She knew she couldn’t calm the storm, so she calmed herself. She bravely turned her face to the skies and allowed it to carry her away. She embraced it. She accepted it. She became one with it. She was tossed and torn by it but never gave up. She learned from it. She survived. When it was over, she was thrown back into the water. She knew she could never be the same again. She didn’t want to be. She had endured the tempest and won. She faced tomorrow with strength and dignity……..Livonne
And it all came to this! This page has been very quiet over the last year or so. It’s been a crazy time. I started working on the story of my life, with all it’s twists and turns, in the form of a fairy tale back in 2016.
Whilst in the middle of planning the next chapters and making props and sculptures for it, I was diagnosed with breast cancer. During treatment and recovery I pushed on to finish all the photography I needed to build the images and am still finishing the editing on that.
And now, it’s only just over 2 months until exhibition, so the pressure is on to get everything organised to do it credit. There are 6 chapters to this story and they deal with childhood sexual abuse, domestic violence, grief over the loss of a child, mental illness, displacement of home and cancer. Sounds gloomy doesn’t it? But it’s really not.
Told in the form of a fairytale with each section having it’s own setting which explains what helped me get back up and keep going, it is full of hope. It is a fully immersive exhibition where you get to walk through a story book and into new worlds. There are lots of things to see, feel, original music to hear and lots of other experiences.
Hopefully the viewer will be left feeling inspired knowing that life can always get better and happiness is our birthright. It is told as a fairytale as I have always identified with them. They were my safe place as a child when awful things were happening and they are still my safe place today.
The dates of the exhibition are particularly significant. It opens on May 1st which is my angel daughter’s 34th birthday and a year to the day since I was diagnosed with breast cancer. It closes on 27th May which is the 24th anniversary of my angel daughter’s death. These 27 days are usually hell on earth for me, full of sadness and ‘what ifs’. This year they will be spent celebrating the roller coaster that has been my life, of which she has been such a huge part of.
My precious granddaughter was born on 31st May and from the day she was born I knew I had to make May a month of celebration again. She deserves that and I know her angel auntie would say that’s exactly how it should be. So the 27th of May this year closes the book of unending grief and I begin a new story of celebration and hope. The grief will never go away but it will be used to create rather than to destroy.
The exhibition will be held at Wild Valley Art Park which is located at 321 Blaxland Road Wentworth Falls NSW from 1st – 27th of May 2019. It will be open Wednesday through to Sundays but appointments can be made on other days. This is a brief video to give an idea of what to expect. Special thanks to Nick from Filmclass Pictures for the fantastic video
Livonne Imagery 