We have been very busy since our return from our research trip to New Caledonia.

We had made a lot of new work for the end of year Arts Trail – Open Studios sale, before we left for the trip.

The Open Studios, Arts Trail is on the first 2 weekends in November, so save the date.

Now on our return form Noumea, we have been flat out busy glazing and decorating that bisque ware and have two kilns packed ready to fire this weekend.

I have spent the past week painting. The motif is quite complicated and involves building up a surface of 20 different colours to create depth in the image

We have to be busy, because we are driving up to Brisbane shortly to deliver the 10th Annual Ian Currie Memorial Lecture to the Qld Ceramics Society.

I gave the 1st one a decade ago, and it must have been OK, as they have invited me back. Either that, or its taken 10 years to get over the first one 🙂

After the fire, All my dreams were very stressful and all about the shock and terror of the event. I found that I had somehow edited my experiences in my brain to make them more palatable and less stressful, by recalling all of them in black and white and all silent. A bit like old movies. 

So The first work that I made after the fire was all in black and white. It took me a while to incorporate some colour into my pieces about the fire.

Over time, and quite a bit of therapy, I healed to the extent that I could start to talk about the fire. but I still had issues that I couldn’t discuss.

I tried to improve my lot by planting an English style Cottage Garden of bright flowers. It helped a bit, I felt good looking at them.

After a few months of a new therapy called EMDR trauma therapy. I felt so much better and started sleeping better, plus several nasty ailments like psoriasis and irritable bowel syndrome started to clear up. This was a very good sign that things were improving.

One day I was painting flames on my pots, and the next I found that the flames had started to turn into flowers!

I didn’t choose this, It just happened! I’m very pleased with the result.

I’ve turned my flames to flowers.

I have no idea where they came from. It just came out of my subconscious. In a very peaceful and quiet way.

I’m quite pleased.