Di West
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A day in the life of Di........

3 years ago, my husband, my cat and I moved to the lush surrounds of Maleny, in the hinterland behind the Sunshine Coast, after living the majority of our lives in the city of Brisbane.

We live right on the edge of a cliff overlooking the beautiful Glasshouse Mountains. My husband designed our house dedicating a two level studio for me to work in - a wet studio for oil painting and sculpture; and a dry studio for drawing and assemblage.

When I was a child, I was a constant visitor to the old Queensland Art Gallery (previously near the Exhibition). I wanted to live there! I knew then that I wanted to always be surrounded by art.

I have always been a keen collector of contemporary art, art books and vintage toys and fail miserably at minimalism!

I can never imagine leaving a life in the country, it has had a profound effect on my art practice, and I never thought I'd ever paint cows and horses, but there you are really.............

the view from my studio - every day the glasshouse mountains take on a whole new look of mystery my downstairs studio has beautiful natural light Sculpture - a new Star Man - I try to add two new works every year in this collectible series my studio - cows, cows and more cows here's my studio desk and in the background a selection of vintage toys from the depression era one of my collections - vintage samplers we created a gallery space in my home for viewings stairs to dry studio, a mezzanine area where I can draw and muck about with paper assemblage - the old sign is from the Brisbane Exhibition, one of my treasures! endless lifting - paintings on and off easels, on and off walls Di & Smokey ( Smokey is a Burmilla, he is 12 years old and not showing his age a bit) these cows appear right beside my studio windows - they come in all kinds of gelati colours! storm arriving - a photo I took recently, the city of Brisbane is highlighted in sunlight, it was about 4pm