But you do have to come back and have another Colonoscopy next year.

Inside my mind, the imaginary fist pumping and the “Fuck Yeah” thoughts are quickly replaced by the sinking feeling of, “Oh No not another colonoscopy.” *Gulps*

But it could always be much, much worse and so today I am pleased to announce that I don’t have cancer. YAY!

To celebrate my own cancer free status, I will be eating cake tomorrow at a fundraising afternoon tea at the lady Franklin Gallery in Lenah Valley.You can all come along as well and help to raise a little bit of money for the Cancer Council of Tasmania by buying some cool art and eating some cake as well.

The Rose exhibition is the brainchild of my friend, acclaimed Ceramist, Dawn Oakford.

The premise of the Rose exhibition was for invited artists to make some work in response to Picasso’s Rose period, with paintings by members of the Art Society of Tasmania and ceramics by members of the Tasmanian Ceramics Association.

This is the work that I have made and I have donated the sale price of this set to the Cancer council. So please tell your friends to go along and buy it.

I would be delighted if you could all come along to the Lady Franklin Gallery tomorrow as my guests and we can all eat cake together.

Three cheers for cake.

Today is the day my lovelies.

I am not nervous today at all which is a blessed relief. On Tuesday I was extremely nervous and  every time I thought about The Shave my chest would tighten and I would have to concentrate on my breathing until the moment of minor panic had passed.

With the ever useless gift of hindsight I can now see that it was the scheduled trip to hospital on Wednesday that was making me the most nervous, not the impending shave. Though I am having a little hyperventilate now *gulp*

Tonight at approximately 7.30 (ish) I will be shaving all my hair off.

I wont be shaving my hair off in a quiet corner of a locked bathroom somewhere, oh no that would be far too easy.

I will be shaving my hair off in the middle of a roller derby match.

How did I get here? How did I go from thinking, “Jeez I am sick to death of my fucking hair”, to “Let’s shave it all off in an arena  chocka blok full of strangers?”

I blame you.

I lay the blame squarely at your feet, internet.

It is all your fault.

You make me feel like I am ten feet tall and bullet proof.

You make me believe that I can do anything, that my harebrained schemes aren’t that harebrained after all.

Every single one of you that reads this blog, or leaves a comment, or sends me an encouraging email.

This is all your fault.

And I thank you from the very bottom of my heart.

Together we have raised over THREE THOUSAND DOLLARS and my total meter thermometer thingy, on my fundraising page is flashing and blinking and saying GOAL ACHIEVED with a shininess that hurts my eyes.

So any Hobartians out there reading this blog, you should come along to the DEC tonight, it promises to be a fun night and all proceeds go to the Leukaemia foundation. The doors open at 5pm (cash sales only though) and the first bout starts at 6.10 pm.

Scott Bacon MP will be wielding the clippers and I will lose my locks at about 7.40 pm.

Scott Bacon is the Minister for Tourism,Hospitality and Veterans Affairs and I will be sitting with him before the shave. It amuses me no end that I will have my very own hostage, I mean politician in the box with me tonight. So any questions you want asking of the local member for Denison you have about 5 hours notice to email them to me and I will engage the minister in polite conversation.

Veronica is coming along with me as my personal photographer and I hope to have some photos up on the blog tomorrow.

Thank you all so very, very much and hopefully I will see some of you at the DEC tonight.

In one weeks time I leave home to make the 325 kilometre (200 mile) road trip, up to Burnie in the North West of the state. I will be firing the kiln today and as per usual I am skating very close to the edge. One toss of the coin and all is well or all is lost. I am a gambler as well as an artist. But I am not gambling with games of chance, I am gambling with my own technical veracity and offering up a prayer to the kiln Gods at the same time. It is always all or nothing with me. I have back up work I can put in the exhibition if the firing is a disaster but the main body of work is in the kiln right now and I will not know until Sunday if it has been a success or not.

And this suits me, it suits how I work and it suits my personality.

This is the artist statement that I have decided to use, new readers can read the first draft here. I decided to go with this statement and to add the stories about the cigarette lighters and the Albatross to my canvas.

Fired up Kim Foale

My name is Kim Foale and I am a storyteller. In ages past we would have sat around the fire together and I would have woven a tale to suit the times.  In this second decade of the twenty first century my tale is one of anger, despair, inertia, and ultimately hope.

