for Allen and Unwin,’ Ken said.
‘As well as my career as an illustrator and book designer, I do large paintings in oil on canvas, depicting the suburban and industrial areas of a number of Australian cities. ‘
‘Currently I am working, as I have been working all my life, on portraying the ngurra, the country, including the waterways, around Gamay (Botany Bay).
‘As for my connection with kites – When I was growing up, every year, when the August winds started, I used to make kites and fly them from the playground of the school at the top of the street,’ Ken said.
‘I put a kite on the cover of Nadia’s book, Lucy in the Leap Year and a few years ago I did a drawing with a kite in it.
‘My own hopes circle around peace with justice for the world, especially for the people of Palestine and for First Nations Australians.’
by Adelaide Stolba
‘Bird’ – Frané Lessac
Thursday 21st Nov
Frané Lessac grew up immersed in a diverse array of cultures, from the museums of New York to the tropical rainforests of the Caribbean.
Between caring for exotic pets and tagging along for trips to the town library with her mother, Frané was destined to become either a veterinarian or a story teller and artist.
Over 50 books later Frané seems to have chosen the latter. Of course, there is still time and with her adventurous spirit, perhaps no one would be surprised by a career change…
Frané could not be described as a static person and as a result her picture books buzz with her real life travels, having often been sparked by the places she has visited.
She weaves vivid, multicultural scenes, with layered gouache paints, the colours concentrated into lively and joyful hues. One can feel the respect and love Frané has for people in each page. This sense radiates from her as she renders tenderly yet deftly the details of a woman’s skirt or a child’s toy. She imbues a particular care into the details of her character’s lives, deliberately including their belongings and quotidian artifacts scattered around them or in use. Frané believes in the power of details to help us slow down to notice and appreciate the world around us.
Through the use of colours and this decorative style, her work is reminiscent of folk art. In this vein, Frané has also taken to creating small clay sculptures:
‘Recently, I fell in love with hand-building clay and whimsical creatures. Each piece is unique and has an endearing personality.’
Frané is especially devoted to young readers, with whom she has a kindred spirit. She dedicates much of her time to running workshops and giving lectures across the world as well as locally with a focus on central Australia and remote communities. Frané cherishes the many memorable encounters she has had through sharing her craft with children. She hopes to uplift and motivate young people to read, create and through this find a sense of delight in their own surroundings and heritage.
When asked if she had any personal connection with kites she gave a beautifully evocative answer, further depicting her affinity with the child’s spirit:
‘One of my kite highlights was in Jaipur, India, where I attended the annual Kite Festival. The air was filled with kites, swooping and swirling, and it was magical. Near our hotel was a small stall selling kites, with many children milling about, looking longingly at the kites for sale. I was able to gift kites to the local kids and, with the help of their parents, got them soaring.’
She went on to explain her choice of the white bird adorning her own kite design:
‘Kites fly. Birds fly. I’ve painted this distinct white bird in most of my books. I find it silly and joyful.’
Curious, I searched some Frané Lessac covers and found a little bird taking flight on an addition of ‘The Bird Who Was An Elephant’. Frané said the material of the kite in this project inspired her to use new materials:
‘I’ve collaged paper, feathers and a vine for the kite tail.’
A trail of hopeful white birds seems to be flying up to meet their final form displayed triumphantly on the kite’s body. The bird is filled with character, demanding of gaiety, set against the backdrop of a cheerful, cloud studded sky.
By Adelaide Stolba
‘Electric Mouse’ – Graeme Base
Thursday 21st Nov
Born in England Graeme moved to Australia when he was eight.
Having spent his early childhood in England, Graeme was brought up on such definitive children’s literature as ‘Winnie The Pooh’, ‘Wind in The Willows’ and the works of Lewis Carroll. Though these were definite sources of inspiration, what he recalls most vividly from bedtimes, was his father bringing in the old mono record player.
Little Graeme would lay in bed, listening to the bubbling, sprawling piano parts of Saint-Saën’s ‘Carnival of The Animals’. The orchestra would travel around his room, taking on the form of stately tortoises, dreamy fish with mesmerising, floaty frills, wild donkeys kicking off the walls and little birds fluttering and swooping low over head.
Graeme centres his work mostly around animals, doing so with the imaginative freedom present in this suite. His family’s love of music and support of his general artistic spirit, allowed Graeme to explore his creativity with little regard to form. He has a great love for music and visual art and so, over the years he has continued to dip in and out of both.
For Graeme, creativity takes little notice of boundaries, often moving fluidly between crafts.
‘The thing I love most about being an artist is the freedom to do what I want when I want – I’ve never had a regular job with defined hours. The need to create is always with me – the outlet could have been almost anything – it could have been music – it just happened to be picture books.’
To Graeme artistic expression appears to be about as avoidable as the need to eat or sleep: ‘What is art to me? An outlet for the never-ending need to create.’
Graeme initially directed his career path efforts towards finding a footing as a rock musician in the Melbourne music scene. Over this period he also studied a Diploma in Art and gained a position at an advertising agency. Having little patience or interest in commercialised art, Graeme soon reached the conclusion that he disliked the industry and so found himself swiftly ushered from his third post.
He and his employers clearly agreed on one thing: Graeme was not meant to find success in commercial art.
Graeme’s first real taste of success came with the much anticipated release of an alphabet book titled ‘Animalia’. He states that the project took 3 years and very nearly could have been an end to his career, since during this time there was no certainty of triumph. However, his unwavering sense of self and trust in his own artistic instincts lead to a unique interplay of elements that has captured generations of readers.
Based on Graeme’s attitude to his artistry it seems quite clear a commercial path would never have worked. His philosophy hinges on creating for himself first and foremost and he has remained steadfast and pure in this approach.
‘Animalia’ is a feat of human ingenuity, each page containing highly intricate visual representations of an alliterated rhyming verse. For example the line that began it all: ‘Horrible hairy hogs hurrying homeward on heavily harnessed horses’ was inspired by the Jethro Tull ‘Heavy Horses’ album cover. In this image you can not only find a visual of this fantastical sentence but it also boasts many other words beginning with ‘H’.
One of my personal favourites is a page housing four regal pink cats: ‘Crafty Crimson Cats Carefully Catching Crusty Crayfish’. A castle hides in the background, a furry cactus peaks from behind a sleepy feline, and a dizzying array of other ‘C’ objects are scattered around their soft paws. Graeme has a clear tie to the surrealists, with his animals often in bizarre and comedic scenarios. He says he is drawn particularly to the humour of artists like Dalí and Magritte.
Graeme’s work is hard to overstate, as it has many entry points and layers to unpeel. He tackles the page as a musician does a score, with layers of instruments and tonality intrinsically in mind. Each book is designed so that the reader will always come away with something new. As both writer and illustrator he is able to construct and spread puzzle pieces between the words and the visuals. A book like ‘The Eleventh Hour’ is an impressive example of this. Graeme threads clues to the unravelling mystery throughout the images, developing an interactive experience. The reader is encouraged to piece clues together in order to uncover the perpetrator of a theft.
