What do you do when you graduate from Art School?

In 2012 I graduated from Art School.
"What will you do now?" came the constant refrain.
It was a difficult question. What was I going to do? 
What was likely to happen was that I would just return to my Day Job,  grind out another year of work and then one day suddenly realise that I hadn't produced anything in over a year. "You've got to keep active" I told myself.
I started trawling the net for inspiration and stumbled upon the Flaming Lotus Girls. Their work absolutely blew my mind...and what's more, it dovetailed nicely with some work I'd been doing for the last couple of years creating mechanisms and automata.

Cat-Dog

Life Support System for a Broken Heart

There's a Ringing in my Ears

 I wondered what it would be like to scale my work up and add fire effects and hydraulic movement. Would it look like the Flaming Lotus Girls' work?

 I was excited by the possibilities.

I wondered if they would consider allowing me to help out on one of their projects. Drilling down further into their website I cam across this:

"Through an open and supportive cultural environment, the Flaming Lotus Girls promote creativity, education, volunteer contribution and leadership opportunities. 

Ladies (and gentlemen) can join the FLG with no previous experience in metal working and the fire arts. There are hands-on opportunities for members to learn the techniques used in the design, building, and operation of our projects. Many work to refine these skills to further their own art.

Our collaborative process includes an open and supportive culture promoting volunteer contribution and leadership opportunities."

 I could not believe it. Not only were they willing to take on volunteers, they actively seek them out - and to top it off they use a management hierarchy based around community and volunteerism; subjects close to my heart.

I flicked off an email to FLG to query if they might happen to want some help this year with some stuff and if so would they mind having a small-fry Australian grad student to come and help them. Much to my surprise I got a reply back the next day saying they'd welcome the help and have volunteers from around the globe.

Four grant applications later I finally won a grant from the Helpmann Academy to support my trip. 

In a few days time I'll be arriving in San Francisco to become a Flaming Lotus Girl!