We left in convoy towards the desert sands of Roxby Downs, South Australia from Adelaide. Some people rode bicycles, it took about 10 days. . We wanted to try and stop the mining of Uranium. We were concerned that the fresh water of the Great Artesian Basin would be contaminated, that the soils and air would be polluted forever. We marched, raised flags, spoke to the reporters and tried to avoid the police. Gentle people, young people, alternative thinkers and anyone motivated by an awareness that this was unnecessary and would be so destructive, gathered from all over the country and sit, talk and plan actions that would spread the word and try and stop the mine going ahead. Strategic and well planned protests were discussed and implemented. It was an amazing time. I was there for about 16 days. I camped under a small tent, cooked on an open fire and shared whatever we had. Our little camp. The colours of the red desert sands and the blue sky was amazing. Benny Zable was a standout figure in his long black outfit and gas mask. He galvanised us, informed us and demonstrated that it was important to stand up and fight for the environment and the future well being of the planet. A camp at the site, a banner hangs above them. The artworks were amazing. Young mother with her newborn son. I was pretty laid back then. The police surrounded us and often acted very aggressively towards us, despite ours being a peaceful protest. In the end, the mine went ahead. What are we going to do with all the radioactive waste that will have a half life of 150,000 years. Let's more than hope that it doesn't find it's way into our underground fresh water table. #RoxbyDowns #Uraniummining #Protesting #Socialconscience #Juggler

I have decided to try a new approach to my artwork. As I don't have as much time anymore as the demands of full time shift work plays havoc with being able to have concentrated hours of working on my art. So I have erected a platform to which I can attach the paper or canvas. I want to work on a larger scale too and this is one solution I came up with. So my charcoal drawing is called 'Keeping the Wolf from the door'.

I arrived at the commune in 1985 after having survived quite a treacherous journey from Amsterdam. I had hitchhiked over 12 hours. The last time I had seen the people who lived on the commune in En Durou I had been in Zambia, nearly 10 years before. I stayed for about three weeks. There was no electricity or running water. My small sleeping space was above a chicken coup. It was certainly an eye opener. The kids were Anarchist Punks who performed in street circuses, acrobats, jugglers, fire twirlers. One day I went with them to attend a gathering of the street performers from all over France, who converged on this field. It was like being in an alternative universe. At least I learnt to juggle. I also learnt how to travel with just myself and faith. One of the acrobats waited patiently for the bleach to turn his black hair golden white. A Leap into Space, Oil on Canvas. Saren Dobkins. A Painting inspired by the circus performers. The theme of tightrope walkers, jugglers and anarchists continued to feature as strong themes in my work from then on. There was a resilient, defiant and independent aspect to their lifestyle, gypsy-like one might say, that attracted me. Scenes from the day I arrived at the gathering. It was epic. Street performers, hundreds had converged from all over France to celebrate together. The intensity and tempo that pulsed from the scene was extraordinary. The people were warriors of a sort, their physical prowess were remarkable: juggling axes, fire, six to ten objects at a time, walking on tight ropes strung meters from the ground, twirling fire sticks, balancing on top of each other to form human pyramids. I was hopeless at any such things and I wish I had taken more photographs, but I was self conscious. But the experience of glimpsing into this other world, influenced my perceptions forever. The commune was a collection of stone houses, very basic. They grew their own food but there was rarely enough to eat. It was rough but peaceful. It was here I chanced upon a book by Carlos Castenada, The Teachings of Don Juan. This book turned out to be very helpful in my next journey. Paris, 3am. Oil on Canvas, Saren Dobkins When I arrived in Paris late at night, after having hitched several rides from Amsterdam. I saw then that one's life can turn on the chance of a coin, that is how fragile and unpredictable it all can be. #France #Commune #Circus #Juggler

