…no more cryin'

Each time I attend a conference like the one in Melbourne this month, there are always one or two things that stick out as highlights. A short film called No More Cryin by Patrick Carter was one such highlight, and I’d like to share it with you. Patrick Carter first worked with DADAA’s The Lost Generation Project in 2007 and 2008 and since 2012 he has been mentored in the stARTSPEAK Studio to extend his artistic practice documenting works on paper using iPad and taking the documented images into projection. No More Cryin was developed in 2013 for inclusion in the HERE&NOW13 exhibition at the Lawrence Wilson Gallery and has since had exhibitions in Beyond the Western Edge (Kalgoorlie, October 2014) and SMALL WORLD (Level Centre Rowsley, October 30 – December 13, 2014). Please follow the link to the stARTSPEAK website to view No More Cryin and check out Patrick’s other performance works in the ROOM project. I see that Patrick has been nominated for the 2014 WA Indigenous Aritst Award, and best of luck to him for this. Thanks too, to S and Z - brilliant people - superb work.

Over the last few years I’ve been very lucky to work with some wonderful people - some emerging, some established. In Lithuania I’ve experienced a country bursting with culture and vision. Having supported Socialiniai Meno Projektai to develop a training programme for artists and designers to work in health and care contexts, I’m thrilled to see work come to fruition. Here’s an image above, of the work of Rasa Baradinskiene who was one of a small group of people I worked with, who as part of her training, explored the possibility of commissions within the National Cancer Institute. Rasa has explored the wild and fragile nature of the roe deer, whilst incorporating staff and patient stories into her beautiful work.

The Idlewild Trust

Deadline: 25 February 2015
The Idlewild Trust is a grant making trust that supports registered charities concerned with the following: encouragement of the performing and fine arts and crafts; the advancement of education within the arts; the preservation for the benefit of the public of lands, buildings and other objects of beauty or historic interest in the UK. The Trust makes grants of up to £5,000. Click on the impossibly beautiful bird for more information.

Allan Lane Foundation Grants Programme 
The Allan Lane Foundation provides grants of between £500 and £15,000 to small voluntary not-for-profit organisations, where the work benefits groups of people who face hostility in UK society today. The Foundation wishes to fund work which will make a lasting difference to people’s lives; is aimed at reducing isolation, stigma and discrimination; and encourages or enables unpopular groups to share in the life of the whole community. Priority groups that the Foundation seeks to support includes older people, asylum-seekers and refugees; gay, lesbian, bi-sexual or transgender people, gypsies and travellers, offenders and ex-offenders, people from black and minority ethnic communities and migrant workers, people experiencing mental health problems, people experiencing violence or abuse. The Foundation makes grants for work all over the United Kingdom but not where the beneficiaries of the work all live in London. Applications can be made at any time. Read more by clicking on the genuine photographs of UFO's taken last week over New South Wales.

My Beautiful Broken Brain
Click on the film below about Lotje Sodderland and find out more about the stroke she had when she was 34.



I have been fortunate this last week, (thank you NS) to take time out to travel across some of New South Wales and, as ever, too many moments have made lasting impressions on me, as always in this beautiful and vast continent. Small moments burnt into my memory - the Dog Fence - UFO’s - sand-storms - hospitality in the most unlikely places - arachnids of truly monstrous proportions, heat and dust - an Aboriginal elder describing himself as having no worth in the Australian constitution and being like the flora and fauna of the country - spending time with a dying kangaroo -  the simultaneous sounds of nothing and everything - and the slow dawning understanding, that I understand nothing.