Phew I just arrived home after a long six hours of driving to and from the loading dock at Sydney’s Darling Harbour Convention Centre.
It has been a long journey, preparing, researching, then painting, framing and now delivering my small painting ‘Surveyors of Merauke’ into the Gallipoli Art Prize 2022. I reckon if my Dad and his mates were still alive, they would be happy to have a slice of their story during WWII caught in my painting. That’s what I love about portraiture and being a full time artist generally. It is a lovely way, if you can do it right, of honouring those we admire and most of all keeping their story alive.
I remember reading this fabulous book by Christina Baldwin ‘The Story Catchers’ and that is what I see my mission as. If you know of a good story, worth catching gosh I’d love it if you shared it with me.
Fingers crossed my ‘Surveyors of Merauke’ gets a good review by the judges. That would be a great honour, not just for me but my late father and the three other brave soldiers that lived and worked alongside him in the jungle. Lest We Forget!
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