In 1989, I found myself living on a rocky outcrop in a makeshift tent in the desert mountains above Taba Beach, Israel. This small stretch of beach, stony and lapped by the waters of the Red Sea was to be the setting of some of my strangest days. I met a number of travelers, drifters, musicians, tricksters and lonely lost souls. I survived on eggs and parsley, hummous and turkish coffee. View of the Red Sea from Taba Mountains, 1989 Group of drifters, Taba Beach A Ripping Scene, Oil on Canvas I had my sketch book and would draw the scenes, try and make portraits and write my impressions. There was a musician, a violin player who lived in this tent by the shores and he seemed so content with his life. I drew his picture but the man who I was with at the time, reacted in a rage when he saw the drawing and ripped the drawing up. I painted a picture of the scene later, it showed how vulnerable I felt and how the men were so different, the violin player in the zone that I aspired to be in and the forces of negativity that blocked my path. Sitting round the campfire, Taba Beach. This was the rather bare campsite that we lived in. It was so stony and dry. Our days seemed to stretch endlessly, the landscape was harsh, the sun hot and unrelenting. We would share our minimal resources but we mostly survived on fried eggs, parsley, coffee and bread. We would meet people from many places and circumstances as they passed by. I would make sculptures out of found materials, draw on the large rocks with the charcoal sticks from extracted from the previous night's fire. It was a very lean and austere time. Yellow and Blue, Taba Beach, Israel 1989 The Winner, Oil on Canvas From my experience of living with few resources in the desert, I painted this work to express the value of having access to water, our most precious and essential resource. Those who are most vulnerable, either through poverty or environmental, rely on the generosity, compassion and basic humanity of those who are better placed to access water and other basic resources. We are all reliant on the well being of everyone around us to bring the standards of living up. The Paranoid King, oil on canvas The experience of living with someone who was possessive, calculating, insecure and yet perceived himself as a king was the inspiration for this work. The paranoid king is a dangerous man, all that assumption of power but it is used to control and contain those he believes are beneath him and out to get him. They cannot sleep with ease and lash out with impunity. #placesivelived #TabaBeach #Desert #Sea

I have have stayed on four kibbutzim, in all parts of the country, over a thirty year period. Much has changed. Staying in these communities, mixing with the volunteers, ulpanists and kibbutzniks has been one of the richest and life changing moments of my life, both creatively and mind altering. The first time I went, to Kibbutz Hasolelim I stayed around six months, that was in 1979. I worked in the kitchen, factory and in the fields. I met travelers, artists, writers. I began to awaken and question my own artistic hopes and would sketch the scenes around me, as well as write. Kibbutz HaSolelim, 1979. The path to my room. Kibbutz HaSolelim, 1979. Interior of my room. Kibbutz HaSolelim, 1979. Laundry Kibbutz HaSolelim, Working in the fields. I began working with charcoal, capturing the human form in moments of tension. I went to the Negev desert and its stark, barren and stony terrain was to etch a place in my heart. 'Look me in the eye', charcoal on paper, Saren Dobkins 'Caught Bird', Steel, Talc, Saren Dobkins, 1980 JAP, Charcoal on paper, Saren Dobkins On the Prowl, Pastel on canvas, Saren Dobkins Save

In my naivety, I accompanied a friend and her three year old daughter to Sydney for a visit. It was to be for three weeks. I was around twenty and curious about this city called Sydney. It turned out that we were to be staying in the squats in Darlinghurst, a robust place full of squatters. It was a completely new, strange, shocking and surprising place full of mostly youngsters or people made old by their habit, who lounged about in the languid state caused by the soporific effects of the drugs. There were punks, hair coloured and raised in the salute of uprising, spiky like their caustic comments when they met this unpolished me. Rings screwed into every part; lips, tongues, eyebrows, nostrils and navels. There were corners occupied by boys rolled into balls buried beneath their salvation army sleeping bags, they hardly moved and I often wondered if they were yet dead. There were evenings of scavenged banquets, where under the candle light we would meet and mix with many and eat together happily, what we had managed to cook up. Many a day was spent in the cafes, a coffee ordered early in the day gave us license to sit perched round the table for hours, chatting as the citizens from this strange corner of the city would pass by, a conversation that might speak of politics, deals gone awry, hallucinations or begging for a dollar. I wasn't tempted to try the potions offered, I'm ever grateful for that early self awareness. I took care of the child, took photos and marveled at the inventiveness of those who have so little to make so much. It was the start of the consciousness about the issue of Uranium mining, single parents, cycling, the rights and opportunities of artisans and artists. When I came back to Adelaide, I went back to college and put my hand at graphics, printmaking, painting and photography. Here are some of what I created after that strange month in Darlinghurst. I took one roll of film, it was negative SLR and it was only when I had the film developed did I realise I had double exposed the whole roll. So my whole trip is documented in this hallucinatory way. The things I saw, oil on canvas, Saren Dobkins Chairs, Pastel on paper, Saren Dobkins Catch 22, photosilkscreen, Saren Dobkins Save Save Darling it Hurts Mural, Saren Dobkins

