Audacity Magazine Online - Issue 5 - January, 2021

January 2021 - Issue 5

CONTACT ME Kate@Audacitymagazine.online

SOCIALS https://www.instagram.com/kate_duff_poetry/?hl=en https://www.instagram.com/audacitymagazine_online/ https://athousandbitsofpaper.com/

SUBSCRIPTIONS https://mailchi.mp/50d22854e480/subscribe-to-audacity-magazine-today https://www.patreon.com/AudaciousHumans

BACK ISSUES https://audacitymagazine.online/

JANUARY Happy New Year!

December was such a distraction, I almost didn't get here on time - in fact, the insurrection was so bad, I nearly fired myself.

It's the people and the stories that I love sharing who keep me on target though and this month is another cracking bunch of audacious humans.

Jordan Spriggs is a sculptor from Western Australia who takes random pieces of metal and turns them into extraordinary art Marina Meira is a photographer from Brisbane in Queensland, who specializes in boudoir photography and empowers women (and men) to view their bodies more positively. Marina is the creator of such projects as "Everybody is a Beach Body" and "The Naked Face" (which has now been turned into a beautiful coffee table book). One of Marina's striking photos graces the front cover this month.

Craig Hubbard is a beyond organic farmer from Doonan in Queensland who, after witnessing the food shortages and panic of 2020 is now teaching people how to grow their own food and restore depleted soils.

Trevor Carter is a sculptor from Melbourne, pursuing his artistic passion after a career that has taken him around the world Martin White is an author, rock guitarist, yogi, photographer ...and many other things that look interesting thrown into the one sentence together. He is from the East Lothian area near Edinburgh in Scotland Let's get into it!

Jordan Spriggs Sculptor

Jordan Spriggs is from the farming town of Narembeen in Western Australia. He attended boarding school in Perth before going on to University to study psychology. It was while he was mucking around on holidays that he put together his first metal sculpture. It quickly sold and another order came in. Seven years on and Jordan is still creating his unique and sought after pieces - his "mucking" around has become a successful business.

I chatted to Jordan in early December 2020 after coming across an article about his latest large scale sculpture, a white rhino dubbed Sudan.

"I have always drawn and sketched things since I was a kid" says Jordan. "I got into welding around the age of fourteen, so I had the skills I needed to do the work and then once I created that first piece, I have just refined the process and learned as I went along" Jordan's process includes obtaining a 3D model or figurine which he uses to scale up the dimensions of whatever he is working on. Jordan researches the animals as well as drawing and sketching it in several poses.

"It is important to get the pose right and I often have quite a few pictures of the animal I am trying to portray. As for the research, it can be extraordinary what you discover," he says.

"For instance, in the case of the rhino I discovered that they don't have a ball sack, the testes are inside the animal, and that their penis faces backward which assists them in procreation, (which would otherwise be difficult given their size and heaviness). It doesn't sound particularly relevant, but when you are recreating the animal it pays to know these things. The rhino also usually has oxpecker birds that ride on their back and alert their host if there are any predators nearby. My completed rhino, therefore, has three of these little birds incorporated into the sculpture" Once he has done his research and has his drawings and scale, Jordan goes about gathering the scrap metal and bringing it inside, he lays it on the floor likening the process to assembling a jigsaw puzzle.

"The eye is usually made out of stainless steel and once it goes in, the piece really comes alive," says Jordan.

It is that "aliveness" that interested me when I saw Jordan's work.

https://www.jordanspriggsculptures.com.au

The construction is time-consuming. Some of the larger pieces such as the rhino can take between 500-600 hours to create. His equally famous bovines, take around 350 hours, and the smaller pieces, birds, roosters take around 35 hours.

Sudan, the rhino, has been sold to a private owner in Perth and is currently outside The Rambler on Swan Restaurant.

Most of Jordan's pieces have been sold within Western Australia. His hometown of Narembeen has two and there are more in small towns close by. Jordan's website contains a map charting the location of his sculptures so tourists and fans can find them if they are in the area.

Many of Jordan's sculptures are not always available for public viewing as they are now in the hands of private collectors. Jordan has had such success with his work that he is now turning prospective clients away. The degree of exclusivity doesn't hurt his business though and if anything enhances it. Jordan is already fully booked for 2021, with his next few commissions including a large Spanish mackerel, a camel, and various other pieces.

"There is so much to explore, so many different animals that I want to create. I still feel I have so much room to grow and refine. I'm constantly learning. I am interested in other metals such as stainless steel, which I am enjoying experimenting with lately and I would also like to do some large American animals such as the buffalo and ship them overseas in the future" I asked Jordan if he was still interested in pursuing psychology and making use of his degree.

"I would love to do some public speaking around the area of mental health in places such as schools and local men's sheds. I believe everyone should have a hobby and that they should start as early as possible in life. I think creativity is integral to supporting positive mental health and it can really help with stress and isolation."

We discussed how social media is impacting mental health, how online distractions are stealing the time that may have once been used to pursue hobbies and creativity.

