24 Oct 2009, Posted by Cat in News, 13 Comments. Tagged art, cameron sparks, dad, life

Cameron Sparks exhibition opening

Here is the text of my opening speech:

On the 2nd of June my father experienced the kind of horrific incident usually safely contained within the realm of television programming and other fictional landscapes.

The assault saw Dad hospitalized for several long, uncomfortable months while the arduous process of mending his body and bringing his mind back online ran its course.

I’d like to thank the North Sydney police, Royal North Shore hospital, The Mayor of North Sydney, Grenwich hospital, and those friends, neighbours and family members who played an active part in his recovery, all working together to make Dad himself again.

Every visit made a difference. Every phone call. Every card. Every gesture of kindness, no matter how small: the neighbours who cleaned up broken glass on the porch, left food on the doorstep, stopped in to see how Mum was coping at home.

Mum was with him every single day, trekking between Waverton and St Leonards, hoping each visit would show a slight improvement on the last. My sister Rachael flew out from the UK to sit at his bedside for a week in the ICU, positive he knew she was there, despite his largely unresponsive state. 

For those who complain about the burden and inconvenience of taxation… this is one of the things our money goes to pay for – a miracle.

Our American friends should take note. We are lucky enough to live in a country where an ordinary person – not a monarch or a politician or a movie star – can receive such an extraordinary level of specialist medical care simply because he needs it.

Thank you to the Brackenriggs for encouraging Dad to go ahead with this exhibition. A special thanks is due to longtime family friend Danny Pata for cleaning up Dad’s studio, arranging the framing of his paintings and for sitting with us in the hospital café on that first long and terrible night.

The works you see on the wall today were mostly painted in the last 10 years although the sketches they’re based on range across several decades. The South of France, New Mexico, Hobart and Lane Cove – Dad says he can go anywhere with his sketch book and return with something useful — drawings which may later become more substantial paintings.

‘Drawing selects from what one sees. Mechanical aids are not needed for one uses what one has got’

Thank you for coming along today to help us celebrate our miracle. I hope you enjoy my father’s paintings.

Heather & Mum

I’ll put up the rest of the photos on Flickr tomorrow