I hope I don't get nervous if you're [recording] …

Don't worry, you'll forget about it in about 10 seconds.

Yeah, all right.

So I grew up in the Jewish area of Caulfield.

None of my family were artists, and they're all atheists,

and they were all pharmacists.

But from the age of 14, I knew I wanted to be an artist.

Yeah. And I met at that stage a young girl who was painting. Her mother had suicided. And I saw for the first time how therapeutic art could be in releasing what was going on emotionally.

I've never been interested in teaching art therapy, nor did I ever see any of my projects as being art therapy.

But there's no doubt when you're with a group of young people for a long period of time, you process all sorts of things with them.

My main goal with young people was to stretch them emotionally and culturally and to get them to go back and find a link with their culture

that fed them on a level that was different to what they were being exposed to.

And that sounds quite common nowadays, but in my day,

there weren't people working with kids about their cultural background.

When I worked in Oakley, I worked with 150 different nationalities.

It's just extraordinary to think there were that many living in that area.

And so I devised a project around there that looked at the history of their culture

and then got them to try and contemporise their feelings around that too.

So there's a sort of running through all my work with communities

has always been a spiritual, emotional content or motivation.

Whether we were centering on a specific idea

or whether we were centering on something

that the community themselves wanted to do,

somehow I was able to bring them around to the mind and the body

and the connection between the mind and the body.

That was my goal.

And this was even before I was really in the depths of being a meditator

because I lived on and off in ashrams and things like that.

So the book starts with just my life as a kid growing up in St Kilda.

And I realised when I was writing the book

that one of the reasons I became a public artist

is that I had spent most of my time at Luna Park every weekend.

I would go to Luna Park.

And what have you got at Luna Park?

You've got free art and art that's really joyous,

art full of colour and smiling faces and movement and sound.

And it was so kinesthetic for a child and so exciting.

and but I don't think I consciously realized for years

that that's what actually had influenced me as an artist

but it had because I always wanted to make big works

and I always wanted the works to touch someone's soul,

not their head, not their political mind, but their soul.

So this whole beginning of the book talks about that influence.

And so when I went to art school, I was doing, without even realising why,

but because from when I was 18 years old,

I believed that everything was to do with moving energy.

like and in those days I was reading six-dimensional time and things on nuclear

science and things it just didn't exist for kids in my day it wasn't you know

you were either a rocker or a jazzer in my day you know you were defined by pop culture really

Yeah. And so I started doing these sculptures that were large and were mazes.

And that's one of the first things I did at art school at 18.

Why that was happening, I don't know.

But it is interesting that whatever you do is an output of your own psyche,

even if you're not conscious about it.

Yeah. So then my first husband, we both went to the National Gallery Art School.

He was a very well-known sculptor.

So this was the 10 years when we were teaching and we developed that course at the tertiary orientation year course

that was based on vernacular architecture.

It had never been done before and we linked with what was then called Preston Tech, which I think now is Bundura TAFE now.

And so we took the students back into the history of Australia and we taught them how to make mud bricks and do wattle and daub.

So we took them back to ancient Australian techniques.

And in that process, and we did do like social activists things,

they were knocking down trees.

And so we did big murals about, you know, environmental things.

All this was very new.

And these were some of the structures that we built.

This is with like year four, year 10, 11 and 12.

So we built these amazing structures.

Nowadays, there's no way they let you do it

because of health and safety.

This one was a map of the Australia

and we took each kid because they'd done

so brilliantly with us.

We took them up in a helicopter.

It cost us a fortune so they could see

the sculpture from the sky.

But so this was my beginning with my first partner and then I went on and became an artist at Channel 9.

I was the only woman with 50 men and we were doing sets for all, Sale of the Century and the Burt Newton show and I don't know.

And then it goes into my second husband.

So it's not necessarily chronological, but so, God, it's really hard to know where to even start with this.

But alongside me doing community arts, I would need a break because I was so demanding.

And I often worked with 150 kids at a time.

And so I would get grants to do my own work.

And so this is a big show that I did with two other artists.

And this was just one of the pieces where it was a number of rooms

and we built the rooms.

Again, you've got to remember that installations and assemblages

were not done in these days.

So this was very new.

What year was this?

Now you're going to get me.

About 1980 maybe, in the early 80s.

And this one was to do with the pressure on young people to bodybuilding.

It was when it was really starting.

and being slim.

And I worked at Channel 9 at this time

and so I did a whole lot of things on the heroes,

false heroes, false heroes in our life and false heroes especially that were

affecting young people.

