I will present a Lightning Talk entitled “A Journey through Landscape” at the (virtual) SAQA annual conference in April 15-25th. Lightning Talks are pre-recorded presentations of 20 slides delivered at the rate of 1 slide / 20 seconds. The experienced people at SAQA say that at normal speaking speeds, a maximum of 50 words will fit in the time for each slide, and I’ve got my comments down to an average of 40. As the saying goes, a picture can say 1000 words, so to cut down on the verbal noise, I’ve placed the title, year and dimensions on every slide, and limited any really necessary technical information to 2-5 words, as I believe people appreciate a few seconds of silence in which to study an image.

I’ve enjoyed the process of composing slides showing the connection between some of the landscapes I’ve lived and travelled in to some of my best works. I gave an early version of this talk in Australia several years ago, but of course, speaking in-person with 50+ slides, I could comment in more detail, ad lib in places and answer a few questions at the end. So in some ways this compilation has been harder, especially as many of my own photos from earlier periods of my life are still buried in storage. However, close friends Wendy Lugg, Dennis Gee and sister Rosemary McBain have supplied me with suitable images to use instead.

The coronavirus pandemic has brought disturbing images to us all – of the virus itself, masks, fields of fresh graves, stacked coffins, isolated grieving people, and more. Dramatic changes in Man’s social landscape have engraved our lives with new patterns of behaviour and experience. The image of a whole field of freshly dug graves in hastily cleared forest land demanded that I use fabric and stitch in a new work I called Pandemic Pattern. It was selected for Quilt National 21 and became the first of a new series of that name. I recently finished #4, and am sample making for #5.