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Through Rosie’s Eyes
By Sally Nicol

Rosie Jones doesn’t see the world the same way she used to.

She and her husband, Peter Jones, were one of south western Queensland’s high flying couples. She was the local doctor and he was the head of agricultural aviation company Jones Air in St George. But they packed it all in. Packed up their four children and traded their dusty horizon for the lush coastline of Byron Bay.

Rosie is now a professional artist while Peter is embarking on a career as a personal and business mentor. With broad smiles they refer to their radical reinvention as a mid-life enlightenment. Rosie’s immersion into the art world was as unexpected as it was sudden.

She grew up in the middle of a large, happy family on a property east of Roma. Later as a boarder at St Margaret’s in Brisbane she flew through a heavy academic schedule. With a soft giggle Rosie explains she barely scraped through grade 8 art.

After graduating from university in 1990 she began her medical career at the Royal Brisbane Hospital. The next year Rosie revisited her rural roots on a country rotation. “I felt much more comfortable working in country areas because I could relate to the background of the people I was treating.”

Rosie’s decision to become a country GP was aided by re-meeting Peter during her sojourn in St George. They’d been a brief item during school and the spark was quickly reignited. They married in 1994 and Cameron was born three years later, swiftly followed by Patrick and Chloe. Their youngest child, Jasmine was born in September 2004 and four months later their secure world fell apart.

On holiday on Queensland’s Sunshine Coast Rosie fell ill and was hospitalised for pneumonia. “It was scary. I couldn’t breathe and then when I went to sleep I’d have these dreams.” After a week her raging fever broke but the nightmares remained. “I really thought I was going to die.” Unable to shake her feeling of impending doom Rosie underwent a psychiatric assessment and was found to have classic anxiety.

As the nursing staff’s attitude to her predicament hardened Rosie turned to a friend in Roma for help. Over the phone they did Yoga breathing exercises. “For the first time since I’d been hospitalised my pulse rate and the feeling of terror inside me finally started to settle down.”

Rosie checked out of hospital and was enfolded into the loving care of family and friends. “I was 37 years old and in the depths of a raging, devastating psychosis.”

Her family pushed for her to see a psychiatrist but Rosie turned her back on conventional medicine and courageously put her faith in alternative practices. “When I studied medicine all the alternative practices were treated like gobbledegook.”

It was through a spiritual healer that Rosie made sense of the bizarre thoughts bombarding her mind. “I was able to meet people who allowed me to see it in a positive light. If I’d been treated within the conventional medical system it would have been something much more shameful.”

Rosie was having a spiritual awakening. “I changed from being a left-brain dominant to a right-brain dominant thinker.” As her new world unfolded Rosie was encouraged to be creative. “I started to paint and everything just flowed so easily.”

Returning to St George, feeling better than she had in years, her passion for paint grew. “My Great Aunt used to paint and I was given all her painting materials and books.” Rosie began teaching herself. “I couldn’t draw previously and found it astounding that I was learning how to do so.”

At a week-end art workshop she was introduced to pastels and with four young children under foot found it a far more practical medium. “It’s very immediate and vibrant.” In February last year she had her break through moment as an artist with her pastel portrait of little Aboriginal girl ‘Ruby’. “It was a big turning point for me because, without being boastful, it was quite a good piece of art and to paint that when I hadn’t been painting very long made me think I could probably take this further.”

With her new found confidence Rosie attended the McGregor Summer and Winter Artist’s Retreats in Toowoomba. Her paintings began winning awards at the local shows and commissions began flowing in. While there is a scatter of landscapes through Rosie’s collection her passion is for portraiture. “I love capturing people’s expression; the essence of who they are.”

Rosie has now taken part in her first exhibition at Buderim and been featured in ‘Artists Palette Magazine’. She hopes one day to open her own gallery but for the moment is working through the internet at www.rosiejoneseyes.com.

People are already investing in her works. “While the commissions range from $300 to $400 my other work is increasing in value and selling from $850 to $1200.”

She laughs when questioned if now is a good time to invest before she gets too famous.

But then she laughs a lot these days. With her husband Peter firmly at her side they have travelled across Australia and to India on a voyage of spiritual discovery. “We’re living life from a different perspective to the one we grew up with.”

She said it’s about appreciating the here and now, “rather than being hung-up on working hard everyday to make a lot of money so we can do something in the distant future.”

Her eyes scan the coastline. “Three years ago if you had told me this is where we’d be living and this is what we’d be doing I never would have believed it.” Her eyes sparkle with happiness as she contemplates her new world.

From Patients to Patience
By Dana Gluzde

Growing up in the country but initially practicing medicine in the city, Rosie headed back to her country roots as a relieving doctor in locations such as Blackwater, Mount Morgan, and St George. “That made me realize that I did actually enjoy working in the country which surprised me a little bit, but it just felt right. I thought I might explore this option more, and then I started the Rural Doctors training program.” St George became Rosie’s settling point.

The transition from doctor to artist came suddenly after the birth of her fourth child. A few months after, “I became very unwell with pneumonia and then after being in hospital with pneumonia, I developed an acute psychosis,” Rosie recalls. “As part of the treatment, in an attempt to quieten my thoughts, it was suggested that I do some painting, and that’s what appealed to me at the time. I thought I’d like to paint and write, and that’s how I started to paint, that was 2 years ago in February.”

The idea of painting wasn’t a completely isolated thought. Although not being particularly artistic as a child, Rosie drew inspiration from family. “Aunt Nance was an artist. Sometimes she’d drive out in her ute with a picnic basket and go painting at distant locations on the property. I always enjoyed what she did but didn’t ever think that I could do it!”

Many years on, Rosie tried her hand at pastels, which is what she has received the most tuition in. “My preferred subject is really people. I love painting portraits! I like to try and work out what it is that creates the persons’ expression and character and convey that in the art work.” Although doing the odd landscape painting, working with patients as a doctor cultivated this interest in people. “I’m fascinated by their philosophy and what makes up that individual.” What draws her in to the people or places she paints? Rosie enlightens: “It’s definitely something in the expression that I’m captivated by, especially the eyes, and if it tells a story, I think that’s a good reason to paint it. In landscapes, I paint things that convey a sense of tranquility.”

Rosie is one of the few artists that paint from life, eliciting a review from an art publication. “If I’m painting from life, I can make a painting in 3 or 4 hours and in that time you’re totally absorbed and immersed in your work, and at the end of it you can step back and… wow! It really does put you in that right frame of thinking. You become oblivious to everything else around you; whereas when you have the photograph in front of you, it becomes a little more analytical . I like them both, for different reasons,” she concludes.

Setting up a website and becoming a professional artist are a few of the new things on the horizon for Rosie, who is passionately embracing the change of lifestyle.

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