Field Notes: Expedition Pass Reservoir, Chewton, Dja Dja Wurrung Country

Sunday 1st June 2025

Time: 8.47 am - 9.49 am 

Temperature: 4 degrees Celsius 

On advice that they would be gathering there, I came to the water hole to observe the women swimming. It was fortunate advice as I saw a large group of women congregating by the bank of the reservoir when I arrived. I set up my camera in the hills above and watched them navigate the water and each other. I am unaware if they saw me. If they did, they did not appear concerned about my presence or being gazed upon. 

My first impression was that, despite the chilly temperatures, they were not meeting for a competition. There were no obvious signs of an event, nor a time constraint. I could see no evidence of lanyards, markers or a location demarcated for a start and finish line. 

On the contrary, the women appeared to be gathering for solace in the water and each other’s company. They presented as more interested in bonding than in competing to achieve a goal. There were no obvious signs of a goal at all….

I asked myself the question: Why did the women choose a painful sensory experience as a site for communing? How does this facilitate bonding? What follows are my direct observations that will require further research.

In the twenty-two-minute period, I observed a minimum of three embraces. These did not appear to be practical compensation for the frigid cold waters. Rather, they seemed to be obvious signs of pleasure in seeing one another, offering support and sharing one another’s experiences. 

Even when there appeared to be physical discomfort or mental anguish, the women were laughing, and humour seemed to offer protection against the frigidity of the water. The laughter was quite noticeable, even from afar. The laughter increased with the pain of entering the water and rose to drown out the sound of birds. 

The group appeared fluid, and there was no rigid structure for orientation. The women would congregate in pairs and smaller groups, and then these would break apart into new constellations. 

There did not appear to be a leader. Initially, I thought it was one woman leading, but then another appeared to take her place, and then a different woman led the group into the water. 

The more dominant women displayed greater amounts of vulnerability and allowed themselves to be approached for comfort and communality. Perhaps this is a sign of strength when it comes to survival? 

Hypothesis: Women put themselves in extreme and painful situations, not to compete or fight with one another, but to bond through vulnerability. More observatory work is needed to demonstrate this theory, and it will be interesting to consider how this may differ from other life forms.

Personal Statement

I am thinking about embodiment and transformation. Such existential musings ramp up as I age and start noticing the world differently. My attention has shifted. My priorities have changed. I decided to return to art school after an absence of more than thirty years. I realised that I needed to resume creating work. I was seventeen when I moved to Sydney to begin a Fine Arts Degree. I was told that painting was “dead” and that Figurative painting was even deader. At the end of that year, due to a series of traumatic events, I left Sydney, got a job in a Gallery, and never returned to painting. I felt as if I had had a body part amputated, but I learned to compensate and compartmentalise, to use a separate part of my mind.

During Covid, like many of us, I questioned the meaning of life. The need for expression became overwhelming. I began writing and drawing again. When lockdowns ended, I started painting lessons to give me the tools to speak. Creativity, which once was forced to sit on the back burner began boiling over. Now I am a woman on fire. I want to tell my story via portraiture and video works and celebrate what it means to catch a wave and let it carry you there. I am interested in observing and trying to document all the nuances of my shifting inner landscape. I choose whatever means necessary to capture this moment in time. I experiment with my mediums, layering, weathering and peeling away to discover what is beneath the surface. I incorporate daydreaming into my practice as a form of freedom and agency. In doing so I hope to reclaim the narrative on aging.

Original Project Proposal RMIT Honours

For my research topic, I plan to continue my studies in portraiture whilst exploring the theme of women transitioning to old age. I want to outline the mixed responses to ageing women and focus not only on women’s vulnerability to media messaging but also the strength that emerges when women are no longer celebrated as sexual objects but as holders of life lessons, familial relationships, expert knowledge and creativity.

In our society and media landscape, women’s bodies are often pathologised. The physical changes in women’s bodies during menopause are seized upon as something to medicate and fight against, whilst the ramping up of desire, autonomy and creativity is usually overlooked and rarely celebrated.

The Gisele Pelicot case in France highlights a perverse need to silence and subjugate a matriarchal woman. The uncomfortable pervasiveness of this crime is contrasted by the victim’s willingness to bear witness to the crimes reenacted via video footage. In doing so, she displaces the shame and asserts her power to speak out on behalf of other women.

Traditional portraiture has focussed on depicting younger women and the attributes of youth, beauty, innocence, fragility and fertility. Young women are ushered into being only when they are the subject of the male gaze.

For older women, the process of being seen is more complicated but ultimately more rewarding as it involves self-realisation. Men do not develop in the same way. Men do not have the same milestones of virility and are seen as inherently masculine at all stages of life.

Throughout the project, I will reference historical portraits, including works by female artists such as Frida Kahlo and Paula Modersohn-Becker, who both made autobiographical paintings proclaiming self-determination and autonomy over their bodies.

I will contrast autobiographical works by female artists to historical works by their male counterparts, depicting ageing male figures in grand narratives involving battles or quests for knowledge.  

There is, a growing tide of literature that recognises the power women can seize in this moment of transition. Miranda July’s All Fours is but one example.