AustLit

'I have left the grandsons in bed rather than wake them. My daughter texts to say there are tears. The plane takes off.

'As we hover over Alice Springs I notice a maze of brown twisting threads.

'Creativity requires isolation, time, practice, concentrated and undisturbed effort. It will be a quiet New Year’s Eve.

'Another friend has died – she simply ran out of breaths … the woman serving in Bunnings takes it in her stride that I have fronted up with tek screws and washers … I can’t decide what to do with the Indian yellow oil paint.

'I look at my own body and it is a map of my journey. It shows I have lived and loved and am not ready to give it up yet.

'Poetic fragments from the journal of an artist, spanning the closing months of a year in the remote desert town of Alice Springs.

'In the quiet space of a house, with a new set of bold paints and Rumi and Basho as companions, life unfolds.'

Source: Publisher's blurb.