And this was at television

And they would actually, so it was also a spoof on me being a deep meditator with my gurus.

And so they would come into this room and they would bend down and they would turn a thing.

And it had Burt Newton and all these different, Molly Meldrum and all these 80s icons, you know.

And it was also spoofing up different films that were around at that time.

And so it was three rooms and I was, because I worked at Channel 9, I was called the touch-up girl.

And so I worked all day in the actual factory.

But then I'd go at night and touch up in the ads, anything that was flaring on the screen on these.

Anyhow, that was all to do with the danger of false heroes in our life.

And now, you know, sort of 60 years or 40 or 50 years later,

we're seeing the danger of what the obsession with the phone is.

But this was early, early signs of it.

It's interesting.

These are people you essentially kind of worked with or alongside at Channel 9.

Did they ever catch wind that they were in your...

Yeah, yeah, they did.

Yeah, I had a big show.

This was, yeah, and I got 1,000 people in one day

because they put me on the Burt Newton show.

They knew that I was a scenic artist and I was so shy I couldn't speak

and thank God the other artist was able to speak

and the producer was furious with me because I just froze.

But they showed all the work and so the next day, it was fantastic, yeah.

So I've had a lot of luck in my life and we did a whole room based on, you know,

the dangers of Lady Di and all the rest of it and Boy George

and it was the beginnings of sort of the exploration of sexuality

and so all these things were massive as you can imagine.

And it also shows how I play with different techniques.

So I've always been a bit of an assemblage artist.

I've always done painting and sculpture and this and that.

It's very visible what you were saying before about the Lunar Park.

Now I can see it so much.

Yeah, and I can now too.

Yes.

but I just didn't for a long time.

And then I did a big show.

This, again, was my show.

And, again, we were talking about suppression and identity.

And for me, this was one of the deepest shows I did.

And it was 12 months after that show.

And we didn't get many people to come,

and we were really disappointed.

And so I kept the pieces in my lounge room for years,

and eventually I had to cut it all up.

Yeah.

But again, that was a precursor to me learning how to do things

with cardboard and paper mache that then gave me the skills

to work on the maze.

So one of the things was that I needed to every so often have this break

to continue my own artistic ability.

And then it would feed back into...

And so then I started getting...

I left Channel 9 and I started as a real community artist

and worked in schools.

And that was one of the first I worked with primary school children

in that one.

And this is like...

That was one part of 20 murals.

This was working with the Freemasons.

You have no idea what it was like working with the Freemasons.

It was a commemoration of Victoria and the Masons

in how they evolved in Melbourne.

And I worked with some seriously disabled kids

as well as, you know, kids from different schools.

And, you know, with this one I had to teach them how to stipple

and how to make these things, you know,

and so, like, I would go into this community and they'd say,

oh, Susie, we want you to do something about the 150 years of Victoria

and then we want you to conclude all the temples that we've done here

and all the rest of it.

And I go home and I think,

what the fuck am I gonna do with this concept?

And so this is the journey is when you go away

from the community and you have to come up

with something that fits.

And they were also really worried

'cause they weren't getting young people in it.

So I then tried to include a whole issue

of young people in Victoria.

And because Freemasonry came originally from stone masonry

and all the symbols on the top were hidden symbols

and they wouldn't let me see the symbols.

They wouldn't let me go into their temple.

This was in East Melbourne.

And I got quite friendly with the librarian

and one day when all of the top guys were out at a meeting,

He came to tell me, come into the temple, I want you to see,

and I want you to see the actual.

And so then I had access to all the symbols.

And so it gave me a kind of format to jump out.

And each one of these are tiny little either Victorian buildings

or Freemasonry buildings.

So it's like this kind of work, it really varies.

And when you're working with young people that are not skilled,

it's like not only is the concept difficult to pull together,

it's important.

It ended up amazing.

The final showing of this, they had 180 children came to a concert

and it backed the whole concert.

And then they, for three years, they built a special trailer and for three years they took it to all their Freemason temples all through Victoria and New South Wales.

I mean, you never know how this is all going to unfold.

And this is the most difficult group of men I've ever worked with, you know.

And they had to come to terms with an eccentric woman that would walk in and do this.

I took over a giant hall to do all this work.

And then three days before the opening,

one of these panels, they dropped it and it smashed.

And we had to get a stonemason in because they were plaster panels.

We had to get a stonemason in to put it all together

and somehow we got away with it.

And they were able to track them for three years

and then they got too deteriorated and it was too costly for them.

But, yeah, and then all these people would come into my studio

from the Freemasons to different comedians

that were going to do something on the day for that children.

