Revisiting Bianca Jagoe on Parenting, Play & Turning Everyday Life into Art

How do we hold space for creativity while raising kids and navigating grief? I’m revisiting this warm and insightful episode with Launceston-based illustrator and zine maker Bianca Jagoe, who shares her playful, poetic approach to making art rooted in everyday life. From supermarket moments to her children’s antics, Bianca draws inspiration from the ordinary, using zines, mail art and illustration to explore deeper themes like grief, pain, parenting and joy.

We chat about the messy beauty of balancing creativity with adult responsibilities—pen marks on the walls, freelance deadlines, parenting through hard times, and keeping wonder alive in the process. Bianca reflects on how growing up close to nature shaped her worldview, and how living in Launceston offers a community-centred charm that continues to fuel her artistic outlook.

From small creative interventions to deeply personal projects about childhood grief, Bianca’s work invites us to pause, notice, and create meaning from our daily lives. We also unpack the practicalities of maintaining a freelance art practice, the challenges of self-promotion, and how embracing imperfection can make creative work more accessible and authentic.

Themes: parenting and creativity, freelance illustration, zines and grief, mail art, regional arts practice, childhood inspiration, Launceston arts community, everyday storytelling, balancing art and life, CCC podcast

🎙️ Connect Curate Create shares stories of artists and creatives finding courage, connection, and place through creativity in regional Australia.

Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome back to the podcast. This week we're sharing one of
my favorite episodes so far, part of our new series of recap
episodes. While we're busy producing new
content for the podcast, YouTubeand our brand new Patreon
channel. That's right, Connect, Curate,

(00:20):
Create is now on Patreon. It's a dedicated space to learn,
share, and grow together, and here's why we built it.
Do you feel like your art has been seen by the right people?
Are you getting the kind of feedback that actually helps you
grow? Do you have a space where you
can learn with other artists? Really get what you're doing?

(00:44):
If you answered no to any of these questions, Connect Curate
Create is here for you. Our Patreon community gets
exclusive and early access to content, behind the scenes
videos, key takeaways from episodes and events, access to
live discussions with our guests, and so much more.

(01:04):
So if you're ready to grow your creative practice with the
support of a collaborative learning community, click the
Patreon link in the show notes and join us today.
Now let's get into another brilliant episode packed with
ideas and inspiration for your own creative journey.
Welcome back to the podcast. I'm here in Launceston again and

(01:30):
again. We're videoing this one.
So if you're on the audio, be sure to check this out on
YouTube too. I'm here with Bianca Jago.
Bianca is an illustrator and I have admired Bianca's work for a
while. And we're surrounded by here in
the studio. It's just fabulous.
So, Bianca, welcome to the podcast.

(01:51):
Thank you so much for having me such a privilege.
Yeah, no, it's great. We've got lots to talk about.
We've already been chatting for ages while we've been setting up
and we've had doughnut. I haven't actually tasted mine
yet, but I will. Maybe that'll come in later.
There's a little story behind that, but maybe we don't all
need to hear that one. But anyway, yeah, look, like I

(02:13):
say, you know, I, I, I think I discovered your work last year's
small press Hobart Zine Fair, and the next one's coming up
soon, so we might get to that later.
But look, there's got to be a huge back story behind that.
So where did all this begin? Illustration.

(02:34):
Illustration. Yeah, I guess I was thinking to
myself the other day about my eldest son.
When he was small, he'd just wake up from a nap and have to
compulsively draw for a couple of hours.
And I thought that was really normal because that's how I had
been. And then my subsequent children
are much less like that. And my 5 year old will kind of

(02:56):
do a drawing and be like, yes, done next thing.
And I'm like, really immersed itself in the, you know, the
quality of the material. Yes.
So just always drew. I used to draw on furniture and
walls and, yeah, just just been a constant of wanting to draw,
needing to draw, loving to draw,not really preoccupying myself

(03:19):
too much with being good, good at it.
Just, you know, you just developyour own way of drawing, your
way of seeing things and yeah. Yeah, right, right.
And I'm guessing colour is a bigpart of that 'cause we have a
lot of colour. Yeah, yeah, my, my 11 year old
will only ever use a lead penciland it kind of heart, it's

(03:40):
heartbreaking. Ohh.
Doggy there. I do have a little zappy.
Oh, you don't need to ZAP the. Dog ZAP them.
But no. We'll accept that there's some
doggishness, yeah. Yes, we're Yeah.
No, if we were if, if, if we were doing this online and I was
at home, I'm sure Biani, my dog would be doing the same.
So look, we don't have to worry about dogs.

(04:00):
I don't think the audience will be able to hear it actually.
So, OK, good. Yeah, we won't.
It's not. It's not happening.
No, Yeah, OK. So just lead pencils.
Yeah, yeah, he went to he used to he draws he like makes his
own Pokémon because I'm fake himon He gets me to do it too.
But I, I must have lost that little bit of magic childhood

(04:24):
creativity where you can just invent on this on command.
You know, I really watching his style develop and just amazed at
how he can Draw Something without reference or you know,
so that kind of stuff is has always been really important to
me of holding on to that playfulness, mindfulness,

(04:47):
observation, just kind of rooting yourself in your real
life and taking it in and making, you know, I guess it's
the kind of the quotidian, you know, art in the everyday that
if your eyes are open to it, youcan't stop seeing it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So what was your faking on?

(05:11):
Something where I was really deeply derivative of other real
Pokémon. But he's, he'll like, he'll find
my search history on my iPad will be like Greek mythology.
And he will be researching, you know, just different concepts
that he can then translate. You know, their, even their, you
know, their abilities, their moves inspired by, you know,

(05:33):
Greek myth or something. And it's, yeah, really cool to
watch. Oh wow.
Wow. So I guess he's sort of working
through ideas as he through illustration and as you would
have done as a kid. Yeah, totally.
And I, I think drawing is probably a safe place for me as
well. Like it was, you know, I think a
lot of artists and people that you've spoken to have talked

(05:55):
about it being kind of grounding, you know, whatever
they're making, it's, you know, kind of keeps them mentally
healthy in times when you might not have been otherwise.
And I had a quite a challenging childhood and drawing it out

(06:16):
during kind of documenting obsessively drawing everything.
It's just been a constant for me.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And have you kept work from backthen or?
I left home kind of when I was very young and so I don't have a
lot of stuff from that period oftime, but bits and pieces.

