Amongst The Stars

Trace believes that art is an innate part of our humanity and acts to bring people together, as a result her community involvement reaches further than these titles allow.

Amongst such endeavours are engaging and educational workshops as well as a collaboration with her brother’s not-for-profit organisation ‘Operation Toilets Australia’ for which the book ‘Cycling Together’ arose.

This book was written to uplift adolescent girls in India and educate young people on how they can contribute to an essential cause in a tangible way.

Some of Trace’s other books include Rivertime and Rockhopping.

Trace breathes life into a page with the help of a simple lead pencil, water colours and/or a waterproof fountain pen. Through her art, Trace strives to deepen her connection to country, alongside sharing the land’s beauty and history with the wider community. In service of this ideal Trace keeps detailed ‘nature journals’ brimming with botanical sketches, playfully intertwined with poetic observations.

She also runs workshops on this medium.

Aside from pursuing knowledge of country through her own explorations Trace often reaches out to indigenous members of the community for support in her creative work aiming to inspire interest and care of indigenous epistemology and culture. She cherishes this wisdom and finds it important to acknowledge indigenous links to the land. Many of Trace’s artworks reflect Indigenous record keeping, where memories are often encoded in a somewhat abstracted map of a time spent in a specific area. This is done in order to convey function and meaning in a human way.

Trace is drawn to nature perhaps partly because she was distanced from it through her city upbringing. She was always seeking out scalable trees and spent much of her time on a bike or with her dog. She now loves nothing more than a walk at dawn, quite literally communing with nature.

She likes to talk with the plants and animals during these walks, as she finds any fugitive loneliness can only dissipate under such circumstances. She often speaks with reverence and love of the diffuse light, that in the colder months, catches on the foggy eiderdown draped across her home country.

‘Dawn light through the forest, gold rays all about on a cold morning walking up the hills above the fog line where the distant mountains look like islands!’ she said. ‘Finding tiny wildflowers as the days grow longer…’

Trace finds art spilling out of all life’s cracks and so her creativity and thoughts seem to flow with ease. Speaking of kites makes Trace think of the boomerang tree, so named by her and her son when they once had to climb one in order to retrieve a flighty boomerang. When asked about devising her kite for Hope Flies, Trace says:

‘I go by the saying of a favourite philosopher Lao Tze who said “spontaneity is truth”.

‘I knew what I wanted to do and didn’t hesitate – I let the materials and my inner guidance lead the way – I just have to trust and move aside. I wanted it to be an image that kids would see and light up to.’

Trace can come across as a tireless optimist however when speaking on the concept of ‘hope’ she confesses to a somewhat surprising caution in using the word.

She prefers the word ‘aspiration.’

‘Hope is more about the future and may not be realistic, where aspiration is perhaps more accepting of what is – and doing the best version with what we have… I don’t think hoping to bring back extinct species is helpful, but aspiring to protect and grow in number those that are endangered is more the gist of what I’m saying.’

The Title of Trace’s kite comes from her lyrics for the song, Starry Freedom Boat.

Of her hope for the future Trace says, ‘Hope is a tricky word… As Joanna Macy calls it “the great turning”- to come out the other side as intact as we can all be, into a much more generous, caring, kind world- towards one another – meaning all of life – not just humans- a slower more connected, regenerative, respectful, joyful planet for all.’

This link below will take you to a lovely little story done by the ABC on Trace.

Trace’s present, the place she likes to spend most of her time, holds her graphic novel memoir, which she is slowly working on and an upcoming stint as a volunteer at a nature connection camp. If you were to step inside her mind at this very moment, it might sound a little something like this:

‘…rites of passage, the miracle of life, the sacredness of death and transformation, ways of living lightly and with care for all…amazing Greenhood Orchids that I saw on my wander this morning…’

You can learn more about Trace on her website.

https://traceballa.com

by Adelaide Stolba