Mud Bath was my first solo exhibition, a friend of mine asked me to put it on in her shop, at the time I was only making grymoss to raise money for NATSILS for something to do to keep my hands busy during lockdown. I hadn’t done a single painting in years (art school trauma) and thought I never would again, I was committed to being a fiber artist. But after Tilly asked me to do the show, I felt inspired to show some paintings alongside my grymoss. I’d been living in North Warrandyte during lockdown and working in bush crew along waterways in the North Eastern suburbs and was back at uni studying Environmental Science, a breath of fresh air really. Living and working along the Yarra, I began learning about the eels that inhabit it. Growing up in Moe, I encountered eels relatively often, one time stepping on one in the gutter when I was trying to post a letter. I think that experience really turned me off eels and I was terrified of them brushing against my legs when going for a swim. But with all fears I find you just need to learn about the thing you’re afraid of and it goes away. I don’t know when it exactly happened, somewhere between the Wurudjeri luk (eel) traps and the eel pit at the secret swimming spot I became very fascinated and obsessed with these animals. I felt connected with them and I wanted to feel one brush against my leg when going for a swim, excited to feel something else there in the muddy Yarra water with me. I think I was quite lonely during lockdown and maybe resonated a little with the eels. The smell of mud and anoxic sediment gave me comfort and this world I was creating for myself in my 5 km radius of North Warrandyte with the eels, mud and my grymoss, sewing their little eyelids on until my hands were sore. Anyway, I decided to paint some eels, it only felt right, I didn’t know what else to paint about at that time. And a darter bathing, looking back it feels like a kind of renewal for me, a shift in the way I think about painting or approach painting. A literal and figurative mud bath, washing away the writhing feelings of grief, the loss of friends, change and the uncomfortable feelings of your early twenties everyone can relate to.