To achieve the lush and detail-oriented artworks, Graeme uses mediums that work best for his finicky process. He uses a combination of transparent inks, gouache, watercolours, watercolour pencils and occasionally whips out a scalpel. In recent years he has transitioned into digital art. Another showcase of his versatility, and ability to charm a publisher, is his all black and white Albrecht Durer inspired book ‘The Curse of The Vampire Robot’.
By looking at any of the aforementioned work, one will note its fantastical world building and imagery, which are a merging of Graeme’s real world travels and his expansive imagination:
‘The most beautiful things I’ve ever seen: the Taj Mahal at dawn – Uluru at dusk.’
‘The Sign of The Seahorse’, with its powerful ecological message, was produced after diving in the Caribbean. ’The Waterhole’ with its wonderful tactile disappearing aquamarine waterhole, achieved with cut-outs on each page, was inspired by a safari trip.’
Graeme considers his visual art to have a stronger practical foundation than his music, however this hasn’t stopped him from creating complex pairings of music and art, for example with ’The Worst Band in the Universe’. This project combines one of his brilliantly packed picture books and a soundtrack which, sold as a CD tucked into a sleeve inside the books cover. This was still quite uncommon practice at the time and Graeme didn’t risk probing any further once the publishers gave him the go-ahead. Graeme is very animated when he talks, bursting with real enthusiasm for his work, so I imagine he has a knack at exciting any potential investors with his genuine creative ebullience.
With all the elaborate work Graeme produces, one might wonder at the scope of his mind. What must someone like this have dreamed of as a child? However, when he expresses his main childhood desire, it is amusingly plain and relatable: ‘What did I long for as a child? dinner! I’ve always had a thing for food.’
For the kite project Graeme sticks to his favoured subject: animals.
‘My kite grew from scribbling a diamond shape with a tail and deciding it looked like a mouse. I’ve always been drawn to the idea of organic/machine hybrids (e.g. my book ‘TruckDogs’) and it just went from there.’
Of his own kite adventures he says:
‘I once had a big two-string kite that you could control to make it do loops and other acrobatics. Great fun. I eventually crashed it and that was that.’
At the moment, Graeme is channeling his energy less through pencils onto the page and more into the tools.‘These days it’s bolting together big steel girders to make a big steel verandah and pergola for our doer-upper house in St Kilda.’
by Adelaide Stolba
‘The Gift of Flight’ – Anne Spudvillas
Wednesday 6th Nov
Every morning she rises with the sun and makes her way down to the foreshore.There, she joins 10-20 other women, and some men, all gathered for an invigorating morning ritual.
With the sun still scattering blood orange light, from the base of a twilight sky, they all enter the water, some running and plunging, some taking a more reserved approach.
So, some time in the early Victorian morning, an award winning portrait artist bobs happily in the waves. The group calls themselves the Salty Bitches and Anne has been grateful to find a sense of community with them.
‘I moved here to the bay from a house on the Murray/Darling confluence where I was surrounded by water, wildlife and an abundance of birds. It was a magical place, very hard to leave. The thing that has helped me settle here on the bay is the company of the swimmers and the unpredictable beauty of the bay from day to day.’
Though Anne is an accomplished visual artist, she is presently working on her first big written literary contribution, in the form of a memoir: ‘It’s a photo memoir of my ten years living on the Murray River that I loved so much. I’m reliving it as I search through the thousands of photos I took while I was there.’
She is a magnificent photographer and you will be able to see her more recent photographic work in an up coming exhibition, some of which will document those early morning swims. Keep an eye on her website (link below) for the where and when details.
Anne often uses her own photos as references, and she has done a great many exquisite portraits, such as the one below of Leigh Hobbs.
In Anne’s often life sized portraits, her subjects seem substantial full of emotional nuance. Anne is particularly canny at capturing a glint of a smile and all the different shades of meaning within this gesture, from impish to begrudging. Mood is further explored in her backgrounds, often becoming an abstract aura of colours cradling her figures, like sunlight refracting through a crystal. Below is a portrait of Isobelle Carmody and her daughter.
When conceptualising the artwork for Li Cunxin’s autobiographical picture book ‘The Peasant Prince’, Anne was able to travel to China and take many photos, some of the real people in Cunxin’s story. She speaks with care and great sensitivity when describing learning how to capture non-western faces during this project, considering something like the general difference in bone structure or even expression.
Anne chooses real people to pose for her main characters which she photographs as reference for her artwork. Observing how people operate in their day to day lives, noting something as subtle as how objects are carried adds great authenticity to her work. Through this detailed, hands on analysis Anne is able to gently relate the spirit of a place.
Other small but impactful choices during this project include the use of Chinese rice paper as a base for the final artworks as well as wolf and goat hair brushes. Even changing to oil paints once Cunxin arrives in America to visually convey the socio-economic difference. All these deliberate decisions add hidden depth to subtly enrich the reader’s experience.
Anne is nothing if not thorough when devising characters and artworks for upcoming books. Each new project is researched and often made into a small concertina book. She meticulously structures her pages often cutting characters out and playing with layering from background to foreground. Each book also gains its own unique colour palette, in which the shifts in colour and medium expand upon the written story.
Examples include ‘Night School’, a collaboration with Isobelle Carmody, with its chilling frosty blues contrasted with the warmth of yellow lamps illuminating children’s faces and hands, or the dramatic minimalism of black, white and red in ‘Swan Lake’, Anne’s re-imagining of the classic ballet but set on the Murray-Darling river. She is very skilled at colour theory and her character’s skin has a particular radiance and depth that bring a page to life.
When looking at Anne’s spectacular body of work, it becomes apparent she has an intriguing read on the world and its people:
‘ART to me is work that is created from the heart – be it visual, performance or music.’
‘The Peasant Prince’, though one of many beautiful picture books under Anne’s belt, was a special project for her and has even made its way into her kite design.
When assembling her ideas and materials for the kite, she invited Isobelle and some of her other mountain retreat guests to contribute their hopes and wishes on red cloth swatches that were then attached to the tail.
‘My own wish is for kindness and love for everyone,’ she said.
Then came the papier mache.
Now the kite has been completed, yellow-green Gingko leaves flow over Chinese characters, producing a meditative effect. Anne is always taking store of the natural world around her. A heron scouting for fish, the full moon behind dark branches, her favourite tree. This is represented in her lovely kite.
To see more of Anne and her art, follow the link to her site.
https://annespudvilas.com/Meet-the-Artist~32
by Adelaide Stolba
‘Sumood’ – Safdar Ahmed
Wednesday 6th Nov
Safdar’s creative work finds inspiration in romantic art, fantasy literature, underground comix, zine-making and the DIY ethos, horror films, heavy metal music, and is connected to a powerful political sensibility shaped by the combination of his work with the Refugee Art Project and his readings in critical theory and postcolonial studies.
