WHAT creates LIfE ALTERING CHOICES?

In Melbourne at the start of the New Millenium , my son left home under mystifying circumstances to me at the time and I was shattered. On top of that, my mother died. My two soul-mates were gone.  I thought I had that supportive “special” mate in my life who would help see me through the emotional Tsumani but it didn’t happen.

The main volunteer camera person  for my film project,”Homage to a Wild heart” was recommended to me by someone  who came to my studio for events and workshops. She was a disaster. 

So, I had talked about making a shift and decided to go through with it. A massive thing as Warrandyte, my home and studio, my son’s home, meant everything to me. I needed to dig deeper into family and ancestry and the values I had grown up with. My mother’s death  brought through so much as powerfully  as the ripples on the Yarra that I visited most every other day. I was looking for Inspiration and new direction and inner strength . 

“Being a Stand” 

“Being a Stand” is a Landmark term. 

What does it take to live an extraordinary life? Living a Creative Life in Contemporary times is extraordinary!  Being able to stand up as a female Artist still, today, is a big deal. Going back to your home town and trying to bring your life well lived with you is a feat in itself. In LandMark Speak.. It was to  “Speak into a Space where there was No Listening!”  I wasn’t nuts but I hoped to give other children growing up in the town more opportunity than I did . It was just taken for granted you had to move away to create a “successful” life.

 I came up to Camperdown as the sale went through at Warrandyte. A massive blue flag was flying from the mast at the ClockTower and it seemed to direct me to an empty shop which  became PassionFish. 

I found a local street guy who had a video camera, pretty much the only one in town, so I  I paid him to create extra local footage which I hoped to include . He filmed sitting with legs out  of the crop-duster and through the windshield, up in a small plane flown by a local grazier, Ed Manifold. He filmed  local musicians, Don and Angela  on Mt Noorat,  along with Hawks at Sunrise on Mt Leura and across the Lakes and Western District countryside. It gave me more footage than ever to sort through.  Not much really usable for commercial production.

I also found a retired news broadcaster in Warrnambool, near the river. His spare room was full of old but quality news editing and sound equipment. It cost me about $100 a time to travel back and forwards to Warrnambool to do a session with him.  No work and without a proper home. The footage had major sound problems which I had already recognised so I did a voice over to link it together and used much of the footage as still captures to  integrate it. The footage with Rick Amor was cut back to almost nothing sadly as I couldn’t fit it all in with costs  biting in. Eltham Council’s Bill Forrest threatening to sue me to finish within short time frame and I had still didn’t  have a home other than my studio.

Originally, I wrote the film submission on a visit to French Island, staying at Stephen May’s home there. Stephen and Deborah Halpern both owned land there. I always admired the houses Stephen created as well as his paintings which were a bit edgy, beautifully crafted and thoroughly individual. Deborah Halpern, I met when they were a couple and I enjoyed getting to know her better, talk about the Warrandyte Community and also, discuss  the role Landmark Education had, on her achieving  the Big Angel outside the National Gallery. I was interested to ask each artist how they sustained their creative passion over a long life? It opened up an interview process with a range of artist’s , many very well known, all co-creators in a society of Artists.  What mattered to them? What kept them going throughout the years? Like me, they didn’t have Super to fall back on. 

I completed the film and had a small launch in Warrandyte. and completed my contract with the Eltham Council and their bully-boy Project Officer. It cost me so much personally that I really never released it out beyond the few who bought a copy and those who came to the launch in Warrandyte.

 I painted an interpretation of a Balgo design on the flooring of one of my windows in the shop and out of the blue, my sister rang me to ask if my new partner and I would be interested to go and work in Balgo. Think the spirits were calling me in!

Balgo was in my book “Images of Power”. My favourite paintings actually. I loved their desert painting. My partner then and myself were given an amazing opportunity of work  in this remote community on the Tanami. I was very excited but unaware of just how dramatic the Life Change would be .