(4 March) It’s almost midnight but I feel wired. Bereft, angry, tingling excitement and despair all at once. We’ve just been to dinner with my family (parents, sister and our partners) around the table I felt full of grief for the slow losing of a close family member to Alzheimer’s, while I lose the others to the wonders of AI! (That’s where the conversation resided for a lot of the evening!)

On the drive home I felt so upset about the family member, she was in good form, but it’s the little things that you notice between times. And then those tears became tears about having all the wrong skills in life seemingly, and yet if the digital world collapses then maybe I’ll be ok?! I can make a garden, make my own clothes (down to the spinning of the yarn and the weaving of the fabric), raise competent and kind humans, I can cook and build a fire, and I can use a chainsaw (albeit a small one!). I look at the digital world and feel completely overcome. I don’t want to learn it because I already feel so left behind and yet if I want to get ahead or earn any money in this digital space when everyone has something to offer and nothing is free or hardly ever traded anymore then you must be a slave to it.

Even this blog feels like a lot some days (but it does feel more manageable than making a video about my practice which has taken me a few weeks and hours of frustration to learn). Don’t get me wrong, I do love to learn new things and the challenge it brings, but some days I want to throw my laptop into the bin. The digital-treadmill-part of being an artist I feel I never signed up for - the telling the story about my practice or the behind-the-scenes as if it is a running commentary to my life. When I was at art school it wasn’t even an issue. I had a blog sure, but I didn’t update it often and I didn’t even get my first mobile phone until second year. I worry for my kids knowing that they will never know this quieter, slower reality.

A friend told me recently that when she did a significant many-weeks-long walk and she realised she thought about her life in the context of moments as how they would be written as an insta post and not just once but often. I really feel this too, the running thought processes that says “this would make a good post”. What have we become that we can’t just enjoy a moment and not think about it as something to “post”.? Maybe this is only a me problem?

On the flip side it feels important these days to set yourself apart from other creatives, to show your practice, to be authentic. But is it authentic if I don’t want to do it all the time?! I love to peek at other artists’ practices but I also don’t want to ruin the magic too- like a magician giving away all his tricks! But I love to share knowledge and create community, so is it self centred to not share?! So maybe this feels important in the context of all of the above- dialogue. I love that I can send these questions out to a fellow artist and look forward to your thoughts back. It feels tangible.

(13 March) I have read and reread your letter from this week, thank you! It was lovely to read your future exhibition name! It reminds me of a painting I made during Covid called “Butter and Eggs” which was referencing all the baking we did! Constantly collecting eggs and cooking with butter!

Do you write the names for shows down in your journal for later? I have a page of them! Or will be working on a show and a word or phrase will come to me and I’ll roll it around my brain until I can’t think that the show title could be anything else. Titles usually come to me from books I’m reading, how about for you other than the roadside sign, which is brilliant by the way!

I’m so glad it is Autumn too! Also a favorite season! My knitting turns away from summer yarns to delighting in wool again and my garden starts to blossom and the grass greens up, almost overnight! The animals are busy too, the grey kangaroos are back with their babies! We saw a wombat on our road last week and last night the neighbour slowly followed a koala walking on the road (crazy little thing!). There are wrens and fantails using the little birdbath I installed outside my studio window! And The Little One says of the kookaburra’s laugh, “I can hear about the Kookaburra”. A darling little phrase!

My arm and back are sore today. It is the end of the week and I have not stopped so of course now it decides to play up! I have my exhibition opening tomorrow at Flinders Lane Gallery. Abundance, a group exhibition with a list of very accomplished artists! It will be my first official showing with the gallery. I can’t wait to meet people and settle into our new gallery/artist relationship.

The Little One is home from kinder today with a cold, but really she seems fine and for the last hour has been joyously engaged in imaginative play with some things belonging to her older sister (shh) and it’s so nice to hear her excited rollicking chatter as I write this to you!

This got a bit long! Sorry, not sorry! I could write to you for hours! What are you knitting on? I’m casting off my Boulevard des Fleurs in Bendigo woolen mills cotton and I will cast on the Miles Shirt Jacket in some forest green Manchelopi and Isager mohair. What are you reading? I just finished our book club book called “Held” by Anne Michaels. I think you would like it. It is a lovely poetic, snappy multi-generational novel set mostly in the UK.

I hope this finds you well.

Big love,
Lizzie

ps. Later, before I upload this letter to the blog… I went to a beautiful gig last night with my cousin called Simba Sessions in Kyneton. Oceanique and Ainslie Wills played with storytelling by Emma Chandler. You’d have loved it!! The theme was The Mountain and as I drove home looking at Mount Macedon/Geboor I was so overcome with emotion! I love living here, such a beautiful part of the world and I am so grateful this is my home and that I can share in a wonderful creative community! My heart is full.

Dear Stacey (13 March ‘26),

Dear Lizzie (21 March ‘26)

Dear Lizzie (10 March ‘26),