Reverse Osmosis Posted Feb-03-2005
Before agreeing to Heather's interview with me, I made her promise to allow me to interview her back. All of this agreed discussion finally came to fruition today when I received her answers to my probing questions in my inbox. You didn't think I traveled all the way to Australia for them, did you?

Now, one of the very inspiring things about Heather is that she's a school teacher by day. Yes, she spends a great portion of her waking hours teaching students all about the art of writing. In fact, in regards to what we can expect to see on the Soul Food Cafe Web site in 2005, Heather responded:

"Soul Food was originally created as a resource for students at LaTrobe and within the primary schools where I work. Soul Food will be showcasing the work of students and helping to make them stars. This will be the opportunity for quite a few people to enjoy more than five minutes of fame."

Can you imagine the impact this will have on the kids she teaches? I mean, to see my writing and art gracing the pages of Soul Food Cafe is a great privilege to me as an adult, but to children! Wow! She's one awesome teacher. And it's so obvious that she really cares about her students beyond the scope of her job. Teachers with real passion like this should get paid as much as sports icons (what's wrong with this world, anyway?).

I can't stop thinking about how cool it would have been to have a writing teacher like Heather when I was growing up. I enjoyed writing and creativity without much encouragement as it was, but I often wonder what could have been discovered earlier on with the influence of the likes of Heather Blakey! No offense to the writing teachers I had, of course. My third-grade teacher, Mrs. Super (yep, that really was her name), introduced and encouraged me towards two things: writing and rock collecting. I stopped collecting rocks (and gave away my beautiful collection) when I was 26, but writing continues to grip me stronger as I get older. Oh, I still love rocks too.

A lot of great information and interesting history came out of this interview. For instance, it looks like an artful calendar is going to be published out of the pages of Soul Food, and when asked about that cat on her home page, Heather proceeded to educate me about Japanese legend of Maneki Neko.

My favorite quote out of it all:

"When the people tentatively come out of their cages, when the artists have been released from the stone, as people sit at the Soul Food banquet table and bask in the warmth of Soul Food's sun I know I have been a successful human being." – Heather Blakey

One of these days I'm going to find myself physically down under to experience Heather Blakey in real life. For now, one might get to know Heather better by reading her revealing interview on the Creativity Portal. •

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