(06:37):
I remember there's this picture,I don't have it with me, but it
was kind of from preschool and Ihad drawn my mum picking
potatoes that were kind of levitating out of the ground.
I hope it probably would have been about 3-3 or four.
And I mean it's an objective. He could draw him for a three or
four year old, I suppose. And I had an I had an award on
it. I won like the Stroud Country

(07:00):
Fair, not a fair country fair, but roll.
We have a rolling pin, throwing brick and rolling pin
competition in Stroud Little town where I came from.
Yeah. I think that that pictures
somewhere and I had it in a frame of my, you know, original
little essence of of making. Yeah.

(07:22):
Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it was.
So illustration has always been something for you to to make
sense of the world to for something for your well-being as
well. Yeah, yeah, definitely.
I did go so finished high schoolin NSW and I came down to Tassie
and had a blog for a long time and that was just really nice.

(07:44):
So I didn't kind of build a community and have maybe make
art for that purpose and or justmake art and have somewhere to
kind of connect with other people about it.
And then I went to a degree in contemporary art from Utah's and
I got to work. I got to magazines.
I made scenes for my degree, which was fun.

(08:07):
Cool. I remember my ex-husband,
husband at the time was doing a much more academic degree and
the things that he'd have to do when we got home compared to I'd
be making like origami or something, you know, for my
degree. But I, I think things like that
are just really what you make, what you make it, you know, or

(08:27):
what you bring to it. Well, and perhaps that feeds
into a perception of by those who aren't involved in it that
that it is just, you know, you said about playfulness, but
there's this serious play. It's it's.
Yeah, I take it very seriously. Yeah.
Yeah, I do. And I think I, I've started, I'm

(08:49):
having vicious masters of teaching.
And I think the motivation for that for me was just fully about
making art for young people accessible, making it fun,
making it interesting, making it.
But but more broadly than art, you know, it's just about your
worldview, how you are absorbing.

(09:10):
I feel like I will never run outof ideas.
I'm not the most technical, you know, art maker, but I, I could,
I'm just like, the ideas just come faster than I can, you
know, hold on to them and, and make them a reality sometimes.
So I just want young people to absorb, absorb their their life

(09:35):
and make art from it in whatevermedium, you know, whatever
however they do it. Yeah.
It gives you a life more meaning, gives you a life more.
Even when you're in circumstances that aren't
positive, if you have a way to process them creatively, I think
you're it puts you in a much better place.

(09:56):
Headspace as well. Yeah, yeah, no, absolutely.
I, I, before the interview, we would like to say we were
chatting so much. And one of the things I brought
up was how, yeah, in my, you know, 15 years ago, I didn't
really document my life and, andI was stuck with ideas in my

(10:19):
work, in my life. And we'd go to a cafe and open a
notebook and just be completely stuck.
But what unlocked that was doodling.
I mean, and people might see that as quite trite to, you
know, but it, the doodling led to being, you know, I couldn't

(10:40):
put words on the page. But eventually I got to the
doodles got a bit more serious and then word started to flow.
And it's so it was, it was a wayof unlocking and, and Steph
mentioned that in, in, in his interview as well.
But yeah, so as a, so through your, your, your teaching
degree, master's teaching, you know, so you, you want to, to,

(11:03):
to be able to use what you're learning there to, to and
empower kids to. Oh yeah.
Because I I really genuinely think that having those outlets
and opportunities to make art asa young person was survival
really, you know, kind of to have not had that along the way.

(11:28):
Yeah, it kind of saves you a little bit.
I think it gives you just distraction way to process
things, a kind of a constant that's a comfort.
And yeah, if you, you know, I'm kind of in the spinning the many
plates of my life at the moment with three children just making

(11:51):
art and making time for art and,and feeling like I should make
art. I'm entitled to make art.
I need to make art and I'm goingto make it.
You know, it's often I'm like, on the days that I have my
children, I might, Oh no, I haveto still have to do a little bit
of work. And I'm sitting on the couch
with my iPad and we're going to movie on and there's one child

(12:12):
on one side and 1:00 on the other side.
And they're both knocking me as I'm trying to illustrate on an
iPad. And there's at least it's not
permanent marks on a piece of paper.
But it's just this like, I thinkI've got a couple of books, I
think about motherhood and creativity.

(12:32):
And I think there's a tell Catherine Barton and Claire
Bodich, who mentioned in one of these books about how you
straddle motherhood, parenting and creative pursuits.
But I really hated the book actually, because it's not
really, I don't know, Parenting for me is just such a immense

(12:53):
privilege. It's just, I mean, they are your
life's work. They are, they're your, you
know, just created these fantastic, interesting beings
that, you know, I, I accept thatI might have to put some of my
ambitions on hold or, or they'reflowing along in the background.
And you know, you can't dedicatethe amount of time and effort

(13:14):
and love to them that you might want to because you're doing the
big work of, of having those small people.
Oh, wonderful. Yeah.
No, look, I don't have kids, butI I understand what you're
saying. Chris Donahue speaks about this
in, in, in Chris's episode. And yeah, yeah, it's, and I

(13:38):
think the, you know, we could give it any sort of label like
immaterial labour or whatever itis.
But it is, it's work, right? It's and it's, and it's
important work. And so, so, so yeah, raising a
family and what a space to raisea family.
I before before I even came in the the the the front gate, I

(14:00):
was greeted by your community lemon box.
Oh yes, and then did. You spin the wheel, so there's.
A Not yet. I thought I'd do it on the way
out. It's a it's sort of wheel of
good fortune, actually. You spin it and it gives you a
little instruction for the day. I did see it.
Yeah. Yeah, so cool.
I. Can hear, I hear people when I'm
sometimes working, I can hear some people spinning it and I

(14:22):
look out and think it's going tobe a small trial and it's
usually like a tradie Oh. I.
Hope you go and find 5 orange things on your walk today.
Whatever it says on the. But embracing their inner child.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, I guess we call it in a
child, but I think I've been doing it for so long.
Why do we isolate it that you can only play if you're a child,

(14:46):
You can only. I think we take ourselves very
seriously, kind of even even, you know, trying to justify
carving out time to make out or to journal or whatever.
Sometimes that's hard for me because I think, well, there are
more pressing adult matters. Yes.
Yes. Yeah, yeah.
But what a delightful space for your kids to be growing up in.

(15:10):
You. Yeah, you've.
Created this. Fun and playful, yeah.
And you can draw on a wall if you must.
Do you have special paint? Does some of that.
Oh, no, I just just have a kind of I feel like when you have was
the thought about making a Zine about this of just kind of like
things to know in anticipation for parenthood that that you

(15:31):
don't get told. Like if your child draws in pen
on the wall and you have you canremove it with a bit of
Hairspray. You just spray it with Hairspray
and you can wipe it off. Not too much of it, all damage
to the paint or you know, if it's pencil or crayon, you can
use bicarb soda and water and you can kind of abraise it off
anyway, just yeah, no vital information for a parent, but

(15:53):
you might not know. Yes, stain removal.
How to remove her? My Google search history is all
about like how to remove odors and.
Yeah, yeah. Fecal matter.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. But play DoH I guess is is one
of play DoH in the carpet. Oh yeah, see, I, I think I just

(16:13):
let my children do those things and then I just curse afterwards
and clean up the mess. I think it's better that they,
but they get to do it and then they don't make them feel like,
oh, don't get dirty. Don't.
No, absolutely don't have fun. I guess you would have been
doing the same thing. Oh yes, but probably way more.