‘The RAP employs the community art and cultural development model and practice, which emphasises ethical collaboration.
‘I think it democratises the appreciation and making of art,’ Safdar says.
‘Some of the work made in the Refugee Art Project community – often by people who had never attempted art before – has become my favourite work.
‘It’s art that conveys so much power and meaning.’
2022 NSW Premier’s Literary Awards held in the Mitchell Reading Room
Safdar explains that he became involved in refugee support and advocacy work mostly by accident.
‘I used to work at Sydney Uni and back in late 2010 a friend told me he was visiting the Villawood Detention Centre. I was curious to go and see what it was like so I tagged along,’ he said.
‘My only thought at the time was that I didn’t want to just go there and gawk at people, so I decided to take my sketchbook and see if anyone was interested in drawing with me, as something I could share.
‘A few friends liked the idea so we went in every week and in a short space of time we had a really nice drawing circle involving many detained refugees who were interested in taking part and who quickly became good friends.
‘The work that came from that was so powerful we decided to have public exhibitions and in collaboration with community members use the art in various ways, giving them a way to express themselves.’
In the first year the group set up a studio in north Parramatta, as a place to meet people in community detention. They are now based in Ashfield.
‘Our community is still going strong which makes me very proud, welcoming new people along the way and still doing innovative creative projects,’ Safdar says.
‘I didn’t intend to make a graphic novel but after a couple of years of visiting Villawood I felt like someone had to document what was going on and that was the beginning of what became Still Alive, which took over 5 years to make. That community has been the true highlight of my life and I’m glad the group still supports people.’
‘Art to me is about the creation of meaning which helps us understand our place in the world and with respect to one another. That relational aspect is crucial I think. Art is one of the most important ways we are able to communicate in terms of the things we value, using storytelling, reason and logic, as well as the things we just love with all our hearts, in the damp, sludgy terrain of our amorphous intuitions, sensations and feelings.’
Safdar grew up in the Blue Mountains, which he says was a lovely place to be a kid in the 80s and 90s. He was exposed to creative people as a child, former hippies who escaped the rat race of Sydney.
‘I was a shy, imaginative kid so growing up in the bush was good for me. I particularly love the sounds of the trees — the dense chorus that forms when the wind picks up and blows through the Eucalypts. It’s an almost angelic murmuring which I often forget and am reminded of when I go back there.’
‘I’ve spent the last few weeks feeling exhausted so my approach to this kite was pretty straightforward. I started with a human face and saw how I could embellish or develop it from there, working with gesso, acrylic paint and marker on the kite canvas.’
Safdar explained that the title of his kite – Sumood – means steadfastness, perseverance and survival.
Asked about his hopes , Safdar says he wishes for lots of things, but the most prominent of those at the moment is for the genocide in Gaza to end, and for a process of justice that would genuinely liberate the Palestinian people, to give them their political autonomy and full human dignity.
‘We can only hope these genocidal atrocities create a decisive, global turning point — to permanently bin the dehumanising language of anti-Palestinian racism and Islamophobia (and the ‘war on terror’ framing Israel exploits) in favour of a genuine movement for global justice and liberation. It goes without saying the atrocities we’ve witnessed over the last year have had a deep impact on the security of people here (given our own government has in many ways aligned itself with the perpetrators of genocide, ignoring and dragging its feet on recent ICJ and ICC rulings), so it means a lot that we are able to come together as a creative community in resistance, love and support.’
If you would like to learn more about Safdar, follow the link to his website.
https://safdarahmed.com
Isobelle’s Journal – Sydney Book Fair, a new poster from Redkite and Darkbane.
Wednesday 6th Nov
The day after the wonderful book launch at Avid reader, I drove down to Tugun to go into retreat for a month to work on Darkbane. I knew I would only come out into the world twice in November.
Once was to fly to the Sydney Book Fair out at Olympic stadium.
This meant getting up at 3.30 am to fly to Sydney then make my way by public transport with a suitcase of books – people kept trying to help me and were shocked to find it weighed only 6 kg.
The suitcase waited until today at Nadia Wheatley’s house, to be picked up by Al Phemister who was in town to install some artwork – Have I talked about the generosity of people in the art world? I have but it can never be enough. Al transported it to Yass, where he lives, and tomorrow he will install all of the kites that have been revealed in the window of Smith’s Alternative.
It was a rainy, grey, cool day, Saturday, as I made my way by public transport from the airport to the book fair. My fear that the heavens would open and soak through to the precious kites did not come to pass, though it did rain.
I was given a little 3D dragon to match my book by a lovely exhibitor who is an independent writer I know from super nova and comic con. There were many independent and self published writers at the fair, and as always I was struck by the work and care they put into their displays – distribution is the hardest thing about being an independent writer, and when I spoke on stage, I was most interested to hear their views and solutions about the publishing industry, genre writing and YA writing.
I signed a lot of books, and that is always so lovely.
I was struck by the conversation between the authors on stage as in each of the kite maker stories, about how often perfectionism gets in the way of creativity leading to anything. There is definitely a lesson in there. Terry Prachett says: ‘The first draft is telling yourself the story.’
I think that is absolutely true and it is why I feel you should focus on your own feelings towards the story rather than a potential audience. Mind you, I am only one author and others work successfully, very differently. You always have to find your own way.
Today, I have revealed Tony Flowers’ magnificent paper dragon. I only posted a little of it in social media as apparently seeing the whole thing means no one would bother with the website. The marvellous graphic artist and writer Safdar Ahmed created the kite that will be revealed tomorrow.
As for me, I am back in Tugun writing, post swim in the ocean – very appropriate for Darkbane, since Glynn and Ember reached Keltor after swimming in the sea. The series began, in fact, with me swimming in the sea one night, and being struck by the bright moon path, and where it might lead, should one follow it.
Isobelle
🙂
P.s check my gallery to see more pictures
‘Flight of the Dragon’ – Tony Flowers
Wednesday 6th Nov
Tony has a great love for travel and story telling, however he has never thought of himself as a writer and instead processes the world around him through drawing.
He often dedicates time to studies, frequently of his own animals as well as the varied environments he has experienced through travel.
Tony treats his art as a real trade, always seeking out established artists in order to study and apply their techniques with the intention of building and refining his craft.
‘People are under the misconception that being an artist is a skill you are born with. I may have had some genetic advantage towards art (if this is possible), but I also have thousands of hours of practicing my art form.’
Tony is a very pure artist in that he genuinely invites and relishes the process between artworks and has a sense of pride and joy in the skills he has actively earned over the years. ‘I have discovered that I love the discipline of creating the story and the continued improvement and learning that comes with this, as much as I enjoy the freedom of creative play,’ he said.
As a result, he possesses a great range of skill and is an accomplished teacher of visual storytelling, always stressing the importance of understanding the need to convey meaning through all the details of an image.
