Country Arts Step Up grant

In July 2021 I was given the opportunity to be mentored by Julie Blyfield. Julie is an internationally recognised artist with a wealth of experience and is a fantastic practitioner.

This mentorship has given me confidence and a better understanding of my abilities and role as an artist. I feel more embedded in my work – whereas previously I may have sometimes felt an outsider looking in now I am more central, more focussed, more at ease with the role.

I am self-taught. This has advantages. I may be less bound by traditional approaches to making. This does not equate to bad studio practices – I have read and asked and googled a lot of information along the way to ensure the work I make is good quality.

The disadvantages are that I have spent many years building my craft in isolation without the touchstones of peer assessment that comes through schooling. So this mentorship has been of enormous benefit to me. It has placed me amongst other artists and given me the courage to consider myself an artist.

For this I thank Julie Blyfield and Country Arts SA.

This project was made possible by the Australian Government’s Regional Arts Fund, which supports the arts in regional and remote Australia.