(16:36):
Yeah, we lived in the middle of the Bush.
Just a bit of a left to play on my own, building things and
making things. And my mum even talks about
that. She saw me go down to the dam at
the bottom of the property and Iwas really small and I'd gone
down and collected up all of this, some clay there and I made

(16:56):
little pinch pots. And then she just found the
pinch pots and she's saying I didn't give her because my mum
had been doing a pottery plus. And so I would have seen her
using her clay and go out and fetched my own that was carved
it out of the the ground. And yeah, just try my hand at
that. Yeah, yeah.

(17:16):
It was a, it was a very isolatedway to grow up.
I think I'm, I'm quite enjoying you said, you know, living
further afield and getting to really immerse yourself in that
and enjoy it, not having to be apart of the, you know, kind of
chaos and over stimulation of the city.
But I'm, I never lived in suburbia growing up.

(17:36):
I lived out in the middle of nowhere with no neighbors and
and all the things that go alongwith that kind of lifestyle of
good and bad. And then here I'm just, you
know, my children's school is minutes away.
But it's kind of like the some kind of unspoken rule of like,
the closer that you live to the school, the later you are.

(18:01):
Yeah. How to get there on time.
Yeah. But yeah, I hope I always won't
worry about, you know, am I offering enough opportunities
for making creativity for my children?
But I feel like if you're worrying about it, you probably
are doing it. You know, if you're worried
about being am IA good enough, parent, am I doing enough?

(18:22):
Then you're probably doing a fair amount.
Yeah, yeah. And your kids, Yeah, your kids.
Are they, As you said, you saw your mum making clay, so that
translated into and yeah, you'd sort of.
Yeah. And, and here, yeah, I just to
be surrounded by all these wonderful things and tactile

(18:45):
things. And it's not on camera, but the
on on on the wall over here you have balls of wool on a board
arranged on a board. To find a way to store them
because I, they just, we're in tubs taking up space.
And I, I thought, I don't, well,I do make things with the the
yarn, but just to have somethingthat's almost an artwork in

(19:06):
itself is a nice way to do it. Yeah, yeah, it's lovely life.
Is art. I mean, I mentioned Small Press
Scene Fair in Hobart last year and riot.
So I had a store and you had a store.
Yeah, you made the posters. I did make the.

(19:26):
Posters, yeah, but I remember right at the end I sort of came.
I just went for a wander and it was my first scene.
Fair. So I really wasn't, you know,
Yeah. And so I just sort of wanted to
meet all these cool people. And.
But your youngest was with you and was it your mum, I think,
was with you? Well, so.

(19:47):
That was my friend's mum. Yeah, my friend's mum.
And yeah, so I got, I spoke to to your friend's mum, but didn't
get a chance to speak to you because you were busy packing
up. But that was The thing is to to
to bring your youngest all. Busy time, busy one for me,
yeah, yeah. And to bring her as a kind of, I
guess this is kind of my ethos with parenting as you just.
You just do the stuff with them there and and you know, people

(20:11):
have to say, well, how do you get each one to be readers?
How do you get them to they're all screen obsessed.
Well, they need to observe you reading, you know, you need to
make it normal. And so I think, yeah, with
creative things often find my, my work iPad, my expensive work
iPad, my daughter, my 2 year oldwill I'll find it on the ground
somewhere in a different room and open it.

(20:32):
And she will have opened the notes app somehow and just drawn
pictures and drawn faces. And yeah, and I think, well,
it's like me with the clay, I suppose.
Just yeah, it's magic. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
No, it's sharing and caring or yeah.
And I've, I've tried to search for the, the, the, the term, but

(20:55):
it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter what you call
it. It's happening.
And that's the thing, yeah. Yeah, for sure.
In their own individual ways, I think however, they yeah.
Yeah. So you're doing a teaching
degree right now? Or you?
Finished. I've put it on pause.
I've had too many children, too many plates.
Spitting. Yeah, I have chronic illness as

(21:18):
well. So there's always this kind of
the metaphor of spitting plates is always really relevant to me
of of the ones that are made of plastic and the ones that are
precious, you know that you can't drop.
And sometimes the plastic ones are your art making, you know,
that's why it's fallen, been kicked under the couch also.
You're going to go back and get it and put it back up and and

(21:39):
validate it and make it happen. But yeah, I think making art
while I'll making art while, youknow, you have children, you
know, or, you know, if you don'tmean people to have children,
it's kind of the adult responsibilities of life that
might get in the way of your focus on your art.

(22:00):
I think that's always a bit of abalancing act.
Yes, yeah. So, so So what are you working
on right now? I'm, so I'm just kind of
freelance at the moment. I, I would like to return to
that master's degree at some stage, but I, I just worked on a
book that just arrived. I got my box.

(22:22):
I, I filmed a, an unboxing video.
Never done one of those before. There's a YouTube, you know,
people love pulling these out-of-the-box.
So this book I worked on with anAmerican publisher, sorry, the
Canadian publisher and American author, the author's name is
Colin Peary, and she's a thanatologist.

(22:43):
She works with kind of in the death sphere.
And we worked on this book for 10 to 14 year olds about grief.
And I, yeah, I illustrated it and it's just, it's just come
out. It's coming out in October.
You can buy it on Amazon and a couple of different places.
I think it will have an international release and yeah,

(23:06):
it's just a really lovely project.
Yeah, you should thank you. The further first copy so
heartbreaking. I I was doing my unboxing video
with a with a like a Stanley knife and I cut I cut the car.
Heartbreaking yes. So it's just a lovely project.

