During the past three months I have been making two ceramic wall murals in partnership with staff, peer support workers and young people experiencing mental health issues at the Footscray Hospital in-patient unit. The finished works are 1.8 by 1.2 meters and have been mounted in the outside courtyard, creating a vibrant colorful new feature. The mosaic was designed by Penelope Richardson using the ideas of the young people in the unit . For more information on the project go to the following websites. This project was supported by Arts Victoria's Arts Development for Communities program. Photo's courtesy Penelope Richardson

Link to: Orygen Health Arts Mosaic Project

Link to: Penelope Richardson

I have been working with the Hutch Early Learning Centre at Wesley with the 3 and 4 year old children over a six week period. We created story characters with clay for the unit of inquiry the children had been researching titled "Tell me a Story". Through the use of music, art and dance the children are discovering that words are not the only way they can tell stories. We have created little dogs, giraffes, chickens, snakes, crocodiles and many other animals the children wanted to learn how to make. These characters will be used to make up and tell stories once they have been decorated, glazed and fired. Everyone gets to take their favourite animal home and the left over ones will be turned into a permanent sculpture (see below) on display at the Hutch. I am fortunate to have been invited on a regular basis to the Hutch to work on various projects since 2002 when I created a 2,800 piece wall mural with all the students of the school.

I've just had the opportunity to take part in an amazing event that brought together seventy recently arrived refugee women from the AMES Integrated Humanitarian Settlement Program. The camp, held annually, provides opportunities for the participants to meet others who face similar circumstances. I put forth a proposal to make a large ceramic wall mural that could then be installed somewhere giving all the women an opportunity to come back on its completion and to have something that they created permanently on display. We made a 1.4 meter circle representing the world and the tiles spiral in, to incorporate the theme of the camp, "The Journey". The aim of the camp was for women to be able to participate in a range of activities that allowed them to share their stories, to provide them with an understanding of Australia and its cultural richness, and to provide essential knowledge for the next stage of their lives here.