Holga times again.
I have been out and about with my little toy camera again.
We went wandering along the limestone cliff faces at Southerndown in Wales. It was lovely and sunny.. It did occur to me that perhaps my balance wasn’t the best after everything that has happened.. But, I didn’t die!

I went to London for a few exhibitions and a wander around.

My backyard recently got cleaned up. It’s now double the size of what we were used to. But I still hate this house. But I like this picture.

Here is a quick sketch I did of my lovely friend Hilary. Hilary also life modeled for me at my University, but those drawings are unfortunately boxed away somewhere in rural Victoria.. so I cannot share them at this point.
This is taken from a photo taken at a party she had at her house a few years back.. I think it was Russian themed and we hid in her room away from everyone.
Miss you Hilary.
x

Semi Permanent will be in Melbourne on the 17th & 18th of September. It will feature speakers such as Timba Smits, Beastman, Sylvia Ji and more. I am so excited, even though and I very far away from Melbourne and wont be going to this one, but I am excited as there needs to be awesome art events like this!
JEALOUS of all the people I know going.

I did this fellow early this year when I cooped up in my room as it was a very cold winter here in Wales and I wasn’t very well. He made me happy.

This particular little friend I did for Nat Grant. She’s a rather clever lady who likes animals. The squirrel is munching on a part of a glockenspiel. An instrument Nat uses sometimes.

This little fox is apart of a bigger drawing I did late last year for a poem. The other part of the drawing is a bit crappy so I cropped it. This little guy is what started all the little animal drawings I have been doing.

This is from my sketch book, I drew him recently too.

These guys were made very late last year. I thought I’d do a series of animals for my daughter.. Originally I thought I’d do an alphabet of them, but very soon lost inspiration for it.. I’m just drawing a whole lot of animals for her now.. Mostly squirrels and foxes. I am also working on another little project for her which I started the other day, but I wont go on about it here as I am scared I wont do it!!

I did an interview recently and my interest in photography came up, and it really got me thinking about where it all begun, which was at this point. The grey part of my life. At one of the many high schools I went to, Lynall Hall, I got a chance to explore photography. In our art class, we were able to take part in a special project with a photographer.. (I cannot remember her name. I know she did some wonderful photographs of children and often, I was very rude to her. I remember feeling guilty about that but as an arsehole teen, I did very little about it.) We were given Ilford disposable cameras to shoot on. They were a lot of fun, I remember just walking around Melbourne taking so many photographs. It resulted in a group exhibition in St Kilda. I think Fitzroy Street. My first ever exhibition. Crazy! I think I was sixteen.

This photo was taken in Echuca, Victoria. My Mum and I went to stay a few nights as we had some relatives that were in their last days. I don’t remember where my Mum and I were going, but we walked past this burnt down shop front and I remember just taking a quick, seemingly thoughtless snap.
When this came up in the dark room, it just stood out from all the other pictures on the roll of film. I don’t know how I have managed to hang onto this image and loose everything else. But here it is.

“Closure” 2004, from the ‘Worry Doll’ series.

Matt Coyle is an amazing artist based in Tasmania. He works in felt tip pen! I want to talk his ear off but I can only find emails to the galleries that represent his work. Boo. So I will just publicly express my admiration for his brilliant work!

For more brilliance, go to his website: mattcoyle.net

For you lucky ducks in Melbourne, he has an exhibition from the 13th October – 13th November, at Anna Pappas Gallery.’The Shades: New Drawings and Prints’.
2 – 4 Carlton St, Prahran, Victoria, 3181.

Enjoy!

I try and clean my computer up every so often. Sorting out my art folder is the most time consuming, but I always find a little bit of gold.
In 2007- 2008 Gene and I had a small business called “I Like Things”. We had a studio in Fitzroy, Melbourne where we would just stay up all hours sewing, drawing, printing.. It was such a creative time in our lives. We had just formed our relationship and didn’t really see anyone else. (We would also go for very late night coffees of Brunswick Street or cook ‘breakfast dinners’.. Yum!.)
It was an amazing studio/ home. It used to be a funeral home. We had a studio, recording studio, theatre, heaps of bedrooms up stairs. In fact recently it was featured on a Melbourne blog about Fitzroy, called Fitzroyalty. The article can be found here: From Undertaker to Home

Anyway, I found some images that we created in that time and I thought I’d share. This was of a time when I was just obsessed with cartoons, comics and bunnys. (And now I am obsessed with etchings, zombies and squirrels) I am pretty sure I did the first two images in 2006.

I first drew this one in a tiny water colour sketchbook using pen and ink. At the time I was doing a lot of images like this, of a very small size to put into box frames. I did one before this called “Miss Josephine”, but I didn’t take a photo of it.. I regret that. She had little wire flowers I attempted to make with fake pearls. I hope it has a good home and isn’t in a bin. (That’s the risk you take with birthday presents and weak friendships.)
Anyway, Handbag Critters was and still remains to be Gene’s favorite image. I spent over a year doing others, but he always loved this one. The girls I used were mostly from the Fruits books. I really loved Japanese fashion at the time.