"It's a habit (social media) that I'm trying to break myself at the moment. I don't spend a lot of time on social media but I do find that the notifications sometimes suck me in. That said, I can't do what I do without it. For exposure and marketing, social media is important, and that is where most of my sales and commissions come from.

Jordan is a reader who cites audiobooks as a great method of absorbing books, as he can listen to them as he works. Because we are both book lovers, we swapped a current top 5 to try. Considering it will be the holiday period when the magazine publishes this month, and people may be able to squeeze in a little more reading than usual, it seemed like a fitting inclusion.

Jordans top 5: 12 Rules for Life - Jordan Peterson Mans Search for Meaning - Victor Frankl The Resilience Project - Hugh Van Cuylenburg Atomic Habits - James Clear Daring Greatly - Brene Brown To find out more about Jordan and see more of his incredible artworks, click on the links below

https://www.facebook.com/jordan.sprigg.9 https://www.instagram.com/jordanspriggsculptures/?hl=en https://www.jordanspriggsculptures.com.au/art-trail

I walked away and broke the glass in which we listened to each other were within each other as rain disappears into the earth Puddles in the path like a shining set of stations Take me to the wet leaves their constellations undiminished by morning The kangaroo offering her belly to the sun ears flickering at calls how we colonise The earth with our sound The youngest shouting to each other and all the mute listeners in alarm She rose on an elbow as I came and lowered in time I didn't go on No one should break the presence of another to the sun

JUDITH BISHOP

Marina Meier Photographer

I first came across Marina’s photography when I saw the results of one of her projects “Everybody is a Beach Body,” the energy of her photos leaped off the screen.

It was obvious that the women being photographed were enjoying themselves immensely and comfortable in their bathers, which is not always an emotion that we women experience when displaying ourselves at the beach. I guess I wanted a little piece of what they were having so I dug deeper.

At the heart of these beautiful images was photographer, Marina Meier. Earlier in December, we spoke on the phone.

“My Dad was Russian and my Mum was German - although we didn’t speak much German growing up in Kazakhstan - hence when we later moved to Germany, I struggled a little at school. I knew when I left school that I didn’t want to study something boring and that I needed a creative career that inspired me. From the beginning I loved photography. It soon became my greatest love and passion.

I came to Australia five years ago from Germany, it was really hard at first creating my own business from scratch.

I came with my partner of course but other than that I knew no one, no friends, no contacts, nothing. The trouble is I am an introvert as well.

Speaking one on one with people is fine and I enjoy it, but as soon as another person joins the conversation I begin to withdraw and observe.

This is not good for networking. It has taken me five years to build my business up to where I can call it a success."

I asked Marina why she had chosen to focus her business around boudoir photography.

Marina's self portrait from The Naked Face Project

“When I decided to begin my own business I had to think back to what inspired me in the beginning.

The first day when I walked into the studio at which I was going to be an intern as a nineteen-year old, I looked up and there was this huge picture of a naked, pregnant woman hanging on the wall.

I was so shocked! Why on earth would anyone allow themselves to be photographed naked and displayed on a wall like that, in a studio where there were families and men and children walking in and out all day?

The picture was a full frontal and I could see the woman's breast. Having been raised conservatively, I found this very confronting.

After a few months working in the studio I gained a more open mind and a different perspective. Just before this time, Demi Moore, the actress, had been on the front cover of Vogue magazine naked and pregnant in that very iconic photo that opened this idea to many women around the world that they could be both beautiful and pregnant at the same time.

Often families would come in for family portrait sessions and then the mother might book a session of boudoir photography. During our conversations, I would learn more about why this woman was having these photos done and the stories could be quite touching.

When I began in the photography business in Germany it was all analog. I would spend hours developing photos in the darkroom and always enjoyed the magic of watching the pictures emerge from the white paper.

Later though when digital photography became a thing, people would call and ask do we do analog or digital photography? People wanted digital photography because then the photos could be retouched. We were losing clients so we had to learn the new skills of photoshop and processing.

The trouble was that then I would have clients sitting beside me after the shoot criticizing every little wrinkle and hair and blemish and making me remove them. It was usually women in their late 40’s and 50’s who needed the photo for romantic dating sites or, back in Germany, it was usual for a headshot to be submitted as part of job applications, and these older women wanted to make themselves look younger.

But I could see how it affected them and how upset they would become.

I grew to hate that part because I could see how unhappy they were with the photos of themselves because they just wanted to “improve” everything. It is one thing to compare yourself with a photo of an actress or a model where you know they have a team of makeup artists and so on behind them to make them look perfect. But when you have this impossibly filtered and corrected image of yourself that you just can’t live up to, well it can cause mental illness.

So when setting up my own business I did not want to have to do these extreme photoshopping types of photography.

Also, I had lost interest in the family portraits that I found so draining because there was always someone that didn’t want to be there and you would be cajoling them and trying to put everyone in a good mood to get the best photos.

I remembered that first day and how transformational and eye-opening the boudoir photography had been, for not just me but for the women that I photographed. I decided I would only shoot in black and white and I have stayed with those rules.”

