SINGING IS LIKE BREATHING TO ME. It gives me wings, it fills my lungs with sky. And I’m all about the sky. I’m obsessed with stars of all kinds – actual, astrological and Hollywood old-style glamour. I adore the colour blue and love the curious fact that … blue is the hottest flame. I live on an island in Sydney, one of the most civilised places on earth, but roar up a mountain-high fire trail in a four-wheel drive every night just to get home. My house is surrounded by wilderness but I am as passionate about fashion and beauty and art and food as I am about living with nature. Eleven is the most perfect number to me. Double that and you’re in another world. I came to music through the medium of words- as a lyricist and a poet with a story to tell. Songwriting is magic. I believe you get what you sing. And that’s why I sing about … love. I’m also a sculptor with a studio on the wild, windswept clifftops of Manly’s North Head. I work in bronze and recycled materials and am putting the finishing touches on a portrait bust of the painter Nora Heysen (the first woman to win the Archibald Prize) for the Hans Heysen Museum in South Australia. I guess you could say creativity is my passion – in fact, passion is my passion lol. I have a few foibles – coffee is one of them. Double shot, skim milk cap – or a Diva as I like to call it – and it must be freshly made, hot and in a actual cup not an upside down paper hat lol. Otherwise I’ll eat anything – except for tripe. Or whale. My son is a teenager, boat-mad and beautiful. In him, the Vikings reign again, but with 40 horse power engines. He’s the real reason I live so close to the water. Although I am a mermaid. The surf is like flying to me. Words matter. Without them, there is no song, just a piece of music and a singer with nothing to do. I love teaching. It’s another way of performing and I delight in that sense of sharing what I know, of opening up the music box of the world to young songwriters. My mantra is …words have power; stories must be told; songwriters know how to tell them … and so often in the company of other songwriters. Make a song with someone you love and your friendship will be bound up forever on a soul level that’s hard to define. It could just be all that oxytocin you release together – or it could be the sheer joy of sharing such an amazing experience.