After Honey Barbara had got rid of Harry Joy - killed him, he’d died, whatever, she dusted the mud from her broad, flat feet and decided it was time to go and see if the life force was to be found in the cities of the world.
It was time to go and do what she wanted, with no old control freak telling her what she should be doing, with his over achieving “I want to be a rock star” agenda.
This life force was not to be found with couples or at dinner parties, so she went to Sydney to see the gay underworld for herself, that was a very wild life but not really what she was searching for.
She went to Brisbane for the end of an era, when the dinosaurs were finally shaken from their trees. She rejoiced at the big change, but this was not the life either.
So she painted and painted and went to live in Spain for a while, but she still went back to Australia for exhibitions at Watters Gallery in Sydney, because the wild, wild bush was always at the back of her mind.
She wanted to go in between the cracks of society and find the gold sovereigns. She wanted to become a true dissenter, but she was never accepted into the club. She could never see a way of making any money out of her dreams, so she was always poor.
She had the little blond boy that she’d dreamed about for years and they grew up together into who they are now. After he’d educated himself in big, red brick, Victorian buildings he went off to find his place in the world.
Then she discovered the Top End of Australia and now goes for a few months at a time to live in a caravan in isolated towns on the edge of nowhere. She paints, writes, meets and talks to amazing people and finds somebody to take her out to see the most spectacular rock art galleries in the world.
She brings all the ideas and dreamscapes from remote Australia back to a small town in Buckinghamshire, and her wine merchant partner, Eddie Mosdell. She works on paintings of the vivid tropical north through the cold, grey English winter. It makes life bearable.
To be expanded later…
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