For left to right - Dawn, Midday, Afternoon and overcast

From snapshots of banyans on the Strand in Townsville. The roots of the banyan reach down from the branches, dividing several times before five points might meet the ground where one set off. They form a strong support and the tree can spread to cover very large areas. As the roots strengthen and more drop, the original trunk can be indistinguishable from the twisting vertical masses surrounding it.

Rhys Jones - the Edge of the Trees
"The discoverers" struggling through the surf where met on the beaches by other people looking at them from the edge of the trees. Thus, the same landscape perceived by the newcomers as alien, hostile, having no coherent form, was to the indigenous people their home, a familiar place, the inspiration of their dreams.

This triptych is part of a group travelling exhibition called Pathways by the Canberra group, tACTile. Fifteen large quilts and a grid of 300 small quilts will be displayed at the Fairfield Gallery, 632 The Horsley Drive, Smithfield 2164 in December 2003.

The Pathways series
I work with a group of Canberra textile artists called tACTile. The others are - Dianne Firth, Helen Gray, Beth Miller and Beth and Trevor Reid (click here to visit the tACTile website).
We have put together a large body of work - fifteen two metre square quilts and a large collaborative piece of 280 twenty centimetre quilts in an exhibition called Pathways.
The exhibition opens at the Pinnacles Gallery in Townsville in early February and will travel in Australia for a year.
In its most literal sense a pathway is a way of moving through landscape. Walking to take photographs through Australia's forests and beaches, the paths offered constant choices and decisions to be made. Pathways offer access but diverge, converge, and diverge again. Taking one track means leaving another for another time. They are for me, a metaphor for moving through life. What is offered in my images are snapshots taken en route.