Artist Corinne Loxton in her Blaxland studio. (Photo: Julie Nance)
By Julie Nance
Lower Blue Mountains artist Corinne Loxton has used daily walks in the bush, journaling and painting to help her overcome culture shock and a personal crisis, and to connect more deeply with herself and the rest of the natural world.
Key Points:
Slowing down, immersing yourself in the beauty and fragility of nature, and noticing the many small details in life around you, is a form of ‘mindfulness’ that has been shown to reduces stress and anxiety.
For Corinne, walking in the bush is a meditative, contemplative practice; one that helped her overcome a major personal crisis.
Throughout her childhood, Corinne Loxton’s daily life in Cape Town, South Africa, was anchored by Table Mountain, looming above her bedroom window. When she came to Australia at age 15, she felt displaced. It wasn’t until the landscape and sky artist moved from Sydney to the lower Blue Mountains years later that she regained a sense of belonging.
Out on the water in her little one-person boat, nature threw everything at 10-year-old Corinne: strong winds, rain and storms. She spent hours each week sailing in her hometown, with the mountain a familiar, reassuring backdrop.
“I was always immersed in the landscape, and I felt as if my day was almost determined by the mood of the mountain,” Corinne says. “I’d be very aware of the clouds, the mist, the colours. From as early as I can remember, I’ve always had a mystical relationship with nature.”
Without Table Mountain to orient her daily life in Australia, Corinne was disoriented.
“I felt this cultural shock and the foreignness of the environment; the difference in smells and colours,” she recalls. “I spent a long time living in cities – Canberra and Sydney – but I still wanted to paint landscape.”
Corinne experienced nature by looking up at the sky, creating quite abstract, colour-filled sky paintings.
Breathing Space, 2011, reflecting Corinne’s focus on the sky while living in the city. (Corinne Loxton)
After moving to Blaxland in 2012 as a single mum of three children aged 12, 7 and 5, Corinne started walking in the bush behind her home near Cripple Creek. Organically her paintings moved from the sky to capturing the ground, trees and other flora, thriving, struggling and evolving.
Watch Corinne painting in the bush behind her home, where she feels a deep connection. It’s a place that fuels her both personally and professionally
She says the “poetry of interaction with nature” nourishes her personally and strongly influences her work. Walking in the bush is essential to her practice.
“The walking, the noticing, journaling, all of those things are important to setting the groundwork for feeling centred and grounded.” – Corinne Loxton
“For instance, this morning when I went into the bush, I opened my senses to what was going on around me. I noticed my movements, my emotions and experienced what was happening around me: how loud the bees were; watching the tiny birds darting around; the shifting colours and the seeds; how the seasons cause things to change.”
Corinne painting in the bushland behind her home in November 2023. (Photo supplied)
Corinne usually walks along the same local tracks and has noticed both subtle and more dramatic changes in the landscape over the past decade. She now sees cliffs that were once hidden by trees and banksias dying and falling to the ground.
“I’m noticing the decay and the renewal and trying to make sense of that,” she says. “My work reflects the deep relationship I have with this place.”
Wisdom of Trees I, 2023: “For over 10 years I have walked past this tree in the bushlandnear my home. As though by a miracle, it emerges from a crevice in the sandstone rock and stands serenely overlooking the valley below.” (Corinne Loxton)
Corinne has carved out a successful 30-year career as a painter, supplementing her income intermittently with casual teaching in local high schools. She regularly runs evening, full day and weekend workshops in her studio.
In 2020 Corinne faced an overwhelming personal crisis which upended all aspects of her life and sent her into a “massive shame spiral”. Her paintings, usually gestural, ethereal land and skyscapes unintentionally took on a more realistic tone. Corinne found it unsettling when people began to comment that her paintings looked like photos.
In her studio the tiny brush strokes on the canvas, the increasing level of detail, helped Corinne focus and block out the negative thoughts invading her mind.
Glenbrook Lagoon had already emerged as a sacred space. During the height of Corinne’s crisis, she created a large series of paintings that spoke to human experiences of joy, hope, loss and longing.
Looking Glass, 2022: “This painting portrays a reflected world that could almost be flipped over, paralleling my search for truth, and questioning reality. Dark trees began framing and partially obscuring the landscape beyond, acting both metaphorically and visually as a barrier or line of containment.”(Corinne Loxton)
For a few months Corinne ceased painting altogether and had to slowly rebuild her crushed confidence and self-esteem. She found solace in the simple things in life: chatting with her teenage children, gardening, yoga and journaling. Every day she walked in the bush, a meditative, contemplative practice that was central to her healing.
In a TEDx Katoomba talk in June this year, Corinne spoke of the wise advice her ‘gran’ gave her as a teenager, proving to be pivotal to her recovery as an adult. Walking the cliffs of a fishing village in the western cape of South Africa, she used to stop and breathe, slow down and notice what was happening around her.