And Freemason guys would bring their wives and children

on the weekend to see us.

So it just expands out and expands out,

and if you try to stay true to yourself,

And at the same time, true to the community, then something shifts on the soul level.

And that was what I was, again, trying to do.

And this is a project that I did in, the year was called Kids Alive in 85.

You know how every year there's sort of a theme for global.

And so, again, I worked with 10 different schools in the Greensboro area,

and they did these beautiful letters,

and it was all to do with, you know, what's our future,

and intimacy, and graffiti, and it goes on and on and on.

But this is the history of the work.

Life on the Dole weren't worth living,

and these were wads of money.

And you look at these things, and they were giants,

and they were done by kids that had never painted before.

And so I had to be incredibly skilled

to actually translate that and teach that.

And, yeah, this was a beautiful portrait

that a woman did of...

She was one of the mothers.

And this was one of the youth centre where we were working.

There were cubs and girl guides.

And so I always tried to include the actual people.

And so now we get to Oakley.

Okay.

And this is what I mean by the multicultural.

This ran along a political time when people were looking at multiculturalism and the value

of it, very different to where we are today.

And what I did was I got, and this was so beautiful, if anything could have been saved, I would

have saved this mural.

But they brought down the building and so the mural went with it.

This was the one that was on coals and every little kid had to learn how to stipple because

this was meant to look like a Persian rug.

And so then we did 13 families.

We took 13 different nationalities and then the little kids, was that on that page?

No.

So this was the mural here and we never saw it together because the hall was too small.

So the first time we saw it was when we put it up and we didn't like the colour.

And so we had to work for five days nonstop to change some of the colour on the scaffolding.

But this was the first time we'd seen it together to even know if it worked.

So it was like meant to be a Persian cub, Persian rug.

These images were to do with their family background, their cultural background.

These were done by six and seven-year-olds.

And then the teenagers did these, which were a bit more sophisticated.

And through here were all the symbols of their family culture.

And then we did the portraits.

And you can see they're young kids.

and what it only takes to teach young kids how to stipple and to make things look like, you know.

And so my life as a sort of working in television where I learned scenic arts and how to improvise

and, you know, because you'd be given a day, just one day to do a mural the size of that wall.

So you had to work with pieces of grass and giant paintbrushes.

So I was able then to teach young people how to do scenic arts, which is by using all sorts of different tools.

So instead of hand painting all the grass, I would go and get grass and show them how to drip it into paint and just splash it along.

So luckily, by knowing that technique, I could do very large things.

Some of the projects were short span, but I'd learnt skills of how to improvise.

With something like these ones being done by six or seven-year-olds,

do they draw it from scratch and conceive of it and then fill it out and colour it?

Yeah, that's what we did.

What we'd do is we'd get them to do their drawings

And then sometimes we would trace their drawings afterwards

and then we'd bring them back to try and do.

And then, of course, we'd have to come in

and just touch up certain things so that the images were readable.

But it was still their ideas and their concepts, yeah.

But you can see how young they are.

And the opening was just gorgeous.

What a pity the bad people have.

It's a real pity.

It's a real pity.

And this was the one that was going to be made, the heritage piece.

So this was the first time that because there was so much unrest in Oakley

and because I was a deep meditator,

I knew that when you focus on a mandala,

it synchronises the left and right brains of your hemisphere

and it settles you.

And so I took a risk and I did this as a mandala

because I knew as the train was going past

it would stop at the station and people would look out

and in that moment as they looked at it

their mind would be synchronised and yeah.

So that was my first public.

I had a bit of myself in this,

but it was all to do with images that young people loved.

And then we put the oldest participants

and the youngest participants, she was only about 15,

looking back at each other.

So it was looking forward, looking back.

And again, like some of the work were just incredible.

And what happened was that there were local artists that came and worked,

work experience kids.

And then people from Victoria, like people heard about the project

and rang and asked if they could come in.

And yeah, so that was that project.

And I did that with a young girl that had been my student.

who was really brilliant at drawing

and now is a very, very well-known portrait painter

and won one of those big portrait prizes.

But she came and she worked with me collaboratively on that project

and everything to do with the older participants

was done in sepia

and everything to do with the younger participants was done in bright colours.

They did their own portraits and they did their life stories in here.

So you see how I got them to look internally

without necessarily doing a social activist statement, you know.

So I was much more concerned with processing,

for that young person to process their life with me.

Yeah.

And so we did about 50 portraits.

And a few years later, some had been...

There were three that were to do with...