Though Tony has always had his head down, in his own words, ‘scribbling’, he came to professional illustration later in life. He has been the other half of projects like ‘Dizzy and Friends’, ‘This Old Thing’ and more recently ‘Grandma’s Tattoo’. He has also worked on the beloved ‘Saurus Street’ series with long-time collaborator Nick Falk.
All this, after training as a glassblower, a ceramicist and becoming an award winning street chalk artist. As one one does. Presently, he is completing a PhD and working on his first graphic novel series Divi and Frey. ‘After 20 years in Publishing, I have managed to achieve one of my biggest bucket list goals – Author/illustrator of a graphic novel series.
‘It about a consultant detective who specialises in cases related to the theft of archaeological objects.’
Though Tony has the ability to dip into many art styles the majority of his work is in a comic, cartoonish style.
‘I have always loved comics, from Tin Tin and Astrix to Frank Miller’s The Dark Knight returns and 300. One of my favourites at the moment is Tim Probert’s Lightfall series, what a joy to read and look at.’
You might catch Tony, of a morning, with his sketchbook laid out in a local coffee shop or perhaps a cafe a little further afield, in Tokyo or Milan. In a list that included the Seville Alcazar and the temple of Ankor Thom, Tony counts his morning coffee arriving to perch amongst his work, as one of the most beautiful things he has had the pleasure of perceiving.
Once Tony puts his pen and pad away he loves to strike out on his motorbike. I imagine him peacefully cruising through the lush and expansive Tasmanian countryside, absorbing the colours and the shapes for later use.
‘I live in Hobart, with a view of the mountain from my house. The mountain is such a dramatic and moody back drop to the city. I love the diversity in the landscape in Tasmania from the turquoise water and bright orange rocks of the Bay of Fires to the snow-capped mountain passes of the central highlands.’
Tony approaches his projects, as he seems to with all aspects of life, with a dynamic sense of fun and adventure, often inserting easter eggs and playing with the possible scope of an artwork. With aforementioned collaborator Nick Falk, he particularly likes to push and tease new ideas out of a story through the art, joyfully never allowing an idea to settle or remain static for too long. Tony thinks similarly when he realising a character on the page, making sure that they retain a sense of motion and that every part of the process supports this.
He usually begins with blocking the shape of a scene out with a lighter colour and then adds in definition with a darker contrasting colour. He then moves in with a black thin tipped liner for further definition. Later in the process watercolours are added and layered for depth and more movement. For the kite project Tony took a slightly different approach. Inspired by a cover he had created for a book titled ‘What The Raven Saw’, in which he made a 3D paper sculpture of a raven paired with a recent comment made by a friend, he decided to repurpose some of his old illustrations.
‘An Italian friend of mind asked a while back, “what are you meant to do you do with all of these drawing?”. He was talking about his accumulated sketches. But as a practicing illustrator for over 20 years, I have quite a few illustrations that never saw the light of day or from minor projects. I decided to it would be fun to do something ‘with all of these drawing’, something that might horrify many people. Cut them up! So, I did, I had a great time cutting up about 12 to 15 illustrations (from the last 10 years) into small pieces to make this kite.
‘A lot of the fun for me in this project was seeing what narratives I could weave together from these many piece of different illustrations.’
Tony relates a personal kite experience that makes me laugh and illuminates the backdrop of his technical approach to artistry, his parents both having wonderfully practical artistic skills: ‘When I was about 7 years old, loved my homemade kite, it was red and yellow.
‘My mum who was a dress maker had sewn up the fabric and my dad who was a builder made the wooden supports (the cross) and helps put it together. Unfortunately, the fabric was a heavy cotton and dad over engineered the woodwork, so it was heavy. Which made it both hard to get airborne and on the windy days when it did fly, it was a deadly weapon when it came crashing down to earth.’
If you would like to know more about Tony, visit his website. He is incredibly generous with his time and creative knowledge in person and equally, his website is full of wonderful examples and ideas, as well as in depth information about his art. Have a look at his sketch book exercises!
By Adelaide Stolba
‘Kite Cat’ – Ann James
Wednesday 6th Nov
Ann James lives in Naarm/Melbourne, and has an astonishing 70+ titles, including ‘Goodbye House, Hello House’ and ‘Lucy Goosey’ by Margaret Wild and ‘I’m A Dirty Dinosaur’ by Janeen Brian.
Ann began as a secondary school art teacher and gradually moved into the education department’s publications branch. There she continued improving her foundations as an artist. Eventually she became the much loved and awarded illustrator she is today.
Ann’s first roughs for her kite character.
Alongside her artistic work Ann has built a complimentary career as a committed advocate for illustrators across Australia, ensuring they are as substantially credited for their work as a vital part of the story telling process. Ann is a co-founder of the Society of Book Illustrators (SoBI) and also served for 20 years on board of the Australian Society of Authors. Amongst numerous other contributions she also works with the Indigenous Literacy Foundation as an ambassador, supporting the creation of picture books by Indigenous communities.
Ann views her art as a bridge between the reader and the story told through words. Her role is to reinforce and expand upon the layers of meaning of an idea:
‘My training as an artist and a teacher has provided me with a good foundation for creating visual narratives. My experience as an art teacher in particular was great for introducing me to art practices of all kinds and started me thinking about art as a conversation, rather than an end in itself. Art in conversation with children is right up my alley.’
Kite Cat is born!
She finds collaboration beneficial and enjoys the structure it provides. ‘I like being directed, organised and supported by the sorts of people who are best at that. I like working in a team, particularly with creative people, and with and for children.
‘More and more, I realise how important it is that people are so different in their ways of thinking and working and acting – we fill each-others gaps,’ Ann said.
Cat trumps dog, but Patrick seems pretty sanguine about it.
Ann’s style is playful and poignant, often featuring animals, and some people, taking on the world with the common message of resilience, self-confidence and often family, at its core. She is able to tease charm and character from a blank page in seconds with just a few nimble strokes: ‘Inventing characters and getting to know them is what I love almost more than any other part of the illustration process.’
‘Art to me is making something unique. Using whatever techniques and materials inspire me to create the thing. Doesn’t have to be to share. Doesn’t have to be particularly useful, but I love to feel that energy and excitement to create this new thing.’
The Dancing cat looks pretty happy to have won pride of place on the kite!
Every project that crosses her desk inspires its own unique approach and so Ann has discovered and utilised a diverse array of techniques over the years.
‘Each story inspires its own particular visual responses and my choice of tools, media and techniques.’
So many artists get caught in perfectionism before even initiating a project, and so Ann presents a refreshing approach as she welcomes mistakes. She allows accidents and mishaps to lead her artistry in unexpected directions.
‘I am curious to see what happens when my hand seems to take over the lead from my head. I am excited by the accidents, surprises and tangents that have me seeing new possibilities.’