Marina’s photography is beautiful. Her projects such as The Naked Face Photography Project and Everybody is a Beach Body are mind shifting as a viewer, so I can imagine they would be even more so for the subjects that take part.

I asked her what was her favorite story of photographing a client. (Luckily I had given her a few days to prepare for these questions before we spoke, having emailed her prior with what we would be discussing in the interview.)

“I thought really hard about this. It’s difficult because I have had so many wonderful stories and connections, but I think the one that made me believe that photography was important and not just a luxury pursuit happened back in Germany when I worked in the studio of my mentor and friend.

We had a family coming in and the mother wanted some photos of the two brothers with their little sister. The little girl was just gorgeous, she had all these curls, like an afro and so much attitude. The photos were stunning and we were telling her mother how much we loved her hair and you know, just enthusing over everything. Her mother said that the little girl actually hated her hair.

She had never had curls before but after chemotherapy (she had leukemia) this is the way that her hair had grown back.

So that was very sad.

A few months later a woman called me at the studio and she wanted the portrait of just the little girl blown up and sent to her. I told her I didn’t think that we could do that because she was not the girl’s mother but then she told me the story that the little girl had died. They needed the photo for her funeral.

I cried all the way home that day but it was the first time that I thought perhaps photography was important, that what I did was important. When I studied photography you see and gained my diploma, I was the best in the class but I had always considered my vocation to be not one of great importance, like a doctor or a teacher. People have this different, rather condescending view of the arts like they don’t really matter.

But after that, and now many years later of seeing how transformational photography can be for people, I realized that it is important, and now I am very proud of what I do.”

“Tell me more about your boudoir photography - what is involved and do you still find it inspiring, has your photography changed at all over time?”

“I love that people trust me enough to share their stories with me. Sometimes people tell me straight away in an email why they are having this photography session and if they have a battle with something that they need to overcome. I have learnt never to judge a book by its cover.

Some people seem so confident and beautiful and then they open up and tell me that they have such insecurity about something.

I love finding just the right location and we sometimes find amazing places outside or at Air B&B's and hotel rooms. Because I have to take photos in all sorts of places and conditions it is far more challenging than a studio where everything is very controlled. That is exactly what I wanted though and I love it.

When I go to deliver the photos to my client, that is very nerve-wracking but sometimes they are in tears and we both become quite emotional at how much they love their photos. Not everyone tells me straight away. Some contact me later to tell me what they thought and how the process was transformational for them - I always find these emails very moving.”

Marina has overseen dramatic changes within her industry. I asked her what was the hardest part of what she now does within her own business

“It is definitely the marketing, social media. I was brought up not to “toot your own horn” and that your art, if it was good enough, would speak for itself. But I thought, how will my art speak for itself if no one even knows it exists?

Also, it has taken me a long time but I am proud now of what I do and of my business so I thought, this is something that I will have to learn to overcome. I have more confidence now and having done the projects like Naked Face and Beach Body I know that these things do a lot of good for others as well as raising my own profile.

With Everybody is a Beach Body I only charged $5 per ticket but people could also make an extra donation if they wanted to. I have three charities that are close to my heart https://www.rizeup.com.au/ https://www.sharethedignity.org.au/ http://www.bluebutterflyfoundation.org/

I think with the first shoot we didn’t raise very much money, only about $300 but it didn’t matter as it felt so good to be able to donate that money to such worthwhile causes. Also the women that came to the first shoot of Everybody is a Beach Body had such a wonderful time and were saying things like “I need to bring my ten-year-old daughter who won’t swim at the beach because she thinks she is fat” or “I need to bring my mother in law because she won’t go to the beach anymore because she thinks she is too old and wrinkly”.

Things like this, really motivate me so I released another event of Everybody is a Beach Body for January 2021 at Mooloolaba, but it booked out in three days and people kept wanting to book so I thought the more people I have to come, then the more money we can raise for these charities, so I am also doing another one on the Sunshine Coast in February but I haven’t got a location yet.“

Coolum Beach” I say “it is perfect, big long beach, beautiful waves!” (It is also my favorite beach in the world so I’m a little biased.)

“Does it have rocks? I need rocks to stagger people so that they are not just standing in a straight line, particularly if there is a large group” “Yes! It has great rocks, lots of rocks” “Okay, maybe I will have to drive up from Brisbane and take a look”...

I hope so! If you want to follow Marina, book a boudoir session, be part of one of her fascinating projects or just see the results, such as can be found in her beautiful coffee table book The Naked Face Project, then click on the links below. https://www.nakedfacephotographyproject.com/about/ https://www.photographer-marina.com/https://www.facebook.com/marina.meier.1

Wear your heart on your skin in this life

SYLVIA PLATH

Craig Hubbard Organic Farmer

Craig Hubbard is the owner and founder of Shambhala Farm, an organic fruit and vegetable farm located at Doonan on the Sunshine Coast of Queensland. Shambhala Farm delivers organic fruit and vegetable boxes up and down the coast as well as supplying a stall at local Farmers Markets.

