SOMEHOW while supporting her husband’s rehabilitation from a horrific car crash, Carolyn Maher has found time to become an artist.
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The 49-year-old Bendigo mother of three picked up her paint brush about 18 months ago and has not stopped since.
The fruits of her labour open to the public today at Dudley House in Bendigo.
On one level the inspiration behind her work is quite simple – Carolyn loves “the glamour in beautiful flowers”.
However on another level, her work is a bold and deliberate reaction to the challenges she and her family have faced in the last three years.
“It’s all about positivity and not letting things get on top of you and portraying the best part of something, rather than the negative,” Carolyn said.
Three years ago, her husband David was critically injured when his car collided with a B-double truck on the Wimmera Highway near Tarnagulla.
His body was so mangled that when emergency services arrived they thought he was dead.
His chest had caved in at the steering wheel, a drill in his car had gone through his leg, he had a broken hip and multiple organ failure.
The family’s life was turned on its head as Carolyn rented a house in Melbourne for six months to be at her husband’s side while their three teenage children remained in Bendigo.
David was unconscious for the first couple of months, with doctors warning that he would not live.
Six weeks after the crash, Carolyn’s 85-year-old father died – a loss at a time when the family was already on its knees.
It became clear David would survive, but doctors warned the family he would be confined to a wheelchair, put on dialysis and be severely mentally damaged.
Meanwhile the family’s dog Charlie, contributed more than his fair share of drama. Soon after being in the car crash with David and surviving it, he later fell down a 15 metre mine shaft and ate fox bait at a farm – he still lives.
Charlie and David both seem to have had miraculous recoveries.
David’s progress could not be any clearer, as he joined family and friends earlier this week to set up his wife’s art exhibition.
I don’t think of Mum as 50. She seems more like my age. It feels normal that she’s starting a new career.
- Haley Maher
Without knowing about the car crash or of the physical and mental challenges he has overcome through rehabilitation, it would be impossible to tell he was once on the edge of death.
Signs of the crash do linger however, particularly in the form of acquired brain injury.
David’s short term memory loss and difficulty reading because of double vision has made him unable to return to the professional IT career he once had.
Carolyn’s role in her marriage and family has changed dramatically.
“I was a really, really happy stay-at-home Mum,” Carolyn said.
Since the crash she’s had to fill many roles including managing the family’s finances, which had previously been David’s domain.
She says she’s also become “bossier”.
“I’m bossy because I have to be, because David sometimes forgets things.”
Once David returned home to Bendigo and the reality of living with a changed husband and father hit her family, Carolyn began to paint.
Necessity to become the primary earner led her back to a life-long hobby.
“I don’t think if David had the accident that I would have done it,” she said.
“I want to be able to do something that I love and that I can turn into a career.”
Her current exhibition has just opened, but Carolyn has already planned the next one, inspired by the array of colour at the Bendigo farmer’s market.
She also hopes to paint commissioned works.
The Maher’s son, Peter, remembers his mother painting flowers when he was a child, “but they weren’t as good as they are now”.
Daughter Haley Maher, 25, said she was excited for her mother to be pursuing her passion.
“She always does everything for everyone else, it’s good we’re doing something for her,” Haley said.
“I just want her to be able to paint all the time and for lots of people to have her paintings in their living room.
“I don’t think of Mum as 50. She seems more like my age. It feels normal that she’s starting a new career.”
Peter and Haley said their lives had changed since their father was injured in the car crash.
Haley cooked for her brothers and cleaned the house while her mother was in Melbourne looking after David.
She pulled out of her university degree in IT and never went back to it, later studying sales and marketing instead.
Her family’s experience changed the way she wants to live life.
“It’s all about family,” Haley said.
“I want to work but I don’t want it to be what consumes my life.”
Peter said he learned about “the hard realities of life” but that his family made it easy to cope with the trauma.
“It’s not that they sugar-coated it. They accepted it, they were very down to earth,” he said.
David thinks Carolyn’s new career as a painter is “fantastic”.
"I knew she had an artistic bent," he said.
David said his artistic taste was more in line with the Heidelberg school style, but that his wife preferred "flowers and girly sorts of things".
Carolyn's exhibition is 20 to 24 September from 11am to 4pm, at Dudley House in View Street, Bendigo.