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Hi I’m Deb Stringer, the Director of Community Relations and Fundraising at the Cancer Council
Victoria. The Arts Awards is a very important and inspiring community event which we hold
every year, where people who had an experience with cancer can tell us their story in a creative
way. The works are absolutely exemplary. It’s
such a heartening thing for me as a curator to see how amazing the artworks are that people
are making out there in the community.
It’s incredible the array of talent in this particular award, and the past awards as well,
and seeing so many different mediums, from drawing to painting to photography to mixed
media to ceramics, really, really quite incredible talent out there.
I had cancer, I had bowel cancer. Four years ago I was in hospital hovering between life
and death and my artwork helped me recover.
The Arts Awards is a great opportunity for… I mean, it’s difficult to express pain and
sorrow, and especially at a young age, and this is encouraging writers to have a go at
that. And the ones that do it, often do it very well.
The first time was a tribute to my grandfather who was my first best friend and I wanted
to tell his story a bit and then a few years it later it turned out that I needed to tell
my own story.
Whether you like to draw, whether you like to photograph, whether you like to do installation
pieces, if you like to make work with mixed media like ceramics for instance, just do
it. Make something and enter. Because I think it’s not to be afraid to absolutely express
yourself through art, and not to be afraid to enter the award because everybody absolutely
should. It’s such a good thing to do.
If something that they want to do is find a way to reach out, to connect with others,
to feel that they’re part of something universal, then this is a beautiful way to do it. I’ll
be entering again.
2012 will be the 15th annual event of the Arts Awards program, and the theme of the
program will be Strength. It takes strength to face a cancer diagnosis; it takes strength
to support somebody going through a cancer experience. We want you to share your story
of strength with us.