For the last couple of years I’ve been involved with an ambitious arts project called Reclaim the Void. It’s a bold cross-cultural project, born from Ngalia elders in Leonora, Western Australia, expressing their pain and grief at ‘those gaping mining holes left all over our country’. The idea was conceived to symbolically ‘seal’ one of the holes with an artwork expressing the story of country…
The Shire of Kulin recently invited me to spend a couple of days there to create their own stock library of photographs. It was a perfect time to visit with the canola brightening up the landscape, and the wildflowers starting to bloom as winter was giving way to spring…
…Whilst the membership of the Kulin Men’s Shed might be small in number, the combined knowledge and passion for the town’s history that these blokes hold more than makes up for that…
Recently returned from a writers’ residency in the Blue Mountains, award-winning poet Renee Pettitt-Schipp was in need of publicity shots to accompany her next book. We got the ‘safe’ shots around her home and then went for a walk to the inlet near her home in Denmark WA. That’s where the magic happened :-)
For many years, Hazel supported victims of domestic violence as they escaped their situation and rebuilt their lives. Nowadays, she’s focussing more on the homeless. Once thought of as a problem in the big cities, homelessness happens everywhere. In August last year, Homeless Project Denmark found there was 181 homeless people between Cosy Corner and Walpole - you can guarantee the actual figure is higher. There's a small group of legends who work hard with Hazel to make a difference but they can't do it on their own. We can all help...
These legends are all BlazeAid volunteers, who were recently working with Denmark's farmers to erect new fences after the old ones were destroyed in the February fires. Some of the vollies are locals, others have come from further afield to help out, but their presence and their hard work helped lift the spirits of those locals who've been so affected. You don’t have to be young and strong to be a part of the team…