The word "Shambhala", in the Buddhist tradition, is a mythical place, a kind of Utopia here on earth. Craig's vision, which came to him so long ago has finally come to fruition, but it has been a long and winding road to arrive here, and there have been many plot twists along the way.

Craig's story is an interesting and inspiring one. For me, it shows that although we humans may have a goal, a dream, a vision, a plan - the universe has its own way of interacting in our lives.

Craig was living in Sydney and running a health and wellness business when the 2007/08 economic crash occurred.

Seeing how this impacted the business community, Craig decided he needed a change. It was a visit to an organic farm in Queensland that inspired Craig as to what that change might look like. He had a vision of how he could obtain a lifestyle in line with his desire to live closer to nature, turning his work into a vocation, growing food both for his own family and also supplying the community. Craig’s love of surfing was satisfied with beaches close by and he thought he might find some balance that was missing in Sydney.

Knowing little about farming in the beginning, Craig became an apprentice of sorts to Jim, a farmer who was always happy, usually barefoot, and lived simply and close to the earth.

Jim taught Craig everything there was to know about farming and Craig took over the selling of Jim’s produce at the farmer's markets on the weekend. With his background in business and marketing Craig had an eye for how to tell both Jim’s story and that of his beautiful, healthy produce. Business tripled within weeks and kept growing.

The toil was constant. Craig would work during the week and then on Saturday around midnight he would pick up the produce from the cold rooms at the farm and travel to the Farmers Markets at Noosa setting up around 2.30-3am. The customers would arrive early in the morning and the stall would run through until the afternoon.

The Farmers Markets are an important local food supply that people up and down the Sunshine Coast are able to tap into, however, much of the produce is supplied by only a small number of farmers. When two older farmers decided to retire in quick succession, Craig could immediately see how adversely this would affect the clients with whom he had developed close relationships over the years.

The relentless work that is involved in eeking out a living from small fruit and vegetable farms on the Sunshine Coast was daunting and Craig knew about it first hand by now, but he also had a few ideas about how he could make such a farm pay and still provide a good lifestyle for his family. Craig bought one of the retiring farmer's allotments and by the time that the sale went through in January 2012, Craig already had a crop in the ground.

The farm which Craig renamed "Shambahla" in line with his original vision, had no house, just a small ramshackle shed, and a dodgy cabin which Craig and his wife set about making habitable. In the meantime, they lived in their camper trailer. Craig continued to farm and sell fruit and vegetables at the farmers' markets on the weekend.

The first year into his new venture saw floods devastate Craig's crops. This event made him see that the producers needed to band together to create a more consistent source of supply for customers. Customers have an expectation that their produce will be waiting for them at the markets each week, consistency is everything and without it people would turn elsewhere.

Not everyone wanted to join a cooperative farmers group but despite this, the idea caught on.

Although all the farmers took great pride in their fruit and vegetables and being able to say "I grew this", many like Craig, could see the benefits of a guaranteed supply. {Today, the Sustainable Food Hub has organic and beyond organic farms linked along with many areas of the coast and as far inland as the Lockyer Valley. If a farmer, through drought or other misfortune, has not been able to grow produce of his own, he can buy from another at wholesale prices and then on-sell to his customers thereby guaranteeing supply.} A staggering amount of work is required to farm sustainably and organically, as well as marketing and selling the produce, however, Craig has had help by way of WWOOFers (Willing Workers on Organic Farms). These workers are usually backpackers or others that have an interest in learning what is involved in organic farming. They work for accommodation and food which helps keeps costs down. It is from this diverse group that Craig has found employees who wanted to stay on longer and have proved invaluable to building the farm to what it is today.

With his backup supply lines established and help to get through the farming workload in place, Craig turned his attention to a home for his growing family. He was halfway through building the family home when his marriage broke down.

"It was really hard," says Craig of the time. " I thought, where do I go from here? I'm working on our house. All my plans, the farm, all this work, everything had been for us, our family. Now there was nothing and I was utterly devastated"

"Without my purpose, my family, I wasn't inspired anymore and I just didn't want to do it. It was fortunate that at the time my Mum was trying to sell her house in Sydney and find somewhere else to live. She was really stressed about it so I offered her to come and stay with me, I certainly had plenty of room now. We had the year together and it turned out to be really good for both of us. When the kids came over she could see them and it gave us all a bit of balance.

My heart still wasn't in the farm though. When that Christmas rolled around, the Woodford Folk Festival was on and for the first time I went. I had heard about it from various workers over the years but I was always too busy to go. While I was there I heard about Costa Rica and it sounded amazing. I thought, well I can sit here and be bitter and depressed or I can go and do some of the things that I missed in my twenties.

Costa Rica is where my sense of purpose for Shambhala was restored. Seeing their farms that grow beautiful produce right near the beaches and living amongst their wonderful communities I was re-inspired to take everything that I learned there and apply it at home.

I also took a trip to Bali. Another dream I had always held was to complete my yoga teacher training. It was in Bali that I met Chrissy. As part of the training, students are advised to take what they have learned back into the community and put it into practice. Chrissy was from Brisbane and I thought we could hold a combined retreat at the farm.