(23:26):
I was mentioned earlier that it kind of the magical kismet of
how the things aligned to that. I got the opportunity to do this
was that Cole was an Internet friend from a long, long time
ago. We used to both have blogs about
mail art or letter writing and yeah, forms of art like that,

(23:51):
like mail, decorating envelopes and sending them through the
mail. I used to sometimes just send
try to send really random objects, just see if they get
there, you know, just like a vegetable or something.
I have AI have a little website from how long ago, a very long
time ago called mail tag.com dotAU and it's like about it's got

(24:14):
a little generator for you to itgenerates ideas for you about
things to ask your pen pals for.And there's a bit of a form that
you can print out. It's this game that you play tag
essentially through the mail. And yeah, it's funny because
mail tag was this thing I'm kindof made-up, I suppose, and was

(24:35):
playing with friends and, and then now if you look on
Pinterest and Instagram, it's it's a massive thing that is
completely separate from me, nothing to do with me.
And I sometimes I'll even see people.
OK, where did mail tag come from?
Nobody knows. I kind of am satisfied with
that. Just.
Yeah, I'd like to. You just put it out.
Yeah. And you just let it, let it go,

(24:57):
let it off. It goes becomes a thing.
And that's how you met Carl. Yeah, yeah.
And so we worked on this book together.
She'd already done the manuscript.
She got a second book coming outI think with Penguin in a little
while, I think for adults on a similar subject.
But this one was for 10 to 14 year olds about grief and my own

(25:18):
experience with childhood loss of a parent was really made it a
really satisfying and meaningfulproject to work on because it
yeah, it was just a deeply personal for me and considering
what a book like that in my hands when I was 10, what that
would have given me of just normalizing grief and the non

(25:42):
linear nature of it and validating some of the feelings
about it. So, yeah, it was a really lovely
hard project to work on, but really excited to see in the
real life. I didn't know it was going to be
a hardcover. I feel like somehow like, Oh
yeah. And it's kind of like got shiny
bits and yeah, no, it's it's wild.

(26:06):
I've worked on book projects before, but probably nothing of
that scale. I kind of worked on book covers
and and things like that. And yeah, I do do some work for
the council. I think last year I did the
suite of Christmas decorations for the city of Launceston.
So all the banners and, and they'll get reused again this

(26:26):
year I think. And I just worked on a map, a
couple of maps was like seeing maps in my sleep for a while.
Massive map making experience for city of Launceston.
You know, you kind of tear off map that you'd get at the
airport or Information Centre orsomething like that.

(26:48):
So we did like a double sided map.
I had this idea that because they wanted a three and I
thought, oh, well, that's just unwieldy, you know, how do you
fold it and fold it up into almost a little scene?
We love scenes. I love making scenes.
Yeah. So this map that we made, it's
all sectioned up so that when it, I was trying to anticipate

(27:10):
how somebody might fold an A three piece of paper.
If I gave it to you, how would you fold it?
You know, landscape in or and I think I gave it to my stepdad
and he just folded it in a really weird way.
And I was like, well, I can't anticipate that.
I'm trying to trying to design it so that it all folds
beautifully no matter how you fold it.
And and then I was like, Jeff, what a left a left of field

(27:36):
thinker perhaps. Yeah, I've had some really,
really fun, really diverse projects for the last year or
two. And I feel like I've become a
bit of a somebody that people come to with graphic design or
illustration projects that they don't know who else fits that
bill. I think people knowing that
you're somebody who can, you know, a Jack of all trades kind

(27:59):
of or just willing to learn. I think that's what my step dad
did for me because he's a very practical person who's an
engineer like yourself and infected my brain with this
sense of that you can solve any problem yourself.
Which is such a blessing and a curse because I just get myself

(28:21):
into situations where I'm insistent on on fixing a
problem. I love problem solving.
I think that's why graphic design and illustration is so
fun for me because it's just solving these visual problems.
But I think outside of that, I love probably solving problems
so much that sometimes I just make the problems myself that

(28:42):
didn't exist before. But yeah, my step dad just
really empowered me with a senseof it.
We can figure it out. You can do it, you know, just
work out, you know, fixing your car or you getting up on the
roof. And, you know, there's a we had
the terrible storms last last couple weeks and the house was

(29:03):
totally fine except for oh, I can see it's like, yeah, some
water dripping down the walls that I have to try to go up and
solve. Maybe not, maybe I won't.
Yeah, I think I've been doing a lot of just pure graphic design
jobs lately, which I haven't done a massive amount of for a

(29:25):
while. And it's funny, just to make the
first couple of graphic design on jobs I got, I thought you get
paid for this. Like, it just just feels it
doesn't, you know, this doesn't really take any.
I mean, it does take something for me creatively to do that
type of work, obviously, but a lot of it is just mechanical
almost, you know, it's not challenging in that way that

(29:51):
makes the sparks fly or the frustration of trying to solve
an art problem sometimes. So that's a comfort to do that
type of work. Sometimes it's not.
So the mental load of making art, yeah.
No, I, I, I've. I've mentioned before the
interview with you that I, yeah,I, I, I sort of really

(30:15):
interesting graphic design, always have been, but it was
always put on the back burner and I went into engineering
thinking I'd become a draftsman actually.
But graphic design is, is, is. But it the interesting thing
about graphic design, I think isthat there's a lot that's unsaid
and and a lot of unwritten rulesprobably.
Yeah. Totally.
I mean things like, you know, intypology that that's what I'm

(30:37):
learning about at the moment is,is just subtle tweaks to to the
connect, curate, create branding.
Yeah, not, not necessarily the logo, but text.
Thank you. Thanks.
Here you've got it, Pops. Got it up here.
I. Do yeah.
Thank you. That's that's great feedback.
But yeah, it it so. But I suppose the thing about

(31:01):
graphic design is like I did a, I'm doing a one of those online
sort of short course. In fact, I did one that sort of
like it took a, it took a day todo or something with a graphic
design professionals. But there's so much of it.
It was just common sense and it,you know, things like, well,
just go and get some influences and you're, you know, we're

(31:23):
surrounded with them here. Yeah.
And so. Yeah.
And but then it there's something in that that can't be
said. So there's a lot to to being an
illustrator, to being a graphic designer, being any kind of
artist that we just really can'tput into words.
But yeah, it's so it and so unique to us as individuals that

(31:45):
it, yeah, it, it we shouldn't take it for granted.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. But.
Kind of assumed knowledge almost.
Yeah, and it's taken years. You know, you've been doing this
since you were three years old at least.
So. Yeah, So.
So. I remember if we were really, I
grew up really poor, periods of kind of poverty I suppose, but

(32:06):
we always had a computer which Ialways felt like really weird.
I was like, why did we have a computer?
Because my mum valued that, you know, and she, I think when she
was much younger, she did some of the first courses at
university on computers, you know?
And so you have, like, digital immigrants and digital natives.
She'd very much resent being called a digital immigrant

(32:28):
because she'd deeply, you know, yeah, like, well, I'm up with
it. I know what's going on, you
know? But then she does talk about the
gremlins in her phone that, like, wreak havoc on her life.
And there's nothing to do with me.
It's just the phones, yeah. Yeah.
But the other thing that I thinkSean threw in what you were

(32:51):
saying before Bianca was, was, was how they this practice that
you've had throughout your life translates into something that
can convey meaning to others, whether it's a book cover,
whether it's the the art for a Christmas campaign in the local

(33:13):
city or, or whatever it is, you know, the poster for the Zine
fair. I mean it just I've found I've
got, I have, I have some of the prints because because I just
loved it so much. I think there's unfortunately I
can't go to this year's. I'm really sad about it taking
my son to to PAX in Melbourne that weekend.

