Episode 4: Weaving Scars

Nicky Schonkala is a textile artist. But a work she has created of late, has put a whole new spin on her textile art. When Nicky had a seizure for the first time, at the age of 30 years, a friend recommended she visit a doctor. That visit, became an immediate invitation into hospital, and front row seats in brain surgery.
Nicky was diagnosed with a tumour in the brain, which needed to be removed immediately.

She got her mum to take photos of the scar on her head, just after the surgery, merely wanting a record of the momentous event. But it turned into much more than that.
“After I got the idea to turn it into art, I morphed the photo’s digitally, to show the progression of recovery. It really came about as a culmination of getting access to the right loom, a Jacquard, which really allows you to create works of fine detail, and wanting to make a proposal to the Midsummer Visual Arts Program.”

Now Nicky has a series of 25 images of herself and her scar, during the healing process.
She had no idea how successful it would be. Looking back now, she says, ‘the process of healing was mixed up with the process of identity.. It’s about what you hide, and what you reveal.” After the brain surgery, she felt that by covering up the scar, she was covering up her identity.

Her work was first exhibited at The Platform Gallery in Flinders Lane. She said the colours were important, and very symbolic, even if they were in the background.
“The red represents passion, that’s about me.” When you see the faded red, ‘in the pink’ it is representative of Nicky on medication.

“It was a life changing event. I ended up leaving Melbourne, and now I take more time out for my life. And here in Alice Springs, I don’t have to define myself to one thing. Before the tumour, my life was very hectic, now I nurture myself more. I try to balance things out.”

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Episode 3: Orgasm Artist

‘Cee Sparét’ may well be the only artist anywhere in the world, working in this way.’

‘Cee Sparét’ is a teacher, a mother, and a wife. She is also an artist. She prefers to be oblivious to the rhetoric and the politics behind being an artist. She is an artist that likes to create first, and then to consider what it all means afterwards.

After a particularly critical deconstruction, of her work by painting tutors at her local University, she went home to her husband very distressed. They ended up making love. She came. And then she came again. Cee wanted to make her mark. And in an explosion of clarity, combined inventively with some food colouring, she saw it.
Cee discovered a unique way to express herself artistically. She now creates her art by ‘coming’ and performing a female ejaculation onto special paper. This paper is then treated with various photographic processing chemicals. Each ejaculation creates different colours and patterns, when put through this process. Cee has sketched a new and original self portrait of her pussy every single day since the first of January 2003. This too, has been incorporated into her work. She now has journals of more than 1550 individual sketches.

It was while exhibiting her orgasm work and sketches in it’s 2D format, that she also designed from the images, textiles creating an outfit that would compliment her work while she was showing it. The textiles inspired her funky clothing designs, and people became more interested in the clothes. It was only a short step then, until her clothing label was born of this creative coming. The label is called, ‘Orgasm’. It says, ‘I dare you.’

She is as yet, largely undiscovered. A lot of people she comes across, don’t ‘get’ her work, and even ask her, to keep her erotic fashions out of their textile shows.
She responds succinctly by saying, “Well, they’re obviously not my market.”
The people who love her clothes, are from a wide cross section, but her sons, who have created their own rock band, love wearing the clothes on stage.

She describes her clothes as ‘full of energy’ and as ‘live sculptures.’ It was important to her, to be able to express herself, and her art is in fact a celebration of herself as an individual. Her work celebrates individuals.
Cee’s work begs the question, how can we censor art, if it means we are censoring ourselves?

Please check out her wearable art at: kre8tive@bigpond.net.au

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Episode 2: Body Marks

Bilha Smith, is a 65 year old woman, who is about to get her first tattoo. She say’s, “At the age of 60, I didn’t like my body very much, but now I’ve come though that. I’ve finally accepted my body for what it is …my son is doing well, and I felt I wanted to celebrate.”

Every change she feels in her life, she wants to mark, it. And she does, either with a performance piece, (she is an artist) and usually with ideas revolving around her body. “I’ve celebrated different things in different ways over the years, but this time I wanted to celebrate it on my skin.” She has decided to get the tattoo, on a part of her body, which is likely to wrinkle the least, her inside wrist.

Bilha is getting an image of a Nautilus. This is basically an image of an ever expanding spiral. It symbolizes expansion and the growth of things. The image symbolizes, not only her acceptance of her own body, and its limitations, but of her own self-knowledge. It celebrates her personal journey. Bilha see’s getting this tattoo, as a rite of passage. “Rites of passage never cease, not until we are dead.”

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Episode 1: A Grand Canvas

When Elka and I were invited to visit ‘the swamp’, by Elka’s friend and artist, Bronwyn Wright, I have to say, I wasn’t completely turned on by the prospect. But being a kiwi girl, virgin to the outback, visiting ‘The Swamp’ in Darwin’s suburban neighbourhood of Leanyer, proved to be an adventure well worth going on.

We met in the early evening, and set off in Bronwyn’s red jeep. Three of her dogs accompanied us, one traveled on the hood of the car, balancing like a ballerina, and the other two, were in the back seat with me. It was all dog smell, wet dirty paws, and happy dog smiles, out the back of the swaying vehicle.

The Dalmatian dogs, are the love of Bronwyn’s life, and run in and out of her photography, and her works of art. The t-shirt she wears, mimics their colouring.
They all celebrate the uniform of spots. Even Bronwyn’s statue of Michelangelo,
which stands guard out front of her house, has been outfitted with spots.

Bronwyn was taking us to her favourite place, her studio, Leanyer’s Swamp. It is a place where mosquito’s breed, spear grass grows two meters tall, and old cars go to die. It was these old cars, contextually out of place, and in such a beautiful surrounding area, that excited Bronwyn. She set about painting the cars in the colours and shapes of the surrounding environment, and then photographing her work. Each new car is a new canvas. And over a period of years, Bronwyn has developed her art form into a number of different, but valid lines of thought.

She has a website where you can view her work that it’s well worth the effort.
Check out: www.knockalong.com.au

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The Beyond Babes Project

Welcome to Beyond Babe’s Blogspot. This site is devoted to telling stories about women, who are, or do extraordinary things. Elka Kerkhofs, and Kye Plunkett travel on an overland route, from Darwin; down the Stuart Highway, stopping off at places such as Katherine, Alice Springs, Uluru, Coober Pedy, Adelaide and finally Melbourne. The search is on to discover women who either have extraordinary jobs, live in extraordinary places, have extraordinary hobbies, or have had a significant life-changing event, about which they speak. Whoever they are, they are women that want to make their mark in the world.

At each of the stops, we will blog about our adventures, logging each of the characters we find along the way. We’ll fill the blog with written stories of each of the women, (or men, if we find some that meet the criteria) combined with a personal travel log of experiences had while traveling the Stuart Highway.

On our return to Melbourne we will cut together video footage that we have captured of the women, and create a series of four minute portrait documentary’s. These portrait documentaries will be a combination of animation, stills, and video footage of the outback women, made ready to be screened on the Internet. When you watch these portrait documentaries, you’ll see people doing what scares them most, taking risks, and seizing the moment.

contact us on beyondbabes@gmail.com