We had, there was a local gang called the Oakley Wogs,

and they were really, the two boys,

because they were tall and all the rest of it,

I was safe, but they were scary, they were really scary.

But what I did was I eventually went where they play pool,

and I talked to them, and I found one of them,

and he came and did his own self-portrait.

and so the Woggs arrived on the day for the opening

and made a pledge that they would never wreck those portraits, you know.

So you see how much political work you have to do in these things?

It's very subtle and it's a seven-day-a-week job, it really is, you know.

And so after a few years, they brought in another artist

because I was too busy, and she fixed up some of them.

And still on Oakley Railway Station there's some left.

But you can see how sad I felt when the core of the project,

which was a giant mural, yeah, and it was like a jigsaw.

And so all the portraits,

I wanted them to look like they were pieces of the jigsaw of our life.

Yeah, so they were all cut like it had come out of...

And when the mural went, then the concept went,

because it didn't correlate.

But for some reason, they've still kept them,

and I don't know how much longer they'll last.

It's about like 30 years or something.

But look at the technique, and it's just so moving, that whole thing.

And that's what led to the maze.

Yeah, and this was the young woman that I worked with

who's now well in her 60s.

And here we have the maze.

So I wanted to show you the lead up

to where one thing influences, you know, the other.

And I just loved those two boys.

They were just so beautiful to me, you know.

And what I love about these multicultural families

is that they look after their grandparents and their aunties.

And so they saw me as a bit of an auntie.

And, yeah.

Are you getting exhausted?

No, no.

The only thing, we, I'm going to send a message to one in Charlie

because it's 3 p.m.

See if we can actually postpone even better.

We had another meeting at 3.30, Susie,

but I'm going to see if the artists can make it later

so that we don't catch you.

OK, because then I'll take you around the house and then we'll...

This is something I did during COVID.

So COVID was a really difficult time

and it was the first time I'd done something that was slightly...

OK.

It's starting to be a little bit.

Yeah, not beautiful.

Do you work from home?

Do you have a studio?

I'm down to that room.

I'll show you.

And alongside of it, I did a lot of sacred art.

So I had a guru in India and I painted him

and another one that I had in America.

And I did a whole series of...

This was a commission for me to go to America and paint mandalas.

And they were giant, as you can imagine.

And they...

And he used one as the front of his book.

Where did you... Whereabouts in America?

The Jinir, in the mountains.

They had a big ashram there, yeah.

And they paid for me to come across.

and yeah

and you can see how

in a way my style

has never changed

it's always to do with energy

and movements and things

I don't know

is it alright?

Yes it's good

actually there's this message to say

if we could postpone as well

so it's fine

oh good okay

so this is when I went

I was a deep meditator

And so I did all these mandalas.

I was there for a year, really hard going.

And then I'll show you some of these.

I've got them outside.

These were done.

So I've also done a lot of sacred art for churches

and for ashrams and things.

and moving on.

Then I came back after I'd fallen in love with someone at the ashram

and I wasn't supposed to.

I was supposed to be a celibate monk for a year doing the mandalas.

And so I came back and did a whole lot of stuff on art and sexuality

and connection.

So at this stage I wasn't doing community arts.

I was doing at this stage I had started massaging and yeah so it's all my personal work

and then when I was 50 I went back to being an artist I missed it so much and so from here on

you see what I did on the housing estates.

So I hit the housing estates after 9/11

and the families who were mostly Chinese and Vietnamese

and Iranian and Iraqi

and were terribly frightened in the high rise.

Somehow they thought that another plane was gonna come.

And so we did a whole project on peace images

and they ranged from,

and we did peace towers and goes on and on and on.

Like, you know, so you're looking at

giant billboards where we explored.

And this is when I started working with

work for the Dole people.

So we're now crossing across to adults here.

And some of the works were just absolutely beautiful.

- Are they still?

- Some of them are still there,

but with the thing about,

this was in a nearby school

and they're called the Dream Cones.

And I was trying to say to them

that although this violence has happened,

keep your dreams there and work towards your dreams.

This was an artist in schools project.

So at this stage, you know, I'm trying whichever way I can

to get funding to do these projects.

Can I take a quick photo of that page?

Because Fayan's son goes to that school.

Oh.

Wow, oh, incredible.

Yeah, we'll check it out.

Yeah, this is...

Ah, you can show.

In progress.

Yeah, I think the cones are still there,

but I think these, in which I worked with really young children,

doing, so they were like the reflection of the building that had been,

you know, the 9-11 building and the buildings they lived in.

