“As soon as I finished Year 12 I took off and moved to Melbourne to do a Bachelor of Arts and start my own life. That move was a huge turning point. Going to uni, I enjoyed independence and in true postmodern 90’s style, totally deconstructed my upbringing and found my own tribe of people. I also got to connect with my Dad on my own terms, not through my Mum’s lens. He inspired me to pursue film. We would watch a lot of interesting, obscure films together on his couch and I absorbed his artistic sensibility for film as a medium of poetic expression. He was giving up drinking so we had a bonding time there and we had a good 25 years of Dad sober before we lost him. Of course doing an Arts degree you don’t always come out with a job. You have to create your own work. I always felt like I was a writer and thought I’d become a journalist, but after uni, my mind was open to other forms of creative expression.
After studying, I travelled through Europe and based myself in London, squatting with some friends from Melbourne in a punk, traveller, rave scene partying pretty hard. I reclaimed my birth name Karenza and connected with my Dad’s English / Welsh heritage. Travelling solo, hitching around Europe and then exploring India I found a resilient, strong person inside myself and realised I could face any obstacle that came my way. (Especially wearing my favourite red, doc martin boots!) I took heaps of photos and wrote everything I was doing in my journal. When I returned to Australia I got right into photography and that led into film and through that I did a Post Grad in Film and TV back in Brisbane.
Coming back from overseas, in that space, I got really, really sick. I was in my late 20’s and the trip to India led to a nasty virus that attacked my immune system. That led to getting Diabetes Type 1.
I nearly died, and in hospital I made a choice to get super healthy and look after myself properly. It was a big transition learning how to live with that.
I thought, this city life’s not doing it for me and I knew I had to get out of Melbourne. I left my girlfriend and moved back to live with Mum for a little while on the community. I must have been really sick (laughs). Then I moved to Brisbane to study Chinese Medicine and massage and got right into making my body and mind strong.
Then in 2003 I met the person I knew I wanted to make a life with. I knew very early on that he was the one I was looking for, a trust in someone I’d never experienced before. I’d been working in Brisbane for 5 years in the film and tv industry, but was finding the stress of city life was building up again and I wasn’t enjoying the work there anymore. He had 3 children already who lived in Maleny so I left Brisbane to move back to the Sunshine Coast and start a life and a family with him. We had our daughter there and raised her in a rainforest treehouse that we built, looking out over a little creek for her first 4 years. She’s 13 now. The three of us do everything together. We are a team. It’s been a really healing time, this family time. We’ve been together 17 years now.
Having a baby also connected me to my mum in a new way and brought us closer together, healing our fraught relationship a lot. Becoming a mum has been a major highlight of my life. My daughter inspires me and brings me so much joy. Her childhood has been so different to mine. She gets everything she needs and gets to follow her interests. As a result she is a balanced, self-contained and loving human. She makes parenting easy.
We would always come down here to the Byron area for holidays and knew this was somewhere we’d love to live one day. So we moved to Lismore 9 years ago and as my daughter started school, I was ready to go back to my creative life. I always thought Tafe was some place I could work one day because it has a film department. I went and did a refresher course to get my skills up again and got my mojo back. I got funding with Screenworks the next year to make my first short documentary, Tilly’s Symphony. The next year I did another short doc, Making Waves. Screenworks have been the best thing for me in this regional area. They’ve supported me so much in getting the confidence to call myself a filmmaker. I’m currently attempting to write a feature, drama screenplay based on some of my own story. Along with filmmaking projects, I also work as an educator, teaching film skills within the local community.
I also teach Yoga at a few places in town, yoga keeps me centred and content. I taught Pre-Natal yoga classes for many years too which I love as I think that bonding time between mother and baby in the womb is so important. I guess it reminds me of how connected we are to our mothers, forever.
I would like to mention that my mum was a founding member of the Margi community in Maleny where the River school began. Both my sisters also helped start schools in their roles as nuns. One here in Lismore “Vistara” primary, nearly 30 years ago, which is where my daughter started school.
Dad died 5 years ago and Mum 3 years ago, both only in their 70’s. Neither of them liked going to doctors and they wouldn’t go to hospital when they were unwell. They lived their lives to the full and then found out they were really sick. Mum died from a second stroke while she was travelling in South Africa. It happened after staying up all night chanting and meditating at a yoga retreat with her Margi family there. It was quite a spiritual end to a life that she had devoted to that practice.