In ‘I’m A Dirty Dinosaur’ Ann found that a traditional approach wasn’t working and looked ‘too pretty’. She was contemplating this dilemma and happened to glance out the window. There, she noticed her dog playing in a muddy dam. It struck her that she had a wealth of mud right there, in her yard. So she joined her clever dog and began the process of painting with the mud. This experiment results in a wonderfully corporeal experience, which I imagine would be particularly pleasing to a child. The way the mud spreads and its surprisingly complex set of hues paired with the simple little dinosaur character, drawn only using a multicoloured pencil that outlines his fun-loving spirit, is a delight to take in.
‘I have lots of tricks up my sleeve to make whatever may be right to tell each story – whether I have written it – or someone else has.’
Something else one realises, whilst flipping through Ann’s work, is that she is a master of movement. This perhaps buds from not being too precious with her line work. This way, characters don’t have the opportunity to become stiff or forced: ‘My Mum was an artist and she loved my drawings – so I drew a LOT. I loved that her arty friends said I was good at drawing movement! I was very short-sighted and didn’t get glasses till I was 8. So I guess I got very good at noticing stuff.’
Ann’s own supportive family life presents itself as a theme in the books she chooses to lend her hand to. Many of them are about going through the natural changes that life brings still buttressed by the gentle presence of loved ones, often elders. For example, this is explored in ‘Little Humpy’ and ‘Lucy Goosey’.
Hooray for Kite Cat!
‘I’ve always loved to draw. My love for illustration began as a child. I can’t help drawing, it’s a great way to tell a story. My Mum was an artist and my Dad built our house. My brother is good with his hands too – he’s a surgeon. We were always a do-it-yourself family and collectors of anything that might come in handy.’
For her kite Ann was aiming to draw her dog, but: ‘A cat pushed through. My old cat Mac? Yes, having fun, flying on a kite…’
Warning: this kite is almost certain to bring a smile to your face. The glorious Mac, with a slightly wild expression and magnificent whiskers shooting out all around his face, wrangles hula hoops made of colourful beads framed by dimensional puffs of cloud.
(One special extra – the strongest bid for this wonderful kite is a copy of the working stages, featured throughout this article)
By Adelaide Stolba
‘With the Brightest Stars’ – Anna Walker
Wednesday 6th Nov
An award winning illustrator, author and multimedia artist, Anna is currently creating in Naarm/Melbourne.
She has illustrated and written books such as ‘Mr Huff’, ‘Peggy’, ‘Snap’, ‘Florette’ and more. One of her most recent ventures was a collaboration with Jane Godwin titled ‘A Life Song’.
Anna lives close to Merri Creek, a temporary oasis from the cityscape through which it wends, upon which so many different lives converge on their daily business.
Anna has learned to bike to work and enjoys calling out to the resident ducks on her way. From this description one might begin to believe Anna actually lives in one of her own peaceful and insightful stories.
As she works, drawing, writing or perhaps felting, a troupe of personality-filled miniature animals watch over her. Anna is their maker, as, perhaps most enchanting of all, she has taken to designing little felt and wire sculptures of her characters.
A project was sparked more seriously over the 2020 covid lockdown period, in which she became inspired by other’s street libraries and started constructing dioramas depicting these small creatures living their own simple lives. On Anna’s Youtube channel you can also find book trailers made with a some of this colourful cast.
As Anna explains her upbringing things start to fall into place.
‘I grew up in Eltham with lots of time to play in the garden and make things.’
Her desk also holds several lush pot plants and with various animals placed throughout, it seems her workspace has slowly morphed into an alternate version of the garden in which she used to play as a child.
‘I longed for the imaginary creatures that walked with me to school to be real.’
Anna radiates a warm joy and whimsy, perhaps this is partially because all her imaginary friends and foes have now materialised on the desk before her.
Anna likes to approach the world with a sense of wonder, letting every day life guide her imagination into potential story territory. When asked what she loves best about being an artist she says:
‘Being able to roam in the landscape of the imagination. Creating colours and images that come close to visualising what I see in my mind or feel. I often don’t have the words to be able to express what I want to say… but now and then I can create an illustration that speaks of a feeling or emotion without saying a word.’
A picture book like ‘Peggy’, follows a little black chicken, who has been blown over the fence and finds herself on a big city adventure. This was based on Anna’s fears about her own chickens being blown away during strong weather warnings. The Story of ‘Mr Huff’ is another narrative in which the main character is able to work through a challenge, and in so doing, is able to overcome it. Through her many gentle tales, Anna suggests that adversity can be disguised opportunity for growth and is after all, only temporary. Anna’s stories teach us that moving with the flow of life rather than fighting against it, can often lead to an unexpected answer and a renewed sense of freedom.
Anna uses a wonderfully tactile and layered approach to creating visuals for her picture books. She devises and draws her characters and then cuts them out with a fine scalpel. These can then be collaged with monoprints, patterned fabrics, or other ink and water colours cut outs. Her characters are delicately formed and most often shaded with a combination of watercolours, acrylics and pencil. It’s very textured work and each medium adds a different dimension and feeling to the varied elements of a scene, making an animal look soft or the sea rough. The collage style also defines the characters helping them to stand out and catch the reader’s attention.
When asked to speak about something beautiful she had seen in recent memory, she said:
‘One of the most beautiful scenes I have experienced was in late summer…in the afternoon sunlight a flock of Cabbage White Butterflies hovered over the gardens of Abbotsord Convent. Sunlit pollen lifted on the breeze and a gumleaf descended from the branches above. Time seemed to slow down, the leaf twirled, almost suspended while it danced with the butterflies.’
Currently, Anna is working on a project about a Cabbage Butterfly and a Cricket with Scribble Books. I imagine this blissful scene may have served as another of life’s nudges to Anna’s playful imagination.
Of her kite, Anna spoke thoughtfully, mentioning a quote journal she had recently begun, as source of inspiration that surfaced upon receiving the kite:
‘…I couldn’t help thinking of these words: “The Milky Way was commonly believed to be a river, with the brightest stars fish, other stars waterlily bulbs, and the dark patches lagoons.” from The Tall Man by Chloe Hooper. The idea of fish swimming in the night sky is so beautiful… I couldn’t resist creating a Weedy Sea Dragon on my kite, to fly among the stars.’
Her sea dragon appears much like a Cyanotype, however it was produced with shades of blue spray paint and a cutout creature design, all resulting in a deep midnight blue backdrop for the radiant, celestial sea dragon. The edge of the spray paint bleeds and smudges a little around the design imbuing the sea dragon with an ethereal, diaphanous quality.
by Adelaide Stolba
‘Dragon Face’ – by David Miller
Wednesday 6th Nov
David Miller is a wonderful multi-faceted artist and author, with a several children’s books, such as ‘Rufus The Numbat’ and ‘Big and Me’ to his name.
He has also undertaken collaborations with other distinguished author’s such as ‘Boo To A Goose’ by Mem Fox.
He currently lives: ‘Perched high on a hill overlooking the Yarra River fare below with the Great Dividing range close enough to see individual trees on a very clear day.’