(33:34):
I don't think they've got a a poster this year that I've seen
not yet. Maybe I should just offer to do
it Freebie. I'll just, I'll just make one
for them. And just if you want that, you
can have it. Yeah, Zenes as well.
I just, I made my first Zen. I was talking to my son about it
the other day when I was 15 or 16.

(33:55):
It's called QWERTY, the keyboard.
Oh yeah, keyboard. Yeah, and it was just a real
mishmash of of stuff. But I have a couple of my zenes
here actually, and I lots of different topics, lots of
different things. I made one for university.
It was about I was really interested in the kind of

(34:17):
fallibility of memory and did this project for the end of my
degree about memories of my dad.So he died when I was 10.
So I had this beautiful studio space that I got to inhabit at
the university and I, when I first got in there, I just wrote
down, had a pad of post it notesand I just tried to write down

(34:37):
every single memory that I couldthink of of my dad that I've
that I, you know, and, and you have to acknowledge that maybe
they're not all 100% truthful. I mean, you hope that they are.
You know, my dad really liked olives.
I think he liked it. You.
Know because I think I was in mymid 20s at that point and he's

(34:59):
he's almost become like this like a character, you know,
because such a long time, you know, since he was in my life
and I think the closer I get to the age that he was he died when
he was 39. I'm just like, what are you
seeing you hold your parents on a pedestal.
Maybe if they are somebody. Yeah.
So I wrote down all these memories and I stuck them all

(35:21):
over this wall in in my studio space and then just made about
it, about the different memoriesand kind of in lots of different
mediums. And I wrote a lot about memory
and I read a lot of Oliver Sacksand neuroscience papers and, and
things like that. And it became the scene called

(35:43):
Paint it Black. Is that what it's called?
Gosh, I forgot. It's such a long time ago.
My dad really liked The Rolling Stones.
Yes. So my name is Bianca Jagger.
Bianca Jagger, Mick Jagger's wife, yes.
So I think zines are just a really nice little way to
ruminate on a on a topic or get to explore something in that

(36:05):
format in a low pressure way. I think that's what I'd really
love for young people to when I was doing my master's of
teaching, the Lesson plan would always be make a Zine again.
They just have a little library of their own zenes.

(36:27):
I feel like you do that for any topic, any, any subject.
Make a Zine, make a Zine about it.
You can always use it as an insult.
To me, I think of like God beinggood, shut up.
Go make a scene about it. But I have a couple of zenes I
made, I draw, I document things my son said when he was growing
up, my eldest son. And then he got some movie about

(36:50):
8 or 9 and I had to stop becausehe just wouldn't stop talking
about his own penis and had a name and it became his character
in our lives and I thought, I don't think I can ethically make
art about that anymore. He wanted me to but.
Maybe that's a project for his for himself one day.
He became memory of aware of theof that I was, you know,

(37:13):
documenting the things he was saying and doing and would start
to kind of like throw that one down.
Yeah. And then, yeah, just I think
zanes are just really nice, accessible, simple, meaningful
way to distribute your your art,you know, kind of, it doesn't

(37:35):
take too much work to do. I think people think that it
does. But yeah, I think everybody's
got a Zine in them. Oh, that's a wonderful way of
thinking about it. Yeah, at least one.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I, I, so I was a Business School
academic and in recent years I, I, I mean, I like you, I always

(37:55):
wanted to play around with the format of the teaching and
because I always recognise the, the neurodiversity, the, the in
the room and, and that, you know, some of these subjects I
was teaching are quite dry. You know, who wants to?
How do you make them accessible and and make the concepts pop?

(38:15):
Yeah, and I used scene making inrecent times.
That's so cool. Yeah.
And the kids, sorry, they're notkids.
But the, the, the, this IA particular group that came to
mind, who were the, the very recent group of students, most
of them, that being the generation during the pandemic,

(38:36):
they would have been, they wouldhave been year 10.
And so, yeah, so, so they, they had, they, they so learning,
coming to class and learning in,in these really normalised,
conventional orthodox ways just wasn't suiting them for sure.
And so, so, yeah, using, using Zen's.

(38:57):
And so they, you know, give thema sheet of a three paper and a
Sharpie and they could take the Sharpie home and yeah, let's sit
for two hours and reflect on what you've been learning and
put it into a scene. And the amazing thing for me is
that I can remember one particular student who hadn't
said anything for weeks, never seemed to be fully engaged but.

(39:21):
And. They're the ones kept showing
up. Best scenes I feel like we've
got and that's so much inside. They asked permission.
We're about 15 minutes into the exercise.
Everyone's sort of chatting awayand, and they looked up to me
and said, am I allowed to draw? And I said, there you go.
That's what my response was. And they, they finished ahead of

(39:45):
everyone else. They, they and they, yeah, they
had the biggest smile. Yeah, it's very not labour of
love. I'm trying to think of the way
that you can describe things like that, that just push you
along emotionally, mentally, youknow, of art.

(40:05):
Made the thing and it it, it's better for it, you know?
Yeah. And it's it's how that
particular person is able to express themself.
Yeah. Or whatever it's done for them
and hopefully they, they, they, you know, it carries on.
Yeah, I've done taught a couple of them workshops, so taught one

(40:27):
at Mish Makers City Mission. They have a really cool creative
programme for young people whichworked with them a couple of
times and did a Zine workshop, but it's different when you're
doing a Zine workshop with people who don't have a
knowledge of what zines are. Maybe that's better sometimes,

(40:47):
but I, I've kind of had a, had all these documents that I had
drawn to explain to them what is, and it made a Zine about
telling them what a Zine wasn't,that they're going to be making
a Zine. And they were, I don't know,
slightly reluctant, I suppose, drag them kicking and screaming
to make the scene. But I've still got, I've got a

(41:09):
really big collection of scenes.Actually, I've often thought it
would be cool to have a Zain library in town, have a friend
who works at the library, if you're listening.
Matthew, let's make this happen to.
Yeah. I mean, you know, we, we talk
about kind of hierarchies of artof, you know, what is real art,
What is you know. Like kind of.

