THE DUST | Spring 2021

Dust is dancing in the space
A dog and bird are far away
The sun comes up and down each day
Light and shadow change the walls
The river flows out to the sea

Love
Don’t go away
Come back this way
Come back and stay
Forever and Ever

The World Spins


I have been reflecting on this notion, these words as my thoughts constantly return to my mother.

This sense that she has just left the room, and I keep expecting her to return. That everywhere I look she is there. That suddenly there is so much to share with her. That somehow I need to traverse the great unknowable divide to hold her again.

Intermingled thoughts of Mum are very much entangled with a sense of impermanence, of how fleeting even such a full life can be, of how we are all just visitors here, and that the one constant is the land. The Dust. This dust which gets compressed over time to make the hardest stone. Yet can so quickly become dust again under human hands.

I have been thinking of Mum in Italy, and the associations that brings, which led me to Marble, and its significance in capturing time. I was thinking of travelling along the west coast and looking up at the incredible marble quarries near Carrera, etched out of the steep hillsides and the sheer imposing scale of the stone; epic and beautiful.

I was thinking of my home, and how I feel most at peace in bare feet with my toes in the sandy dust of our Australian landscape. The stone around my Sydney home is so different to Italy, yet also so beautiful.

All of these concepts have come together as I explored Gosford Quarries unique sites, Piles creek and Wondabyne. Now very much a symbol of Man’s use of the land, but at a manageable scale. NSW Gosford quarry’s produce some of the highest quality sandstone in the world using sustainable methods. It is unique in its composition and that it is close to the surface to excavate.
I am captivated by the idea that this stone is 250 million years old has been used to build some of Australia’s most significant structures.

Straddling this meeting of the natural world with the industrial is at the core of my work. Finding my inspiration and reverence for nature, and my own creative process that is technical and manufactured.

This question of time, of permanence and transience is at the essence of my new collection. A sense of balancing history with newness. Of classical form with modern fabric. A collection of sandy tones, and jewel like highlights, of subtle textures and the drapery carved in classic marble.

As I think about the stone that will endure well beyond our own time, I realise that the natural stone from Wondabyne was used for the spire of St Marys Cathedral, which I stood looking at a few weeks ago at my mothers funeral, marvelling at the architecture, thinking of the infinite….