“The rocks, the lichen, the colours in the clouds, the creatures in the water or wriggling on the track. Decades before the popularisation of mindfulness, my gran showed me how to be present and bathe in nature.” – Corinne Loxton
About 11,000 kilometres as the crow flies from her hometown, Corinne remembered to stop “pushing and striving” and soak in the reality of the Blue Mountains bush. As she slowed things down her desire to paint intensified. Back in her studio she produced tiny sky paintings and tree artworks, full of detail that proved to be “restorative”.
Evensong V, 2022: Exploring little sky paintings. (Corinne Loxton)
Into & Beyond V, 2022: Part of a series of 30 x 30 cm images of densely wooded bushland. They are incredibly detailed paintings that took many days to make with tiny brushes. (Corinne Loxton)
A blend of time, nature, self-care, family, friends and painting helped restore Corinne’s sense of self and renewed her creativity. She painted recently in the open air at Glen Davis, 70 km north of Lithgow in the Capertee Valley.
“It was a wonderful, immersive experience working in the outdoors each day, with all the challenges and joys of the elements,” she says. “Being grounded in nature, tramping through valleys and over clifftops, eating smoky food around the fire and waking with the birds at first light: all this renewed my passion and revitalised my spirit.”
Glowing Cliffs, Glen Davis, 2023: A recent plein air (outdoors) painting made over a few hours. (Corinne Loxton)
Take Action:
View Corinne’s latest works at her exhibition Realms and Ranges, plein air and studio paintings in the Capertee Valley and the Blue Mountains. 10am-4pm, 2-3 December at 12 Jamison St, Blaxland.
Explore your creativity through music, dance, poetry, writing, whatever brings you joy. If you would like to try your hand at painting, check out Corinne’s workshops.
Give yourself permission to slow down and pay attention to what’s around you; the beauty in your world, even if it’s just watching an insect crawling along the footpath.
This story has been produced as part of a Bioregional Collaboration for Planetary Health and is supported by the Disaster Risk Reduction Fund (DRRF). The DRRF is jointly funded by the Australian and New South Wales governments.
Join us for this fabulous workshop: Designing Your Future Home on Saturday 19 July (10am-12 noon) Create a Healthy, Comfortable and Energy-Efficient Home
Join local Passive House Designer Karina Rafailov from Earthy Haus for a relaxed, interactive, and inspiring workshop. Whether you’re planning a new build or thinking about a renovation, this session will empower you with the knowledge to create a home that’s healthier for your family and kinder to the planet.
Places are strictly limited in this hands-on workshop so bookings essential here (link in profile): https://www.eventbrite.com.au/e/workshop-designing-your-future-home-tickets-1417752157869
As an increasing number of people are being affected by winter viruses, we’re offering a free session of Tai Chi and Qigong on Saturday 5 July in the warmth of our beautiful Frogs of the Blue Mountains exhibition. Places are limited so book in early here (link in profile): https://bit.ly/40fnGW2 Learn more about these Chinese medicine movement practices in the video interview with Virginia Field on our YouTube channel (link in profile) and read about how Chinese medicine helped her overcome illness as a young woman in our story: Healing Body, Mind and Spirit with Tai Chi and Qigong here (link in profile): https://www.katoombalocalnews.com/tai-chi-and-qigong/
If you’re interested in learning how to propagate native plants and are keen to help our bush regenerate, the Bushcare Seed Collectors meet on the second Tuesday of the month. Check out how they cook Banksias to release their seed and learn more about the group, and native seed collecting, in Katoomba Area Local News here (link in profile): https://www.katoombalocalnews.com/bushcare-seed-collectors/
If you’d like to join the group, contact the Bushcare officer Tracy Abbas on 4780 5623 or email tabbas@bmcc.nsw.gov.au
Littlejohni, the Rare and Endangered Northern Heath Frog, photographed in Woodford!
When the Frogs of the Blue Mountains exhibition opened at the Planetary Health Centre in March it featured photos of 20 different local frogs. We were thrilled, however, when Andy Klotz and other members of the Hawkesbury Herpetological Society recently managed to photograph another frog in Woodford: the rarely seen and endangered Litoria littlejohni, also known as the Northern Heath Frog or Orange-bellied Tree Frog. We’ve added a photo of that frog to the exhibition and created a new Frogs of the Blue Mountains video in which you can listen to its call on our YouTube channel. We interviewed Andy to learn more about the Littlejohni and how they managed to find its small local population. You can read this story in Mid Mountains Local News (link in profile). #biodiversity #bluemountainsfrogs #northernheathfrog #litorialittlejohni #bluemountains #woodford #planetaryhealth #hawkesburyherpetologicalsociety...
Our newsletter is now out! Read about how you can contribute to @bluemountainscitycouncil`s Biodiversity Conservation Strategy; watch our video on Falling in Love with Glossy Black Cockatoos; see the new photos of the rare Northern Heath Frog; watch how the Bushcare Seed Collectors cook banksias to release their seeds; learn more about Tai Chi and Qigong, the Chinese medicine movement practices; and take part in our next workshop on Designing Your Future Home with Passive House Designer Karina Rafailov from @earthy_haus
Read it here (link in profile): https://bit.ly/40e4GHr
Our video on Falling In Love With Glossy Black Cockatoos is now up on our Planetary Health YouTube channel (sorry, it`s too big to share here but there`s a link in our profile).