Through the windows of his quiet sanctuary he enjoys the rousing machinations of various birds.
Currently he is caught up in the goings on of the local rosella community: ‘They are squabbling over nest sites and one pair are looking serious about a spot very close to a perch the Kookaburras use to hunt from. I’m worried.’
This contemplation and appreciation of nature is reflected in David’s work.
He has a unique focus on paper sculpture, perhaps unsurprisingly, since his father was a clay sculptor and would often involve David in his work. This work requires a certain level of dexterity and attention to detail which he has been cultivating for some time now.
David has been turning flat, blank pieces of paper into creatures with character and texture since the age of 3. This attention to detail is also reflected in his atmospheric paintings which offer microcosms that aim to represent the whole.
Many of his artworks centre animals and their natural habitats, as well as hypnotically undulating fragments of landscapes. The colour palettes he uses are often vibrant in both mediums however his paintings provide a more calming, meditative effect, which is the form David devotes most of his time to these days.
David describes his childhood as ‘very happy and fulfilled’ which is strongly reflected in his art style and subjects.
David’s paper sculptures use primary colours in a joyful, childlike way and by virtue of being 3 dimensional posses a pleasing tactility and depth that draws the reader into the action. For example, one might want to reach out and pet his animals, the tiger emerging from the bamboo forest or the mischievous little Numbat flying through the air on a skateboard. Seemingly in anticipation of this natural urge to interact with his artworks, David’s first dip into the publishing industry was through releasing a book with instructions on how to create one’s own paper sculptures at home, titled ‘You Can Make Paper Sculptures’. Of this inaugural project he says:
‘From this, I was given the opportunity of illustrating Mem Fox’s book BOO TO A GOOSE. Which launched me into 20 years of illustrating children’s picture books, some of which I authored as well as illustrated.’
David uses his art as a way to connect and communicate with the people around him.
‘Art is a large part of who I am,’ he said. ‘It is how I see the world. How I express myself and how I understand others.’
What he loves most about art is its potential to move people. In an interview for the Satellite Foundation David conjures a cozy image of children reading or having his books read to them at bed time, and speaks of how this idea thrills him.
On the subject of kites, David admits that he never managed to fly a kite when he was young:
‘Which is strange as there was a white box kite on the top of the wardrobe in my childhood bedroom. We just never got round to flying it. However I took my children camping by the ocean where the onshore afternoon breeze lifting over sand dunes was perfect for kite flying and we would have several swooping above us with their lines tethered to heavy clumps of wet seaweed.’
The image of him and his children below a sky filled with kites is endearingly picturesque and I find myself imaging it captured as one of David’s own paper sculptures.
David’s kite creation is of a bright blue, green and red Chinese dragon’s head, seeming to leap from the page. He mentions his use of a similar dragon in the aforementioned ‘Rufus The Numbat’ book. The magnificent sculpture of the dragon’s resplendent winding body, replete with ferocious teeth and layers of turquoise, silver and crimson scales, is now located in a Chinese museum in Bendigo.
David continues to spend his time painting and hands on sculpting. He is currently conceptualising a design out of his friends discarded plastic chicken feeders as well as working on a large painting of a wooden spinning top that was his father’s.
David’s art is available through https://www.yava.org.au/davidmiller
By Adelaide Stolba.
‘We, Australians – dream catchers’ – Sadami Konchi
Wednesday 6th Nov
Sadami’s profound affection for people has lead her to place an emphasis on working with non-profit organisations to assist and advocate for marginalised parts of the community. As an immigrant and a differently abled individual, Sadami has a strong personal link to the groups she works with. Much of her artistic work is actively influenced and guided by these altruistic pursuits and so her portraits are lively and authentic portrayals of real people and their multifaceted lives.
Sadami sees unlimited potential in all people, no matter their seeming disadvantages, and suggests that one’s perspective can be a primary determining factor in their life. She references the autobiographical book ‘Man’s Search for Meaning’, by holocaust survivor V.E. Frankl as a source of hope and spiritual inspiration for her. Frankl was a psychologist and philosopher and founder of logotherapy, a psychological approach in which the individual is aided in finding personal purpose and meaning in their life. Frankl stresses the power and freedom that one is able to cultivate through their own patterns of thought, even, if not especially, in times of suffering. Sadami embodies this philosophy in her art and volunteer work, always approaching life with an open heart and a readiness to connect with those around her.
When speaking of her ongoing volunteer work to help feed those of the homeless community her words are full of tender and thoughtful observation. Sadami’s academic background in sociology, linguistic and illustration, blend as she notes the speed with which the food was distributed, the socioeconomic contrast between communities just streets away, alongside the general atmosphere between volunteers and those receiving, being the desire for belonging and connection.
Punctuating her words are pencil and watercolour sketches depicting the simple yet highly meaningful interactions between people and their surrounding world. Dedicated research underpins much of Sadami’s artistic ventures, since her artworks are often created to accompany and reify other’s words.
To Sadami, art is the ultimate form of self expression, as she puts it: ‘Art is, “What/who I’ve been,” “Who I am,” and “Who I will become.”’
When it came to the kite project, Sadami at first balked at the medium:
‘Oh, my gosh, what can I, a water colourist do with a cloth canvas? Run away from the kite?! But suddenly, the sky opened and an angel or an idea came to me! Yay! Modelling paste, that’s it! Modelling paste can cover the kite’s surface and will create a solid base for watercolour! With a big smile, I spread it on the kite like jam or butter! Kids do not lick it!’
The work is titled ‘We Australians’ and features a beautiful bouquet of native flowers and plants presented to her by the highly regarded sociolinguistics team that produced the collection of stories entitled ‘Life in a New language’.
Sadami created the cover for this heartfelt project, a vibrant watercolour collage of immigrant life in Australia.
Of the bouquet and its use as part of her kite design, Sadami says: ‘Australian native flowers represent our identity that symbolises our unity and harmony. The gift, the bunch of Australian native flowers, delighted me, so touching. We, Australians will bloom and live as domestic plants strongly rooted on this continent.’
The ode to Australian native vegetation now stands preserved in her office. Beside it a facsimile of Waratah, Billy buttons, purple banksia, Grey Eucalyptus gum leaf appear now to also grow on a kite. The Modelling paste solution brings the bouquet to life with its rough texture adding a sense of movement to the still life. The dream catcher’s tail is made up of two dreamcatchers and a red heart trinket to represent hope for children living with cancer.
‘In Japan, people celebrated a new year like Christmas in Australia. “Flying a kite” was a children’s traditional game played at this time of year. I’ve always loved it.’
As a child Sadami yearned for adventure and intrigue. She would always be seeking out fantastical stories in books. Perhaps drawing helped her realise these dreams and that’s one of the reasons she loved it so much.
