How would you describe your space at home?

I live in an apartment with my wife and two cats Milky and Matthew. We are surrounded by many of the things we have collected over time – from artworks through to books. We have a lot of production ceramics made by friends and family as well as craft people that we admire that we use every day. 

Being surrounded by objects give them a feeling of ‘use’ the art we have are works that I constantly refer to – for visual and intellectual nourishment but also for ideas about my own work.  

We also have family home in Berry on the NSW South Coast. This is a refuge from life in the city. I grew up on the south coast and this truly feels like home. Weekends there usually revolve around gardening, eating and making. 

What do you like most about gardening?

I like the idea that the garden is constantly changing and evolving. It has no regard for you as a custodian but gives endless pleasure as well as hard work.

It is a place where you can really switch off to the practicalities of everyday life but instead find yourself part of larger cycles and system. It also works as a source of inspiration in making – it has a macro and micro intensity – from the smallest handful of soil to the sky and paddocks. 

You love to collect things, what are some unusual things you have collected over time?

Probably my earliest collection of things were Star Wars figures that I still have. Over time I’ve collected a lot of different things form swizzles sticks to ‘Hey Hey It’s Saturday’ memorabilia. I’m far more discerning now! I have always enjoyed the collection and the search and then the dispersal as much as the objects themselves. Anything I ever wanted to learn about life and art I learnt at Dapto Junk Markets.

What do you see yourself doing, if you weren’t practicing in art as a curator and artist?

I’m not sure – I’d be too lost. Maybe a gardener … it works on the same impulses.

How does music influence your work?

I listen to and read about music constantly and it has been a big part of my life for as long as I can remember. From listening to my dad’s country and western albums, to discovering the Beatles in high school and joining seminal Wollongong punk Band Dinky Crash in the early 90s. I love low-brow pop and high-brow twentieth-century classical and all stops in between. I walk a lot – so I constantly have a sound track in my head. 

There are things I constantly return to Bob Dylan and Joni Mitchell comes to mind – as a way of understanding the world.