We had sold 30 tickets while we were still in Bali. It was a tight timeline when I arrived home. I had a builder friend who helped us construct a place to do yoga in the middle of the farm. By the end of a month when our students rolled up we had a 200sqm yoga shala, surrounded by all the growing vegetables and fruit trees - the students loved it.

Chrissy ran yoga classes and it was also her idea to include flowers as part of our crops which has been a big success. With Chrissy's arrival, "Shambhala" finally began to resemble my original vision. Our day begins with yoga, we connect to the earth through farming and are able to share what we grow with our community.

When Chrissy became pregnant we opened our Shala to other teachers and now six teachers run classes throughout the day, and the Shala is open to the public to come and do a class or buy a season ticket which allows them to come as often as they choose.

"When Covid 19 hit, our customer base (for organic food and vegetable boxes) doubled almost overnight. There were food shortages in the shopping centers and people were panicking, it was a scary time and I was thinking "how are we going to do this? Feed all these people? Chrissy had just given birth to our beautiful baby girl and I was worried about her future.

It was during this time that David Attinboroughs movie, which he was calling his witness statement came out and I watched it. The documentary showed all the old footage that he had originally made in wild places back in his youth. He spoke about how much the earth has changed in his lifetime, how we had just these last few precious moments to change things. How we could lose all our topsoil by 2050 and be left unable to feed ourselves. It is a terrifyingly real prospect.

I realized that I had to do more than just grow and sell food. I had to teach people how to grow their own. This was when I sat down and began to distill everything I have learned over the years, all the failures, all the successes into a teachable format.

I opened the farm up to the first twelve-week course recently. We cordoned off a plot roughly the size of an average backyard and then I taught the students everything they needed to not only grow what they needed but also how to regenerate depleted soils so that they could become super productive. We had a film guy come in and record everything so that people don't need to actually have to attend the courses physically, they can watch it wherever they are over the internet.

The more that we progress, the more hopeful I grow, because I've realized that we don't need a gigantic movement to turn this around, we just need a small percentage of the population looking after themselves."

Craig and Chrissy have a beautiful living classroom all around them to provide people who wish to learn and attend the regular 12-week courses. The course is also online and can be accessed via the Shambhala website below.

https://shambhalafarm.com.au/

https://www.facebook.com/ShambhalaFarm

"When human beings lose their connection to nature, to heaven and earth, then they do not know how to nurture their environment or how to rule their world - which is saying the same thing. Human beings destroy their ecology at the same time that they destroy each other. From that perspective, healing our society goes hand in hand with healing our personal, elemental connection with the phenomenal world.�

CHĂ–GYAM TRUNGPA, SHAMBHALA: THE SACRED PATH OF THE WARRIOR

Trevor Carter Sculptor

Trevor Carter is originally from Berkshire in England, he moved to Australia around 30 years ago and just before his 31st birthday.

"The maths means I'm 62 years old but my brain hasn't caught up yet" he says, and I know the feeling, the voice inside never seems to age as fast as the reflection in the mirror.

Trevor has lived in both Sydney and Melbourne, saying he can never choose between them, his career and passion for travel have enabled him to see much of Australia and the rest of the world. He is currently settled bayside in Hampton around 15km south of Melbourne where he lives with his wife Robbie and a quirky Cavoodle, Mollie.

Trevor creates incredible life-like sculptures, I wanted to know more about his process and how he gained the technical skills to render such fine compositions.

"Like most people, my education played to my natural strengths. From a very early age, I would draw and create endlessly. I loved figurative art, cartoons, and comic books especially, and if I wasn't doing that, I would make highly detailed models in plastic or wood.

"My career choices were led by my head and not my heart and although I have no regrets, it was as a consequence of this that my art took a secondary place in my life. It remained a cornerstone, however, and an ever-present source of escape from the rigors and demands of my career.

"I'm now a the point in life that circumstances allow the opportunity to explore my heart's passion. In 2012 I began to experiment with sculpture, artistically, I found the shift from 2D to 3D very natural. I particularly enjoy the challenges within the multitude of processes that sculptors can use to create their art."

"Where does your inspiration come from and how does it inform your creative process?"

"That's a more difficult question to answer and very specific to what I am working on at any one time. On occasion it may be the emotional communication of a body gesture, its grace or strength that I wish to convey, sometimes it's just the need to introduce an idea or feeling.

If I haven't the luxury of a life model to work with, I often find inspiration from photographic studies of dancers, fighters, models and gymnasts. More often than not, I will cross reference many different influences to build a final concept. Even when working with a life model, I might still use this process to formulate a pose.

I build an armature which forms the skeletal strength to hold the clay and then the form is built from there. I reference anatomical photos and drawings to build muscles, vascular layouts, flesh folds and wrinkles.

The completed sculpture is then coated with silicon to pick up the detail for the mold and then given a rigid fiberglass shell to keep the shape. From the mold I can cast multiple pieces using different mediums, clear resins, plaster, concrete and wax for bronze castings."

