Studio Threads // Djilba
A bimonthly update
I’m a little late with my update this Djilba season. July has been quite a month, heavy with appointments, scans, and procedures. By last week, I was feeling so low, my days consumed by medical appointments, and on the rare days I had off, I ended up lying in bed, too exhausted to think. It’s not just my body under strain, it’s my sense of self, my art, my very being.
On 14 July, one of my favourite poets, Andrea Gibson, passed away. I’ve been letting my tears fall — sometimes lightly, sometimes in uncontrollable waves. People sometimes call it “ugly crying,” but I don’t believe tears are ever ugly. From Andrea’s words, I have learned how to live with an open heart while living with cancer, and how to let love outweigh fear.
Andrea Gibson was diagnosed with ovarian cancer the year after my first breast cancer diagnosis in 2020. I discovered them through the Style Like U What’s Underneath series on YouTube. Their video, How Cancer Transformed My Crushing Anxiety Into Boundless Bliss, is one I recommend to anyone and everyone. And while you’re there, watch some of their spoken word poems, if you haven’t heard them before be ready to feel it all. Perhaps begin here, When Death Came to Visit.
One of the honours of last month was speaking at the Perth Institute of Contemporary Arts alongside Jenn Garland, as part of the Hatched: Knowledge Sharing Sessions on Accessibility for Contemporary Artists. It’s been 21 years since I was selected for Hatched 2004, so it felt deeply meaningful to return and give back to a program that shaped my early career. Hatched was genuinely a springboard into the “grown-up” arts world for me.
The discussion was such an important one and it felt like 45 mins was much too short so I’ve decided to create a three-part Substack series on Inclusive Practices for Contemporary Artists and Arts Workers. Watch this space — I’m currently working on the first post and hope to share it soon. If you want me to cover anything specific please comment below.
As I mentioned in my last Studio Threads update, I’m still learning to embrace “crip time,” a term coined by Alison Kafer, who writes that crip time means: “rather than bend disabled bodies and minds to meet the clock, crip time bends the clock to meet disabled bodies and minds.” And with that spirit please expect my posts to come regularly irregular!
And here is what’s on this season…
Exhibitions and Events
Vancouver Arts Centre Artist Residency
When: 25 August - 21 September
Where: Vancouver Arts Centre, 85 Vancouver Street, Albany WA
I’m looking forward to getting down south for a residency with the City of Albany’s Vancouver Arts Centre. I’ll be there for a month, continuing the What The Birds Told Me project. It will be my second residency there, and it will be lovely to reconnect with this stunning coastal place. Let me know if you’re in Albany and would like to do a studio visit.
Artists: Laura Sikes, Sophie G. Nixon, Jade Lawless, Rose Fetwadjieff, Chris De Sira and Claire B. Bushby
When: 6 - 14 September, 10:00 am - 4:00 pm daily
Opening Night: Friday, 5 September, 6:30 - 8:00 pm
Where: Atwell House and Gallery, 586 Canning Hwy, Alfred Cove WA
Entry: Free
PLAYSPACE celebrates play as a vital component to both art and life. Play has a role in creative processes, emotional expression, and problem solving, which strengthens interpersonal connections, offers joy and healing, and builds trust.
This exhibition features artists at different stages in their careers. Each contribution explores a unique artistic investigation into play developed through solo and group session.
Exploring childhood games, curiosity and wonder, materiality, experimentation, investigating the unknown, and making as a process. PLAYSPACE highlights exploration, imagination, curiosity, and most of all, fun.
Recent Vibes
🎧 Listening // Audiobook The Comfort of Crows: A Backyard Year written and read by Margaret Renkle. A tender meditation on the small miracles that mark the turning of the year, and the quiet heartbreaks that come with watching them change. Renkl writes with a deep attentiveness that makes you want to linger longer in your own backyard, listening for what is vanishing and loving what remains. I’ve been listening to this most nights before I sleep and it’s also been inspiring me to write in my backyard more.
👀 Looking // Artwork The Tabletop Series by Fran Callen is both a record and a rhythm — drawings made in fleeting moments between cups of tea, children’s spills, and the passing of everyday objects across the kitchen table. Each work becomes a layered chronicle of domestic rituals, where motherhood and art-making fold into one another until they are inseparable.
Reflective Prompts
This is just a little invitation to use these questions in your personal journaling and share in the comments if you’re feeling it.
How do you carry the influence of those who have shaped your life or creative practice, even after they are gone?
Where in your everyday environment — your backyard, your neighbourhood, your kitchen table — do you find reminders of beauty or resilience?
What rhythms of the natural world mirror the pace or patterns of your own life right now?