Victor Cusack

Victor Cusack, now 86, has enjoyed an unusually full and happy life with many careers, spending half his life building and designing mines and departing one large company as D&GM. For half his long life, he was self-employed as a sculptor, artist, author of five books, poet, built two ocean-going yachts, designed and constructed four houses, designed and cast many carillon bells, conserved very old sculptures and historical metal objects, founded an important early bamboo specialist nursery, an art foundry, and created and cast some of Australia’s largest bronze sculptures.

When asked how or why, he replies, “Energy, passion, curiosity, and old age give me longer to do it all. Life is full of adventure and curiosities that not many of us explore, but they are waiting to be taken up by those brave enough! Making money alone is boring!”

He has spent a lifetime exploring this beautiful Pacific Ocean, fascinated that its variable moods and creatures carried such an inappropriate name, its namesake meaning calmness, but it raged more fiercely than most oceans. His explorations were often on yachts of his own construction, which he both built and sailed into many adventures.

He also founded two successful businesses and is still busy painting canvasses. He still manages his newly founded art gallery near Forster, NSW, and is now enjoying life at a slower pace by and by as he gets older!

“All pastimes become creative, be it woodwork, art, sculpture, building boats, jewellery, knitting, etc., also making more money when investing money, a non-creative, non-productive evil that disadvantages the poor. Having reached the ripe old age of 86, I don’t hesitate to recommend reading the book, ‘Happiness’, written by Matthieu Ricard, a Buddhist book that avoids teaching Buddhism.

“Everyone has the responsibility to create happiness, and maintain good relationships, to make the world a better place (and free of today’s war and greed). Better Tchaikovsky than Putin!

“Happiness is infectious, creative, and makes the world a better place, and a little love helps. Happiness is not an event, but a process, continuous, and creates its own awareness, being infectious!”