I try to walk regularly in the Crinigan Bushland Reserve which is close to where I live. I did get very lax with walking late last year and until this month as I have struggled a little with mental health issues and suddenly I was not interested in doing anything much despite the fact that I have a plate full of things that must get done one way or another.
I have been working on a series of sentinelles that will be exhibited as part of Gathered Threads, which will this year be shown at the Latrobe Regional Gallery for their winter season and the Opening is 20 June 2026. I am revisiting the sentinelles as in a sense they are my voice in the wilderness- and the world does seem like an alien inhospitable place at present and the only thing that seems to calm the restless disorientation I feel is to walk , and yet knowing this, I can't make myself walk every day- it's that loopy circle that jus goes round and round. That said I have been out more this month and every time I do walk I feel a little calmer for a short while.
I have envisaged these sentinelles as being a troupe of wanderers singing and telling stories of the bush I have encountered on my morning walks- things noticed and somehow intrinsic to the Australian bush. I have yet to add botanical inks to add colour but I feel a little less anxious now that I have carved the linocut for the third Sentinelle and printed it. I always envisaged there would be three figures alerting to three different levels of the bush- the eucalypts/canopy, the kangaroo grass/ the understory and fungi at the earth level. I could make many more but I don't have the time. They are 75 cm high and will be suspended with twine so hopefully creating the feeling of them floating and some at eye level.
I think my favourite one is the fungi sentinelle- and the " flower" shapes are not actually flowers but earth stars who are quite flower shaped when you really look at them. I have been intrigued by fungi since childhood and to me it seems such a magical largely unknown world that somehow connects us all in the great circle of all life, not just human life. I encounter lots of different fungi in the Bushland reserve and it varies from year to year. Anyway see what you think. They are still a work in progress and there will be an embroidered sentinelle for each design.
