I am going on an artist journey for as long as I can manage, hopefully 5-6 months, heading to NSW.

Packing for a BIG trip is no mean feat, nor is clearing out the house and setting up for a very special resident while I am gone.

I have literally gone through my 60 years and have had this massive purge and the process has been full of emotions. Excitement, nostalgia, sadness and joy!

I have a proclivity to hoard the extraneous, however there have been times in my life where I have had ‘The Big Clean Out’ and regretted throwing things away in my haste to ‘lighten up’. All my diaries from my youth for one!! But then I would have taken another week reading through them as well. There aren’t too many times in your life where you really go through allllllll your belongings and scrutinise their value for the now or for the future and it’s really a task that takes time. A lot of time!

All the little treasures, keepsakes and portraits of my daughters, Lani, Imo and Tilly. Dusting them off and reframing some before packing them into boxes! The tears have flowed as I look at the years and years and years of their growth. I love them so much; it could have been yesterday when they were 5, 8 and 10 years old.

My grandma kept all my letters that date back to the mid seventies. WHAT a laugh!! All my views and experiences right there in black and white. A lot of the letters are from my days in England and written on very thin airmail paper or that paper that is also the envelope. I’ve written so small I can hardly read it. Economical??? I don’t know how my dear Grandmother went; she would have needed a magnifying glass.

The studio has been a Pandora’s box! Working out what to take was crazy hard, so I have basically packed everything. Oils, inks, acrylics, charcoal, pastels, watercolours, canvas, boards, paper, sketchbooks and printmaking stuff.... Man, I’m going to have some fun!!!

Then my neighbour took a look at a little drawing design I made for carrying boards and has made this amazing little drying box come rack. I can paint in oils and not worry about the drying time. It holds 6 boards @ 80 X 30cm so I can rotate them through as I do layers. They will be able to dry without the bugs, dust and dirt. Spent days preparing boards for this little manifesto and I love it!!

Check it out!!

The new Beast Toyota has the number plate CB 60 BS so I have aptly named her ‘Country Bounty @60 Bertha Star’ At least I can remember my number plate when I need. LOL

See ya round HomiesX