It has been heartbreaking to watch the bushfires wreaking havoc day after day, week after week, month after month. We watch the news from the safety of our living room in New Zealand, more than two thousand kilometres away, and feel completely helpless. I have family over there. My mother grew up in that beautiful countryside. We spent many Christmases in Victoria when I was young…

How do you paint when the world is on fire? What do you paint? Why even bother? And then I found my answer in a Maxine Hong Kingston quote: “In a time of destruction, create something: a poem, a parade, a community, a school, a vow, a moral principle; one peaceful moment.”

Also these words from Mary Oliver:

“the stars began to burn
through the sheets of clouds,
and there was a new voice
which you slowly
recognised as your own”