Sometimes an artistic concept comes to me in tiny sparks over several weeks, months, or even years. I have always collected things that elicit some sort of emotional response, objects of beauty or curiosity. Never of any monetary worth. My sister recently said of me, “Kate doesn’t really own anything of value.”
It’s true to an extent. I have things that matter to me, or that I feel will be of some use down the line. A perfect example of this is the many ice-cream containers full of broken chandeliers that have been sitting under my bed for a couple of years, just in sight, waiting for the right moment in my mind to be put to use.
Friends, this moment has arrived!
I am about to set up a beautiful installation and workshop space at Yours and Owls festival in Wollongong this weekend. I was approached by Make Space artist collective, who are an inspirational group of artists, working for other artists (particularly women) or anyone who feels that the art world is inaccessible. They have done wonders for me.
I took the brief and ran with it. I have wanted to share my workshops at festivals for a while, this seemed like the perfect opportunity.
To cut to the point that I’m trying to make, the inspiration struck me all at once.
A friend was giving away some windows, beautiful old ones. I thought of my crystals under the bed, I thought of light, and broken glass, and broken hearts. At 3am one morning, I wrote this:
Once an Accupuncturist held his hands above my heart and said, this is where something is stuck. There is a blockage, nothing can get through.
He was right. Not in the sense that there was an issue with my mechanical heart, though maybe there is? I think its all connected.
He meant that no energy could flow through because I had been storing hurt and trauma right there. Everything was affected. I couldn’t think critically, or creatively, I had no energy, I was literally a husk of myself.
Sometimes you feel a heaviness, like you cant keep dragging your poor heart around. The only way I know is to keep expressing, keep making and creating. If its going to break, let it, let it shatter into a million pieces, like glass, and it hurts, so, so much. But look how beautiful that can be!
If you let the light shine through, it makes rainbows. So let your poor heart break, dont let it close and set hard like a rock. Things get stuck that way, and it only gets heavier.
So with this vision, I presented some very average drawings, accompanied by a lot of passion and this story to my dearest Nath. His practical and mechanically sound mind has helped me bring this wild dream to life!
My cracked and glued together rainbow heart is full. x