I have an arts mentor, Ant Muia. This year I was lucky to receive funding through DADA to help me continue to develop my art practise. Ant comes to see me at home or sometimes I go to his house studio or an exhibition with him. To be honest, I didn’t really know what to expect, but what I’ve found is that we’ve developed a great relationship where I feel comfortable to explore different art practises, to learn from Ant, and to try things for myself. It’s definitely not like having a teacher, Ant may guid me, but he let’s me develop my art by myself. We also do lots of talking, about all sorts of things. Art obviously, different styles and techniques, ways of describing my paintings richness, of form, tone and shape, we discuss artist tools of the trade, also just talk about everyday life. I like that. My name is Ant I have been mentoring Dan since early this year. We spend a bit of quality time together each week. We live around the corner from each other and I’ve know Dan for a longtime. Dan has spent some time in my studio, checking out my art and doing some drawing. Most weeks I go to Dan’s place where he has a drawing table set up and we do some work, and chat about life and art, and have a laugh. Recently I got a stack of small canvases for him and Dan created some great work – it took him out of his comfort zone a bit, which is a good thing for an artist.