These two large printed works, shown as part of Open Book are looking at ideas of a personal language, existing beyond words, which explains and articulates ideas the artist’s unconscious self and embodied history.

The work on the left is created by using an open copy of a very old ‘Printers and Papermakers and Board Users’ Quarterly’ from Spring of 1935, inherited from my Grandfather when he passed away. This catalogue has inspired both my colour palette and investigation into cut paper in my art process for the past 5 years. The objects sitting on top of the book are made using porcelain, pressed into two of my Nanna’s old flan moulds and then fired and glazed. Also like me, she was a woman who was grounded in an ethos of ‘make do.’

The work on the right, titled ‘Heritage’ uses an open book borrowed from this very library; ‘Colour Schemes for Old Australian Houses’ designed for owners of Victorian houses in North Fitzroy to match their heritage colours of paint to the ‘British Standards’ of the periods ranging from Colonial settlement, through the Victorian and Edwardian eras right up to the 1930’s.

The introduced objects placed on top of the open book are all collected from my walks along the  Merri Creek, which runs in front of my home and connects my area to North Fitzroy. These objects were all collected for their texture, colour and shape, much the way a Bower Bird might select- regardless of their value as ‘trash’ or ‘treasure.’

The significance of the Merri Creek to the first people of the land, the Wurundjeri-willam, is immense and constantly at the front of my mind. Traditionally and historically it was an important place for the gathering both food and meeting of clans. It is also the site of the only treaty to ever be formed with Aboriginal people in 1935 between clan leader Billibellary and John Batman. The treaty was devastatingly, later declared invalid by the Governer of NSW. I often imagine how things might be different if that Treaty still existed today.