And so I took that shape and we did about 40 or 50,

it was only a 10-day project,

we did about 40 or 50 of these decorated totems,

all with images of their life inside.

But I think most of those have gone.

But I do think the cones are still there.

You're probably exhausted now.

I'm going to go fast now.

So then the local community house said,

we've got to find money for you.

We want you to stay.

And so that was when I started first casual and then part-time

and I started getting some super, which was fantastic.

And we did, like, hundreds of projects

it's over 20 years, you know, based on things that they would be talking about, I would

then take it and run projects around it. These were peep boxes and there was a building called

Dimmies, it was a big shop, and they made these incredible peep boxes that we had in the windows

at Vimy's and then they were placed into different places in all through

Collingwood and Richmond. They were just wonderful and they were all work for the

Dole people and I tell you what work for the Dole people can be a handful too

because they're in so much grief and so much confusion and I had lots of drug

addicts I worked with. And then we did things like that little cone but

very, very large. And then I got a project, to do a project of the elderly sits that

were in the heroes of Richmond and the life of Richmond and all these elderly

sits that had lived there and pictures of them went and I went into all their

homes and some of them were very old and in this residential and some were still

in their homes and I did all these canvases and pulled it together and that

That was a very moving project.

And this was based on the history of art and they were mirrors and I'll show you a couple

of them.

You're probably exhausted now.

But these were a series of mirrors.

These were totems that we did.

And see how I used the drawings of the children?

And then it was translating that, which often was quite hard to do, to take a little simple

drawing and translate it through.

And at this stage you can see I've moved across to mosaics because I was so allergic to paint.

And this was based on their fear of the environment and water.

So we took water in all its forms, crystalline, and it just goes on and on and on.

This was in a community centre and this was the last artist in schools project I did because

I knew I had come to the end.

I just physically couldn't do it anymore.

And it was a memorial for all these children whose families had broken up or kids had suicided

or children had died in the family.

So it started off, it was going to be a memorial garden, but in the end it became something

very beautiful where I incorporated a lot of toys and the kids did these beautiful, with

words, different words of feelings. So they did, yeah, and they did more cones and that

shows you what it's like. Yeah, and then we did the hands of, we talked about, and this

is another project, the connection and the amazing thing about a hand that it can be

so soft and caressing and so aggressive and so we did.

And then that was it.

I couldn't do any more community work

and so I started doing my own work

and did a whole lot of assemblages

based on the future of babies.

So there was a baby at the centre of each one of them

and because I was worried about humanity.

Yeah, so you can see it took many, many forms

and that was, the whole show was an installation.

And then I did some of what you see here,

which I'll just show you later in a second.

And then I did a series of drawings on what had influenced me as a child in St Kilda.

And you'll see some of that in the studio.

And that was just like a thing on my house.

And then, you know, family had fallen in love.

a couple had fallen in love under a cuckoo clock.

And so I did their whole life story as an assemblage giant, you know.

Okay, I'm not showing you any more there.

Wow.

Let's walk around and I'll show you.

You're probably just exhausted,

but I'll just show you some of the real things.

And what year was this book finished in as well?

I did it for my 70th, so it's six years, yeah.

there's a lot to add to it.

COVID is mentioned in there.

Yes.

Yeah, that's right.

Yes, Rumi … COVID!

You've been a very good boy, haven't you?

So these are some of my mandalas.

And you'll see them around there.

Suesy, do you mind if I take a couple of photos of you?

No.

I should show you this first.

It's completely kitsch.

But this was the first real assemblage that I did,

and it was just my humour.

So that was the first assemblage

where I got the guts to stick one thing on top of each other.

Yeah.

It's just completely kitsch.

Completely, you know.

That's amazing.

And then it led into these more serene kind of mandalas.

And these were all based on my meditative practices.

Water and this one was called

The Hands of Life.

And it was to do with

chance, you know, is things in life arbitrary or is it chance, you know?

So, and again, I was exploring with as many different materials like Japanese paper.

I would get the tile and cut the Japanese paper up and put it on.

So that's called the hands of chance, you know, yeah.

And again, it goes back to Luna Park where they had one of those wheels which you pull.

But see, not conscious.

I mean, I can talk to you about it now, but wasn't conscious when I was making it.

That's one of the early ones that I did with someone on a Work for the Doll program.

This was one of the birds that we did.

To keep some of the programs going, I bought some of the works

so that money would go into the next project.

I'll just take you out here.

In the early days, I had enough energy to come home and do some stuff for myself,

but in the end, I ran out of energy.