‘I wanted to do everything and anything. Adventures to the deep forests in Amazon, mummy searching in pyramids, pirates around a treasure island, climbing high mountains, the moon, planets…I wanted to fly across the sky. I actually tried, on a very windy day. Yes, I attempted to fly by an umbrella and fell to the ground. Little Sadami found the gravity of the earth and realised that we, humans, need mathematics and physics to organise wings or an air plane or a rocket!’
Currently Sadami is working on her own picture book projects. Researching, sketching, hunting for models and watercolour studying. She is concurrently working on competition submissions, plus physiotherapy and swimming for rehab. As always she is also enjoying reading other people’s work: ‘…Tracks by Davidson, R, The Other ANZACS by Rees, P and, of course, picture books.’
by Adelaide Stolba
‘Story-spark’ – Andy Geppert
Wednesday 6th Nov
Andy has not strayed far from his childhood home on the Sunshine Coast and it seems as if he has taken on the character of the state.
His answers are as warm with good humour as the unwavering Queensland climate.
Andy grew up wandering around the local hinterland and relates these early days in palpable detail.
‘As kids, my brothers and I would spend all day roaming through long grass and exploring the bush until it got dark. We’d search for ripe mulberries and catch yabbies in hidden streams.’
Andy seems to harbour a gentle, natural well of creativity and sees inspiration in the simple curvature of life. This mentality is epitomised in the two things he longed for as a child:
‘A go-kart and a pet duck.’
Andy has managed to preserve and carry this lighthearted perspective into to adult life and allows a spirit of openness to guide his creative work. Naturally, his children are his biggest inspiration.
Now that is one hella cute photo of daddy and his little Harri.
Andy caters with easy charm to a younger audience, with books like ‘Meep’, ‘Australian Backyard Birdies’ and ‘The Balloon Blow Up’.
Andy has the unique gift of presenting information in an engaging, comedic way to children.
In books like ‘Australian Backyard Birdies’ and ‘Australian Backyard Buddies’ he showcases the colours of animals and their prevalence across Australia with distinct eye-catching and understandable diagrams. Alongside these diagrams, one can also appreciate painted details like sticky tape holding a feather in place or arrows pointing to a true to size chip. These choices give young readers the sense of an interactive collage of every day objects.
Such a simple, tactile approach can spark inspiration for children and lead them to collect commonplace objects and design their own visual diaries. With the goal of galvanising creativity, Andy runs workshops with groups of children across Australia.
One of Andy’s simple but effective ways of motivating creativity, is through the creation of 3D yellow paper stars that he hands out at the end of workshops.
Small enough to fit safely in a child’s palm whilst symbolising something greater, he has been calling them ‘Story Sparks’. This concept made its way into his kite design.
‘I imagine, that if any of them made it home on the bus unflattened or uneaten, there’s a very small chance that one day they will remind their owner to make a book or create art. At least, that’s my hope.’
Andy hopes the kite will function in much the same way, bringing together themes of hope and creativity in his design.
In his own life he hopes for, ‘Laughter! The baby/toddler unfiltered hysterical kind. I wish my kids happiness, which is expressed through laughter. I hope lots of people get to hear them laugh and feel the same joy I do.’
Since we’re a bit better acquainted with Andy by now, I’m sure no one will find it surprising that his own experience with a kite was fairly recent: ‘A month ago, during the school holidays, we flew a jellyfish-shaped kite at the beach in Pottsville. Kites spread joy even if you’re not the one flying it.’
Andy’s work reminds the adults in the room, that things that seem uncomplicated or might be readily dismissed by them can be very impactful for a child. His book ‘The Balloon Blow Up’, is a great example of this message. He was inspired by one of his own children picking out a balloon and painstakingly deciding how much they wanted it to be inflated.
He was struck by how something so small to him, became such a huge decision for his child. He chose to explore this idea in the book, injecting it with all the imagination a child might when faced with such a dilemma.
Andy’s art style is digitally produced using a pen and a tablet. It often features animals that are soft, textured and filled with character, just like that stuffed animal you may have yearned to take home with you as a kid. Andy sees the individual personalities shine through objects and creatures and brings this to us though his character design.
‘Art, to me, is imagination. It’s a (good) challenge. It’s something I protect.’
You can find Andy using his instagram handle @andygeppert.books
By Adelaide Stolba
‘Big Bird’ – Liliana Stafford
Wednesday 6th Nov
Liliana lives just outside Fremantle. She does not tell people she lives in WA or even Australia.
‘Fremantle is where I live,’ she said firmly. ‘It has the beach, the ships, the old buildings, the quirky ats community and the river. Home is Hamilton Hill.
‘We bought the house for the old jacaranda tree in the garden, the shed, and for me it’s proximity to Manning Lake where I walk all year round and where most of my inspiration comes from. It is full of birds.
Liliana is a multimedia artist, moving from pen on paper, to brush on canvas, to glass sculpting. Through her multiplicity of artistic approaches Liliana navigates various intriguing facets of human spirituality and psychology.
‘Art is a way to discover who I am and my go to place when I’m feeling the world is a bit too hard to take.’
Some concepts explored in her work include: desire, perseverance, the importance of community, human capacity for good and our vital and layered relationship to the natural environment. Liliana isn’t interested so much in making exact simulacrums of the things that snag her attention, rather her intention, is to capture something or someone’s essential essence.
‘I don’t need to make a bird but I do want to capture the birdiness of birds and I want to create work that touches the heart because then there is hope and hope is a wonderful thing.’
Liliana is inspired by the natural world, as a result her paintings and sculptures take on organic shapes and textures. To achieve these naturalistic forms, Liliana works with wire, stone, tissue paper, mixed media, paint and glass. Her sculptural pieces look like delicate remnants of an ancient fae kingdom.
Her figures often wear earth-toned felt garments, their hair wispy and wild, arranged with believable movement, as if windswept. Liliana has a folk lore-ish twist to many of her creations. For example her small glass houses designed to represent the yearning for home, a concept or an actual place. She calls them Hireath houses, as derived from the Welsh concept. Some of the houses of this series, roost on stilts and present an array of colours and spindly patterns, sometimes a suggestion of bricks and other times more abstract designs:
‘I create them to remind me there is for each of us a place we call home whether real or imaginary. A place we keep safe in our hearts.’
Liliana is further inspired by folk tales from the British isle when making her bird sculptures. She calls them her Seelie birds, connecting them to the Scottish mythology of the Seelie Court, a court of fairies that live outside the human realm but interacts with them from time to time. These birds are made from many different materials, soap stone to glass and tissue paper. Liliana has done several exhibitions located on the foreshore, and there is a beautiful photo of a set of these birds sitting on short wooden pillars at sunset. Being cast glass, they tend to posses a cloudy quality, similar to sea glass and hold light in a way that makes them seem like they are glowing from within. Liliana is not only inspired by folklore from further afield but also by the life in her own back yard
She particularly loves birds and finds them to be a huge source of inspiration. ‘They are both fragile and strong and they can fly which allows them to have a wider point of view’
Liliana’s own work seems to embody this idea of a bird. Delicately wrought, with enduring ideas at their centre. Media that ignites Liliana’s creativity traverses strange new worlds that present the familiar in unfamiliar ways and vice versa, promotes following one’s heart, caring for the planet and the people around us whilst also having guts.
