In 2001 I did not have a digital camera as I could not afford one, so I was using a film camera. Films were expensive and slower to be processed but there is a certain quality about the photos that is different to the super sharp digital cameras used today.
I have thousands of film photos and have organised all my film photos into small crates all filed by the botanical names. It was at this time that I was given a bunch of Waratahs and Flannel flowers which was very exciting as someone who had been obsessed with these two flowers from my childhood. These are some of the film photos I took of those flowers, let me say there were just a ‘few’ photos taken because of course I then had to start drawing and designing.
These photos give some insight into how I use photography as part of my design process. Although these are arranged in vases, I use my camera to document aspects of the flora and include those ideas into designs. For example, how a vine falls, or leaves are arrange on a tree or around the flowers.
This is the drawing and inked designs I used to create the final linocut. Sometimes I make a lot of edits from the drawing to the design to the linocut but other times, as with this design, the process includes just a few minor adjustments.
The final result is a handcoloured linocut’Waratahs & Flannel Flowers’ with an original edition as 20 prints but only a handful have been produced and sold.
2000 – 2001 had been two very busy years of art making for me. The Royal Botanic Gardens ‘State of the Waratah Exhibition’ was in 2000 and ‘Florafed’ which a huge undertaking producing numerous works based around the flora of all the states and territories of Australia. An exhibition of works for the Centenary of Federation at Hazelhurst Regional Gallery in Gymea a suburb of Sydney NSW. I had grown up in Loftus, a suburb of in the Sutherland Shire and so this exhibition was like a homecoming.
Family life in 2001 life was also pretty busy, but it was going to get a whole lot busier and stressful. My father and mother in law had retired to Vincentia in 1988, a small town overlooking Jervis Bay on the NSW South Coast. My mother in law had always wanted a water view and so when Manning retired they set off from Menai where they were living for coastal life. They enjoyed living there but Manning had a stroke resulting in left hemianopia losing all vision on the left side but thankfully he retained all his central vision. As a result he could no longer drive and my mother in law was also not driving. So in 2001 after Manning asked us to help we found them a lovely place within walking distance of our home and they moved to the North Coast near us. I was their main Carer until Manning passed away in 2006 and Judy in 2008.
On top of that my three neurodivergent children, not that this was recognised back then, were also ranging in age from 12 to 7 years old in 2001. It was difficult to navigate their needs, school and social needs especially as at that time much less was known and there was very little help available.
However, I had my arts practice which I was able to keep doing during school hours when the kids were at school in amongst the Carer role of looking after Manning and Judy. This has been a theme for most of my married life of interspersing my arts practice around caring for family.
It has included times where it has been very difficult to produce a lot of work but I always carried a sketchbook and pencil in my handbag.
Sometimes the idea sketch is on a scrap piece of paper sitting in a doctor’s surgery waiting for an appointment for someone I was caring for but I am grateful I was able to continue my art even if in these stolen snippets.
Wildflowerings - Art Studio Diary 
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