“I used to hang around with all these people in Newtown partying and there was so much politics talked about at art school. They were all talking about their Irish Catholic heritage and I used to sit there and think, Who the F#@k are we? My sister was really starting to connect with grassroots mob around Redfern and Moree. She moved back and stayed up there for 17 years.
I met another Gomeroi man and we got into a relationship. He took me back to country for the first time and taught me so much. I had so many people asking if I was stolen generation up there. We had great trips on country which I’m really grateful for but the relationship ended badly. There was DV and it became horrific. In the end I got away and went through a very traumatic event that I’d rather not share. My mother came through at that time and I remember her massaging my hands which felt very comforting.
My whole family ended up all moving in together in this big house in Stanmore which was just ridiculous. That all imploded because my sister was out of control on Ecstasy too and we were smoking heaps of dope. The shop dissolved after 8 years, the relationship stuff with the DV and I it all just became too much. I ended up and getting advice from the Aboriginal Women’s Legal Service in Marrickville which was a fantastic service.
Eventually I was admitted into Missenden Road Psychiatric facility in a drug induced psychosis. It was terrifying because I felt like I’d lost my sanity. I still hadn’t had a drink for years but Eccy’s, smoking heaps of dope and Amphetamines caused it. I wasn’t doing heroin at that point but I had gone through periods of using heroin over the years. I’m lucky I didn’t die. I had overdosed in my school uniform years before. My sister had come over to my mother’s place that afternoon and given me a hit which I wanted. It wasn’t her fault. I shot up and woke up the next morning vomiting. I had overdosed a few times and really I’m lucky to be alive.
After being released from the psych ward and with the DV circumsatances I ended up ringing The Buttery in desperation. Because of my circumstances they fast tracked me and the next thing I was on a bus to Byron to The Buttery. I did the whole 9 month program there and then spent 3 months in their half way house in Sunrise, Byron. Years later I went back and worked at the Buttery for 5 years in the detox section as a night worker which helped to support my art practise.
I knew about the Indigenous College Gnibi at Southern Cross University run by Judy Atkinson and the work she was doing about trans and intergenerational trauma and healing. I decided to move to Lismore and enrol which was fantastic. I had already met Phil who became the father of my kids. We moved into a house in South Lismore and I fell pregnant a year later with Solomon and in 2005 when he was born we had a flood that was threatening Foleys Rd. We were evacuated so afterwards we sold the house and bought the house I’m in now in East Lismore which was a deceased Estate, really cheap and I loved it. I had Stan in 2006, I was 39 and it was full on.
All the way through rehab I was collaging and working and making art work. I’ve never stopped practising because it’s part of my healing. I did so much work when Stan was a baby as he slept really well through the day. I connected with the Aboriginal community in Bundjalung. I was uncomfortable and awkward about my own story and that has been so hard and being an addict in recovery, I’ve felt so raw and so terrified of other people’s judgement of me, therefore I’ve spent a lot of time here not engaging too much in the broader community. I did get involved in group shows and competitions. Travelling out to my ancestors country regularly and connecting with grass roots mobs, taking clay out to country and doing weaving workshops have all helped with my healing. I’ve attended many Gamilaraay women’s camps and there’s a lot of stolen generation and a lot of people like me. It’s so therapeutic.
I built this fabulous studio on my block just before Covid but unfortunately I contracted Ross River Fever and I’ve never been so sick in my life. I couldn’t walk for the first 3 months from excruciating pain and I’ve never been the same since. It’s robbed me of my spark and I’ve had Covid 3 times. I don’t have the drive I had. I’ve worked through all my stuff and I feel quite healed and integrated. I’d alway felt ‘disintegrated’. I was using that word in my early teens because that’s how I felt. I’m all for art therapy. It’s so healing.
Phil and I split up and he let me have this house. My younger brother helped me to pay him out which I’m very grateful for. I’ve been here ever since, being in my recovery, planting natives in my garden, being clean and sober. I’ve just celebrated 21 years of being totally clean and sober. I’m supporting other addicts to get clean so I’m engaged in groups where we support people who want to get clean. You can’t help people unless they want it. People are traumatised everywhere on multiple levels in Australia.
We just need the truth of our history because people are festering in our communities, black and white. A lot of non-indigenous people don’t know how severe it is. I go out and I see it and I feel gaslit living in Australia. In NSW alone a lot of people are still segregated. It’s complicated for all of us and I believe the truth will set us free.
I’ve worked really hard and I’ve been driven. There’s been a lot of opportunities. I’ve been doing the Black Arts Market at Carriageworks every year that Hetty Perkins and Jonathan Jones curated and that’s been great. Hetty invited me to be in the Indigenous Art Triennial, so every 3 years they select the cream of the crop and invite artists in to have a group exhibition at The National Gallery in Canberra. I was invited just before Covid and it was held off for a bit so I ended up making 283 burnt Banksia wall pieces and she gave me the 20 metre wall at the gallery. The NGA bought my work so that’s the biggest sale I’ve ever made and that’s now in the permanent collection at the National Gallery. That work evolved from spending a lot of time in Yaegl and Bandjalung country in the bush. The work is called Gudwahli which means burn in Gamilaraay language. It evolved after watching the regeneration of country and the Banksia specifically over 7 years after a big fire. Banksia were like family.
We know where our ancestors were born and where my Pop’s grandfather is buried on Gomeroi country. There’s a very special water hole there and so much evidence of our ancestors in the trees. They culturally modified trees. The culture is mindblowing. Our people were Scientists with deep knowledge of country and ecology and I’m in awe of them.
I’m really big on truth telling and I believe we can’t heal till the truth comes out. The perpetrators need to heal as well as the victims. I made a big ceramic wall installation for the Shepparton Art Museum in Victoria called Dig Deeper. The work comes from a cultural camp I went to out at Narran Lakes which was historically a massive gathering ground for all our tribes. When I drive around the Northern Rivers or anywhere really and see the destruction of country due to agricultural practises, it’s grief inducing. I’ve been nativising my lown little patch here over many years.
My relationship with my Mum is in a good place today. She’s been in Nimbin for years and she’s 87 now. She’s off to Vietnam so she still travels. I’ll always be in recovery and that’s my community too. I have to keep working but at a less frantic place but in a more peaceful way. I’ve just got back from Vietnam which has ignited my desire to travel more out of Australia. I don’t feel as driven as I used to and I suppose that has a lot to do with my physical health but I also feel healed in a spiritual and emotional sense. Getting older helps.”
