Exotic Mammals

Calendar Reminder…. Remember the great challenge, ALL PETS GREAT AND SMALL HAD,here is the great looking Calendar The seperate site is wildliferescue. The area a local University Vet that I support in our local country area. They also are a training/learning facility, so there knowledge is also passes around the country. There site is dedicated to all the Wildlife Rescued each year in Australia and the people who self fund the care of these animal. The proceeds of this user Wildliferescue will be donated to the University Vet in Camden NSW Australia who specifically look after the rescued animals and make them better for cares to / re-release them into the wild. This hospital spends thousands of dollars each year on the rescued wildlife into there clinic. Most of this money is donations, fundraising or grants they apply for. To help them with this all sale profits will go to the University Vet Clinic. Let us also thank the staff and volunteers at the Clinic and the Rescuers and Carers of these animals for the hours they give up to make sure these animals get a second chance. Thank you for your support :o) ANYONE LEAVING MESSAGES ON THE PICTURES IN THIS GROUP. PLEASE GO TO THE ORIGINAL OWNERS OF THE PHOTO AND THANK THEM ON THERE ORIGINAL PHOTO. UNI LINK / http://www.vetsci.usyd.edu.au/wildlife_conservation/services/hospital.shtml Thank you to those who have already bought a Calendar, for supporting the injured wildlife. All support is greatly appreciated, especially by the Wildlife… :o) Sharon

I start this discussion by stressing that these are purley my own motivations and reasons for painting writting and makeing music (oh and by appologising befor hand for my typing and spelling as it has been pointed out niether are my strong points) each artist and i use the term genericly will have thier own inspiration and motivations for doing what they do and i would never wish to impose my own feelings on others we all have our own paths to tread so i will give you my own journey and see if you can realate with the road i have travelled i have all my life played with paint and music writting came much later in life i was never a vandel but was somwhat erant as a school attender my teachers did not know what to do with me i would attend art and music and little else as nothing engaged me mentally my school days where write it on the blackboard copy it down learn it then get tested on it no discussion just do it english lit bored me and any form of poetry was of the i wandered the hillside bright and shiny type extreemly yawning browning keets all that stuff had no relivence to this working class kid so my reports always read donald is an extreemly bright and inteligent child but he will not pay attention in class and so it went till unknown to my mother i forged her signiture and released myself from school we wont go into the repercussions but i was a child of the 60’s and left home the first time at the age of 16 so we skip foward to my early twentys never even read a book at this point but i get married and sudenly after being on the move and by this time i had travelled far and constintly on the move suddenly i was staitonery and had time on my hands the place we where renting was full of old books so one night i sat down and read of mice and men by stienbeck and did not stop reading for the next 6 years somtimes 3 books at a time everything form crime and punnishment to science fantasy si fi thrillers biographys then skip foward i seperated from my wife moved south back to london and one day was writting to a friend we had a disagreement over somthing that she had seen and i wrote a 10 page rant but afterwoods felt so much better so i started putting my feelings down on paper and as is my way realised i could formalise and express whole paragraphs in one sentance and that was the beginning of me writting poetry and songwritting now all this time i was painting and makeing music at that time just playing in bands as a sax player so music always had a relivence as i was consntly trying to hone my playing and writting was not a problem as it was just me trying to express myself my feelings thoughts and beliefs but my art was struggling i was constanly trying to find my purpose for doing it trying different formats mediums but to me all i was doing was copying either from nature or other artists i just could not find my voice so i stoped did not even draw a picture for over 5 years one day i was writting to a friend and while i was composing my thoughts i started to draw a portraite of my dog in the letter i really got into this so thought well id always wanted to paint her portraite so started to paint and realised how much id missed it so after a couple paintings just messing around really i painted the self portraite on my site here in stead of creating a picture of myself i painted a picture including things that have a relivence to my life or have influenced me so by giving a much clearer picture of who i am and after many years of painting every day i finnally have come to a point where i know why i paint and have formned my own technique all my work now has a philosphy behind it a purpose there is no point explaining it as its not relivent exept to myself but now even if i do just paint a pretty picture it has a purpose to exsist and is not just there to fill a space so this is why i say art without philosphy is just a pretty picture