"What do you find most difficult about what you do? Is it the business and marketing side or a particular emotional or technical area that you struggle with?"

"As a Managing Director/General Manager, I have a background in building complex international retail operation businesses so there really aren't any challenges that bother me. The sculpture is something I enjoy doing and the goals are very different from my career pursuits. Ultimately sales are not the key driver for me."

"What was the first piece you sold?"

"The first piece I sold was a study of a female torso in glass and crystal clear resin layered in various blue pigments. I was quite surprised, it was exhibited with many other works from a multitude of different artists and sold very quickly with a lot of attention."

"Do you find it hard to part with your creations?"

"No, I think it is a real buzz when people like what you do so much that they want to own and enjoy it" "Where can people find your art?"

"My work hasn't been in any galleries since early 2020, I generally enter exhibitions when I feel inclined, Facebook has remained a primary location for my work and from that I have picked up some sales."

"What's in the pipeline for 2021?

"I think it will be nice to get out and about again and maybe grab a flight somewhere. My work will be showing with other artists as part of two sculpture exhibitions in 2021. First at the Herring Island Summer Arts Festival Exhibition in South Yarra, starting January 16th through to February 7th and then at the Melbourne International Flower and Garden Show in Carlton Gardens, March 24th through to March 28th."

https://www.facebook.com/sculptortrevorc

"Think of those who, not by any fault of inconsistency but by lack of effort, are too unstable to live as they wish, but only live as they have begun"

SENECA, ON THE TRANQUILITY OF THE MIND, 2.6B

Taken from The Daily Stoic Ryan Holiday and Stephen Hanselman

"In The Dip, Seth Godin draws an interesting analogy from the three types of people you see in line at the supermarket. One gets in a short line and sticks to it no matter how slow it is or how much faster the others seem to be going. Another changes lines repeatedly based on whatever he thinks might save a few seconds. And the third switches only once - when it's clear her line is delayed and there is a clear alternative - and then continues with her day.

He's urging you to ask: Which type are you?

Seneca (previous page quote) is advising us to be this third type. Just because you've begun down one path doesn't mean you're committed to it forever, especially if that path turns out to be flawed or impeded. At the same time, this is not an excuse to be flighty or incessantly noncommittal. It takes courage to decide to do things differently and make a change, as well as discipline and awareness to know that the notion of "Oh, but this looks even better" is a temptation that cannot be endlessly indulged either."

Included because...

It's January when you stand at the foot of another flight of stairs, another year. We are only gifted with so many summers on this earth. Do you continue in the same way as the year before or perhaps, try something new?

Martin White Author

And now to another man who probably would change lanes - at least the once in a supermarket, although I'm not sure, as the question only came up after I had already done this interview.

Martin White, you are an amalgam of interesting job titles and hobbies, let's begin with your latest book Club Medusa.

"Club Medusa has been available for six months now. It's a dark thriller, possibly even horror, set around Edinburgh's Old Town. Two old friends meet up to revisit the drinking haunts of their youth and reminisce about glory days and where it all went wrong, but they find life has become much more dangerous than it used to be.

It was great fun to write, and as I say in the afterword, a lot of it is loosely based on true stories, either my own or other peoples. Basically, anyone who's had a good or bad night out clubbing in the capital may feel the book resonates with them. When I began to get feedback from readers of the book the most commonly asked question was "so what the hell happens next?" A sequel is underway."

"How do you come up with stories or do they just kind of write themselves?"

"Club Med' was born out of a series of nights out I had in Edinburgh in the late 90's along with my love of old stories about Edinburgh's past and its amazing architecture.

Most of my nights back then were fairly ordinary but then I suppose, with a few "what if's?" thrown into the mix, things start growing arms and legs and pointy stabbing things. When that happens, I just tend to run with it, even if it takes me into uncomfortable places."

"That's the thing with the horror genre, it does tend to take you into uncomfortable, if not downright scary places - as it has to if it is to do the same with the audience, do your stories ever give you nightmares?"

"Strangely no, I love writing dark stories but it is all strictly imagination to me. I love well told scary stories and well made scary movies, but I don't especially find that sort of thing frightening. Some things I had to deal with at work in the past, as a policeman, certainly gave me nightmares, they still do on occasions, but make-believe doesn't worry me."

"You mentioned you were in the police force, is that still a day job or are you able to spend all your time writing now?"

I retired from the police about 2 years ago and became a regular working musician who writes books during the day. However in March with a full year of gigs, teaching and musical projects in the diary, everything was wiped out within the space of a couple of weeks, leaving only the writing, and of course, everything else that lockdown brought.

My current plans are to continue writing, especially until I can get all the current projects launched but with the continuing lack of musical work, I think it highly likely I will be looking for a "real job", damn...working for the man again."

"Tell me about your music?"

"My main instrument is the guitar, electric and acoustic however I've also been known to play the bass and drums, depending on what is needed. When it comes to singing I can hold some notes but I honestly don't have a good singing voice, so I just don't do it. I mostly stick to what I know how to do - which is playing instruments and lurking around the edge of stages.

