Over the last 4 years, I have created designs that I think represent the idea of the soft edge. Concepts you could call them.

May the kerb in the country maintain its soft edge status. That is, be the delineator between the natural and the man made. For that to continue, nature has to be nurtured.

As fashion and design trends have a habit of seeping down into the mainstream consumer market, I recently saw a fluffy blanket Kim K style (and many other furnishings of that ilk) in a chain store…and I bought it. I’m mindful of fast fashion and textiles and I op shop and recycle most of the time but, dear reader, this blanket (and matching pillow cases!) is a delight. Photo by Debby Hudson - Unsplash

Pic: Light installation experimentation.

Life, and all it’s bumps and blips has, yet again, taken me away from writing this newsletter - a thing I very much enjoy doing!. Creativity has been in the everyday though, here’s what I’ve been up to:

The iconic French electronic duo. The soundtrack to my twenties. Every song on Moon Safari (Talkie Walkie, too), like friends keeping me soothed and uplifted on cold trains around Europe, in my rusty car driving around Melbourne, in all those share houses and flats…

The reproduction of sound was unbelievable. The light show along with it, the colours the exact hue of the songs. Every tune and riff I knew.

I’ve been in the process of organizing my prints for sale on my site as framed pictures and large mesh wall hangings. Photographing and styling has proved quite challenging (the semi-transparent quality of the mesh gets lost in the pics) and so I’ve been playing around with video and various photography methods. My merchandiser spirit has had the run around! I look forward to sharing the newly designed website with you next week.

Now for some inspiration. Here are some links from the last few month’s adventures:

Art:

I love these clouds by painter Michelle Purves

My father, Ross Coady’s recent exhibition at Harrington Street Gallery

Design:

The hilarious and inventive way Alex Bitter uses storytelling to market his incredible jewellery. See the adventures of ‘Margeaux’ and her assistant, ‘Jules’ here

Books:

Over December/January (that’s a while ago now!), I read the incredible ‘Doppelganger’ by Naomi Klein. If you’re interested in an incredible analysis of the interplay between online and offline worlds. See a Guardian article on Klein and her book here.

This week, I thought I'd tell you a little about creating my free download of backgrounds for virtual meetings. Photo used by misszin Getty images.

Then I remind myself why I am working this way. It came from a place of necessity having struggled with fatigue and brain fog for more than a year I needed to find a way to work differently -  to pursue and encourage ease, to conjure calm in the digital folds and soothing colours of my works. 

Harder is not better. I’m reminding myself of this each day in the process of re-imagining what it is to work - a dance between physical and digital realities. 

It is a daily practice of resistance against productivity grind culture.

Yes, these children are now safe in Australia with shelter, food, care and connection but still struggle with very real problems like PTSD. But evidenced on that stage that night was a true act of creating (theater in this case). Creating that was helping these children survive, recover, and hopefully thrive. A process is not only generative, but healing (apart from building awareness in the Australian public around these young refugee stories, this is the premise of the Treehouse Theater program).

I position each image layer, playing around moving them behind and infront of each other, I simultaneously work with each layer’s transparency levels. As I make a layer more transparent, the magic starts to appear…

As someone who has come from decades in the wellness industry where the metaphor of balance (aka middle ground) is used to sell all kinds of snake oil, I need to remind myself that the middle is mythical (Tolkien’s Middle Earth, for example). It is upheld to help us humans, who are in a continual state of flux and change, to feel safe in our bodies, lives, and culture . Mediocre by design. And, perhaps a way for humans to control humans, herding them into the center and leaving the fringe minorities out in the cold.My ideas in my soft edges philosophy is my way of lending a compassionate acknowledgement to life in flux. And, to describe this life through art. A life where nuance is necessary. Where we live in the diverse shades between white and black.

I have a beautiful studio/office set-up at the back of my garage in my garden. Plants cluster around my laptop as I type. Artworks, in process, sit along the walls. I even have some Pilates equipment to workout on. It is all very nice. Except …

Blue carpet, royal blue and various fading variations of it was, and still is, everywhere in allied health clinics.

It figures; it says clinical, authoritative, regal, and probably hides dirt well. Allied health spaces have high foot traffic so, you’ve gotta be sensible with your carpet color choice, right?

Discovering the richness around you, in the everyday, the extraordinary in the ordinary makes, I think, life more beautiful. I think noticing leads to calm. And when you’re calm, you notice more ;) Photo used in pic by Eric Mclean (Pexels)

The name soft edges speaks to the deeper motivations, and inspirations of my work, yet is broad enough to encompass ideas like calm spaces and the work of so many artists, thinkers, and doers I want to celebrate here every week. Manifesta:

I believe in soft Edges.

That is, approaching the edge, the threshold, the boundary, but in a soft way. There exists an edge, but with softness mediating it, it’s not harmful but generative.

We, as humans, need contrast, push-pull, opposition, in order to thrive. Too much though, and we’re overstretched and can lose our center. Too little, stagnancy and fogginess set in.

I believe that:

We need to feel the edges but not be on edge. 

We need softness but not stagnancy and fogginess. 

We need contrasts but not binaries. 

We need oppositional pull but not fracturing.

We need both the hardware and the software.

IN BUSINESS:

I support businesses to feel their soft edge again after it’s been overstretched like a rubber band. I help them create brilliant brands that hold tension, that are a container for their precious efforts.