Sunday Blog 217 – 11th January 2025
Can it be two years since you left us Dawn? When I checked the date of my last post about you it was indeed written two years ago. I’d attended your funeral that very week, and was trying to sum up how I felt about you as a human.
Life has a way of flowing on, and flowing on, and here we are. Two years after your death, a retrospective exhibition of your work spearheaded by your son is on all until 26th January for those of us lucky enough to live in Perth.
There was an Opening Night crush. Of course there was. We lined up waiting for the door to open, the queue slowly growing outside Moore and Moores. Then we filed in to see your artwork.
Just past the reception desk there was a big white board where we were invited to write about what gave us joy.
I accepted the invitation and scrawled that writing, being creative, and loving people gave me joy. I cried a little. Walked about the exhibitions. Looked close at your pencil marks and brush strokes and images and words.
To see all your artwork in one room was overwhelming. And not just your works large and small, sketchbooks and drawings. Your old post box you painted, and the plants you nurtured in your East Fremantle garden. I felt you every where.
So many of the images are friends from calendars or prints or art classes or visits to your home. There were real-life friends from your courses, workshops and retreats, and we hugged and some of us cried. (Well, especially me.)
Today I went back in the quiet after Opening Night and before long I was crying again. At once so much artwork and not enough. Because you gave so much of your time to teaching people like me, and that cut into your time to create artworks.
Around 2012 I first went to one of your classes seeking permission to be creative. Actually, I thought I was signing up for an art class. Turns out, you were there to help me wriggle through the fence of self-doubt and learn to gallop through the endless paddock of creativity.
Dawnie, you always brought so much joy and fun to your classes. And your artworks are sublime. Thank you again. You were a one-off.
