Magnolia Season

I’ve been productive and my Magnolia season is on track to bloom.

I refer to winter as Magnolia season because when I lived in Collingwood, I would extend my morning walk during August to the top of Gertrude Street to see the glorious promenading Magnolias bloom day after day for a few weeks along the block from Brunswick Street to the Exhibition Centre.

If you live in Melbs, it’s worth a special trip to see them.

I have always loved winter, and even more since the pain saga began in 2007—I am so much more comfortable in the cool.

And I have always loved tucking indoors – I enjoy solitude. Perhaps that’s helped me manage this nightmare. I can’t imagine being a very social person and being unable to get out.

Magnolia season is the perfect studio time! I love eating hotter food, lighting the fire, chocolate and coffee taste so much better, and you can’t beat that toasty feeling of stepping into a warm house or bed after the electric blanket prepared it for you. On the rare occasion when I’m in the car, I love playing ‘spot the magnolia.’ When I’m unable to get out, I’ve made it easy by planting one in front of our church/gallery (see pictures from last year).

I’m mostly set with life and pain management now – each day isn’t dissimilar from another. You’d be bored to tears if I wrote regularly about my management, which is why I save the blogs for when I actually have something interesting to share.

I have some! This week and next month are going to be grand markers of achievement (especially for someone who doesn’t venture much further than 1 km!).

• This week is Runway presentation week – Theo and I present My Health Story to investors
• Next month, I have an exhibition of my Italian urban scenes at Queenscliff Gallery
• And after these celebrations of achievement, I’m off to Italy… yes, again!

Runway Incubator Cohort 16

I posted news about my success applying to the Runway Incubator Program on My Health Story. If you’re unfamiliar with an incubator, it’s a kind of course that helps you develop business ideas with professional guidance and puts you on the path to finding investors—something I have so desperately needed for My Health Story (MHS).

Although My Health Story is in the market, I’ve never really worked with professionals to build the business side of it. I certainly have MHS Advisory members who have helped me build the resource, but Theo and I have internally managed the business model, its viability, its potential, and the concept. Dangerous.

Yes, we are designers and we have owned a company but My Health Story is a big idea. It is setting out to change the behaviour of people who live with chronic conditions, or carers (such as me who cares for my parents). It’s also aiming to change the behaviour of the people who help us with our chronic conditions.

It could be an idea that never really takes off in a huge way. But it also might succeed in solving a very real problem.

We always say how backward managing chronic pain is:

• You can never get hold of YOUR own health information,
• It’s usually inaccurately communicated between providers… or lost!
• You repeat yourself a few thousand times,
• You usually discover all the problems you don’t have seeking treatment and diagnosis,
• No one really seems to understand you,
• It’s not a patient-centred system, and it should be,
• It’s expensive,
• It causes more pain and makes people sicker… like it did to me!

Being successful in my application to Runway meant that, for the last few months, Theo and I have had advice from lawyers, accountants, designers, strategists, professional business developers, media experts, and all the professionals needed to start a new business or bring an idea to life.

And now, all that work will amount to a Showcase evening at the fabulous Geelong Arts Centre where we get to present to investors.

We have learned so much. The best part about Runway was that Theo and I could participate together. There’s no way I could have participated in a program like this without someone’s help.

So we have fine-tuned our baby, created a pitch deck and Theo is rehearsed and roaring to go with his 3-minute pitch.

That happens, this Thursday.

Then…

Passaggi: A Painted Season

My exhibition at Queenscliff Gallery (QG).
DATES: Aug 7 – Sep 7, 2025.

There are 15 works forming my exhibition and 13 of them are of Italian scenes I pencilled in on linen when I was last in Italy. Also included are two additional works that are more like dreams and they depict my attendance at the opera of the Barber of Seville and another amazing building I saw in Verona.

I can only show you the two works below – the rest will be revealed to art followers signed up to my art list. The images below link to instagram videos of me drawing the works in Italy last year. I cannot wait to go back and relive this routine.

It might be unfortunate… actually, it is very unfortunate that I can’t carry my materials and park myself in a place to execute a painting from start to finish but at least I’ve figured out a way to capture what I see while I’m in one of my favorite places in the world and then complete that dreamy experience at a later time in my studio.

Hit my art site soula.com.au for more art news.

If we are successful in finding partners for My Health Story, I’ll surely be back to report. In the meantime, a thought: I started this website to raise awareness among people living with the condition Pudendal Neuralgia and those trying to treat it. I was in the depths of the pelvic pain issue at the time, and never would have believed my life could be great again and that pain levels could be dramatically reduced. I couldn’t draw a quick sketch for a few years, let alone form an exhibition of works or dare to dream I could become the founder of My Health Story and try to change this backward world.

So if this is the first thing you read on this site, GOOD! Keep reading and know that pelvic pain is not the end of your world.

Excuse me now as I’m off to prepare some canvases for my next trip.

Ciao!