February: Celebrating 300 posts and 6 years of blogging

 

 Above: This was the image that went out with that first post!

Probably lucky I didn’t scare everybody off permanently.

It was a Saturday afternoon in late February 2006 when my first blog post was published.
My friend Claire (who just over 12 months ago finally launched her own blog, Doing What Matters) convinced me that perhaps I had something of interest to say.
Claire and I share a love of art and art-making, and we both believe firmly in the power of art to heal and to nourish us as human beings. Claire works as an art therapist and there was a time, before the existence of this blog, when I hoped to make that my life’s work too. When I moved to Melbourne in 2003, my plan was to study Art Therapy at La Trobe University. Although I had ME/CFS, at that time I was much improved, and it seemed a possibility.


 Installation view from the exhibition I had in Brisbane just before moving to Melbourne.

The gains I had made were only temporary, and it was soon obvious that I wasn’t energetic enough to undertake such a demanding full-time course of study. So, being in a new and exciting city which offered a range of institutions, I looked into the possibility of studying art in a university environment. And the rest is history, as they say. (In case you don’t know, I eventually completed my MFA from RMIT University).
Those first steps into the blogosphere were rather tentative, at times erratic and mis-directed, but my impulse to equate art and health remains strong.
I re-read that first post today with interest. Personally, I have a need to create regularly or I can feel the tension building inside me. I become ungrounded, irritable, anxious and eventually depressed. It’s not pretty! I guess these all sound like mental health symptoms in the jargon of the day, but I also see it as a question of the heart (not to be confused with cardiac), soul or dare I say “spirit”.
Whatever term you prefer, the bottom line is that creativity and art are essential in a healthy life. With the help of this little blog I hope to spread a little of the joy of art around.

A Give-Away
 

 Yes, this pic is *somehow* related to the Give-Away

So to celebrate 300 posts and 6 years of blogging, I’m offering a give-away to everyone who comments here before my next post (make sure I can find an email to ask for your address). When will the next post be? Well, who knows? I certainly don’t! That’s one of the rules I have for myself about blogging. No pressure! There are very few areas of my life where I allow myself a little leeway, but blogging is one.
As my friend Cusp likes to describe it:




So, leave a comment if you’d like to receive a little something from me in the mail. What will it be? Well that would be telling, wouldn’t it?