I love Lismore. I always remember the first Yoga class I taught here in Lismore after coming from QLD. There was an older guy with blue nail polished toes and I loved it. It just felt like everybody is accepted here and there are so many fascinating stories. I love the diversity and the land itself. We moved for the coastal region mostly. We all love the beach and Byron and we’ve just discovered Yamba now. Having Lismore as our town centre with so much culture happening, Norpa and the gallery…is great. I feel like Lismore has been good to me. It’s supported me and I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing.”
After studying, I travelled through Europe and based myself in London, squatting with some friends from Melbourne in a punk, traveller, rave scene partying pretty hard. I reclaimed my birth name Karenza and connected with my Dad’s English / Welsh heritage. Travelling solo, hitching around Europe and then exploring India I found a resilient, strong person inside myself and realised I could face any obstacle that came my way. (Especially wearing my favourite red, doc martin boots!) I took heaps of photos and wrote everything I was doing in my journal. When I returned to Australia I got right into photography and that led into film and through that I did a Post Grad in Film and TV back in Brisbane.
Coming back from overseas, in that space, I got really, really sick. I was in my late 20’s and the trip to India led to a nasty virus that attacked my immune system. That led to getting Diabetes Type 1.
I nearly died, and in hospital I made a choice to get super healthy and look after myself properly. It was a big transition learning how to live with that.
I thought, this city life’s not doing it for me and I knew I had to get out of Melbourne. I left my girlfriend and moved back to live with Mum for a little while on the community. I must have been really sick (laughs). Then I moved to Brisbane to study Chinese Medicine and massage and got right into making my body and mind strong.
Then in 2003 I met the person I knew I wanted to make a life with. I knew very early on that he was the one I was looking for, a trust in someone I’d never experienced before. I’d been working in Brisbane for 5 years in the film and tv industry, but was finding the stress of city life was building up again and I wasn’t enjoying the work there anymore. He had 3 children already who lived in Maleny so I left Brisbane to move back to the Sunshine Coast and start a life and a family with him. We had our daughter there and raised her in a rainforest treehouse that we built, looking out over a little creek for her first 4 years. She’s 13 now. The three of us do everything together. We are a team. It’s been a really healing time, this family time. We’ve been together 17 years now.
Having a baby also connected me to my mum in a new way and brought us closer together, healing our fraught relationship a lot. Becoming a mum has been a major highlight of my life. My daughter inspires me and brings me so much joy. Her childhood has been so different to mine. She gets everything she needs and gets to follow her interests. As a result she is a balanced, self-contained and loving human. She makes parenting easy.
We would always come down here to the Byron area for holidays and knew this was somewhere we’d love to live one day. So we moved to Lismore 9 years ago and as my daughter started school, I was ready to go back to my creative life. I always thought Tafe was some place I could work one day because it has a film department. I went and did a refresher course to get my skills up again and got my mojo back. I got funding with Screenworks the next year to make my first short documentary, Tilly’s Symphony. The next year I did another short doc, Making Waves. Screenworks have been the best thing for me in this regional area. They’ve supported me so much in getting the confidence to call myself a filmmaker. I’m currently attempting to write a feature, drama screenplay based on some of my own story. Along with filmmaking projects, I also work as an educator, teaching film skills within the local community.
I also teach Yoga at a few places in town, yoga keeps me centred and content. I taught Pre-Natal yoga classes for many years too which I love as I think that bonding time between mother and baby in the womb is so important. I guess it reminds me of how connected we are to our mothers, forever.
I would like to mention that my mum was a founding member of the Margi community in Maleny where the River school began. Both my sisters also helped start schools in their roles as nuns. One here in Lismore “Vistara” primary, nearly 30 years ago, which is where my daughter started school.
Dad died 5 years ago and Mum 3 years ago, both only in their 70’s. Neither of them liked going to doctors and they wouldn’t go to hospital when they were unwell. They lived their lives to the full and then found out they were really sick. Mum died from a second stroke while she was travelling in South Africa. It happened after staying up all night chanting and meditating at a yoga retreat with her Margi family there. It was quite a spiritual end to a life that she had devoted to that practice.
I love Lismore. I always remember the first Yoga class I taught here in Lismore after coming from QLD. There was an older guy with blue nail polished toes and I loved it. It just felt like everybody is accepted here and there are so many fascinating stories. I love the diversity and the land itself. We moved for the coastal region mostly. We all love the beach and Byron and we’ve just discovered Yamba now. Having Lismore as our town centre with so much culture happening, Norpa and the gallery…is great. I feel like Lismore has been good to me. It’s supported me and I’m doing exactly what I want to be doing.”