Whisker Wars is also from the same little crappy sketch book. I have her on a t-shirt too. We used to screen print t-shirts, make bags and badges. It was a fun hobby.

This is one of my favorite images from the later series we did. I can’t remember the full title of this one!

We also used to have a website. Gene designed it, as he designed my current site and our good friend Bron Bron made the magic happen and put both of them online.
Here’s the homepage:

I did this when I took a year off form University. It was a good experience. It taught me what I do and don’t want to be doing. I also got time to just really get to know the most amazing man in my life, Gene Bear. x

Seeing the Sally Mann exhibition in London the other day got me thinking about my biggest influences. As a drawer, they’re still isn’t much in terms of prominent drawers to look up to, so I find myself influenced by artists who work in different media. Printmaking and photography are forms of art I tend to look for inspiration from more than, say, painting or sculpture. I can admit here that painting is really something I took up in high school, and later on in university, as an act to try and be taken more seriously as an artist. While I do enjoy painting (sometimes) it is not where my true interest really lays. Painting is still held in more regard than any other form of art and I think that is quite unfortunate and outdated.
As I have mentioned in a previous post, my technique has changed once again. I am building works up with different layers of line and tone and it has really started me thinking about etching. Printmaking is something I was always told to pursue, but I have only done a few short courses in it over time. Looking at my work now, I regret that I haven’t taken printmaking more seriously, but by the same token, I am not sure I would have found myself where I am now with my technique.
While Sally Mann is my favorite in the photography world, William Hogarth is my favorite in the printmaking world. My Mother had books on him and I remember when I was little looking through these books and while not really understanding the subject matter, I was really drawn to how much was going on in each print. I now appreciate his work for both the imagery and the subject matter. Being out in London on a Saturday night last year, I couldn’t believe how true his social commentary still rang. Only, it’s not Gin now, it’s Ale.. Or beer.. Or some kind of yeasty gassy thing that has a different name but it is still pretty shite and has a similar effect.
‘Gin Lane’ is one of my favorite images, and it comes with attached with a little poem..

Gin, cursed Fiend, with Fury fraught,
Makes human Race a Prey.
It enters by a deadly Draught
And steals our Life away.

Virtue and Truth, driv’n to Despair
Its Rage compells to fly,
But cherishes with hellish Care
Theft, Murder, Perjury.

Damned Cup! that on the Vitals preys
That liquid Fire contains,
Which Madness to the heart conveys,
And rolls it thro’ the Veins

I’m still drawing away on a new image, but with this new technique it takes a lot longer to draw now. But that’s ok. I like all the work that goes into it. As I keep saying, drawing has a cathartic effect for me, and while I am still on the mend, it’s good for me now.

I was first introduced to Sally Mann’s work when I was sixteen, by my photography teacher at the time. I remember it clearly as it really struck a chord with my class; a group of self conscious teenagers looking at images with nudity. Sounds silly as I type this, but I really do remember my classmates being uncomfortable. I remember finding the work fascinating, but I couldn’t really voice how I felt as I knew that I would have been ridiculed.
The series of work that we were shown, Immediate Family (1984 – 94), is one of the most beautiful body of works I have ever seen. The almost ghostly images of children in their own space, a very beautiful otherworldly space to someone like me, playing or acting in front of the camera. It is so raw, but almost fantastical at the same time.
I got to see some of the works from this series yesterday at London’s Photographers Gallery, which are hosting Sally Mann’s first solo exhibition in the UK, titled “The Family and The Land.” It’s on until the 19th of September.
There are also some works from her other series, Deep South (1996 – 98), which are breath taking. What Remains (2000-04), are startling images dealing with death and human remains and Faces, another series of portraits of her children.
Sally Mann is definitely one of my favorite artists of all time and it was so amazing to have the opportunity to see her work.

If birth has taught me anything, it’s that people have way too many ideas about how birth should be, rather than dealing with the way birth really is. I believe that no part of any woman’s birth should be treated as an isolated incident. The whole case needs to be looked at to see how certain things panned out the way they have, in order to understand them. For example, (some people) seem to think that the rate of cesarean births is alarming, or how many women do not breast feed their children. And some of these people think that these statistics are too high.. But according to what?
I think the death rate of women giving birth, or birth related complications, used to be quite high.

While being pregnant, I felt that statistics were jammed down my throat. This amount of women do this, this amount of women do that.. I’m not a statistic. Those women are not statistics. Why am I not being spoken to as if this was my own personal case?