I've been doing this for a long time now. I recently found some photographs in the attic and one of them was of my first paid gig, I was 16, so we're talking almost 40 years of playing live between various bands, projects and gangs of ropey mates.

Although we are all still on a Covid break right now, I technically play in two proper bands.

Bluesoul, is a rock cover's band with regular Friday night gigs in Whistlebinkies, an amazing Edinburgh live music venue. Auld Hat, the other band plays mostly classic rock but with acoustic instruments. Think of Bowie, AC/DC, and The Doors but on acoustic guitars, accordion, and harmonica, all really great fun to play.

I also do occasional solo acoustic guitar gigs as I've written and a few years ago I released an album of acoustic guitar instrumental celtic/rock style music (it;s called Daydu and is out there on ITunes, Amazon, Spotifiy etc).

Oh also, I'm part of a low-fi surf/rock project called The Young Gorgie Surf team along with an old mate of mine, we also have a CD out on Bandcamp label. I've had a few emails about that lately so there could be more music from us soon - be very afraid!"

"I was teaching guitar locally for awhile before lockdown and doing the odd studio session.

The music usually keeps me quite busy so, had there been no Covid, this would have been a very lively year."

"And it doesn't end with music and writing, does it? You have so many other interests Martin.

Bored people are boring and interested people are interesting ..as someone used to say. I love your photography."

"Thank-you. Believe it or not, I was setting out to start my own photography business back before I joined the police, but knowing I would probably end up facing a life of wedding photography and pet portraits, I stalled and changed my mind.

I never lost my interest in photography though. I have been exposed to photography as a youngster, maybe around nine years old. My uncle was a photographer and had his own darkroom in the house, so he took me in and showed me how it all worked. I was hooked after that and, like the music, I've never stopped taking lots of photographs wherever I go.

Obviously, like most things, the art has changed dramatically, but I still love spotting a good photo opportunity and capturing the moment here and there. I love black and white high contrast work, which, as my daughter says, makes all my photographs look like something from a horror movie. I take thousands of photos a year and have no idea what to do with them all, perhaps a book someday."

"You are a vastly creative person and I simply haven't got space to go into everything that you make and do creative wise, much as I would love to, but you are also into yoga and as I said to you the other day, I would love to get my husband more interested in yoga, maybe hearing the benefits from another male might do the trick."

It's a strange thing that in the days before I joined the police (in the late 80's) you had to be pretty fit. We had to regularly pass the same fitness test used by the Marines (and score well) for the first two years, but then for the next 28 years there was nothing, no testing, it was basically up to you to maintain a certain level of fitness.

Like most of my colleagues, I did work hard to keep up the fitness for a long time, especially running and gym work. But the shift work, the children, and life in general soon slowed all that down and things began to expand and seize up.

Eventually, when I retired with the usual ex-police back pain, stiffness, lethargy, and overweightyness thanks to shift work and being computer bound for the last few years, I went to see a physio and she recommended some yoga moves. I found within a very short time, the moves she had given me had almost completely fixed my back pain and I was out running again, so I decided to make yoga a regular thing.

At first, I began by getting up early before anyone else and doing half an hour's worth of yoga most mornings using Youtube (the YogaTX channel and Yoga with Adrienne are excellent) and also free apps. Eventually, I settled upon an app (Downdog) which I can set depending on the amount of time I have to do a session. Long story short, after a few months I had lost weight, felt a hell of a lot better, and was able to go out running regularly without feeling like calling an ambulance to get them to meet e somewhere along the route.

My general headspace is a lot clearer too.

Since then my routine has been to get up early, do a yoga session, deal with the kids, have a coffee, then go out for a run or a cycle. I'm certainly the fittest I've been in many years and feeling a lot better for it.

I've just recently got back into cycling, I used to cycle everywhere as a teenager (moving targets were always harder to catch where I grew up) and also as an adult when I lived in Edinburgh, but I sort of lost touch with it. I actually just bought a new trail bike a few weeks ago, I'm out on it most days now and have discovered a lot of paths and trails around where I live that I never knew existed. There are all sorts of plans afoot now to hit the proper mountain bike trails next year. Covid permitting of course.

"My best ideas come to me when I'm exercising or switched off doing something different, is it the same for you?"

"Hard to say. Good ideas can strike at any time, often when I don't have any way to write them down. I have noticed that running and cycling are good places for things to suddenly pop up if I'm thinking about a story or an idea, whether that's writing or music. Right now, with the house being lived in 24/7, doing fitness is probably the closest I get to focusing on just one thing and not being distracted by half a dozen others, so maybe it's just that.

Often, I find that ideas just flow when I'm writing. Sometimes I sit down having no idea where I'm going but I always seem to end up going somewhere, even if it's not the most elegant of places. It's not unknown for me to write pages of stuff only to realize I'm off at a tangent and end up replacing it with alternative ideas that turn out better. Maybe sometimes I just need to see the rubbish option to inspire me to write a better one. I suppose the moral of the story is to just keep writing whether you know where you're going or not"

"How are things going with Covid over there? We have been so lucky here in Australia, particularly in comparison to the rest of the world. Of course, I'm speaking from rural Queensland where (touch wood) life has for some time now carried on with such normalcy that it can be difficult to remember that there is a serious pandemic going on."

