This making bug that inhabits our family has come down the lines from way back. My granny was an amazing potter, painter and silversmith. She made a green, enamel spoon which I hang on my wall and my cousin tells me she made pesto back in the seventies. She had little pottery jars around the house filled with treasures and didn't mind that the first thing I would do on arrival was to sort through them all. She had a dog called Fred and used to find pieces of wood that looked like him. In the laundry she had great big, green glass fisherman buoys and along the back glassed porch she had sea grass matting. In her garden were fat roses and snapdragons. She lived across the road from a milk bar and they stocked lollies. Above the counter was a photo of Mel Gibson hugging the milk bar family. They said he was nice. When she hugged us she used to rub our backs. My sister thought she was checking for bra straps. She wasn't. It's just how she hugged. Her husband died from a long, drawn out illness and she raised her five children alone and ran a farm. It was only when she was sixty after a heart attack when she discovered her abilities for creating anything she set her mind to. And for twentyish years she spent everyday creating. In our family she is famous and as important an artist as Picasso. We display her works wherever we can and she will never be forgotten.
