Shannon, Cathryn and I decided that our theme and title for Fringe 2011 would be Trilogy: 3 Artists, 3 Stories. My focus (and it could be said my art therapy) was 'Trilogy of Trauma', thus working through my grief with the loss of my Grandmother, then my Father and then the shock and pain of my accident and facing the potential loss of the use of my right hand and arm in life and art. Part of my artist's statement read as this:...2010 for me has been about loss, enormous grief and pain, of endings, of fracture, falling, fear, fragmenting, of breaking, and nightmares. Out of all this I've been making my art, even if it's been with my left hand. I need to make art to survive, to keep going, to keep living. The images that have been appearing in my art are: falling, fragmented girls, mermaids with no arms, many tears, and animals or humans trying to rescue or protect, or cocoon, and feel safe. The express the need when grieving or wounded to curl up, to cocoon one's self, to hide, to shut down. The Thylacine or Tasmanian Tiger has also been appearing in my work. I lived in Tassie for 8 years and I realised the Thylacine is a good symbol to represent someone we have lost, who has become extinct, and who we grieve for.
It was very difficult to create this very personal, carthartic work but it has been helping me through the darkness to find my way to the light again.
I felt like I was going mad not being able to draw or stitch so I ordered an emboidery frame on the internet (you rest your embroidery frame on it and it can sit on your lap or a table and it doesn't have to be held) and taught myself to hand embroider with my left hand. The hand embroidery 'I'm Blue' above is completely stitched by my left, non-dominant hand. It now feels totally normal to stitch that way and you can't tell the difference between a piece that I've embroidered with my right or left hand. Above are also two detail photos of it - one was taken while it was in progress and the other is taken from the back.
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