Tell us about your creative process. What drives your practice?

I have always loved art, and the need to create has always felt quite natural to me. My practice is in general driven by curiosity, my curiosity in people, relationships, experience, memories. All the things that make up a life. More specifically I am interested in the impact the passing of time has on a life. In recent years, I have been exploring the process of ageing both physically and mentally in my work. This largely stemmed from spending a lot of time with elderly relatives and observing how their bodies and minds began to betray them. I find the physicality of ageing extremely interesting to observe. A glimpse into the future.

What’s your experience of printmaking in high school art curriculum? Have you found that your own art making and print practice has influenced your teaching?

I work in a public school, so already our resources and facilities are quite limited. We are also limited for safety reasons, teenagers and acid baths are not always a good mix. Despite these limitations I have still been able to teach monoprinting, lino printing and drypoint etching with the resources we do have, which includes a very old, very dodgy press. But a dodgy press is still better than no press.

I think that it definitely has. The beautiful thing about teaching art is that I get to experiment with different mediums with the students. However whenever we get to do a unit of Printmaking I do become very enthusiastic about the beauty of print.  

How has COVID-19 affected your teaching and/or personal practice, and in what ways have you adapted to work with everything going on?

COVID-19 has meant that I have spent 7 weeks so far working from home. Cutting out travel time, social interactions and the daily tasks that I would be doing at school (e.g loading and unpacking kilns, cleaning up after students and setting up supplies) has left me with so much more energy to create. I haven’t really been making for any purpose in particular. Energetically I have just felt a desire to make something each day, that I haven’t really felt since starting full time work. It’s like that feeling you get when you’re a kid and the first thing you want to do when you wake up is draw or paint or build a giant dog-dolphin wearing a tutu with play-doh. I’m really enjoying the slower pace of life that comes with isolation. Working from home has opened up new space in my day for creativity.

Are there any female printmakers | artists that influence you?

I love Australian Artist Barbara Hanrahan. I spend a lot of time revisiting her work.

Finally, what exciting projects are you working on at the moment?

I’m not working with a lot of direction at the moment. I keep getting ideas in my head, I then sketch them out in my art journal before I start to carve into lino. I’m usually interested in representing people in distorted and slightly alien forms. But lately I have been working with a lot of imagery of the home and domestic life. I recently moved house and it forced me to reassess what possessions were actually of value to me. This process has conjured up a lot of memories. I have been exploring the way we associate objects with people. The relationships that we have with our “Stuff” and our “Space”.