This Saturday is the first Koru hang!

I'm looking forward to seeing you and launching this special, new space for conversation, questions and deep-sea dives.

To all my wonderful readers,

I’d like to remind you that the first Live Zoom event for those subscribed to The Koru is taking place this Saturday at 5 EST, December 16!

If you’ve been thinking about subscribing to The Koru, now’s the best time to do it so that you’ll be able to jump in and join the hang + discussion on Saturday. It’s going to be wonderful. I hope to see you there.

I’ll be hopping on with the wonderful Dan Stone (who also has a wonderful Substack called Hey Pop I might add.) He will be moderating the conversation and also taking questions related to our chosen theme for the hang so have a think about those in advance if you like.

The votes are in for our topic!

It appears this theme below seemed the most interesting to the most people and I’m pleased to hear it. Can’t wait to deep dive into this with you all.

The Gift Of Disillusionment - Death + Rebirth

A discussion on how definitions of ‘success’, and perceived ideas about oneself can create limitation in an artists life. The death of these illusions (often through suffering) can give way to new clarity about what really matters. I’ll talk about the personal turning point in my career which came this year when I became very clear on what my actual role as an artist is. Many of these insights were inspired by the show I did at the Sydney Opera House. I’ll discuss thoughts on going against the status quo, artists I admire for this reason and how to break out of boxes we have built for ourselves creatively or otherwise.

It’s no secret I love Thomas Merton and I’ve been reflecting on this quote and how it relates to The Gift of Disillusionment. I wanted to share it with those of you who will be joining to reflect on before we launch into discussions on Saturday. Curious to know what it might spark in others as you read. I will no doubt speak a little to what it means to me when we see each other too.

Do not depend on the hope of results. You may have to face the fact that your work will be apparently worthless and even achieve no result at all, if not perhaps results opposite to what you expect. As you get used to this idea, you start more and more to concentrate not on the results, but on the value, the rightness, the truth of the work itself. You gradually struggle less and less for an idea and more and more for specific people. In the end, it is the reality of personal relationship that saves everything.
- Thomas Merton

Again, I want to thank you for considering being part of this community with me, I’m really looking forward to seeing how the space grows and sharing more about creative process and my own journey with those who are either new to my work or have perhaps been following along for years.

I’ll be reaching out to The Koru peeps closer to Saturday with final reminders + the Zoom link but I just wanted to remind any last people who were thinking about joining.

If you missed the post I did on why I’m calling this community The Koru you can read here. To change your subscription you can go to “Manage Subscriptions” in your Settings, search for this Substack and click ‘Change’. Here’s instructions on how to do it or you can also click here to start that process.

Here’s to the new connection. I’ll leave you with photo I took of Nadi during a recent walk in the woods which I think says it all.

Till Saturday,