So I would make tables.

This was the Ganesh that was at the ashram.

And again, exploring my own personal art here.

These were some of the water pieces that I made

and I also made with the community.

You know that project you saw on water?

This was, this is like the yin and the yang.

The front part is, the peacock is blue.

Sorry.

It's collapsed.

And this side is white.

But this shows you how strong I was to lift and move these things and cut all those.

I can't lift anything now.

Yeah, so as time's gone on, I've had to adapt and adapt.

Yeah, so I'll show you a few things in my studio.

Yeah, I'm lucky to have such a nice garden.

Beautiful garden.

Yeah.

These were sort of teaching them how to cut different shapes and use the found objects.

Hello darling.

and this is broken but it shows you again

the movement and the inner self and yeah.

Yeah they like looking down.

And then I prolapsed my disc at the base of my spine, four and five, and couldn't walk for a year.

And so I started this tapestry because all I could do was sit.

So this is where you just like when you lose your ability to lift and things, you try and...

And that's at a point now where I'm going to bead the centre with...

So I've worked on and off it for a while, you know, you work on it for a while and then

you get sick of it or tired or... whoops.

So the centre is now going to be beaded with all these different

tiny, tiny little, so it's all illuminated in there.

But I haven't been well enough to do it.

But somehow you keep going forward, you know.

And then, like, that was the year where I hurt my back

and was only able to do that.

And then I got the cancer, which I don't drink and I don't smoke,

so it was a real shock.

And I've only just started coming back in here recently.

So I'm just like they're small.

I'm exploring about, and this one I'm about to work on in two weeks

and put it in the postcard show at Linden Gallery.

Yeah.

I mean, it's been going for about 30 years

and it used to be about the size of a postcard.

But now they've brought it up to bigger, which meant that I can do that.

And so that, again, that's a birth.

It's like I call this incarnation.

It's the incarnation through all the souls, the soul, you know,

like I believe you get chosen.

So that's what this piece is about.

and I'm much more now I don't want things to be regular or so something's changing in my system

and like this is just to show you the different processes of like I'm that's I kind of lay it out

to get a sense of it and then I pull it all off and I've got these amazing little

little rabbits.

I've got a whole thing of those.

So this shows you how I collect stuff,

and I might make something with it for a year or more,

and then I might come back to it.

And this is sort of the part of me that's humorous and kitsch, you know.

And this is the part of me that's more spiritual.

Yeah.

And this is my beautiful studio.

These were some of the St Kilda images.

And the Luna Park.

Yeah, there's the Luna Park.

Yeah.

Yeah, so good.

So it gives you a life story, doesn't it?

Yeah.

It does.

And my own little fetish, you know.

I've never had children, and I think I collect these little families

as a sort of subconscious thing.

Yeah.

And they're going to a friend when I go, if he's still alive,

whenever I die, he's going to take these and keep them as a,

because my niece will just throw everything out.

So he's an artist, he's 30, and he's going to look after this collection for me

or make a fortune by the time I die.

You say you didn't have any children, but you had a lot of children.

Yes, I've had a lot of, I have.

So many.

Yeah, I've mentored and loved so many young people.

Yeah.

Yeah.

And even in my practice of being a body worker, you know,

there's two of those people that I'm very close to still, you know,

20 or 30 years on, yeah.

And so I might just lay something out like that and do something with it

or not do something with it.

I just play, and especially at the moment because I haven't had the energy

to use the plunger.

But this one has to be done in two weeks.

So I'm presently on that one, yeah.

I'm having my dad entering to the Linden Postcard Show as well.

Oh, really?

I think he's submitting … two? My mum's submitting one …

oh really it's a great show it's a great show

yeah yeah oh that's fantastic i think it's the second round that they enter yeah

yeah well i have to be well the next i've got to go into hospital again so i've got two weeks to

do that. I have to do it and then I'm going into hospital to have a procedure and then, yeah.

And these are the drawings, like that's the size of the drawings that were in that show,

the St Kilda show. Yeah, there's a couple more here.

So my work ranges from the serious and spiritual to the...

I won't take it out, but I'll show you just some of my drawings.

And again, you know, I work large. I just can't go down small.

It doesn't make sense to me.

And I don't think these are great drawings at all,

but I've obviously needed,

I needed a stage of whimsy and childlike

through different times in my life

where I've needed to play like a child, I think, yeah.

Yeah, that's right.

And this one is cluttered and too much and they're stiff and, you know, like I can look at them and...

I love how cluttered it is.

Do you?

It is.

Yeah.