I was thinking as I was driving my tram yesterday, that I would like to record all the amazing, weird, different and surprising places I have lived over the many years. I have lived in a variety of different domains with a variety of different people and out of these changing environments my artwork has no doubt been influenced to reflect this. So if you are interested to come on this journey, you never know, we may have crossed paths in the past. Lusaka, Zambia I can only assume that growing up in Zambia has played a large part in influencing my being, both as an artist and my outlook on life generally. I was lucky enough to have quite a free childhood, so my imagination ran wild. I made up my own games, toys and friends. People were inventive and what was needed was built, recycled and resourced from what was around. The farm where I lived, Zambia I was aware of the poverty around me as well as the sunshine, the bush and the lovely energy of the people. Women pounding the corn kernels to make mealie meal and scrawny chickens running about the yard. Thatched roofs, whitewashed walls and dirt paths that crisscrossed through the tall grass that burned with a redness and intensity that was only matched by the deep green shoots of grass that would later grow through the black ash. I was particularly affected by the living conditions of many of the children, that even as a child myself, left an indelible mark. Myself, my sister and our friends playing in the garden. A child lies, Zambia Begging for Food, Saren Dobkins, Charcoal on Paper, 1982 Dinner Parties with Ease, Saren Dobkins, Photo sikscreen, 1982 The Blind Singer, Saren Dobkins, Oil on Board, 1986 Market vendors, Ndola Zambia Save #placesivelived #poverty #Zambia #painting #SarenDobkins #photography #Africa

My lack of desire, persuasion, curiosity or need to paint has been halted. It was as if, one day I woke up and I was no longer the "I" that painted or even knew how to. Like that, it was gone, vanished. It was sad and terrifying at the same time, but oddly, as I was no longer that I, I couldn't recall what I was missing. Imagine one day waking up and looking at a child and being told, this is your child and you should love and be enmeshed with this child, but you don't recognise her. Today, the amnesia receded a bit. I picked up my brushes, mixed some paint and I worked on a painting and I think it's finished. I have had a shock, a big shock. A shock that rocked my world, my idea of what I knew to be true, what I have held dear and precious for many, many years. So it is no wonder that something shifted and I resorted to living on the surface, surviving, taking it slow as I tried to bring myself and my understanding back into alignment. I never knew that painting was something that lived beneath the surface, that it could sink so deeply out of sight, when in fact I probably needed it to remind myself of what and who I am. Maybe I am just not honest enough as an artist, that I couldn't bring myself to really paint how I felt. I hope this changes. But this work, "When your love seeks another" touches that raw nerve, probably too quietly but I'll be gentle, it's who I am. Or have been conditioned to be. When Your Love Seeks Another, Saren Dobkins, 2016 #SarenDobkins #Love #Betrayal

The lack of studio space means the progress of these two works is very slow for now. However, I am encouraged by how they are unfolding and look forward to sharing them when they are completed to my satisfaction.

