The Chaos of Colour/A Chrysalis Soul
Nov 22
It’s suddenly almost December. The days are warm and long and the evenings are peppered with wild storms. I have been so busy. Work has been all consuming - writing reports and organising end of year events. I have also been trying to focus on doing some paid portrait shoots. In general, I have been feeling completely snowed under.
I have this familiar unsettled feeling that comes with not having a creative project on the boil. It has been months and months since we shot The Golden Wings of Dawn. I felt as though I had to pause the project to focus on my real life - paying bills, working, going to the gym… and its exhausting and unrelenting. I have had a couple of portrait sessions in my studio last weekend, end of year reports and a student teacher in my classroom all weighing down on my time, heavy with responsibility and I have had to stop.
Yesterday I began cutting out tiny butterflies… hundreds of them. I’m still not even sure what they’re for but an idea is beginning to take form…. and I instantly feel a bit lighter.
Dec 14
Over the last few weeks, my idea has begun to take shape. I have been dreaming about this concept for months and I’ve now decided its full steam ahead. I am making a ball gown of butterflies. I have cut out more than a thousand little butterflies. The dress has been made and I am now in the process of gluing them on.
School holidays begin in a few days. I am going, as I do each year, to spend Christmas in Forster with my family. I intend to shoot the image over the holidays some time. Exciting things ahead!
* * * *
3 Feb
I’m not sure where to pick up this entry, or how. It’s February and I am certainly not where I thought I would be. Things carried on as I expected them to through out December. School finished and the holidays began, Christmas was wonderful and I spent it with my family. On New Year’s Eve I went to a friend’s farm for the night. The next day I drove home, feeling like something was off. I’d been feeling some discomfort in my right breast - nothing really alarming - not even what you would call pain. It felt a bit hot to the touch and so I made a doctors appointment for the 7th. The doctor felt it and said she couldn’t feel anything like a lump but that it did seem hot to touch. She put me on a course of antibiotics and referred me for a mammogram and ultrasound. The next available appointment was on the 20th. It was the morning of the 21st when I had a call from the doctor asking me to come in that afternoon at 4pm and discuss my results. The wait that day was awful and by the time my appointment came around I was feeling pretty stressed.
The first thing she did was to ask me how I got to my appointment and who I had bought to support me. She then told me that the scans had revealed two lesions that looked like cancer. She told me it was urgent that I get biopsies and to expect surgery soon. I walked out of her office into the waiting room. It was empty but for my daughter Marcie. I looked at her and just shook my head. The moment my life changed.
The drive home was surreal - I called mum who was waiting for me to fill her in on my results and she and dad packed the car and got on the road for the two hour journey to my place. Marcie called my brother who came straight around to meet us at my place. We sat on the deck where I drank gin and cried.
It’s now the 3rd of February and tomorrow I go in for my biopsies. It has been the longest and hardest two weeks of my life and tomorrow won’t be a reprieve. I have started back at work and each day I am just putting one foot in front of the other trying to move forward. Mum and dad are still at my place helping with everything they can. Some nights I just don’t sleep. Last night I dreamt of catching weird broken fish and having biopsies. I’m terrified of the procedure tomorrow, but am more terrified of getting the results.
The day before my mammogram, I finished the second image from the butterfly shoot. I sat proudly at my computer awash with the warm feeling of accomplishment that comes from realising a vision that has been an obsession for months. I shot the image at my parents’ house after Christmas, raiding their garden for leaves and flowers. I had always intended for my beautiful little neice Erika to be my model so the cards all fell into place during the Christmas holidays. I ended up with over a thousand paper butterflies to build the dress with - it was absolutely magical… everything I had envisioned. I wanted to tell the story of a girl who is part of nature and has control of the elements around her - using the butterflies to adorn her dress. The image represents working with and being a part of the world around us - be it the good or the bad. It’s now that I am sitting here thinking about how much I am at the mercy of nature that the significance of the image has shifted. This image is about finding positivity in our surroundings and using it to blossom and grow. I know there is a message in that for me but I’m struggling to find peace with it at the moment.
I feel a bit stuck. Having had just finished the butterfly image and with a new school year beginning I had not begun my next project. I am finding it really hard to begin something new but I am also needing a creative outlet more than I have ever needed one in my whole life. It’s hard not to let the dark thoughts creep in - the ones where I may not have a future - but I really need to change that mind set.
