Mentor Sessions with Tom and Jude

Mentoring Tom reminds me of the origins of my arts practice – play. Tom and I share a great sense of play and we both embrace its importance in creating, risk taking, and breaking new ground. It’s a rare privilege to share this. Tom is so very caring, generous, humble, rigorous and smart. He brings these qualities to the table every time we meet, but it’s his sense of play and taste for adventure that fuels his art, and as his mentor I love this. I assist him in feeling strong in taking a few steps further into the unknown. It’s rather like a ‘double dare ya’ situation backed by a lot of research. If I were to describe in a word how it feels to be Tom’s mentor, I’d say “lucky!” - Jude Anderson

Artist and Mentor: Tom Pender, Jude Anderson

Photographs: Christine Sayer

Location: Old Green Bean Café, Bendigo

"Hey Jude", I always want to say when we meet. Or "Judy, Judy, Judy!". But hackneyed and obvious are things that Jude Anderson is not. I forgive myself for at times feeling slightly mystified by Jude’s ideas, which she not only imagines as she describes them, but feels them with her body, a perfect connection between the air and the earth.

Our meetings are peppered with laughter and volleys of creative exchange. Her genuine enthusiasm, engagement, passion and excitement inspire and ignite similar feelings in myself.

I feel very fortunate to have found in Jude not only a mentor, but a creative play-pal, who has made a spot for me by the fire, so that we can stare together into the coals like excited children and look for the stories within them. - Tom Pender