I have been fortunate enough to have engaged in two very different dialogues yesterday. One was with a high end art dealer and the other was in response to my reading a book by Adam Phillips, entitled 'Missing Out" , so this dialogue was ostensibly with myself. However, both encounters presented new and challenging information. The dealer was responding to my request to meet with him, to see if I could talk with him. I hadn't shared with him what exactly I wanted to talk to him about, but he assumed that I was asking for him to consider my work for representation. That was never my intention actually, I was aware of the style of work he sold and knew mine would not meet his criteria. I asked him eventually, since he was so insistent that my work wasn't for him, Why? Why wasn't my work to his liking? He said it was too naive, not edgy enough, too easy on the eye. Not complex enough. I found this interesting, because it calls into question what one considers complex, edgy. Is it the technique or the concept/idea behind the work. And why is so much work that is in high end galleries, so obscure. Is good Art supposed to be hard to understand or does it mean I am not in the same league, I just don't get it. Adam Phillips* spoke about the need for people to feel they "Get It"., that they are not missing out, but are in the know. This plays a significant role in our feeling included, socially recognised, not on the outer. If the audience cannot work out or get what the artist wants or needs from them, and that may well be the point, even the artist herself may not know, it could be because it is deliberately obscure, perhaps because the artist is looking to cultivate a group where only a few 'get my work'. And this is where either getting it or not getting it, or if the audience is prevented from getting it, something else comes into play. Groups of people tend to be defined or define themselves by the things they all get. Art that is hard to 'get' is championed in a world of neurosis, of 'masks' and 'wanna be's. With 'secret' work, the signal is "I know there must be something to 'get' here, it must be important because it is shown within the framework of the exalted gallery, and if I own it, then people will think I 'get it". That I have access to this secret knowledge." On examining my own work then, in light of reading this chapter, made me think that by my creating work that people 'get', they are subconsciously concerned that what they 'relate' to, is somehow too revealing about their inner selves. By my expressing 'anxieties', human vulnerabilities, yes people get it, but its too bare. Naive art is easy to 'read', no challenge there, and the more elite and expensive a work of art is in our contemporary world, the more of a challenge to 'read' it, it must 'appear' to be.

Could it be that my paintings are just too colourful? This strikes me as peculiar, but after an interesting discussion with someone involved with the high end art scene of Melbourne, this is something I am now considering. It seems people in Melbourne prefer to purchase Art that is not too colourful. And it does correspond with a number of artworks that I do come across in the more high end portion of the Art Market. It seems that the more 'serious' one considers the artist, the more darker, subdued and muted the colour palette. Those bright, dazzling and sometimes hyper colourful works, are more aligned with 'amateurs', "hobby artists", for people with less sophisticated tastes. I never connected this before. It seems, as I have a strong narrative element to my work as well, having the strong colour and the meaningful narrative are too confronting, so one has to be toned down. I find that the sensibilities of something so essential to human nature, colour can be such a determinate of a 'whole' culture, the Melbourne art culture, is a revelation. I was thinking upside down. I see grey everywhere here; the clothes, the buildings, the skies, the sea and I wanted to bring colour into the greyness. Colour is why I am a painter. Using colour, choosing the palete is the joy of it. The boldness, the harmonies of colour, I relish it. I like food that has deep, colourful flavours. I like environments that hum with colour, be they greens of the tropics, blues of the skies and seas in Queensland and Western Australia. A field of yellow sunflowers, the red sands of the desert. The warmth of tones, that warm the soul. So how to navigate this new understanding.

It has been a year of existential wrestling that has visited my life in a variety of forms, everything has now disappeared and I am left alone and wondering, How did this happen? Why did I allow this to happen? It was the end of the road, we all must come eventually to the end of our road, the one we chose to walk down all those eons ago. We start each new track with hope or fear, either one still requires we take a step and then another and then time passes and you've taken a thousand steps and your life unfolded and then woops! crossroads again. The last stretch of this road was a mountain, treacherous and unfamiliar terrain. At least towards the end the weather was good, it was sunny and the vista was beautiful. I never tire of opening my eyes and seeing the beauty around me now, but the road itself is still stony. In my heart it feels like I walk a tightrope, the thin strand I place one foot in front of the other is perhaps called hope, whilst on either side of me, in a space that stretches far away into the inky darkness of that which ultimately descends into nothingness, is fear. Fear is all around me and I take one quivering step, toes clenched around the strand that holds me upright, fighting the pull of gravity, towards a place that I want to believe exists. This place is a home, a studio, a solidity of sorts that I can return to and know this is where I can rest, create, propose and dare to roam from, because I can return at the end of the day's journey and be still and at peace. But life is a paradox, for having stepped onto the tightrope, I saw things I had not seen before, experienced things I hadn't experienced before, learnt things about myself I didn't know and made connections with so many good people that I would never have met if I had never been vulnerable and curious. I have also learnt how to balance on a tightrope, unburdened myself from many possessions so I can take lighter and longer steps, learnt to love more openly and know more than ever, that this is my life, the journey is my life.