Hits of 2017

My Mum encouraged me to reflect on the year, which has offered many opportunities for the pursuit and development of creative endeavours.

The year opened with a resolution to write a haiku poem each day, a practise that I've maintained and published on my Whimsy blog. In hindsight I can see this decision contributed to the development of an exhibition in Narrandera.

In January I saw my video projections on Wagga Wagga City Council Chambers. It was the second piece I've developed for them and greatly improved from attending a workshop with Yandell Walton they'd run in 2016.

In March I acquitted my second CASP project with a series of workshops at Griffith Pioneer Park Museum's annual Action Day.

In April I was accepted onto the Western Riverina Arts Board and it's great to continue my relationship with the organisation, which began in 2009 when I wrote a letter supporting its establishment and continued when I worked as Project and Communications Officer.

In June I began an international collaboration with UK-based Naviar Records, with a series of workshops to encourage haiku poems for the Crossing Streams exhibition. It wasn't a good start as no one attended but I was able to generate almost a couple of dozen haiku with five of these being distributed by Naviar and also the Disquiet Junto, generating around five hours of original recordings.

This year I continued contributing to Cyclic Defrost and interviewed both Marco from Naviar and Marc from Disquiet, which were opportunities to learn about them and their work. I really appreciate and admire the creative prompts they share, as well as like writing for Cyclic for the platform it provides for my investigations.



The most popular video I uploaded to Youtube this year was the song above that was made from a toy that has survived my three children.

The Crossing Streams exhibition wasn't the first I've curated but was the first time I'd organised an opening, which generated some anxiety but ended up being a great experience. I am grateful for the support of Kelly Leonard, who ran a workshop and brought an exhibition to the other room in the Narrandera Arts and Community Centre, and also to Peita Vincent and Greg Pritchard for their contributions and workshops.

One of the surprising outcomes this year was a recording I made at Poison Waterholes Creek in response to Peita's haiku. The idea to have the wind play my guitar came from an earlier collaboration with Garlo Jo when he sought contributions to his Vent de Guitares website.

My recording at the site was going to be part of Crossing Streams but didn't end up in the exhibition. It did appear in the Land. Home. Country. exhibition at Griffith Regional Art Gallery, who invited me to talk about it at an event, as well as being part of the soundtrack to Nomad Films' contribution to the ABC's Createability series.



2017 has been a good year. I recorded over 100 videos and you can see snippets from 60 of them in one minute above. I also shared a mix of my recordings from 2016 on Cyclic Defrost and now wonder if I should attempt this again.

One regret is that I still haven't started compiling new albums of music. I have a lot of material to draw on but need to commit to revisiting it.

I have some ambitious ideas for 2018 but, until then, all the best to you.