Issue 2 (2025)
"This world can hurt you, It cuts you deep and leaves a scar, Things fall apart, but nothing breaks like a heart."
Another week another heartbreak.
Something I havn’t really spoken about, not in great detail at least, is that at the end of 2024 I separated from a long-term partner of 8 years. We had a dog and a house together and had been through a lot. I was heartbroken and I really struggled for several months - untangling my life from his, moving house, storing so much furniture, books, art and junk at my poor parents place in Bendigo and moving into my best friend’s place. Leaving my dog behind and a relationship where I was unhappy, but working hard inside of. I still miss that life and version of me, I miss my whippet terribly and I miss my ex, sometimes, in strange little ways. He is a good but troubled young man and I love him. It is too complex to succinctly convey. I wish him the best.
Before we separated I had secretly commissioned a painting for him by a local artist Carmel Cosgrove - a special round wooden painting of the area we lived in - Kororoit Creek - where I used to walk the dog every day and sit by the creek asking the universe to protect us. This painting is now hanging in the hallway of the place I’m living now as a chaotic, beautiful and painful reminder of a world that continuously flies further and further away from me.
When we had first moved in together I commissioned Aaron Billings to paint a painting for him (which I now stare at everyday propped up on a shelf at the end of my bed in ym current dwellings) in the mythical neo-folk style, as is Billings. He painted a large green, onion-headed, well-endowed, ogre-figure man holding a smaller alien-genitaled, multi-faced garlic-headed boy holding a torch in a barren landscape, a castle tower dilapidating in the background, a small key buried beneath them and a stormy dark-blue sky above. It doesn’t seem like a good omen, in retrospect.
I am turning 37 this year and it feels like yesterday I was a bright-eyed and naive 18 year old from Bendigo moving to Melbourne with nothing, just a dream to be an artist. The world was before me and everything seemed possible, doable and alive.
Over the last few months I had started dating a guy who, it appears now in retrospect, love-bombed me, didn’t listen to my requests to “go slowly” and eventually asked too much from what I could possibly give right now. We broke up over the last weekend after a frenetic few months of holiday cabin weekends away, beach trips, parties and delusional and short-sighted declarations of love and imprudent possible marriage (something I don’t believe in, but had foolishly convinced myself that perhaps I did.)
This person was sweet, gentle, giving but ultimately very, very troubled.
I let myself, at the expense of doing some difficult healing inner-work, get swept away with feeling good for a short moment.
I don’t know why I’m writing this, perhaps it’s the first effort to heal from multiple men who have treated me poorly, attempted to steal my spark , or perhaps its a way to understand where I am and what I’m feeling now, at this age, with everything I know and am now. Regardless, I can’t help but feel a new connection to this vibrant and aggressive painting; a sickly ultra-hued disordered pastiche of worlds that only exist fragmented as broken image-memories.
I have been trying to make more TikTok’s (why? Who knows, ugh) possibly to get more of my work out there and showcase more of the video work I am doing now too.
I took some new self-portraits recently in an attempt to feel better and so I would like to share them with you now in video format accompanied by “Hit Me Where It Hurts” by Caroline Polachek as a backing track.
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Best photography gig for the month:
The Victoria Street Richmond Photo Walk I ran was a lovely turnout and a great afternoon. 15 people came and despite the cold we had a great afternoon and finished up with drinks at The Leadbeater.
What’s coming up?
The universe is quite funny, if not cruel, and I guess I am hard at learning lessons.
Last year my ex and I broke up almost immediately after I had taken him on a cruise to Vanuatu for his birthday and blown up my bank account affording it. And now, the guy I had been dating recently pushed me to buy flights to Tasmania for his birthday, we break up a fortnight before the trip -so ’m going on that trip alone (as the flights were non-refundable.) Maybe I’m an idiot?
I will be having a strange solo trip to Tasmania, landing in Devonport then taking a 5 hour bus to Hobart (via Launceston) and then spending a few days in Hobart by myself. I have booked myself a boujie little retreat and luckily on the Saturday night I’m there there’s a queer party happening which will be fun to go to, but oh my gosh what is WRONG with me.
Perhaps some time alone will be a remedy that I need.
I’m also in Newcastle for work on an exciting project for the City of Newcastle next Monday - Thursday which will be a good experience and a good gig. It will be good to be busy and preoccupied.
Anyway, that’s me for the month. Good luck out there - it’s chaos.
How do you get by? I am tired of turning to wine and cigarettes, but nothing numbs the feeling like a chemical.
”Feels like I've been living in a dream,
But never make it to the end,
My eyes open when they feel the light,
It's always right before I'm about to scream.
No one stays the same,
You know what goes up must come down,
Change is a thing you can count on”
Issue 2 photo of the month
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