THE work of a Tuross Head artist may well be better travelled by the end of this year than she.
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Sandra Hendy, 70, flew to China in December to see her painting Oriental Jumble hung in the prestigious Shenzhen Watercolour Biennial.
Her stay was brief, but not so the painting’s.
In company with other international artworks, Oriental Jumble will spend the rest of the year being ferried to exhibitions around art-crazy modern China.
Ms Hendy, who has been painting for 35 years, booked a ticket to Shenzhen after learning she was one of about 260 artists selected for the show, but before she could get on the plane, the news got better.
“I was so glad, because I found I had won a prize, so it was just as well we had booked the trip,” Ms Hendy said.
She was one of only 10 artists awarded a prize for excellence and a cool $4000 in the show.
“Our paintings are travelling around China for a year to eight major cities,” she said.
“That was a good trick. I was a bit surprised. It meant a lot.”
Ms Hendy said water colour was important in Chinese culture.
“They are absolute experts at water colour,” she said.
The award was neither her first, nor last, orientally inspired “trick”.
“I have been hung before in another show in a little town outside Shanghai,” Ms Hendy said.
Then, last week, Ms Hendy picked up third place in the water colour section at this year’s Royal Easter Show, for her study of Japanese wind flowers.
Despite her peaceful subject matter, Ms Hendy admits to a competitive streak that the decades have not dimmed.
“Honestly, the reason I do it, is because I enjoy competitions,” she said.
“I am a terribly competitive person.
“My children think I am absolutely ghastly and so does my husband.
“He thinks it is terrible, but I say I can’t help it.
“Unless I have something to work towards, I sit around twiddling my thumbs.
“I don’t always win, but I am always in there with a chance.
“If someone is better than me and beats me, I think, ‘oh, good, I have to try a bit harder’. I have achieved what I have achieved because I don’t give up.”
Ms Hendy said her work had matured over the years.
“I am slightly more contemporary now,” she said.
She has lived for nearly 17 years in Tuross and her studio is a favourite haunt for her grandchildren.
“They come here and they start painting,” Ms Hendy said.