A keen scuba diver, Margaret Connell was inspired to pick up the paint brush to capture the beautiful underwater scenes she had experienced.
Those two activities were favourites of Margaret’s until her vision loss got to the point where she couldn’t enjoy them as she once did.
Margaret recently dived back into the world of painting and has a piece of work featuring in our 2019 large print calendars and she joined Talking Vision this week to discuss all of that.
“I bought an underwater camera, thinking I’ll photograph all this. Some of the photographs were really nice, but they didn’t bring out the natural, brilliant colours and I got so disappointed that I thought ‘I know, I could learn to paint,” Margaret said.
“I painted for 15 or 20 years and then my sight went and then about five years ago I had to give it up. I couldn’t get the detail I wanted with my sight going,” she said.
Also on the program is Matt Collins, who has been filling a Career Start Graduate position with the Vision Australia Communications Team this year to discuss the opening of applications for the 2019 Career Start Program.
Matt applied for the program after a friend came across it and described it as the “best work experience” he’s had.
“It sounded interesting and from the description it sounded very open ended and like a very adaptable role, which I liked. That I adaptability that I read in into it was really why I signed up,” Matt said.
“It’s definitely increased my skillset, firsthand experience working in different work environments I did not think I’d be able to acclimatise myself to, but found that I that I definitely could… All across the board it’s improved my skill set really,” he said.
Wrapping up the show is Clementine Binks from the Carols By Candlelight team, who joins to talk all that’s happening in the lead up to Christmas Eve.
“I can’t give any spoilers on the performers we’ll be having, be we’ll be having an incredible range of both modern and more traditional music as part of our line up and as well as that we’re also ramping up to some really fantastic activities for people who are attending,” Clementine said.
“We’ve got a quite a few competitions coming up, so opportunities to win tickets to Carols By Candlelight as well our usual range of announcements around performers and activities. We’re working very closely with Channel 9, who of course air the show every year, to make sure we’ve got a really exciting program in the lead up to Christmas,” she said.
Listen to the latest Talking Vision here, or on the player below: