There`s a young magpie that frequently comes for a bath and a shower in our garden. If you`ve ever watched a bird bath on a summery day, you`ll know with how much abandon they enjoy it! Often when I water the plants, he`d come right down into the spray and put up the most pleasurable water show, with me as the only, fascinated spectator. It always reminds me how much joy there can be in small moments and seemingly mundane things.

We get so caught up in the practicalities of life, and it is easy to trade joy for stress and worry, while all around us are treasure chests of opportunity to love and enjoy life, in the midst of responsibility and reality. We make our own happiness. We are responsible for our state of heart and mind, which determines our state of life in a major way. We can choose to nurture the uncomplicated wonder and the enthusiasm we had as kids.

Yesterday afternoon on our run we got caught in an unexpected and heavy summer downpour. We were soaked but laughing like children and stomping with both feet in puddles to create huge splashes over our already drenched running shoes. What fun! I think we`re onto something...and I want more of that this year.

May each one of us delight in the people in our lives, every one broken as we are, but with their realities interwoven with ours on this amazing journey. May we find small adventure in the unexpected and the overlooked, in work and fitness and healthy living, in art and nature, colour and light. May we live this year with open hearts, and delight in life.
Happy new year!

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You shall go out with joy and be led forth in peace; the mountains and the hills shall burst into song before you, and the trees of the field shall clap their hands- Is 55:12

I'm so happy to announce my next art show and invite you to attend the opening event
Contact me for more details

A few months ago I went to the ANU production of Cats with two girlfriends. The theatre has always fascinated me, and I dare say, it has always called me, pulled at the strings of my heart. I have been very blessed to have had parents, grandparents and friends who enjoyed a night at the opera, the ballet and classical performances of varied sorts, and thanks to this golden theatrical thread throughout my childhood and youth, I grew up with regular exposure to the performing arts. The elaborate costumes, make-up, decor and effects enchanted me to the degree that I dreamed of a career closer to this magic, and because I had always been studying music, this seemed to offer a natural way into this magical world. Now, many years later, the night at Cats stirred in me once again the well-known feelings of awe and rapture for the theatre, and  I remembered fondly a little adventure.

In my late high school years we were a close group of friends, all music students, filled with the joy of life and music. With some huge Mozart festival celebrated in Durban, at a two hour road trip our nearest city, we convinced one of our parents to drive us there. The great attraction was The Playhouse, home of the Natal Philharmonic Orchestra, and some of the best classical productions in the country. To be a flautist in one of the big philharmonic orchestras in South Africa was one of my first serious career dreams as a teenager. I have always been crazy about playing classical music, and to be part of such a collection of the most intricate and beautiful instruments under the sun, was then the ultimate dream. Everything about live classical performance fascinated me, from the elegantly laid-out marketing posters (for sale in the foyer shop post-performance), to the sudden hush when the lights dim; desperately trying to catch a good look at the black-clad musicians and buffed instruments in the ill-lit pit below the stage, and especially, especially, the hair-raising dissonance when the individual instruments warm up, and then gradually tune together to a unifying A, reinforcing the anticipation of the imminent Overture. Absolutely entrancing! That year the principal flautist in the Natal Philharmonic was a young woman named Maria Swart. I dreamed of being her, did research about the requirements, salary and work hours of professional orchestra members, and fantasized about arriving night after night at a black backstage door with my beautiful instrument ready to contribute toward a soaring world-class classical performance, with an auditorium full of high-society patrons in curved rows and decorated stalls in ecstatic standing ovation. 

On the afternoon of the opening of the Mozart festival, the four of us were at the home of local friends, preparing for our night at the theatre, which in those days were still regarded as a formal event, with patrons dressing in their finest brocades and silks. I, accordingly, was wearing a classical and very French black velvet beret, a favourite which also went along to the impressive performance of Aida in Cape Town's iconic Nico Malan, now the Artscape, a year or two later. We were excitedly and expectantly preparing to descend on the Playhouse, ready for a good dose of the finest culture. But unpacking our things, my good old friend Alexander realised that he had failed to pack his dress pants for the night. Since him being a rather abundant fellow, there was no chance of borrowing any from the house owners, and there was no help for it but for him to wear the only thing he had- a pair of surf shorts...with his dress shirt, shiny black shoes and eye-catching bow-tie. Needless to say it did not only encouraged the bunch of us to hysteria all night, we also formed a sort of protective circle around him against observant and judgmental eyes, and tried pretending nothing was amiss. 

During interval there was, inexplicably, an open double bass case in the side foyer where we did our best to look, despite the hilariously mortifying situation, dignified with our refreshments, and it seemed the perfect size and shape to hide him in. Up to today I can still swear he climbed into that case until everyone thankfully returned to their seats, but with all the crazy ideas we had that night, induced by this unfortunate lack of suitable equipment, I cannot be quite sure what we crazily fantasized about doing and what we actually did. I have to commend the patrons and staff of the Durban Playhouse on their tolerance and ability to deal very courteously with unsuitably-dressed, generous-sized Mozart lovers and their nervous friends.

And so Cats concluded in another country far from that crazy night, and with a sentimental tinge, I can happily say that many of my dreams did come true,  I was indeed also a flautist of a city orchestra, and even though times have changed and dress codes are much  more open to interpretation, I make sure I pack everything, and still wear my velvet beret to the opera now and again. 

In the past week a parcel arrived by mail from my home country. It is a book. A beautiful cookbook written by my closest childhood friend. 

She was my bosom buddy and confidante, we rode our bicycles in the streets and flushed garden moles from their borrows with a hose. Our mothers were best friends, and so were our younger siblings. Her older brother had a gift for restoring a frustratingly mixed-up Rubix cube to its former glory, and so earned the reverence that becomes your best friend's older brother. We were both in love with the most good-looking boy at school, dark-haired, blue-eyed and very charming, and were quite happy to share him, even if it was only in our daydreams. Oh the innocence of childhood!

She moved away when we were primary school girls with plaits, and for many years we exchanged stacks of hand-written letters before I got to visit her on the other side of the country.  I remember well the wholesome home-made muesli at breakfast, the juicy, sun-ripe export grapes their Boland farm produced, and her dad cooking snoek over the coals, basting the delicate fish in the traditional butter, garlic and apricot jam sauce. We lost touch during our high school years, and somehow this did not change much after school when we both studied in the picturesque town of Stellenbosch. I suppose life just took us in different directions, or maybe we were just didn't think it would be the same, we were after all, almost different people by then. 

But now, years later, with us living in a country where our mother tongue is not understood, and our customs and experiences of living in Africa unknown and often strange, it is natural to yearn toward the known and the familiar and regard it with even more sentiment than you did while living there. I have always been an old sentimental, a softie for good memories past, an incurable nostalgic. So it is no wonder that, when I opened the parcel during the week and found this long-awaited, most beautiful Afrikaans book with a luscious pomegranate on the cover, tied with a pretty red woven ribbon, I felt like drawing out the anticipation a bit more and leave opening it's pages for the weekend. And on this quiet, Australian Sunday afternoon, I did.

The wonders of a book never cease to amaze me, and yet again, as with any good book, so many feelings contested for attention while I journeyed through it's pages. It is a book that the contains family favourites from all around our culturally diverse country, childhood memories captured in favourite recipes for happy home-cooked meals. There are dishes that I grew up with on the hot and humid North Coast of Natal, and dishes I got to know only later when the magnificent Western Cape was my home. Many of them contain tastes that I long for here where all fresh imports are strictly controlled. No snoek or nastergal jam any more, and so when I do go back to visit, there is a culinary list of favourites that I make time to enjoy, and appreciate all the more. 

The pages have pictures and recipes and stories that triggered a flood of of my own memories and transported me back to well-loved places, faces and food experiences- as a child, the familiarity of my mom and gran's kitchens, and of many other beloved friends and family, of cooking and baking and fresh morning coffee, the comfort of pannekoek with cinnamon sugar on a rainy night, the yeasty smell of a warm beer bread when we are camping far from a commercial bread supply, the black syrup of mulberry jam soaked into my school sandwiches, the smell of potjiekos at the church basaar, the sunny aroma of freshly ground yellow maize in a rural Transkei general store, later eaten, hot and creamy, with farm butter and treacly raw sugar. Oh yes, and chewing the warm juice from a fibrous piece of sugar cane, the syrup running down our hands and chins...

Later some Cape images burned deeply into my soul-  the toothless grin of a fish vendor on the Gordon's Bay harbour when the boats came in with the night's catch, the ceaseless wit of a rural youngster selling dawn fresh waterblommetjies at the Klapmuts intersection , the exotic smells of Cape-Malay cooking coming from old, crumbly family businesses in Woodstock when you go looking for the best roti in town, the spicy aroma of boegoe when we go hiking in the mountains, the fog horn on the West Coast in the muted coolness of a mist-blanketed day, a day when we would pick our quota of large black mussels and cook up a fresh seafood feast over an open fire...the list just keeps getting longer.

This book about food nostalgia is such a lovely connection between my precious past in South-Africa and my current life in Australia. Here we are now discovering the local traditions and produce, cherries, truffles, snapper and flathead, kangaroo, bush tomato and a profusion of wild mushrooms, but will always retain and treasure our connection with our past, with our people and our food. My children ask for pannekoek when it is rainy, vetkoek with curry mince is still a treat, and melktertWe will never abandon our deep African roots. is always an indulgence when dessert is in order. 

It was an honour to find a personal message from my friend in the front cover, in her tidy, well-known but now mature handwriting. This book reminded me why we were such good friends after all, and although many things change, others, like friendship and good memories, always remain.

This book is a marvelous gift for South-Africans living abroad,  for international visitors, or anyone that loves good, wholesome home cooking and the rich variety of South-Africa's fresh produce. It is easy to see why it was a winner of an international cookbook award in Paris.
Order 'Onthoukos'  from heleen.m@iafrica.com

It is a curious thing how deeply rooted we can get in a country. Not only on an emotional level, but also on many un-thought-of physical levels are we connected to our past, our heritage, our particular ways and cultures of doing things. It is incredible that after more than three years in Australia, we are still replacing wall sockets on appliances. Yes, the transition wasn't urgent in some cases, we probably didn't use some as often as others that were immediately chopped off and converted to Aussie plugs, but some just didn't ask for a facelift, like my grandmother's faithful 1950's Necchi sewing machine.
It probably isn't so strange that an old vintage lady like her preferred to maintain the status quo, as I understood unconsciously and without discussion, but today I decided that was that, I'm getting tired of going on a hunt for the one remaining South-African adaptor in the domestic circuit every time I need to make a few stitches. So the old lady had her wire ends stripped of more than 60 years worth of patina, and rewired in a grey Aussie plug to match her stately lead. Voilà!
The old girl has done some surprisingly good work over the many years I have very proudly inherited her. I sewed my first own garments as a teenager, made evening dresses for myself and clients, and even a wedding dress and tailored groom's outfit for a close friend. Almost like my granny was also there, my Necchi very loyally helped make concert costumes for my children, and watched with a smile, I imagine. She knows the frustration of tention problems and broken bobbin threads, and patiently stood by me when sewing projects coincided with emotional turmoil, Zululand humidity and late nights.
I'm hugely impressed by the longevity of the stately old girl, and how well she managed my many moves within South Africa, and then all the way to Australia. I can't help feeling that this new plug is a bit like a pacemaker, a hip replacement or a heart transplant to an aged person. New options, new energy, new zest for life. A toast to Italian engineering and old school quality, and to many more happy and creative hours of sewing!

This has been my creative space for three years. It is where I really started living one of my life-long dreams- to paint full-time. This is where I struggled with my fears and overcame them, this is where a lot of new work was born, sometimes hesitant and unsure and sometimes backed by tremendous energy, and where thousands of ideas compete for my attention to become something more. This is where I felt convinced that there is so much to share, so much to encourage others with, and so here my classes started two and a half years ago. This is where I have had just as much fun as the kids I am teaching, playing and studying and learning more every week, working with different paints and writing tools, cutting and sculpting and printing our way toward a freer expression of who we are.

This is where I found that more and more of my garments have paint on, and that I'm much more pleased than annoyed about it. This is where there are glass water jars coloured around the rims with old paint, and bunches of brushes in the kitchen, and where the laughter of kids will linger. 

This is where my Lulu was born, as an expression of my deepest hopes and dreams, and as a voice that many women may have forgotten they had. 

This is where I'm now packing my life into boxes to take it to a new place, a blank canvas full of promise and possibility. There will be new dreams, new ideas, new classes filled with the marvel of creating, of mastery and exploration. 

What a time of exploration into the unknown whispers of my heart...scary and energizing at the same time, I am called on to be fearless in trying new things, in delving deep into buried dreams. 
Slowly but surely new ideas are taking shape, unique concepts are born, and my wings are starting to appear! 

This is the first of my paintings using natural Rooibos tea as a colour wash. This is a traditionally South African tea, part of my heritage and history, and it feels quite sentimental and symbolic to use it in my work here abroad. 

I'm a recovering artist. I'm learning to be increasingly more fearless and intuitive in my approach, and rediscovering the joy of the inherent and spontaneous childhood creativity that many of us have sadly left behind, often in our fragile teenage years.

This process is essential for the actualisation of our dreams because our inner artist can only come to its full potential when it feels safe enough to create without the inhibitions of external approval and expectation, like a young child. I'm blessed to have precious, supportive people around me, and deliberately spend time with other unblocked, or recovered artists, who create and share and encourage freely.

But now and again it happens that I cross company with a still blocked artist, with all their preconceived ideas, rules, limitations and judgments...and it is absolute poison to my process. The person may be quite acceptable as far as character goes, but their exclusive and single-pointed philosophy about art and life in general threatens to put me back in the box I worked so hard to get out of. I refuse to be put into boxes any more, my own or others'. I refuse to sacrifice my artist child on the altar of others' expectations. I turn and run from these, to protect the delicate, happy child that is stil, every new day, starting to discover the wonders of the world.

I'm learning to trust my intuition more, to follow my unique dreams although there is no map, and it often feels like I'm walking forward in the dark. There is no handbook on being me, for no-one has gone before. And although I have learned valuable lessons from precious mentors in different stages of my life, and will keep on learning from the sent ones put on my path, the road is essentially mine alone to travel. It becomes lonely at times, wading through the distresses of artistic toil and the fog of the unknown, but the reward of finding crystallized truth along the way, waiting there just for me, the joy of finding the way opening up to my process, is priceless.
I'm discovering the dream, starting bit by bit to understand the journey, and to understand that the destination really is the journey.

Since childhood I just loved stationary shops.
I felt really grown-up when I bought my first gold-writing felt-tip pen for what was a small fortune to me. You had to shake the pen and press the point a few times for the ink to start flowing....but carefully, or you'll end up with blotches of gold paint splattered all over!
My special pens today still remind me of the smell and excitement of that first golden acquisition, and I imagine that writing has a better quality when produced with a special pen.
Just this morning I rediscovered an old favourite fountain pen, filled it with black Indian ink and with the sharp smell of the first lines immediately got transferred back to that place where I'm keen to write carefully and reverently, not scribble like the many everyday scriptural tasks- like updating a grocery list or filling out a school form, require.
I got to love some people in my life a bit better just for the sake of their unique handwriting: I would always be spellbound watching my mother write- practical, though tidy and creative letters; my  grandmother's beloved writing, a decade after her death still left on cards and letters everywhere in the books and boxes of my life; my mom's best friend with her artistically scrolled alphabetical digits; my daughter's tall, typewriter-perfect script, and even my husband for the almost illegibly light pencil of our love letters.
Some women love handbags, other clothes. Me, I like a stationary shop and a good pen.

Welcome to my blog!

This is a bit of a documentation of my creative process in specific and as a consequence, my life in general.
Since it was my 20 year George reunion (SA Army Womens' College) when I wrote this, it is more than a little symbolic to be getting back to basics, the traditional term for the tough, first months of military training. 

Getting back to the fundamentals of drawing makes me thankful to have had this basic skill developed almost unconsciously during my formative years, with the care and nurturing of some personal creative champions. I have learned that the creative process will always be ongoing, as will my development as an artist, so there will not necessarily be a final arrival (rather a series of resting places, picnic spots along the way, landmarks), but there will always be the journey. And I love travelling!

You may ask what the military has to do with the often delicate processes of art or a creative blog, but the answer is just that: we cannot put creativity, or our lives for that matter, in a box. We cannot label and limit ourselves to a set of rules. We are all too preciously complex to be narrowed down to a few lines of descriptive grammar. It is such a fascinating process to stop analysing and just observe the complexness and contradictions of our existence. The world is such a vastly interesting place. It is no wonder that we can be passionate about art and the military, about friendship and seclution, about activity and meditation, all in the same breath. Having a hippy heart and also being a responsible parent, running long distances and taking time to notice the minute details of  nature, being a blacksmith and playing the piano, loving languages and setting apart silent days...loving the safety and secrets of a rainforest, but also yearning for the exposed, harsh desert...all happily co-exist when we let it, when allow ourselves to simply be the we that we are. Experiencing the world in all its diverse richness it to me one of the greatest treasures of life.

My goal with sharing here what I love and experience  is to encourage others on the creative journey, to explore and discover the hidden wonders of their own. There have been many creative beings that helped me along the way by sharing freely their love and belief in the creative process. I have a deep gratitude to them all and hope to be a channel to inspire the same in others!