She offers these titles as some of her favourites: ‘The Little Prince of course and Owl Babies. Films – Babe, Avatar, Barbie, Erin Brokovitch.’
When it came to her kite design she was unsure at first. ‘I fell asleep worrying about deadlines and whinging that I had no idea what to do. I woke at 4am with ideas everywhere to where I had to get up and do a quick sketch.
‘Then in the morning the name was there and I knew I had it.’
Liliana believes it is important to let creativity flow through her, and seeks ways to unleash these untapped creative channels through play, even something like using her non-dominant hand to draw. This progression from anxiety to waking with an overflow of ideas, serves as a reminder that allowing the subconscious to percolate can yield unforeseen creativity that might not have otherwise emerged.
She is always cultivating an openness to new ideas. ‘The challenge, the expectation and the constant searching for that perfect piece that says what is in my heart. And the joy that often follows a happy accident of knowing you somehow created something good.’
Of her own experiences with kites she says, ‘We flew kites as children, on the South Downs and at the beach.
‘It was wonderful but often ended in tears with my kite stuck up a tree, sailing away into the clouds or tangled up with my brothers. My older brother always wanted to be the best at everything so if my kite flew higher he would deliberately tangle our strings and make it crash.
‘One day we were on the Downs flying kites and my brother was flying his prize tissue paper and balsa wood model plane. My Uncle Eric, who was kind of aware of how my brother was, used my kite to dive bomb the plane. He said he was sorry but..?’
Liliana’s kite employs wire, beads and layers of tissue paper like the delicate creases of an eyelid or a palm, even a mountain range seen from very high up. The kite is coloured in a dappled pattern of shades, from brown to purple, bright yellow to variations of turquoise.
by Adelaide Stolba
‘Amongst The Stars’ – Trace Balla
Wednesday 6th Nov
Trace believes that art is an innate part of our humanity and acts to bring people together, as a result her community involvement reaches further than these titles allow.
Amongst such endeavours are engaging and educational workshops as well as a collaboration with her brother’s not-for-profit organisation ‘Operation Toilets Australia’ for which the book ‘Cycling Together’ arose.
This book was written to uplift adolescent girls in India and educate young people on how they can contribute to an essential cause in a tangible way.
Some of Trace’s other books include Rivertime and Rockhopping.
Trace breathes life into a page with the help of a simple lead pencil, water colours and/or a waterproof fountain pen. Through her art, Trace strives to deepen her connection to country, alongside sharing the land’s beauty and history with the wider community. In service of this ideal Trace keeps detailed ‘nature journals’ brimming with botanical sketches, playfully intertwined with poetic observations.
She also runs workshops on this medium.
Aside from pursuing knowledge of country through her own explorations Trace often reaches out to indigenous members of the community for support in her creative work aiming to inspire interest and care of indigenous epistemology and culture. She cherishes this wisdom and finds it important to acknowledge indigenous links to the land. Many of Trace’s artworks reflect Indigenous record keeping, where memories are often encoded in a somewhat abstracted map of a time spent in a specific area. This is done in order to convey function and meaning in a human way.
Trace is drawn to nature perhaps partly because she was distanced from it through her city upbringing. She was always seeking out scalable trees and spent much of her time on a bike or with her dog. She now loves nothing more than a walk at dawn, quite literally communing with nature.
She likes to talk with the plants and animals during these walks, as she finds any fugitive loneliness can only dissipate under such circumstances. She often speaks with reverence and love of the diffuse light, that in the colder months, catches on the foggy eiderdown draped across her home country.
‘Dawn light through the forest, gold rays all about on a cold morning walking up the hills above the fog line where the distant mountains look like islands!’ she said. ‘Finding tiny wildflowers as the days grow longer…’
Trace finds art spilling out of all life’s cracks and so her creativity and thoughts seem to flow with ease. Speaking of kites makes Trace think of the boomerang tree, so named by her and her son when they once had to climb one in order to retrieve a flighty boomerang. When asked about devising her kite for Hope Flies, Trace says:
‘I go by the saying of a favourite philosopher Lao Tze who said “spontaneity is truth”.
‘I knew what I wanted to do and didn’t hesitate – I let the materials and my inner guidance lead the way – I just have to trust and move aside. I wanted it to be an image that kids would see and light up to.’
Trace can come across as a tireless optimist however when speaking on the concept of ‘hope’ she confesses to a somewhat surprising caution in using the word.
She prefers the word ‘aspiration.’
‘Hope is more about the future and may not be realistic, where aspiration is perhaps more accepting of what is – and doing the best version with what we have… I don’t think hoping to bring back extinct species is helpful, but aspiring to protect and grow in number those that are endangered is more the gist of what I’m saying.’
The Title of Trace’s kite comes from her lyrics for the song, Starry Freedom Boat.
Of her hope for the future Trace says, ‘Hope is a tricky word… As Joanna Macy calls it “the great turning”- to come out the other side as intact as we can all be, into a much more generous, caring, kind world- towards one another – meaning all of life – not just humans- a slower more connected, regenerative, respectful, joyful planet for all.’
This link below will take you to a lovely little story done by the ABC on Trace.
Trace’s present, the place she likes to spend most of her time, holds her graphic novel memoir, which she is slowly working on and an upcoming stint as a volunteer at a nature connection camp. If you were to step inside her mind at this very moment, it might sound a little something like this:
‘…rites of passage, the miracle of life, the sacredness of death and transformation, ways of living lightly and with care for all…amazing Greenhood Orchids that I saw on my wander this morning…’
You can learn more about Trace on her website.
https://traceballa.com
by Adelaide Stolba
The Kite Auction is now live and Comes the Night is officially launched.
Wednesday 6th Nov
As well as introducing Susan, Alex brought a plateful of homemade cup cakes with the cutest toppers to share.
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It was the loveliest afternoon, and of course, we launched this Hope Flies site, and two people offered the audience a Q code, that allowed them to visit this site for the first time.
Karen Hawley was a special guest because she knew all about the good work Red Kite are doing, from personal experience, and had agreed to speak. It was so much more meaningful to have her than an official from Red Kite, and I was really grateful that she agreed to share her story. You will be able to read her story a little later in the month, when Karen Hollands interviews her for this site.
Susan asked wonderful questions that allowed me to talk about things I might not otherwise have thought to say. It is a strange thing to talk for the first time about something you have been working on alone for such a long time. At first it seems impossible – it took you three hundred pages to say it, how can you possibly reduce it to a sound bite? But the right astute questions simply unlocks some of the thinking behind a book, even to the person who wrote it.
Isobelle 🙂
Thank you to my Sponsors
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I missed out on a kite but really want to support Isobelle's fundraising effort and the work of Redkite