Jayden Gunn finishes his presentation by saying:
"Care is like a snowball. The more people you tell the bigger the snowball gets, and the further it goes. And the more we know, the more we care. And the more we know, the more we`re able to help."
The video is of our fabulous Forum on Growing Connected Landscapes for the Glossy Black Cockatoo, and includes presentations by Jayden Gunn, BirdLife Australia, Amanda Foxon-Hill from Mid Lachlan Landcare, and STEM teacher Samantha Bowden from Glenbrook Public School. There`s a link with the video on how to register for the Community Tree Planting Day in Goologong on 5 July (and it`s also in our profile). Video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCERdF21Ud0&t=13s
Today we`re enjoying eating ripe medlars! Medlars are attractive cold climate fruit trees that were popular in Medieval gardens. They`re one of the few fruits that can be harvested in late Autumn and eaten in early Winter when they`re fully ripe. This is a great time of year to plant them for a future harvest. Check out our short video on how to eat them! #coldclimategardens #ediblegardens #medlars #growyourown #planetaryhealth #bluemountains...
We`re thrilled to share that last night @BlueMountainsCityCouncil`s Planetary Health Centre won the Innovative Leadership Award (Population Under 150K) in the 2025 NSW Local Government Excellence Awards. What a great end to World Environment Day! 🌏 This award celebrates how local government can lead transformative change for a more sustainable future. Thank you to everyone who worked so hard with us to make our vision a reality. You can read more about what we`re doing at our website (link in profile): http://www.bluemountainsplanetaryhealth.com.au/ @ph_alliance #planetaryhealth #worldenvironmentday #localgovernmentleadership #nswlocalgovernmentexcellenceawards...
Blocking out a couple of hours a week to step off the treadmill and give ourselves time to nurture our relationship with the earth and ourselves, is one way to keep our creative spirit and ‘lust for life’ alive. If you haven’t done so yet, one opportunity over the next week is to spend some ‘slow’ time in the 2024 Wynne Prize exhibition at the Blue Mountains Cultural Centre before it closes on 15 June. Read more in Katoomba Area Local News here (link in profile): https://www.katoombalocalnews.com/the-2024-wynne-prize/ @bluemountainsculturalcentre @artgalleryofnsw #wynneprize #landscapes #bluemountains #katoomba #artexhibition #planetaryhealth...
Recognising how violence and war impact the health of the planet, the Blue Mountains Planetary Health Initiative has become a member of the Blue Mountains Peace Collective. On Sunday 25th May, we attended a presentation by Dr Keith Suter on Making Peace in the World Today at the Leura Uniting Church. In this powerful presentation Dr Suter questions why we learn about war rather than successful peace negotiations! View the video of his presentation below and read our full story in Katoomba Area Local News here: https://bit.ly/3Fl4WgQ (link in profile)
With an extra day up your sleeve this long weekend, it`s a great opportunity to give nature a hand to regenerate and provide more habitat for our fellow species! Join our fabulous all ages Planetary Health Bushcare Group from 1.30pm and then participate in the Forum on Growing Connected Landscapes for the Glossy Black Cockatoo at 4pm, followed by drinks and nibblies! You can also start the day with a fabulous Tai Chi session at 8am. Visit our Planetary Health Pluriversity website to book in and learn more (link in profile): https://bmpluriversity.org/program/
Or ring 0407 437 553 for more information. #planetaryhealth #bushcare #katoomba #bluemountains #glossyblackcockatoos #landcare #biodiversity #habitat #wearenature #togetherwecan...
In this inspiring interview with Medlow Bath resident Amanda Foxon-Hill she talks about her work with Mid Lachlan Landcare, why Growing Connected Landscapes for the Glossy Black Cockatoo is so important, and why she loves her work so much! Read the full story in Blackheath Area Local News here: https://blackheathnews.com/connecting-landscapes-for-glossy-black-cockatoos/
Book in for the Growing Connected Landscapes Forum at 4pm this Saturday 7 June here: https://events.humanitix.com/growing-connected-landscapes-for-the-glossy-black-cockatoo Register your interest for the Community Tree Planting Day in Goologong here: https://events.humanitix.com/glossy-black-cockatoo-community-tree-planting-5
Julie Nance is a community storyteller with the Blue Mountains Planetary Health Initiative. In her coverage of the Lower Mountains area, she brings 30 years’ experience in communications, publishing and journalism.
After specialising in health and social issues as a journalist, Julie led creative teams in the government and not-for-profit sectors including the Aged Care Quality and Safety Commission, YMCA NSW, Cancer Council NSW and The Children’s Hospital at Westmead.
Julie is passionate about empowering people with quality information to help them make informed choices.
Julie Nance invited her 82-year-old mum to join her on outings in Lower Mountains parks, after months of being confined to home due to sickness. With fond memories of family picnics growing up, their quality time together in nature gave them both a much-needed lift.