3.2 million pieces of plastic enter the world’s oceans every day and if I think too deeply about the  massive amount of plastic pollution slowly choking our oceans to death I am filled with anger and despair.

If I read the scientific data about mercury toxicity levels in seabirds, the rapidly accelerating rate of extinctions in Australia, the impact of climate change and the inertia of our leaders, I become overwhelmed  and gripped by inertia.

So I think instead of the immortal words of Samwise Gamgee in the film version of Lord of the Rings. When all looked to be lost, Samwise said, “There is always hope Mr Frodo, there is always hope.”

As an artist I take my inspiration where I can get it and I firmly believe that there is always hope.

I hope that when you look at my work and you read the story on my canvas, of the cigarette lighters and dead Albatross chicks, that you don’t walk away, but that you pick up a touchstone and decide that you can help. I hope that when you see the oiled bird bowl and the ceramic eggs that you decide to think about your own plastic consumption. I hope that when you see the photos of the plastic pollution that you will feel not despair, but determination that you can make a difference as well.

I hope that you decide as I have, that one person can save the planet.

So there you go my lovelies, I hope the Lord of the Rings reference isn’t too silly but that line in the film really did touch me. It was only a few weeks after Mum had died and David and I were having a LOTR movie marathon together, we were watching the DVD’s Mum had given Dave and when Sam told Frodo that there was always hope and they continued to climb the mountain I cried. I cried for my mum but mostly I cried for myself and for weeks afterwards I would whisper to myself in an atrocious accent, there is always hope Mr Frodo and I would just keep on putting one foot in front of the other.

Now I need to go and glaze the last few pieces and cram them into the kiln.

The edge, I am skating on it.

All you need to do is say YES.

Say Yes! I can do something about this.

Say Yes! I can help.

Say Yes! By saying No to plastic.

I know it is hard.

I know we are surrounded by the rotten stuff.

But if we each decide to stop buying one item of plastic.

Just one item.

I have said no to plastic water bottles.

So just Say Yes

And we can make a small step forward.

Say Yes to the planet and say no to unecessary plastic.

Our grandchildren are depending on us.

My very best friend Tanya, arrived on the morning of Veronica’s wedding with her car boot packed full with brightly coloured gerberas.

Gerberas are such a happy flower.

These images make me smile.

This week I am linking up with Shae from Yay for Home for her “Things I Know” weekly meme.

Which is so simple it is beautiful, all I need to do is share the things I know and link back to Shae and check out the other bloggers that are joining in.

I know that I have been meaning to join in with this meme for months now but I keep on forgetting that it is on a Friday. Time just slips through my fingers as the days race by merging into one another, and I always think I will join in next week. Next week is finally here and I dreamed about writing this post last night.

I know that the internet is full of  lovely people that come out of the ether at the perfect time and give me heart. Tim is one of these people, he sent me an email in response to my, “Cardboard has no soul” post. Tim’s simple words and beautiful photo of his cardboard sculpture cheered me up no end, after a particularly cutting comment had floored me. Tim’s email put a lid on the looming pit of depression that had been in front of me, threatening to swallow me up and I am seriously pleased that Tim spent those few minutes writing to me.

you must cram the soul back in2 the cardboard….from the lost souls of the trees,.., like a forgotten secret hidden in a shoebox deep under your bed………..

I know that an angry post blasting a bullying troll, full of swear words and written in haste will get more comments and page views than the much more important post written about dolphins being slaughtered but I don’t really know why.

I know that since my mum died I have struggled with depression but I don’t like to talk about it for fear that if Iacknowledge it, the depression will win and suck me into a pit of doom.

I know that small things make me incredibly happy and the sight of two pardalotes digging a nest into the bank, close to my front door made my chest swell with delight and I skipped around the house having little *squee* moments.

I know that depending on my mood I call myself a potter, ceramic artist or ceramist but it all means the same thing. I turn mud into art and get exceedingly messy while I am doing just that.

Thanks Shae for this opportunity to share some of the things I know

I spent my whole parenting life raising my children to be independent free thinkers. I raised my daughter, Veronica to be a strong feminist, not by quoting her tracts from Greer or De Beauvoir and hiding the razors, but by example. I tried to show my daughter that all you need to succeed in this life is determination and hard work and that no man or woman can tell you what you can or can not do within the bounds of the law.