(41:31):
What, what do we as a society see is worthwhile art that's
worth money or that's worth yourattention or your time?
And then there's scenes. But I like how unassuming they
are. You know, I've got lots of
scenes that it's some of the most brilliant writing and most
brilliant illustration you've ever seen in your life.
But it's just in that little paper, you know, DIY format

(41:55):
hiding in there for you to see. And that's, that's the
brilliance of it. I think it's there's just so
much you can do with it. Yeah.
Oh, absolutely. I'm completely on the same page
with my photography. And I, I make, I travel to
exotic places and we and I have very expensive cameras and I

(42:15):
make these incredible photographs that I then spend
hours working with and then I photocopy them.
Yes, yes, highbrow and the lowbrow and the.
Yeah, it's just like the the idea of putting it in frame.
I've tried, yeah, just doesn't feel right for.
Me. No.
It's like that, isn't it? I've often my my stepdad, the

(42:38):
engineer, he would be like, yeah, you're thinking too small,
You're gonna think big. You know, not just making craft.
You we've gotta get into manufacturing.
How are we gonna make it? And that's awesome, you know,
and I, but I vote just, I think maybe because a lot of my life
was spent surviving, I didn't let myself have lofty goals.
You know, when I moved to Tasmania, some friends of mine

(43:01):
started this awesome cafe or another friend had this
excellent jewelry business and she was something really young.
Was really, you know, mentioned in Frankie and, and I just
thought, well, I, I'm just doinglittle works on a little piece
of paper, you know, I, I wouldn't let myself pull out
from that. But I think challenging yourself
is one thing, but I think just giving yourself permission to

(43:25):
work in the format that feels, you know, the best for you and
the way that you want to share it with other people or if you
even want to share it with otherpeople.
I'm probably taking a little bitof a break from social media for
a little while, reassessing I think maybe earlier in my life
as a chronically online person and a chronically documenting

(43:48):
person over sharing person of then maybe coming to, you know,
that it was probably rooted in needing validation somewhat from
other people, which I no longer have.
And so, well, then it's a nice, nice moment to to be in, of
deciding to share things with the world just purely to connect

(44:13):
and not a sense of making thingsfor Instagram, making things for
any other reason but that it aligns with you.
And yeah, I'm just, while I'm inthis period of time where I'm
kind of have my children and I, I still have some big kind of
bigger projects in the background.
But I have a bit, a little bit of time to take stock and to

(44:36):
think about what are my, what are my objectives?
What are my values? Am I aligning with that?
And is the work that I am going to make in the future aligning
with that? Yeah, I, it's always, you know,
a lot of creative people you would speak to about trying to
make money, trying to survive financially as an artist and the

(44:57):
ways that you have to do that. You know, for a very long time,
11 or 12 years, I worked at a supermarket.
Yeah. And I, I kind of dragged myself
kicking and screaming to make myself leave that job because I
so deeply enjoyed it being a checkout girl.
But from my very first day as a checkout girl, I had this old

(45:19):
man and this is my first ever job, proper job.
And I said, I just said to him, do you need a receipt?
And he said, I don't need a receipt on it from this planet.
And then just walked off and I think just planted this seed for
me of that these jobs, you know,these service jobs, these kind
of, I think that unskilled, unskilled jobs, I think that's

(45:43):
just a horrible phrase that, that people use to elevate or
devalue different types of work.And so I, I grappled a little
bit with like, am I allowed to enjoy this job as much as I'm
enjoying it? Because it was just being a
little bit shy and then getting kind of unadulterated access to

(46:05):
the general public and being almost this fly on the wall.
I could ask questions that that other people can't ask, you
know, strangers because I had this privileged safe place to
ask them from. So I never had a a script of
how's your day, you know, do youlike about, you know, I would

(46:26):
just always be, it takes a lot of mental effort probably to be
genuine, but it was always, I'd be asking questions to try to
pull a little bit more out. You know, what have you been up
to today? You know, what's your week?
How's your week going? You know, and, and they give you
more context and they would share things with you that were,
I still think, oh man, what an immense privilege to get to do

(46:47):
that job of, of how much people would give you.
And I would write down, I'd print out a, a blank receipt at
the start of a shift and I wouldwrite down just key phrases so
that later on I could go home and write them all up, fill them
all out. And I still have pages and pages
and pages of these anecdotes. And I would share them on
Facebook sometimes. And completely at odds with the

(47:09):
social media policy of Kohl's and SBS.
Somebody at SBS once asked me toturn it into a like a web comic.
And I kind of started going through the motions of that.
And then I thought, I'm going tolose my job if I do this.
And I actually need that job. And I would have had to have

(47:30):
removed any, any kind of identifying features from myself
and the work to make it, you know, OK to do.
But yeah, just just making everyday, your everyday life

(47:51):
have meaning in that way was really incredibly valuable to my
mental health, I think to just who, who am I going to speak to
you today? You know, what's that going to?
And I'd be so disappointed when I go through a whole shift and I
would have my eyes open trying to absorb and take in all the
bits and maybe nobody was offering anything to me.
And then I'd maybe think about, well, what are the sounds of the

(48:14):
supermarket today? The there's this shoot that you
kind of oh, I. Love those?
Shoot, yes. That you put the money in and
you're not allowed to stick yourarm too far up there, it gets
stuck. That a manager wants to get her
arm stuck and had to pretend that nothing was get it out.
When you put it up, it kind of sucks it up.
Vacuum kind of thing. And when it's finished, it makes

(48:35):
this like kind of belching noise, no?
See, I I'm old enough to remember those things from
factories and you know, it's before the.
Panics behind the scenes. It's when you used to sit at
your typewriter and type a memo and then put it in a in a in a

(48:55):
in a tube and shove it up the and it would go.
It would go to somewhere else inthe factory.
I used to imagine that when you put the money in there, where
did it go? What where does it go?
What does it do? And I just imagine that it just
explodes into a pit of Coles money.
But sometimes I think I could hear the the scanner beep in my
day-to-day life and I can still remember that when I first

(49:18):
started, you had to remember youhad to recall PLU codes for
different products. She fruit and vegetables.
And sometimes managers would come around and be like broccoli
just yelled at it you and you'd be like 30 or I'll never forget
the code for limes because they wouldn't go in manually and I
had to, I had to, I had to manually put them in.

