Posting with posterous on Pelican- Cape York

I am off on a Pelican project and most of my posting is at this point through the active expedition posting site of posterous here,

but here are some photos so my good old blog doesn't feel quite so neglected...

Conferences, conferences, conferences---

Leonie Sheedy presenting at SNAICC conference



IPMEN delegates with Fijian school children at Taqage District school.

I have just been through a bit of a presenting binge starting with the Healthy Parks Healthy People Inaugural Congress in Melbourne, then IPMEN conference in Fiji and finally SNAICC conference in Alice Springs.

The three conferences managed to cover topics ranging from Parks Management, community engagement in both management and study of Marine parks, marine science (particularly water quality), sharing knowledge about Caring for Sea Country, Traditional Knowledge and social justice issues.

I am not quite sure how I have got myself entangled in these terrific themes. I think my job description must certainly be Generalist by now. The years of studying fine art, putting brush to paper or canvas and always feeling a deep uncertainty about my Art stuff has resulted in me branching out a little.

Perhaps it is also due to being the child of a young colonial nation with Ancient underpinnings which have called me from any path I could have predicted within my particular framework of schooling and social environment. Just goes to show what can happen if you have an open mind.

But it also means that the path is not smooth on a personal level. I now move with more surety in the world, feeling that what I am doing is the best way to respond to the incredibly complex times that we live in. And that I am blessed to be able to have the freedom to work in the way I do and learn.

I sometimes wish that the illumination and determination I feel in relation to my actual work could be translated into certainty around some of the major painful issues in my life. My heart is becoming a strange soldier, standing on guard, watchful.

Caterpillar dreaming

Grandmother's gaze

My grandmother as a child, in an unknown backyard with unknown woman.




Self portrait by my grandmother, Shirley Nicholas.

I am lucky to possess quite a few things that have been passed down from my grandmother (Mum's mum) to me. Some are books that I treasure but most are photographs and film. These two pictures have held a real fascination for me as they both seem to articulate the mystery of self. I look at them now and see my grandmother as a young girl and woman and wonder who she is and was. The photos also have the powerful quality of trapped time and seem to offer some clues to her real identity. And yet at the same time they are held in an endless bubble of that moment, never to be repeated.

My love of photography was inspired very much by Shirley (who I called Nangy all her life as when I was introduced at a young age to say "Hello to Granny" I said "Hello Nangy" and it stuck). She was the chronicler of the family and also had a talent with the lens which has meant that many of her pictures are interesting in themselves.

Sometimes I take a photo today and wonder if my daughter's daughter would still have access to the pictures or interest.

Anyway I leave you with these pictures and hope to post more about the mysteries of image making and pay homage to more photographs of my grandmother.

Man and fish

The first time I scuba-dived,
a fish swam nearby
and oggled me,
swam a bit closer
and oggled me again.

Another darted past,
pretending not to notice.

On surfacing I realised I would never
think of fish in the same way again.

Suddenly I remembered..

...that I had a blog.
Scanning old pictures of mine and thinking my obsessions or interests really haven't changed much.
I have only really changed what I am doing.

So here are some cartoonish sketches from the time when I used to sketch a lot.

Tangles

Easter is upon us again though it was only Christmas yesterday. My daughter was born on an Easter Sunday eight years ago and has just had her birthday and tomorrow is Easter Sunday. I travelled with my ex and daughter up to my Mum's farm to celebrate her birthday. This was a wish of my daughter as she wanted to share it with all of us in a place we love. We all obliged and as we have always managed to get on pretty well, we had a peaceful and happy celebration day.

The exercise was not totally painless as even though I instigated the split from my daughter's dad, I still find myself embroiled in many conflicting emotions when we all get together. My ex's father died only a couple of weeks ago and I was pulled back into the orbit of his family for his funeral. This began the process of revisiting old strong connections. I loved his Dad and treasure all the time in his company. I know in his way he did too and also that he was upset and angry when left his son. I feel guilty about the impact that this decision had on his parents and his death certainly made me feel it all the more keenly.

Interestingly my ex is moving forward now and has perhaps found someone new and I know this has exacerbated my own strange chemistry of regret and need. It is not a very pretty picture and I wish I could be freer and less tangled.

Which leads me to the pictures above.

My daughter had a rough night last night with ear pain and we ended up at a local hospital till all hours. Things have sorted today and her ears are much better. So I thought we should make a fun excursion into the wilds of my Mum's place. Her Dad has returned home so at this point it is just the three generations of female family here. So we packed some crayons and took of to explore the 'wild'.
Mum's property is really an environmental project and she has spent much energy restoring the land to original health, particularly the riparian areas along the creek. So we meandered through very tall grass and soon found ourselves in the 'wild'. As we clambered over the areas photographed above I marvelled at the writhing tangle of vines and the extraordinary mesh of left over branches and debris from a recent flood. My daughter wanted to get deeper into the 'wilds', so we stumbled and slipped and giggled our way into the tangle till there was no sky to see.

And I realized that it is all right to feel the messiness of life. Things are never perfectly ordered. We are always slipping up, losing our way and finding it in a different way.

It is hard to accept sometimes and I know I lose a lot of sleep struggling against the tangled order of things. But there it is...