Chapter 8 of The Artist’s Way focuses on building creative confidence and the ability to stand up for the artistic self.
Paper Trails and Magically Mundane Moments
It’s been an uneventful week. No travel. No gigs. Nothing extraordinary. But full of small delights, nonetheless.
Abundance Sprouts in Time, Space and Paddocks
Chapter 6 of The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron is about abundance. It explores the relationship between creativity and money (recognising that abundance is also time, space and support), challenges the "starving artist" archetype, and encourages us to embrace small luxuries as creative nourishment. This week, I’ve been blessed with all in so many ways.
Week 5: A Love Letter to Creativity, Possibility, and PJ Harvey
Chapter 5 of The Artist’s Way is titled "Recovering a Sense of Possibility." It discusses how we are often limited by our own false assumptions—believing creativity is only for the talented, or that it’s too late for us. But Cameron urges us to challenge these limitations and open ourselves to possibility.
Week 4: Turn up the Reverb
There is something magical and transformative about making music with friends. At various times, we’ve each had our run-ins with challenging times, but as soon as we start playing, all that stuff seems to fade away.
Week 3: Surfing Joy in a Cyclone
I thought I’d capitalise on a clever little segue to spin the oncoming cyclone into this series about The Artist’s Way via a conversation I had with a friend recently.
Week 2: Attention & Capacity for Delight
Chapter 2 of The Artist’s Way is titled: ‘Recovering a Sense of Identity’, with the first section titled Going Sane! In a world preoccupied with profit and productivity, creativity and art can feel like a frivolous luxury; maybe even a waste of time.
Week 1: Guitar Affirmations & Creativity Portals
Chapter 1 of The Artist’s Way: Feeling safe to explore creativity (self confidence and inner belief), guitar affirmations, creativity portals and inspirations.
The Artist's Way - 12 Weeks of Creative Recalibration
Wander through 12 weeks of The Artist’s Way with me!
wisdom from the garden
About 10 years ago I started a thing called Harvest Swap. A gathering to swap homegrown / homemade / excess things. There are no rules, no money changes hands and the unit of exchange is honesty.
Carnarvon Great Walk: Trees, Trail and Thunderstorms
I spent a week offline walking in the forest and it was gooooooood. A few weeks back I did the Carnarvon Great Walk with my fast walking fella and a couple of friends.
dear dad, instead of socks and hankies I made you this...
It’s your 45th Father’s Day! That’s a lot of socks and hankies so this year I wrote you a letter...
inner journey
Even when we can’t leave the country, the state or even our house, we can explore our inner world and hopefully all become less selfish and more insightful, compassionate and tender too.
disaster, zimbabwe
There were two buses to choose from, both equally clapped out and brimming with luggage and livestock. As we sat like sardines inside one of them, waiting for departure, we had a last minute change of heart.
salt, flamingos and cocaine
Uyuni is a dusty little Bolivian outpost, high up in the Andes Altiplano. Although it is around 3600 metres above sea level and cold, it reminded me of scenes from old spaghetti westerns - wide half-deserted streets surrounded by barren plains stretching to rocky mountain ranges on the horizon.
a story from la frontera
A few short days earlier I had never been anywhere outside of Australia. Now I was stuck at the Argentinian border, in the middle of the night, surrounded by people speaking a language I did not understand.
all roads lead to dot's house
We ride along the track, mostly used by escaped sheep, a few meters in from the fence line. We canter and giggle and grab fistfuls of wattle blossom as we go and throw it at each other like confetti, until we reach the "Top Gate" – which leads from the bush down through a couple of paddocks to Dot’s House.
not so far from home
Our number one favourite summertime holiday spot was the very swish sounding Lake Eildon Country Club. It was only a couple of hours from home but it felt so far away. The nights were always hot and we were pretty much always sunburnt. But we didn’t care, it was summer and we were on holidays.
mafia, mangoes and mosquitos
After almost 40 hours on a series of crappy buses from Dar es Salaam, we were very happy to finally arrive in Malawi. Except that we still had a wad of Tanzanian notes that nobody wanted.
climbing kili
We must have seemed like absolute cowboys. Everyone else seemed to have ‘the gear’. We on the other hand had mostly packed for the desert and the tropics, and had done zero training to climb Africa's highest mountain.