Inspiration I know is all around us for weaving but it does help me to go somewhere new to look at things in a fresh light. So into the glorious west of NSW we went. Our first stop was Cactusworld in Gilgandra. The owner Lester Meyers generously explained about his life’s work with the cactus. Mainly from the Americas but also from places like Madagascar. An amazing menagerie of the wackiest plants. Also a maze of natural inspiration of texture and shape.
I can just see these textures interpreted in yarn. They are dramatic and wonderful.
Next up was Lightening Ridge to see the black opal mines. Yuwaalaraay country. This is a place I would like to live. And perhaps should have thought about it when I was much younger! I don’t think I would be a good miner but the place seemed to be how we should be allowed to live and build our place on the planet. On the edge of the outback you can feel the ground calling in a sense. A deeply moving experience of a place for me. Opals are not easy to find or mine, but each miner is a small operation who seek the beauty and value of the opal left in the earth a very long time ago.
There is so much to see and feel out west. The landscape, vegetation, architecture and attitude to life change as you drive from further. Water is also a premium out there, like most places in Oz. The great Artestian water basin supplies much of it and is like a massive underground dam. At Lightening Ridge you can ‘take the waters’ in the Artestian Bore Baths at 41.5 degrees Celsius. I like to think it was a health bonanza for the body.
I wish I had learnt much more about our country and it’s extremely long geographical and human history at school. I learnt about the rivers and produce of NSW but nothing beyond that. I think there is so much I don’t know. It seems when you are younger you pretty much know everything but as I get older it comes down to knowing not much at all.
A break away into the west has ignited my quest for creating beauty and my own personal meaning in my work.
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