The plans for my studio were approved by the council in May and now it is September and work is only just starting to happen. Patience isn’t one of my strong points and the frustration of not being able to do some serious work has been making me a tad gloomy.

But!!! Now that work has started I am hoping that with everything crossed, fingers, toes, etc that I might be in my studio by Christmas.

This is the site, it is nearly ready for the concreter to come up and work his magic.

For over two years my soul has been stained by the colours of cancer and grief and I stopped seeing.

It has been a long journey and now slowly the light is seeping in under the cracks.

Making the film for my teacher Glen Dunn has helped me start to see again. In the beginning I whispered to myself  that I didn’t have time to do the project justice, but in truth it was because I was afraid that I would make something grey and then I would know that I had truly lost the light. I had to force myself to look at things again, to watch as the greyness began to separate into light and shade.

As an Artist I am often afraid so I come here to my blog for solace and comfort, for applause and affirmation that what I do has meaning.

Thank you my dear earthlings for making me feel that what I do has some worth.

The next four photos are of  work by Tasmanian Artist Linden Langdon, photographed by me.

The female wedgetail eagle is a larger bird than the male of the species and the darker the feathers the older the bird.

This still doesn’t help me identify the sex of this lovely eagle that has been visiting me but I do like to gather and share snippets of useful information as well as interesting links like this one,  Raptor and Wild life Refuge

I also like to help other people tell their stories. So if you are here reading this because I offered to help you in some way please be assured that my offer was genuine. Send me an email or leave me a comment and we can work out a plan.

I am always astounded that people are interested in what I do. I keep on waiting for someone to tell me that I am stupid and useless (thanks Dad) and that what I am doing is a ridiculous waste of time but people never do. They smile when I talk and they ask me questions about my work and let me waffle on about dead albatrosses, ethical food production and dragons eggs.

I have passion in abundance. I am passionate about my work, my family, life in general and thanks to Ernesto Sirolli my newest guru I know that I am on the right track.

It was amazing to listen to a passionate speaker like Ernesto Sirolli confirm what I truly believed, that if you are doing what you love, the money will follow.

I have always told my children to do what they love and to worry about the money later and a small part of me has often wondered if I had been doing them a disservice. I look at my daughter doing what she loves passionately and I know that although her path is difficult she is happy. Once my son starts to follow his passion I know that he will be happy as well, it is just a bit hard for him at the moment because he is such a gifted child that all his teachers want him to excel in their chosen field and that is a lot of pressure for a sixteen year old to carry.

I have so many stories to tell and so little time in which to do it. So stay tuned my dear bloglings I have come back from Junction 2010 with so much energy and renewed passion that it could be dangerous.

Here are some photos from my weekend away, just mouse over the photos to get the titles.

I stopped on the side of the Midlands highway just outside of Campbell town yesterday to talk to my daughter Veronica on the phone. As usual most of our conversation was about the apple of my eye, my grand daughter Amy and Aspergers.I took this photo as the trucks were roaring past my window, shaking the car and shaking me.

I am here in Launceston for the Junction 2010 Regional Arts Conference and Festival. I have been sent up here as a delegate for the Greater Green Ponds branch of Tas Regional Arts. This is an amazing opportunity for me to network and meet other artists and arts workers. My focus this weekend is the  role of Arts in health and the Arts and disengaged youth.

The fact that my gorgeous girl most probably has Aspergers has made me determined to pick the brains of every Artist working with children like Amy. I am going to be very busy this weekend.

I have been going for a walk each morning, (well the last two mornings anyway.) I have put on a lot of weight this past year, comfort eating and losing my teeth combined with a general malaise regarding food preparation have seen me slip into some lazy eating habits.

I had been too busy to exercise or too tired in the evenings when I get home. But now with spring just around the corner it is light enough in the mornings that I can go for a walk before the morning mayhem begins.

For new readers of this blog I am not really about to indulge in a bit of fish assisted homicide, for even though he is very grumpy I am rather fond of  The Spouse.

I am talking about the film I said I was going to make during my creative concept development class.

I have discovered that there is a little bit more to making a film than grabbing a video camera, shooting some vision and sticking it all together in a watchable format.

I have discovered that the practice vision that I shot will suddenly take on a life of  its own and demand to be shown as a short film instead.

I have discovered that I really, really enjoy film making. My poor Nikon still camera has been slightly neglected in favour of a second hand video camera and I have been hoovering up vision left, right and centre.

Yesterday we all had to present our work to our teacher Glen Dunn and our colleagues. I wasn’t prepared for how nervous I felt presenting my short film to my class. I am cheerful, outgoing, opinionated, wisecracking and flippant. I am also intensely private which is a bit of a contradiction as I am a gregarious show off with theatrical tendencies. I rarely get nervous, stressed yes, nervous no.

My ceramic work is what it is.

All my emotional energy goes into the clay and afterwards I am drained. Even though my artist statements are usually quite emotional, my inner thoughts aren’t really out there on display next to my pots.

With this first film I made I was giving people a glimpse into myself. I was really sharing what I see in an unambiguous manner and I think that I was so nervous because I really wanted people to like what I had done. As opposed to my ceramic work where I just want people to respond to my work and I am not really fussed whether people like the work or not.

I am sure that I will get over it though and soon my film work will be the same as my ceramic work, where the response is enough, but it was interesting to analyse my feelings towards this first film.

Anyhow enough babble. I have uploaded the film to Vimeo. This is the first draft, is that the right terminology? Do films have drafts or edits?

This is the first version of my first film. Drive.

I am interested in what you think about it.

Drive from Kim Foale on Vimeo.

Sometimes I read a post written by my daughter and it breaks my heart because the pain in her words is the only clue that I have to the pain in her heart.

Other times I will read a post written by Veronica and I know that it was written purely to get the words out of her head, to give a tiny glimpse into how difficult parts of her life are.

Amy is an exceedingly difficult and tempestuous child to parent. She stretches and challenges every single one of Veronica’s parenting skills every single moment of every day.

It is very nearly impossible to get Amy to do something that she doesn’t want to. It isn’t because she is naughty or because she has pulled the wool over her mothers eyes.It certainly isn’t because Veronica is lacking some vital parenting skill. It is because Amy is so focused on doing what she wants to do in that moment, that nothing else registers. Some of the parenting advice that Veronica receives makes me shake my head and roll my eyes with frustration.

I have impeccable parenting skills. My ability to get small and not so small children to behave is legendary. I am also very good with dogs and horses. But with my grand daughter Amy I am at a loss. So I don’t bother with traditional discipline at all. We skirt issues and avoid situations and I use distraction as my main tool.

We do the same things every single time Amy comes to visit. We check for eggs, then together we cook Amy an egg.  We paint a picture or two, play with some clay, watch a bit of telly together or read some books and then we go outside and throw the ball for the dog.

When Amy was still eating gluten we would do all these things at a frenetic pace and at the end of her visit the house would be trashed and I would be exhausted. Minus the gluten we are still very busy together and Amy isn’t quite so exhausting.

Veronica and I have been talking about Aspergers and Amy, we have been talking about how there is a very real possibility that Amy has Aspergers. Now that the A word is out in the open I can look at Amy’s behaviour with fresh eyes. Veronica and I are noticing more and more things that Amy does and more importantly we are noticing things that Amy doesn’t do.

So the next time you see a small child running amok in the supermarket or having a tantrum in the middle of a shopping centre don’t be so quick to judge, to shake your head, to glare at the obviously incompetent parent. And as for the whispered advice that all the child needs is a bit of discipline, a good smack will fix her.You can keep that under your hat as well.