(49:38):
They wouldn't go in automatically on a shift, an
early shift. And I was like never forget the
PLU for limes. Yes, yes.
So I mean, I would still love toturn that all of that work into
a project, but I haven't found the way to do it yet because it
was kind of like, well, I could have I could have been a
podcast. I just fully do a podcast or a

(49:59):
graphic novel or a non a fictionor non fiction kind of work
about immersing yourself in a job that a lot of people that I
would serve, they would say, oh,what else?
What else do you do? You know, like the, yeah, this
is a kind of undercurrent of I hope that you don't just do this

(50:23):
job because it's, they're tryingto view a compliment.
I suppose it's beneath you, you know, to do a job like that.
But they're vital jobs that are essential for our survival.
And I always felt really annoyed, like, how dare you tell
me I'm not allowed to enjoy being a checkout girl?
But then I went back after maternity leave and I was, I'd

(50:45):
work nights and I would work with a lot of people who work
there for their whole life. You know, they have the badge
that. And then there's young people
that are kind of more transient.And I was this strange one.
I just kept going even though I had other things I could have
been doing. But it was, it's something about
doing something that you know, you're good at.
I could be the best checkout girl that could ever be.

(51:07):
Whereas making art or making a living from art took more mental
effort. But I was working with a a young
fellow one night and he just said to me, he's a friend that
I'd worked with for a while. He said, Bianca, you just need
to you need, you can't be here anymore.
You got to go because you you'renot, it's, it's taking up space

(51:29):
and it's, it's this damaging kind of safety that you have in
a job like that that's holding you back from actually doing the
thing that you should be doing as your main job.
You know, is that you, you know,you hold on to this little other
little job that we need. We need those jobs, you know, to
give us the bread and butter so that we can make the art

(51:50):
sometimes. But I think definitely for me it
was taking up space that I now use for bigger, better things.
But I still miss the supermarket.
My old boss said he wouldn't give me a job again because he
knows I would only be doing it purely for voyeurism purposes.

(52:14):
One time a a mouse ran across the floor in the store and and
then later in the night a customer picked up a mouse and
brought it to us. I don't think.
What do you want me to do with that?
And my manager, before I even spoke to the customer, he said
do not write about this on the Internet.
Do not write this down. This didn't happen.
So yeah, they he kind of knew what I'd get to he'd.

(52:39):
I think you you have vividly illustrated your point about
the, the, the coated in the everyday.
Yeah. You're a fascination with the
everyday, how that informs your arts practice and how it's it's,
it's more than just illustration.
It's it's. For sure it's.
Storytelling, it's living, it's and, and memory and documenting

(52:59):
and yeah, how all that comes together and then how you are
able to articulate that through illustration through, yeah,
through bringing up, you know, the way you bring up the kids,
you know, it's, and then how they are able to embrace the
world. It's just mind blowing.
Bianca Yeah, That's that's, I mean, it's a wonderful thing to
share and it it is it. I think what you're doing is is

(53:22):
helping people like me to see that whatever it is you do in
life, you can find meaning in it.
Oh, for sure. You know, just just little
exercises as well that you can do and that in my lesson
planning, hopefully I'll one dayget to actually make them a
reality. But of just, you know, making

(53:42):
your so I'm going to write down 10 things at the end of the day
that weren't shit, you know, or,you know, or there were shit or,
you know, maybe you write both lists or the the wheel of good
fortune on the fence of making people be in their own lives and
take it in. And there's so much to be

(54:05):
enjoyed from that of and it sounds trite.
Maybe it sounds childish. And we talked about child, you
know, of kind of to observe the beauty of everyday life and
enjoy it and document it and give allow yourself space in
your brain to enjoy a sunset or to enjoy the texture of, you
know, sticking your hand in. The other day my son was playing

(54:28):
with black beans, tiny little black beans.
And I was just like, you know, just like, I think it's all
probably intertwined with neurodivergence somewhat.
You know, I mentioned that late diagnosed ADHD and I think
that's given me some framework to to look back on my life and

(54:51):
art making intertwined around that and my sense of myself, my
imposter syndrome or whatever. I've had this real unburdening
of a lot of those things post diagnosis of really deeply
wanting to be someone, wanting to feeling like I had the
capacity to be somebody. You know, I think you you can

(55:12):
get hung up on who you were in high school and and the
potential that other people maybe saw in you and or placed
upon you. And then am I actually have I,
my, my primary school teacher from grade 5 and 6, she will
like just just leave likes or just do a really short comment

(55:32):
on different things that I'm doing.
And I just find that she's deeply validating.
Just, I remember years and yearsago I told her I was going to be
a teacher and she was really disappointed.
She was like, I really had higher hopes for you than being
a teacher herself as a teacher. So yeah, there's a nice kind of
checking in that you do with yourself.

(55:54):
I think when you allow yourself to take in, you know, you
yourself in the world, so. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I don't think there's anything Ican add to that.
It's you give me a lot of food for thought.
Oh, good, I really hope that when people talk to me about the

(56:15):
the writing I do about skulls, Ialways wanted, I was trying to
remove myself almost that. And when SBS talked about doing
something, they wanted to all beabout the checkout girl and me
as a person, and I really wasn'tinterested in that.
My whole ethos was that you could, you could write the
exact, not the exact same thing,but you could write it from your
perspective and and anyone can, any person working in that

(56:38):
supermarket could have written their own.
And in fact, I, there was, I remember there was a girl I
worked with and she saw a parroton somebody's shoulder in the
supermarket and it would spoke to her and she wrote about it on
Facebook. You know, awesome, you know,
just take in your world, you know, just we work the, we have
to work these shitty jobs. We have to do the kind of

(57:00):
drudgery and of, of everyday life.
But if you kind of don't take itso seriously as much as you're,
you're able to and kind of see weird little differences and
notice patterns. And I think it's, I mean, I'm
saying it like it's easy, I suppose.
And it isn't easy. It's especially when you haven't

(57:21):
done it in a long time. And sometimes they'll get out of
their habit and then I'll go fora walk and try to notice things,
to draw, you know. You know, in Vermei, where I
live, I really love. I've lived here for a really
long time. And I just, it's a really, I've
probably got a zine's worth of stuff about in Vermei to kind of
flesh out about rooting yourselfin your environment, wherever

(57:45):
that is, and just immersing yourself in the visuals, the
sounds, the, you know, it's verysensory on lots of levels.
So yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, I again,
I could. Yeah.
Look, you've left me speechless just because the.

(58:08):
ADHD running with with it with it.
I, I, I can relate so much of this and I'm sure so many
listeners can and they don't need me to, to, to, to, to you.
I mean, you speak so lucidly about so many things that come
together as a, as a, as an everyday practice for yourself
in how you move through the world and, and how you pass it

(58:33):
on to others as well. So, so I hope that the
listeners, you take as much awayfrom this as I as I have.
And Bianca, thank you. Before we close, you've
mentioned your, your social media and the, the perhaps
you're not going to be on it so much lately, but please going

(58:53):
back in a little bit. No.
So how? Where, Where are people going to
find you? I have a website
sobiancajago.com, Instagram, Facebook, all those channels,
TikTok. I had one viral TikTok and then
I just never opened TikTok again.
I was like well what do you do after that?

