"Life beats down and crushes the soul and art reminds you that you have one." Stella Adler image from: http://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/episodes/stella-adler/about-stella-adler/526/ Stella Adler was an amazing actor and teacher who grew up performing and she obviously witnessed, and was a part of, some wonderful displays of art and creativity. She married one of the co-founders of the Group Theatre which is said to have ‘believed in a theatre that would probe the dep

'Lifting the Vale' Tulle on Plaster mask On display at Chapel on Station Gallery Box Hill from Friday 5th Sep to 17th Sep as part of their 2014 Religious Art Prize with the theme 'Through a Glass Darkly' My artists Statement It always takes me a while to write up something that I'm even really remotely happy with. I think because I need time to reflect on the finished product, not just on the process. Anyway, this is where I am at, at the moment. Does the veil protect us from

"If I create from the heart, nearly everything works; if from the head, almost nothing." Marc Chagall Birthday by Marc Chagall Go to image: http://www.chagallpaintings.org/birthday.html I don’t have an example of anything that Chagall felt didn’t work for him (how would we know - I am assuming he put into the world the ones he liked???) but we have plenty that did and that Chagall worked from the heart seems very obvious. His work is free flowing and full of movement and

Vernon Ah Kee is a talented contemporary artist who works with a number of mediums and produces particularly stunning portraits, but it was his text based work that first really got me. This work is politically, humanly and possibly artistically challenging in his reflections on what it is like to be indigenous in Australia today. When I first saw this piece, it was the first time I’d really encountered this type of text based art. At first it might seem simplistic and far to

Art is not simply something that hangs in a gallery and is viewed in austere silence and with confused reverence. I go to galleries because I like art, but I still find galleries intrinsically weird places where we all have to adjust to fit into the expected mind frame and behaviour so that I can stay. So... I have been on a bit of a quest recently to try and work out how to make art more accessible, essentially how to take it out of the galleries and into our lives. I haven’

This Saturday I managed to drive myself the nearly 1.5hr drive out to a beautifully bushy conference centre where Riverstone (an arts gathering) was held this year. (Just as a side note: this is the first time in I don’t know how long that I have driven myself somewhere I have not been before and that was this far from home and of that, I am pretty pleased with myself. For most people, not a big deal. For me, a step in a good direction. ) Conferences aren’t my thing at the mo