What happens when you cross Japan with Australia?

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I’ve often spoken of the serendipity of creativity – how our heads suck in every thing we experience – sights, sounds, tastes, colours, moments and jumbles them up to create something new.

Last year, I stopped over in Japan on the way back to Australia for a couple of days to break up the 26 hour flight and it was there I saw wood block prints of the 69 stations of the Kisokaido.

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The stations are tradition posts or stopping points along the highway from the capital city. For some reason, these prints really stuck with me. There’s a wonderful romantic idea of walking a path, taking a pilgrimage, to savour the travelling as much as the destination.

Back home in Australia, I was travelling home along the King’s Highway when I saw the landforms and landmarks out the car window in a completely different way.

I saw them as rest points – stopping points – between Australia’s capital and the seaside. And I began to take quick snaps out of the car window.

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It occurred to me, I could create artworks with an Australian twist on the Kisokaido, I could create imagined resting points along the King’s Highway and reinterpret them for today’s living.

There are natural places that traveller’s take a break, sometimes to camp, sometimes to eat, sometimes to take in the scenery.

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I’ve got a lot in my head, a lot of ground to cover, but first I need to get some preliminary sketches down and see if this seed of an idea will germinate into something special.

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