In 1998, a serious car accident left me bed ridden for over four months. When I could finally get up, I could only walk with crutches. I had a series of operations and had to under-go physio therapy for two more years before I could walk without assistance. This happened when I was in studying for my first undergraduate arts qualification. Determined not to lose momentum, I created a series of small scape artworks in bed. The works explored the fears of not being able to walk again, and the flashbacks of the accident and its aftermath. I worked on discarded x-rays of my broken body, scratching, bleeding, inking up the surface, and then layering more marks on top. I used sticky tape, to suggest the futility of trying to fix myself, and a friend who was also in the accident. By the end of the year, I was hobbling along on crutches, and had a large body of intimate works. Later, I made slides out of the works, and projected them on to my body. The process of making these works was healing for me. I exhibited five of them on an exhibition called “Family Ties”(1998). This was my first professional exhibition, and represented for me, a significant moment of my tenacity and commitment to be an artist no matter what it took.
After spending a year making art about my personal experience, I felt I had to move on to create works that had broader relevance. Since then, I have tended not to create art about personal experiences. I returned to the subject of this accident in a collaborative work, made by the Sound Art Journeys Collective (Alison Kearney and Cameron Harris), titled ‘Handle with Care’ (2024).