Documenting.

As many of you know I document everything.

I'm not real sure why I do it…. I don't delve too deep into the Psyche – its something I'm complelled to do.

I guess making 'documemories' is the next step.

My first video camera was a huge clunker and I carried it every where. The battery pack weighted a ton and I slung it on my shoulder. The film was recorded on full size VHS and I have a life time of tapes stashed in a drawer.

However, they don't have a permanent shelf life so during my time home I've been creating DVD's of the VHS film.

The family are embracing these new found images.

I was able to share a small 6 year old boys' nervousness as he left the orphanage in Thailand, he was unaware of how his life would change. Now I can share it with him.

He had no language and was the size of the average Aussie 3 year old.

Next week he turns 26 his partner and I relived the memories yesterday as we watched some rather amateurish video of the account.

I kept diaries of all sorts of things…

1988 shopping lists, invitations, cards, impromptu drawings of Dad behind his desk etc… it's a great legacy.

I also documented my fashion design creativity and my Quilting… and I still do…

Journals are now the "in' thing… and I've been adding illustrations for the past few years…

My Art journals are certainly a trigger for creativity.

But you know, you can't put a price on memories….

I'm studying film (documentary making in fact) and we are right in the middle of an International Film Festival right now here in Adelaide.

Yesterday I watched a documentary called Staff Benda Bilili

The core of the band was a group of paraplegic (they are anything but disabled), homeless musicians who hold band practice in the Kinshasa zoo. These are hard men, no strangers to sleeping on cardboard, who play because they have no other option. Into the mix comes Roger, a kid who plays the satonge, a monochord instrument he’s made out of a tin can.

Discovered by a young French tourist the band laid a few enthusiastic tracks and 8 years later they are traveling the world sharing their music with adoring fans.