2015 – cripes

So it’s been a big year … um – trying to get my head around what’s happened … below is a list of the bigger things that happened! I’d like to say a huge thank you to everyone who helped me achieve all these things – I am very grateful for the luck in life that has allowed me to be a creative type of human, I know that such luck is not easy for a vast number of humanity.

In January – Neil Gaiman came to Hobart for MONA FOMA and I handed him a copy of The Long Weekend in Alice Springs, which he then tweeted about later on. It seems he liked it. There were a few notables who also read it and loved it which was also very very nice!

April Tour – involved doing some crazy things like taking The Shipwright and the Banshee to Melbourne to perform with Christopher Downes at the Ledger Awards, then flying to Canberra to put on an exhibition Sleuth: The Delegation and then getting back to Hobart with my new Risograph.

In June – I directed the 2nd annual Her Majesty’s Favourite Really Great Graphical Festival in Hobart! Bigger and better! We had a couple of wonderful interstates Nicki Greenberg and Pat Armstrong come to give a wonderful talk at the finest of all events that we put on along with the Tasmanian Writers Centre.

September Tour and PUBLISHING – I launched my new graphic novella Swallows Part One around a few cities such as Hobart, Alice Springs, and in Melbourne. I also had an exhibition of art from the book at Museo Italiano in Carlton, and at Salamanca Arts Centre in Hobart.

In September I also saw the 20 kids readers that I worked on for the last year – as part of the Yankunytjatjara Wangka Project.

Another poster was completed for NPY Womens Council’s Uti Kulintjaku project working closely with Eliatt Rich from Alice Springs – this one was about child development and was translated into Pitjantjatjara and Ngaanyatjarra languages.

In November I was accepted into the inaugural Comic Art Workshop that was held on Maria Island in Tasmania – which was fantastic!! I was working on a future project called Sydney/Purgatorio along with my fellow art-person in crime Craig San Roque.

The Long Weekend in Alice Springs is now in its 3rd print-run and it will be featured in January at MONA FOMA as a performance with Craig San Roque and myself on stage at the Odeon Theatre in Hobart – very exciting.

photo by Tom O’Hern