My daughter has found her own path, she is marching to the beat of her own drum and is now raising her own strong willed daughter, Amy. The more my grand daughter grows into her personality the more I see myself reflected there and I am equally terrified and exhilarated.

As a child I fought the restraints of parental control every step of the way. Every single curb was met with a defiant why? Followed up with a detailed counter argument as to why I should be allowed to do exactly as I pleased. There was much wailing, gnashing of teeth and dramatic flouncing and I now know that I was an extremely difficult child to parent.

Primary school was the single most isolating and lonely place I had ever been forced to endure. High school was just an endless clash of wills, with the Catholics determined to teach me to submit and to accept without question the ridiculous notion of a virgin birth and the subservience of women to God’s law. I didn’t like to break the rules by walking out as overt rule breaking makes me extremely uncomfortable, so I just endlessly argued against everything instead.

I faked illness after illness to avoid going to school so that I could just stay home and read in peace all day. One faked illness went a little bit too far and at age twelve I had a perfectly good appendix removed. Of course I lapped up the attention a stay in hospital brings but unfortunately for me I didn’t have any more disposable organs, so that avenue of school avoidance was closed.

As my grand daughter grows up I hope like hell that I live for at least another twenty years to see her through the challenges she will face. And this is where Mum’s untimely death has left a huge hole in our lives. Mum related wholly to Veronica and was Veronica’s support person where as I relate wholly to Amy and I am of only minimal support to Veronica as I relate far to strongly to my grand daughter. I am forever looking to explain or question why Amy behaves the way she does instead of just giving my daughter my sympathetic ear.

In this life you just have to make the best of what you have and try to understand each others limitations.

I am pleased that the education system isn’t as rigid as it was in the seventies but I still worry that there are far too many children out there that are getting lost in the system. I know as I watch my daughter parent her two quirky children that they wont be swallowed up by the machine but I still fervently hope that I am around to throw a few spanners in the works just in case.

Last weekend I spent an amazing four days in Deloraine attending Woodfire Tas 2011. I met artists from all over Australia and overseas and my head is full of ideas. Someone also very kindly gave me a cold that has decided to settle in my chest so apologies in advance if this post is a bit rambly, as it is hard to keep a train of thought happening when I have to stop and reach for the tissues every five minutes.

I am trying to reflect on what I got out of the conference and to put it simply I received confirmation that I am on the right track. When I meet new people I am often a bit flippant and will fall back on terse one liners which often do not accurately represent me at all. By chance I was having lunch with one of the presenters at the conference and in passing I said I was too lazy to be a woodfirer, as the conversation progressed she commented that lazy wasn’t a word she would use to describe me and that I must stop using it.

I thought about her words for a bit and decided that she was right. I really need to banish those whispering ghosts once and for all.

My work  is all about economy, economy of effort, economy of resource and most importantly, economy of time.

I have a strong sense of place here in the  Tasmanian hills. I am influenced by my landscape, by drought, by early frosts, by the cold and by the heat. I need my work to reflect that sense of place.

When I am digging local clays to use in glazes I need these glazes to reflect where I am. There is no point using a clay gathered from a coastal region if I am trying to illustrate the tensions of living inland. Though it could be argued that Tasmania is so small that nowhere inland is far from the coast but that is a topic for another day.

Economy of time is of critical importance as often the ideas are fleeting and I need to make the piece all in one go. Grab the clay, make the pot, decorate the pot, put it aside and move on to the next piece.

Demonstrations and talks by Steve Williams and Graeme Wilkie helped to reinforce the ideas that had been swirling around in my head. Graeme Wilkie makes wonderful large work and he talked about working intuitively and finding the quiet space within yourself that allows the clay to direct the work.

Steve Williams says that, “To come back to a form when it has firmed and rekindle a relationship to turn and decorate is for me an ‘alien’ process”

I don’t like to come back to the work either and that is one of the reasons I have been thinking about the raw firing process, so that I only have to mess about with the pots once.

This is some of the beautiful work that was in one of the exhibitions, curated by Ben Richardson.

To finish here is another photo, I took when I was on top of  Mount Wellington. I cant see the mountain from my home here in the Southern Midlands and I fretted for a long time. Even though I can see her when I drive down the hill, it isn’t the same as looking out of your window and watching her change through out the course of the day.

As a visual artist I do my thinking in public. I am comfortable with that. A nest of ceramic eggs in a public space is the realisation of a series of thoughts as well as an invitation to you the public to join in the discourse, to participate in the public thought processes with me.