(59:16):
Anything do I have? To say something, I've made it.
I'm Internet famous. I think it was 500,000 views or.
Something. Oh wow.
Mental. Yeah, It it was just about I
have a little library. It was about the little library.
Yeah. People loved.
Yeah. You know, I think that really
aligns with the work, serious work that I do, I suppose, but

(59:38):
but that of just doing somethingfor the good of doing it and
putting it out there in the world and letting it people
experience it. Oh, people love that.
I'm just not very good at takingcredit for.
OK, Yeah, yeah, Self. Promotion, yeah.
Well, I do have a very good friend who who loves the little
libraries and it's it's a real thing here in Tassie and I'm

(01:00:00):
sure it is elsewhere. But yeah, look, I do have an
idea if for so you have beside you've got the, the, the wheel.
Yeah, wheel of good fortune. Yeah.
And you've got the lemon box. Box of lemons.
So you mentioned so you know thethe the barcode for for limes,
right? Or whatever.

(01:00:21):
Yeah. Or maybe for the lemon box, it's
about if people want a lemon, they have to remember a.
Code. Yeah.
I wouldn't. I've always really wanted to get
like, an old vending machine or like, you know, one of those
ones you put a little coin and repurpose that for my own
strange purposes, put weird stuff in there.

(01:00:42):
I like those little interventions that you can have
as an artist. Oh, I call myself an artist.
Little interventions you can have with people in there every
day that just might make them make some little synapses
bubble, spark or something of a yeah that make you have a

(01:01:03):
thought that you wouldn't have had otherwise.
That was the thought I had when I was left speechless and I just
couldn't articulate it. But it is this thing of how
someone like yourself, just through your joy and your
embrace of of the everyday, is able to invite people into your

(01:01:27):
the way you see the world, or atleast through the art you make.
Yeah. They can start to see the world
slightly differently to how theywould normally, and maybe they
press the pause button once in awhile.
Yeah, yeah. You know, I think that's all I'm
asking. I don't think I'm going to
change anyone's life, you know, but I think, and I think that's
the power of, of teaching as well.

(01:01:48):
And what I really see, what I'm really drawn to of just that you
can plant those seeds and again,not take credit for, you know,
for what, what they grow into necessarily.
But if you can kind of change one person's thought, you know,
my son I mentioned is really stoic.
He's really like he's he's kind of like the most perfect foil to

(01:02:08):
everything I'm about because he's so, you know, I kind of to
have my little flights of fancy and joy.
And even my, my partner and my ex-husband are very similar,
very stoic, very kind of like have a fun idea.
And they're the immediate reaction is to like, what are
the problems with that? What's going to go wrong?

(01:02:28):
And I think I was talking about some flight of fancy about the
little library or something. And my current partner said that
he and Cameron, my ex-husband, my friend, the ballast to my hot
air balloon. So I need to draw it because of
me being this kind of like full of hot air, just the floating

(01:02:49):
around. And I imagine they're kind of
like tethering me to the ground,probably like vaping or
something, kind of looking grumpy.
But I think I think it's really important to have.
I don't want to be too idealistic, too optimistic, you
know, had very challenging life experiences myself somehow still

(01:03:13):
really deeply rooted in joy. I'm I'm it's AI guess it's a
kind of like a compass, you know, keeps you focused even in
times when things are very bad of hope.
It's a little tiny glimmer of hope.
So, but, and I think that for me, teachers really did that for

(01:03:35):
me when I was young, of having people who see something in you
and invest in you and know you deeply.
Yeah, Yeah. So I hope, yeah, just hope to
share that with people, I suppose.
Thank you, Bianca. Thank you.
Look, listeners, A Guide to grief out in October.

(01:03:57):
Yes, yes, I think first week of October in North America.
But it you can, it can be purchased through Amazon.
Yeah, and so on. But I'm hoping to put a couple
of copies into maybe local library and my son's school and
maybe see psychologists, child psychologists and so on.

(01:04:17):
We just want to make it accessible.
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.
I I published a book last year and a friend told me that
actually we, we, we have a responsibility to send a copy to
the Tasmanian State Library and also to the National Library.
Yes, it's a responsibility, exactly.
Yeah. So it's it'll be out there and

(01:04:38):
it'll be accessible and available and, and I think it
embodies everything you've spoken about and and you're
checking your watch now because.I just have an alarm to remind
me I have children. Yes, I'm, I'm very, I'm very
mindful that, that that we're getting close to pick up time
from school. But the the book for me embodies

(01:04:58):
this, so much of what you said in that your illustration, it,
it makes something really that'sreally difficult to talk about
so real. Yeah, it's an access point I
think for people illustration ofI've I did a project, I'm sorry,
we're finishing up, but I have fibromyalgia.

(01:05:19):
I have. I also have osteoarthritis,
Rudad and but the fibromyalgia. I did this program, this
neuroscience and psychology program that's delivered through
an app called More Good Days. And I did it and got a lot out
of it personally and then had this lovely symbiotic
relationship with them where I did their, I did a whole bunch
of illustrations for their kind of social media and their

(01:05:41):
websites, even on shirts and things.
And I just really liked trying to make use visuals to try to
explain. And it's called more good days
because it's about focusing on that when you have chronic
illness, how to, you know, have a good day, you know, and what
that might look like for you might, you know, my sister's an

(01:06:01):
ultra marathon runner. So her good days, you know, a
50K run through the Bush, you know, where his mine might be
kind of hanging out washing, youknow, he did it, you know, And
so I, I really liked the opportunity to they would give
me a concept and I would have tomake it come to life usually.
And it was this magical problem solving of how do you talk about
pain? How do you, you know, something

(01:06:23):
that's it's hard to talk about is not pleasant.
And it's like, like grief, griefand pain, you know, we don't
know how to. It's kind of taboo.
It's complicated. It's the sort of, yeah, people
have a lot of difficulty talkingabout it.
And yeah, but I've, that was oneof the probably the most fun
projects that I've worked on is just how to make pain, how to

(01:06:47):
visualize that, how to translateit.
And I think people absorb the written words more fully because
they have this initial kind of visual that that helps to
trigger the topic for them in a positive way.
So yeah. You make wonderful work, Bianca.
You, you speak about it so eloquently and there is so much

(01:07:08):
that we can take away from this.Thank you so much.
Thank you so much. It was really great to to know
your projects what what's in theworks for you as well.
Yeah. Thanks for listening to this
episode of Connect Curate, Create.
I hope you found inspiration andinsights that you can apply to
your own creative work. For highlights and links, check

(01:07:32):
out the show notes and be sure to follow us on your favorite
podcast player so you never missan episode.
TuneIn next time as I continue to explore life and work in the
arts.