Picture: Ian Kemp

Christine Nordenadler

Canary in the Mine?

Mixed media
60cm x 93cm

>> With a background in psychology and pastoral care, Christine’s artworks provide an avenue of exploration and reflection in her transition from mentor to student – dealing with personal trauma and subsequent disability.
Her multi-media works come from that inner place where she strives to be alert to every epiphany of the inner beauty of things. Hence she likes to repurpose materials and incorporate elements with marks of trace and hidden stories.

Artist statement for “Canary in the Mine?”:

Mother Earth is living with disability, profoundly impacted by the creative evolution of Homo sapiens. Industrial, social, technological revolutions hurtle along the treadmill of the human timeline. The whole world groans with the weightiness of it; and the canary flutters its warming, fragile as a feather on the breath of God.

The space of hope

by Heather Whitford Roche

Constrained in pods of discontent, half formed, half lived and sorrowed
In vivid grabs within subconscious space they play, some coherent, some not, and yet,
they share a space within our soul

In dreaming-time they dance their memory tricks and push the edges of the mind
Small spaces that impede our human form, the scars, the woundedness, the fears,
the injustices of the past

Enclosed in waking-time they fade,
Consciousness re-claims the flowing channels of the mind
The space–the big space of our lives, hope and clarity hold out

Listen to Heather’s story:
 

>> Heather writes fiction and non-fiction. Her debut novel, Finding Eliza was published in April 2018. She produces short stories, occasional poetry, book reviews and writes a regular blog. Heather lives in Ballarat.

Online: heatherwhitfordroche.com
 
Christine’s response to Heather’s text:
I am delighted that Heather has found “the space of hope” in my work! She has sensitively probed the question posed in my title and like that feather on the breath of God, her words trace out the labyrinthine passages of our route to weathering the future.
 

A poster by Brooke Forrest for text by Heather Whitford Roche