This blog is where I start the public thinking process.

A conversation that starts here on the blog as nothing more than a wisp of an idea often coalesces into something much more tangible than an abstract concept.

The simple processes of examination of my ideas and feedback from you is an invaluable tool.

I use this blog to de-clutter my mind, I take ideas out and examine them publicly and see what happens.

I also use this blog to poke at old wounds and see if they still hurt.

My father does not hurt me anymore.

The spiritual wounds received through the loss of my mother though are still incredibly painful and raw and will be for a long time.

In my life there is no one to comfort me in the same way that I was comforted by my mother. I feel as vulnerable and as lost as a child and by writing out these words on the blog I am seeking comfort.

I am also writing the words to lessen their hurt.

To publicly examine that loss and to acknowledge to myself that I am not alone.

I think I need to make something large, something to help me  work through these feelings of loss and loneliness.

I think I need to make an angel.

I have completed six weeks of my drawing class so far, eighteen hours of class time wholly dedicated to learning to draw.

My drawings have progressed from this first one where I really struggled with the lines and angles.

To this second drawing where I applied the techniques of optical measuring and and transference of angles. Which simply means I shut one eye and held a stick out in front of me and transferred the angle shown by the stick to the paper.

These next two photos are three weeks worth of drawing practice. The table was set up with one box on top of it and two boxes underneath it. Negative space was introduced, which is the space in between things. Negative space is also where I do a lot of my daydreaming. I find myself looking at objects in relation to the other objects around them, the light and tone will capture me and before I know it I have lost time again.

I am having a lot of trouble with proportion and you would not believe how absolutely tricky it is to get the proportions of the boxes correct in relation to the table. But at the same time I wouldn’t have believed how much I am enjoying the challenge of trying to get the proportion right as well.

Week five we all covered our work with conte rubbed onto a piece of rag and set out to explore light and tone using a rubber (eraser) as a drawing tool to highlight the light and a 6b piece of conte to shade in the dark.

I am now having some moments in the class where I am moving away from the white knuckle terror of drawing and I ever so fleetingly hit that sweet spot and think, Oh Yes I can do this, and then just as quickly the moment vanishes and I am left grappling with lines and angles again and everything looks very wonky.

Drawing takes a hell of a lot of concentration and I have to keep on forcing myself to concentrate on the task at hand instead of slipping off somewhere else within my mind.

As well as learning to draw, I am learning to keep a journal as part of a research project. I have always kept a written journal, which has morphed into this blog. I have never had the discipline nor the inclination to really work at keeping an organised journal of my ideas regarding my work. I have bits and pieces of ideas scattered all about the place. Scraps of paper pinned up to the wall, notes to myself stuffed into cracks in the bookshelf, thousands and thousands of photographs like these next two shots. I have bits of music saved because they remind me of ideas and my head is so crammed full all the time that I lose more ideas than I manage to keep. Hopefully the journal will help rein all those ides in and contain them in one place.

When I was thinking about writing this post this morning I looked outside at the sky and saw this cloud and thought it would be a good image to illustrate how I see things in relation to my work. I am interested in the negative space where the cloud breaks on the right hand side of the photo and there is an almost geometric pattern. There is a horse in there as well. I would like a version of this patterning around the edge of a plate.

I fiddled with the colour levels of the photo to highlight what I mean.

These are the sort of things I do. I am always looking into things and seeing things in terms of light and shade and degrees of tone and a quick trip outside in my nightie at 6 am this morning to feed the ducks stretched out into a twenty minute contemplation of clouds. Welcome to my world.

I am a keen birdwatcher, amongst other things and I remember years ago when I was watching a grey shrike thrush perched on the side of one of my frog ponds. I saw the bird and thought nah it’s only a shrike I wont bother with it, but I got up and got the binoculars anyway. I am pleased I obeyed my impulse because the little bugger was catching tadpoles and I spent an enjoyable five minutes watching him.

The lesson I learned from the bird was to always have another look, to always look deeper.

I hadn’t thought about drawing before as a tool to look deeper until I was listening to a talk given byProfesser Donald Lawrence at the Art Forum yesterday. Mr Lawrence said he uses drawing to solve a technical problem or simply to spend time really looking at something.

That quote resounded deeply with me.

I don’t know how The Spouse will feel about me spending even more time looking  at things, but at least now I have my studio and the space to do the looking in peace.