I ended up where I am now for one or two reasons, but something happened when I was 49 that
made me look at life differently. I had never done art since I was a child. But I ended
up here, just that creative urge to come back to me. I needed to make things. I needed
to create things. I needed to live a history. I needed to live a legacy. Eventually I went
to TAFE when I found out, when I felt that I could be an artist. I didn't even know what
an artist was. I never knew an artist. I'd been to probably five galleries in my life
previously, and that was normally touristy things. Anyway, yeah, so I eventually ended
up at TAFE where I was introduced to all that was available to me, to tell me a story, to
create things. From the left TAFE as a painter, I enjoyed painting. It was relaxing. It let
me do things. I was just reintroduced to clay by a friend of mine, and I started to do it
because I'd always done mosaics. I'd always done mosaics since I got out of hospital in
1949. I decided to start making my own tiles. Eventually I decided to make a figure, a three-quarter
size figure to put in an art prize. I thought to myself, jeez, I better make a marquette.
Since then, I've been making marquettes. I ended up sticking with clay because I liked
it. I like the feeling of clay. I like working with clay. I like the sensuality. It moves.
It's forgiving, and it lets me tell my stories in a three-dimensional way. I get my ideas
from figures, from observing people. I mean, people have always interested me. I don't
particularly like them, but they interest me. Now, everyday figures, everyday people
on how they work, and how they move around, and how they interact. It interests me. It
interests me, and I'll sit in a coffee shop and listen and look. Normal people, mostly
people that you see everyday, and everyday occurrences. That's why I like this. They're
just a narrative. They tell my story. It is my story. It's all introspective. My art
is introspective. It's all got to do with me. One particular work comes to mind which
I put into Rookwood Cemetery, and it was all about a friend of mine. I've just spoken
to a friend of mine on the phone, or a friend of mine's wife, actually. She had just made
the decision to put her husband into her home. He had the brain tumor, and she had to leave
him there and walk away from her past. That was sort of very poignant. It sprang to mind
that that could happen to us all. That was one particular work. That's what I see. That
was one idea. That's where I got one of my works from, that phone call. When I was listening
to her, it was a weakness. It was not a weakness. It was a real moment for her, because she
just made that decision. To walk away. To walk away from your life. It was hard. That
was one of my works. Another one I've done now is the work I've just finished, the green
pot with the red figures. Again, it's about what's happening in my body at present. There's
something funny going on. The red figures, this part, I made the red to stand out from
the green so that they jumped out. I didn't want them to be part of the work. They're
a foreign body, and I love that sort of work. That's what I do. It's what I think
about. It's what I feel. One of the big things about creating art, probably the big thing,
is the friends I've made. What else have they introduced me to? I was introduced to opera
by one of my friends, which got me into the drama of opera, the love, sex, death. I did
a work based on Tosca, where Tosca is straddling, scarpier. They've just had sex. He's got
the freedom of passage for Cara Radossi in her hand. She pulls out a knife and stabs
him. I love that sort of drama. That was one of my works. I've moved on a bit since then
into more observational, more personal works again, I guess. This little figure I'm working
on now is one of my refugees from reality. The inspiration, or the idea, or the inspiration
you want to call it that, come from TV, and that stream of refugees walking through Europe,
leaving one hell for another. I looked at that, and I thought, geez, look at that. That
led me to Gates of Hell, and again, hell. This was my next work. I want to do as many
as I can within the next couple of months, and hopefully I'll get into an art prize I've
got in mind. Yeah, I've got no exhibitions planned at this stage. I just keep working
because that's what I've got to do. I've just got to keep making stuff to leave. I just
want to leave a footprint. I want to leave a legacy.