So a friend bought the original of that for $2,000, which really helped.

Yeah, you're glad when you sell something once in a while.

Yeah.

Well, there you are.

Thank you so much, Susie.

You're so special.

Did it give you an idea of, did it help in just seeing the lifespan?

Yeah.

Did it just help understand, I mean, where the maze obviously sits in your life's work?

Yeah.

So just, I mean, you know, we sort of have talked to people about their lives

feeding into the sort of current iteration of the maze.

Yeah.

To know what came into it through your interactions with communities

and people and obviously all of these influences of yours.

Yeah.

It's been great.

Really, really appreciate it.

Thank you.

I was thinking about, you know, this,

because we've been going around asking and I'm sorry,

my battery ran out, I was just going to say.

But we got some nice photos, I think I'll send them to you.

but you know

we've asked a lot of people

what their words to live by are

and lots of people have had interesting responses

to that and you've had

35 years since

asking people that question yourself

and I was like

45 or 50 years really

of course

long for 60 years

but looking through like all the things

that you've done in your life

I'm so curious about

whether that has shifted a lot for you or if there are consistent things that...

I know there are consistent ideas and influences,

but the ways you articulate them, if that's shifted a lot for you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I don't think I've changed, really.

You know?

And what hit me recently was that I thought I wouldn't be able to make art anymore.

And that really, I had like a complete dissolving of my psyche.

You know, I was saying I'm not my body, I'm not my mind, I'm not a wife, I'm not a mother,

I'm not a, and now I'm not an artist, you know.

And it was so terrifying to have realised that my art form has been my partner.

I've had two wonderful marriages and still friendly with my...

One died, one that's very close friends.

That my artistic process has been my lifelong partner.

Yeah.

And I'm very grateful for that and very moved by all that's happened with it.

And, you know, that I went to India five times and did work in India.

I went to America.

Like, you know, working at Channel 9 was an absolute blowout.

You know, it's so sexist.

in the days when I was like,

my art process has taken me on such a journey.

Yeah.

So I don't know whether I've changed as much as my psyche

or my personality has been formed

through what has happened with my artistic career.

Yeah.

The people I've met and, yeah.

I mean, I guess thinking about the phrases, the quotes that you put on the panels as well,

obviously some of them would have been books you were reading or artists or spiritual figures or public figures.

When I first brought the kids together, I would read things to them on different feelings

and they would then choose the one they liked.

Were you ever, I mean, were you ever or are you a person that kind of, you know, thinks in that way,

I think anchors your feelings through, you know, spiritual sayings or quotes

or, you know, anchor phrases for your...

Yeah, yeah.

That's why that thing, I'm not my body, I'm not my mind.

I mean, I live very much by paradigms of what are we, who are we,

how did we come, you know, how, what does it mean, you know.

Yeah, I've always been a very deep thinker on that level

and very curious as I love listening to people.

Not that you'd think it today because all I've done is talk,

but I love listening to people and getting a sense of where they're coming from

and what's, you know, because I think we're just data

and I'm fascinated by human data, I think.

Yeah, yeah.

And how we...

Sorry to interrupt you.

Go on.

You've been so generous in sharing, you know,

all the things that have formed you and have formed through you.

I think a lot of that does involve listening, clearly.

I know it takes a lot of energy to revisit everything.

Yeah, I'll be buggered tonight.

I'll take him for a walk and flop but um

yeah that's why it's good to go into a musician's home or into an artist's home

to actually be in this space where you get a sense of them on that soul level you know like

Absolutely.

Yeah.

It's the best part.

In this case of my job, I do quite a lot.

Yeah, isn't it fantastic?

I can get a bit of a sense of something in the world.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It's so fascinating going, like when I did that old people's one in Richmond,

what it meant to go into their homes.

There was one woman that had like 2,000 hours,

another one that had light pictures of Richmond football club going back to its beginnings.

I mean it's just you know it's just fantastic going into people's homes.

It's just like yeah.

When they collect one thing like dolphins, a wall of frogs.

Yeah that's right.

What is a wall of frogs?

Susie, the exhibition at the gallery is on until the 16th of May.

If by any chance in these next couple of weeks you feel like you have the energy to visit,

let us know and we can organize.

Maybe we can come and pick you up and we can bring you to the gallery.

If you feel like you want to see the exhibition, just let us know.

Okay.

And I can send you a kind of headphone version of the...

Because the sound takes place over...

Yeah, we're going in a minute.

Yes.

So I can kind of mix it down so it sounds sort of like the space.

Oh, I love that.