My birth went very wrong. But I am beginning to wonder wether it could have gone a bit better. The whole experience left me utterly shattered for a while there.
My whole experience with midwives has been nothing but awful. My first midwife was never there, which resulted in me seeing a different midwife almost every time. Then she eventually just left. Some of the midwives I saw were ok, and some where very unprofessional. So I had no one keeping an eye on me. Those who did see me, were not familiar with my case at all. A nurse said to me when I was first pregnant that I would be kept an eye on as it was my first (and last) baby and that I was pretty small. They’d need to make sure the baby wasn’t too big. this never happened though. Why not?
I hated pregnancy enough, it was difficult, I felt sick all the time, but the worst was the last few weeks. I just got so big, it felt like my skin was tearing. I also got a different midwife in this time.
I went a week over my due date, before my waters broke around 4am on Saturday morning. Of course, when we called the hospital we got “So you think your waters broke”.. Yes, I’m pretty damn sure lady.
I was always told to call an ambulance if my waters broke as the baby would be at risk of infection. However, they sounded pretty casual and wanted me to stay at home until the contractions became regular.
Contractions started at 6am ish and they were pretty manageable. After a few hours I became a bit unsure and wanted to go to the hospital.
I got an unsure student midwife then, they examined me and I was only two centimeters and sent me home.
See, they have this thing here where they believe it to be better for the woman to be at home as long as she can as it will help labour progress faster.
Sure, for some people.
I got home and pretty soon the contractions became unmanageable. We went back and I was in agony. I got given pethidine. Which as a pain killer, is overrated. It just made me feel really, really wasted but I could still feel it all.
I don’t know how long this went on for. I was put in a birth pool to try and help ease the pain, but it didn’t.
By this time, midwives had changed shifts. I got a lady who I couldn’t even see her face as I was in so much pain. She gave me a second injection of pethidine, I threw up on her.
I told her the pain was still really bad.. Or maybe screamed it.. I asked for an epidural. She examined me but I had not progressed far enough.. I told her that I didn’t care.. I was not handling it.
She did go up and speak to the consultants, and I was taken off the midwife unit up to the consultant led unit (yes!) They had decided to give it to me as I was going to be induced in a few hours anyway, the contractions were not consistent enough.
Anyway, the doctor who administered the epidural was lovely. And the epidural, fucking amazing. I had always been so scared of an epidural.. Spinal injections, the risks, yadda yadda. But the pain I was in made me overcome all hesitations.
I then began to get to know the midwife, she was really good. I did end up throwing up on her again though.
I was hooked up on a machine to monitor the babies heart beat and my contractions. Also a drip to induce my baby.
It must have been a long time as shifts changed again.
I also went through this lady’s shift as well. Towards the end of it though, baby had moved down far enough for me to begin to push. I could still feel some things as I was meant to be able to feel when to push.
And push I did.
I pushed for over and hour and my baby was not coming. I’m not really sure what happened at this point.. The room filled up with various staff members..I know they did a maneuver to try and encourage her out.
(I later found out through Gene, that they had worked out at this point that she had not turned properly, so her head was resting on one part of my pelvis, and that is why I was in so much pain, her shoulders also got stuck)
They used forceps, which felt awful. The tugging was so painful. At this point I was also extremely hot and really beginning to feel that I was just not going to get through it. I just wanted to die.
(And later I was to find out, from Gene, that my temperature and heart rate had spiked)
At some point, a rather large baby was placed on my tummy. I remember feeling so stunned. She didn’t make much noise or movements. So she was taken away from me to receive some assistance. (I’m still not sure what any of it meant or how much assistance she needed.)
The doctor who had delivered my baby was still working on me. She was working on stitching up a rather large episiotomy, she said some things to me but I just can’t remember what. And who would at this point?
I had major blood loss to. I went down to 8.5, they do transfusions at 8.. That was icky to know. However, they didn’t work it out until the moved the bed and found all the blood.

Anyway. That was just the birth. There is a whole week of a fucking awful experience at the hospital. Which I am still trying to sort out in my head. I have been offered a debriefing session with some of the people involved with Anja’s delivery, which I plan to organize soon. But there are so many things that surround this that I am really not sure wether I received a good enough level of care. I also felt that no one knew what to really do with me when I was in labour. That was really scary. These peoples livelihood focus on birth, if they had no idea what to do with me, then who does?? I am also confused as to why no one sat down with me to explain what happened and why. I know this will probably happen at the debriefing session, but why do I have to ask for that kind of information, it should be volunteered to me!
Various midwives that I have had to deal with find it odd that I was never offered a cesarean. I find that there is too much inconsistency with the information and opinions I get. I also found out today that the hospital I gave birth in (The Heath hospital) have a high rate of forceps delivery over emergency cesarean. (When they deliver using forceps they usually have to do an episiotomy, which is a very difficult wound to have!)
This gets me thinking, why? Is it to keep their rates down? Is this all about statistics, and I just fell victim to some god awful trend? As the ideas on how to give birth and how to raise babies seem to be dramatically effected by trends.
I never wanted a cesarean, the idea terrifies me. However, looking at how things went, maybe it would have been better. It still would have hurt and been not the ideal experience. But the pros I see in it far outweigh the cons we went through. Anja wouldn’t have been so badly bruised (and therefor she may have not been jaundiced), Anja also wouldn’t have got an infection (from being inside even though the waters had broken for a very long time).
I’m not sure. Very unsure. I try to get advice, but I still seem to get conflicting opinions. I just know that I feel extremely unhappy about how things went.

One of the midwives said to me when I was in the recovery ward, “Well, she was worth it”. I’m not sure that was a really good thing to say at that point. But thanks, lady who clearly has never had a baby.