Ararat Gallery TAMA
Kate Daw
Sarah Scout Presents
August 2022
Love, Work (for KD)
A tribute show for Kate Daw, a very moving account of the artist and her community,
I wrote the letter below the week she died, overwhelmed with grief which was completely inexplicable. Maybe!
Dearest Kate,
I admired you from afar, never having had the opportunity to get to know you well enough to call you a friend. I feel a loss that is not my own, I feel a hole in the world has opened up. You’ve left the kind of mark that shall never be erased.
I don’t understand the extent of my grief right now. I can only think that that your dying has opened up a wound long thought healed. Maybe it’s as simple as a sharp reminder that life is too short. Life should not be taken for granted and wasting it on petty shite and a career that means nothing and adds nothing to the world, is not a life worth living. not for me anyway.
I’m sorry for the tears that have been shed by your family and friends and I’m sorry for a life cut so short. I suppose the saying, only the good die young rings truest for you.
I’m hoping someone will put a book together of your work and your writing. If only for me to get to know you a little better. (Selfish aren’t I.)
My life in comparison to yours is nothing, your beauty, intelligence and creativity . . . I’ve loved your work ever since I came across it. When I was helping Vicki I would sit and look at your Acapulco painting, longing to have it as my own.
I know that writing this will not change anything. I know they, Vikki and Kate and all your loved ones are hurting, and it’ll feel like it’s never going to pass. I’m sad for your friends and family and the pain they must feel. It’s a familiar pain, I’ve carried for decades now. One that somehow never really leaves. One you just learn to live with.
you will be missed
x
Leave a Reply