Although, you know, a lot of the time with those multi-speaker things,

people think of them as the sound coming to you from many directions.

There are a lot of ways you've made this so that you're supposed to go to the sound

and listen to the sound one by one.

Right.

But it'll give you an idea of...

Oh, it'll be wonderful.

Actually, we just got an episode from some kids that were in the gallery.

Shh, shh.

Maybe on the weekend.

Yes.

And, you know, we asked them all these questions about,

or invite them to sort of visit with some of the questions from the panels.

I'm just so, I'm so amazed that it has become a living entity.

It is.

It's really, to me, it's just sort of, you know,

because they're just for me now static images on wall,

but the fact that it's causing so much dialogue

or creating dialogue still, like, is amazing.

Well, that's sort of an interesting thing about, I guess,

the sort of shifting possibilities of art in the sort of media

and pages that they don't have to be finished.

They live as an artist.

Yeah, and I mean, that's what has, that's the change now.

that you young people can use so much technology on so many levels

to make it so much more comprehensive.

Yeah, and so it's really interesting that there is this booth in the gallery

and people press record on an iPad and then it gets basically sent to my phone.

Right.

And, you know, people have given, like, very kind of earnest

or very poetic or joyful thoughts and stuff.

But then every, like, one out of five is, like, kids visiting

and stuff like this.

The fart was big.

The fart was very big.

Very, very big!

Very big!!!

VERY BIG I SAY!

The fart was big.

I promise you there's better material.

Oh, no, just gorgeous though, isn't it?

Full responses.

I mean, about five years ago, I had an eye operation

and I lost the ability.

I have to wear glasses all the time and usually a hat.

And so going to shows now is quite challenging for me

because I can't take that.

Yeah, yeah.

Faye-Ann has very similar experiences with television

and you might be interested to talk to her sometime.

Yeah.

Because that's actually what we do a lot of

and part of the ethos of how we approach this

is that it should be accessible to people who are not engaging visually

with impairments.

Yeah.

Yes.

Oh, it's been a real, like, I didn't go to a show for three years

until the migraine settled and stuff.

And even now, I walked into a black wall recently and fell over.

At the National Gallery there was a show on and I thought it was a space,

you know, and I hit my nose.

It was so embarrassing, but these are the things, yeah.

But that's affected my ability to draw and paint a lot now.

Well, if ever anyone else wants to visit, they're very welcome.

Yeah, yeah.

I'm not sure if I'll make it in the next two weeks

because I have to finish that.

Think about it.

You've got my number.

One of my friends looked it up and said, it's still on.

I said, is it still on?

She said, yeah, I think I might take a train out and see it.

So she might go.

It's a very beautiful review as well.

There's lots of elements of the work, particularly work for young people.

Yeah, it's been so well received.

Oh, could you send me that review?

Yes, I will.

I think I'll share the link.

I'll send it again.

Yeah.

Yes.

I don't think if I did get that, I was too sick and I didn't.

That's so good.

Yeah.

We can probably also download it as your PDF as well.

Yeah, that would be fantastic.

Yeah.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Yeah.

Can we help you clean up?

Oh, no, I'll be fine.

And thank you so much for those.

I'll sit down quietly now and look at the photos again.

Yeah.

Thank you. I'm amazed that it's because the one thing about being a public

artist is you have to let go. You just have to let go because of things

happening like that heritage one you know. So to sort of be told that there's

this piece that still has life and meaning is amazing. It is. Really amazing.

It's been stored for over three decades.

I know.

It's incredible.

Well, I don't know if I told you this, but the way we got to the maze is that I found

a flyer of one of the maze exhibitions in 2016.

They pulled it out.

And I just thought, oh.

And the colleague told me, we've got these in the collection.

Right.

And I was like, oh, no way.

And so we started digging.

And after the digging, we realized that we've got this incredible work and all of the resources

and the history of it.

And we didn't know the conditions of the panels.

Yeah, I'm amazed.

We went to the storage and they were okay.

It just shows you that the answer is to use cardboard, not paper.

That's it, absolutely, absolutely.

Yeah, I used to buy bags of insulation that they used.

They don't, it's illegal now, but squashed cardboard and, yeah, make it out of that.

So good.

Let me forget to give you this.

Oh, don't worry, I won't walk out without.

Oh, good.

Rumi wants to go out.

Rumi wants to go out.

Yeah, I think Rumi heard the W word.

Yeah, yeah, he did.

He heard the W.

Enough people.

Yeah, this is his food time.

Yeah, we're going to go for a walkies now.

Thank you.