Charcoal engraving on board 

64 x 45cm   

It's a warm summer day here in the Grampians National Park and once more I find myself grateful for the life. I have enjoyed following my passion of making Art For Conservation. As a small child I told my mum I wanted to do something involving animals when I grew up. Not for me a job as a policeman or a factory worker (as very soon became apparent to those around me) nor was I going to waste my life doing what other people told me to do. In fact, when I fought my way to university at twenty-three, I was told I was the most difficult art student they had ever met (and I am so proud I stood my ground and fought for my true heart's beliefs). In the end it came down to me refusing to paint what they wanted me to paint and insisting I follow my own heart to make art of the wildlife I knew and loved. Threatened with expulsion I showed my drawing lecturer a work I had done featuring a koala. She was moved to tears by the beauty of the animal and set me free to choose for myself what I wanted to devote my learning to.... which of course was nature.

 Forty-two years of fulltime art career now trailing along behind me I find myself once more giving thanks to that lecturer (Judy you know who you are) for seeing beyond dogma to real passion. And to Roger my design lecturer I say thank you for sharing with me possibly the greatest wisdom which I have integrated into my art practice. Roger told me in private once "Whenever you are in doubt Steve, go to nature. Nature has all of the answers". And so, it has proved to be.

Laying on the grass outside my studio and talking quietly with this older male Eastern grey kangaroo I am once more reminded of how much I owe these awesome teachers .....for not allowing themselves to be seduced by 'what people say' but instead provide the impulsion which drives me ever forward in my life and I get to share that life with all of the glorious wild things who choose to share this place with us. This moment-to-moment connection with nature is possibly life's greatest gift.

This artwork is a charcoal engraving and depicts the big fella reclining in the shade of our fig tree where he is left in peace, happy to while away the daylight hours until he emerges to graze late afternoon and away into the night with the rest of his mob.

If you wish to do something positive (and I really hope you do) then go to the below link and learn about the amazing work of Donalea Patman a wonderful woman and devoted advocate for a better way of living on this Earth.  www.fortheloveofwildlife.org.au