The famous literary Brontë family lived in Haworth Parsonage, Yorkshire, between 1820 and 1861. Their austere grey-stone home, surrounded by dark-green trees, prickly hedges and bleak moors, is infused with gothic imaginations. Even though it is now the Brontë Parsonage Museum, and nothing can be touched, this is a place where astonishing art was created by three sisters. I imagine […]
These days, it is cool to poo-poo the pursuit of beauty in art, but avant-garde writers and artists in late-nineteenth-century Europe, particularly in the hedonistic capital of France, celebrated the power of beauty to transform the beholder. English literary genius, Oscar Wilde, was notorious as the witty spokesman of Aestheticism and its bold declaration that art should be independent from […]
Unprecedented mass surveillance and the implications for our private lives, now and into the future, are scary—invisible monsters inhabit the built environment, listening and taking note. Gardens can be our escape, however bizarre. In my mind I make a return visit to one of Italy’s most mysterious and ingenious sixteenth-century gardens: Sacre Bosco in Bomarzo, 42 miles north of Rome. […]
Another Christmas is behind us. January, and a hot, dry Melbourne summer are upon us again. Howard Arkley’s air-brushed, brightly-coloured pictorial images of triple-fronted brick veneer Melbourne homes remind me of when I was younger, and the route I regularly walked from the bus stop to the local swimming pool. I would marvel at those cream-brick, highly-prized family havens. Today, […]
Entering The University of Melbourne’s Ian Potter Museum of Art, I walked upstairs and entered a darkened room: soft light illuminated the central glass case containing a small medieval prayer book opened to reveal a biblical scene in brilliant colour, painted on parchment. I could just see the crimson velvet binding around the edge of the cover, and I imagined […]
For those who follow the teachings of Zen, one must not merely look, but see—and hear. I’m not the meditating type, but the extreme spareness of Ryōan-ji, the dry-landscape Japanese garden in Kyoto, with its solid wall and graceful overhanging branches of cherry blossom—an extraordinary place of art—encouraged me to silently contemplate the meaning of its stillness. This is not […]
In 1848, inspired by medieval art and literature, seven young British artists formed the semi-secret Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood (PRB). Together they explored new ways of ensuring that visual truth could be better expressed through a more realistic, less idealised art, which had been previously defined by the standards of classicism and High Renaissance art. During a time of profound change in […]
Spanning one long white wall, painted cross-form stars crowd vertical rectangles of bark after bark, giving the effect of twinkling stars moving across the night sky; on the opposite wall, shimmering cross-hatched lines painted on barks using earth ochres, mimic the ancient rippling of land in one of the driest areas of Australia, hardened by the sun, but saved by […]
We’ve all deleted or manipulated photos of ourselves if we don’t like the way we look. So do we really care if our ‘self-portraits’ are just constructions, images of ourselves that we want to convey, at a particular place and moment in time? Self-portraits that mask the identity of the artist are often slammed as being pretentious and gimmicky, disallowing […]
As ever, additional reading is high on my agenda of things to ‘do’ in the first few weeks of January. I’m not a book reviewer, but I can’t resist sharing my reading experience of Patrick McCaughey’s new book on Australian painting: ‘Strange Country: Why Australian painting matters’. I am a self-confessed painting-aholic so this book is fodder for my addiction: […]
Denise’s assessment was thorough, considered and she highlighted several important shortcomings in the plot and character development. ‘Red Can Origami’ became a much stronger manuscript for her input!
Madelaine Dickie
Denise was invaluable in getting my novel from a rough 3rd draft to publication ready. I especially liked her capacity to develop a collaborative working relationship so that all the work of editing, polishing, re-writing was held in the spirit of my writing journey.
Denise has well-honed writing skills, of course, but as well she has this unusual capacity to support and encourage. She really tuned in to my direction as a writer which was enormously helpful in moving my novel forward. Beyond the fine-tuning of my last draft, Denise then gave some timely coaching to help me negotiate the new realities of publishing. How great it was to have access to such a well-grounded and experienced mentor! Highly recommended.
Thupten Lekshe
Dear Denise, Many thanks for the way you have prepared and presented my memoir. I could not imagine at the start that it would turn out looking the way you have presented what now seems a very interesting life; in fact, I might live it again. Thank you and congratulations.
Percy Rogers