"To be honest, we are very lucky where I live too. We're in a small village, have our own front door and garden and we're not too close to the neighbours so we can isolate the family easily. Life has changed a great deal though. When my brother who lived in Germany suddenly became ill last January, I flew over and ended up staying a few weeks in hotels.

As BBC News was all I watched over there (it was the only one in English) the visit commenced with occasional items about a suspected virus outbreak in China but emphasised it was all contained. Four weeks later and by the time I left it had become worst-case scenario, fast approaching the world pandemic which it would become, basically science fiction/horror territory.

Thankfully I returned before lockdown began but as I work mostly from home I had to suddenly become a teacher to my kids and clear space upstairs for my wife to work from home as well. My window of opportunity to write shrunk dramatically.

I think it is settling down now to an extent and people are more accepting of facemasks, disinfecting things, and keeping a sensible distance. I also know people who have tested positive and been sick, I have friends who work in the NHS who see people dying from this thing every week so there is no doubt in my mind that it is a threat and therefore social contact has been canceled. We just have to accept that life has changed this year and not all of it has been for the worst, I bet fewer people will be falling ill from the flu or a cold this season purely because of the previously unheard of precautions we now all take - which is fine by me."

Tell us a little about your family..

"My wife Kirsty is in the police and works in a national diversity post. I have two children, Logan is fourteen and unlike me, he's impossibly tall, athletic, and has cool hair, however like me, he is also interested in lots of strange stuff, scary stories, checking out old haunted houses, and the physical stuff like boxing, cycling, and martial arts. He's not much fussed on yoga yet but give him time. Lyra, my daughter is twelve and a lot like her Mum, she is also ridiculously tall and has long cool hair, is a master of Tik Tok dances, loves all things Friends related, all things dramatic and has command of two guinea pigs, one of which I think is possessed as it speaks in tongues, pretty sure it can levitate too."

"Looking at Christmas day all around the world through my various social media feeds I have to admit I'm a little envious of the snow. We Aussies grew up with European style images in our Christmas stories yet our own Christmas season is normally belting hot and shooing flies - what does Christmas lunch look like for you and how are you managing Christmas shopping this year? " "For many years it actually looked like turkey sandwiches as it was impossible to get Christmas day off work. Hasn't been too bad since the kids arrived though as I've managed to be around for most of them. We're not big traditionalists but quite often we'll get the proper works in, turkey, roast potatoes, veg, and those damn Brussel sprouts things that no one really likes...

Christmas shopping for the last few years has been mostly done online so that's what we're doing this year. We're at the stage now where the kids don't want toys anymore so there's a fair bit of head-scratching going on."

If you would like to find out more about Martin White, grab a copy of his latest book or just read some of his easy on the eye blog posts then head on over to his author's website listed below.

https://martinwhiteauthor.com/

If I had my life to live over

I'd like to make more mistakes next time I'd relax, I would limber up I'd be sillier than I have been this trip I would take fewer things seriously I would take more chances I would climb more mountains and swim more rivers I would eat more ice cream and less beans I would perhaps have more actual troubles, but I'd have less imaginary ones You see, I'm one of those people who live sensibly and sanely hour after hour, day after day Oh, I've had my moments and if I had to do it again, I'd have more of them.

In fact, I'd try to have nothing else.

Just moments, one after the other after the other Instead of living so many years ahead of each day I've been one of those persons who never goes anywhere without a thermometer, a hot water bottle, a raincoat, and a parachute If I had to do it again, I would travel lighter than I have If I had my life to live over, I would start barefoot earlier in the spring and stay that way later in the fall I would go to more dances I would ride more merry-go-rounds I would pick more daisies Nadine Stair

Last page..

Poetry is not just about the poem. Painting is more than the art that hangs on walls. Writing doesn't always result in a best selling novel and cooking is not about the cake (actually that's wrong, cooking is definitely about the cake!)

My point is this. Creativity is an energy that can light you up, make your heart dance, and give you deep and lasting satisfaction Taking an idea, a thought, a word and transforming it, making it come alive in this world is the best thing about being human. Sharing our creation with like-minded others provides a powerful connection.

Creativity heals, inspires, grows, connects, uplifts. We desperately need more people actively creating rather than passively scrolling and absorbing and consuming.

My hope for you in 2021 is the most amazing year that you can imagine because whatever you conceive and believe you can most certainly create. Just don't take the end result too seriously, I used to, and it is a killer of dreams. The true joy is in the process.

For my books and blogs etc see the front page, and if you would like to support the growth of this magazine for $5 each month, then please check out my Patreon site on the link below. I'm off to the beach! Thanks for reading and for all the great messages I receive each month, keep them coming, I look forward to them. See you again in February!

https://www.patreon.com/AudaciousHumans?fan_landing=true